Nearly a decade ago thousands of our neighbors, friends, and fellow citizens were maimed and killed in attacks against our country. We all should remember them and their sacrifices.
For months and years after the horrid attacks of 2001 we were told, again and again, that those events of 9/11 had changed everything. But should they have? Should we have allowed a tiny group of religious fanatics to have such a large effect on our country? Should we have allowed them to reshape our culture, our politics, and our psyches? The answer, of course, is no. But nine years after the planes crashed and the towers fell we as a country are significantly less free, less moral, and less rational.
The basic cornerstone of western freedom — habeas corpus — is today considered optional or luxurious, and our government now monitors our communications with impunity. We not only tolerate but extol the torture of other human beings as both necessary and moral. We allow politicians and pundits to use fear to manipulate and divide us without ever questioning their motives or rhetoric. And we have sacrificed so many lives and spent billions of dollars all in an effort to feel more secure.
Half a century ago Sayyid Qutb — the intellectual founder of Al Qaeda – wrote of his disdain for the western notions of pragmatism, rationality and individual autonomy. He believed that these things alienated people from God, and were infecting the Islamic world. For Qutb, Islam and western liberalism were incompatible and would forever battle until one was eliminated. Sadly, Qutb’s extremist, fringe, viewpoint is today being propagated by many American religious and political leaders. Today, we are becoming the enemy Al Qaeda wishes us to be.
In 2001 our country suffered a tragic attack against our people and our values. Nine years later it’s time to reevaluate just how successful that attack was, and decide how much more successful we will let it be.
