Posted here Thursday, June 24, 2004 at 2:38:17 PM 
Important to be reminded..
The events of 9/11 led American policymakers to shape a dramatically new strategic outlook and response. As many commentators pointed out, it was not obvious that the right response was to declare that the United States was in a war on terror. As Nicholas Lemann wrote in The New Yorker in September 2002, "That phrase . . . framed the way people think about how the United States is reacting to the September 11th attacks so completely, that the idea that declaring and waging war on terror was not the sole, inevitable, logical consequence of the attacks just isn't in circulation."
quoted in
http://bostonreview.net/BR29.2/gambetta.html
which has
The perils that the terrorists pose to our lives and liberties lie as much in the Western governments' response as in the damage they can directly cause. We should of course distrust politicians who lie and exaggerate the facts to suit their agendas. But the questionable rationality of the post-9/11 mindset and of the strategic approach it has induced-which may well outlast the Bush administration-poses far more serious and consequential problems for all of us than propaganda or low-level conspiracies.
********
|
