Arathain Kelvar wrote:
Talya wrote:
Despite the relatively small physical loss in lives and property, 9/11 was a phenomenally successful act of terrorism, because it fundamentally changed the way western society looked at terrorism and security. We're still feeling the aftershocks of this every time we travel by air, or cross a border. As a Canadian, the world's longest "unguarded" border has no more open roads without border guard stations, and the open border between Lake Superior and the Rocky Mountains is now constantly patrolled by drones. Americans and Canadians used to be able to cross into each other's countries using only a birth certificate, now we need passports to cross, and the border guard are increasingly unfriendly - treating everybody like criminals right from the get go.
If you have ever had the privilege of speaking with someone old enough to remember WW1 (those people are almost gone from the world now), every single one of them called it the war that changed the world. Everything seemed to change after WW1, and the world was never the same again afterward. Those that lived through WW2 still say the same. 9/11 may pale in comparison to those events, and yet it says something about how successful an act of terrorism it was that it changed the world just as much. Until our generation that lived through it dies, 9/11 will remain significant. From my son's generation forward (he was born in 2002), 9/11 will become a minor event in history, but for the rest of us, it will forever remain relevant.
An act cannot be considered successful unless it meets intended goals. None of the consequences you mention further any strategic goal of Al Qaeda's. The only items that do are the lives lost and economic damage, which you refer to as "relatively small".
The immediate goal of terrorism is to inspire fear - that's it. Based on our reaction, it was phenomenally successful. Al Qaeda may have underestimated how far we we were willing to respond, but that doesn't make their opening salvo any less successful, it just meant they lost the war.
However, I honestly do believe that the eventual result will show that the economic cost was far greater than the mere loss of property and lives at 9/11. Our response - both in terms of internal security and external reaction, came at a cost of tens of
trillions of dollars, and eventually, probably
hundreds of trillions - without even counting the losses suffered by companies and individuals due to the inconveniences of security measures that are ultimately ineffectual. (And yes, inconveniences always cost money.) The economies of the western world are a house of cards, waiting to collapse - and we've undermined them with our spending. We were going in that direction anyway, but the resources spent due to 9/11 could mean that in a few hundred years, when historians are looking back at the fall of the "American Empire," 9/11 might be seen as the tipping point of where it started. More importantly, 9/11 signalled an end to western ideologies of individual freedom and independance. We've become a bunch of security-focused countries. Prioritizing Security vs. prioritizing Freedom are completely incompatible ideologies. Terrorism has convinced us that it's okay to give up a few personal freedoms for the illusion of safety and security; Big Brother is necessary to protect us. We've given government the authority to rule us once more, where previously we had taken that away, instead having government serve us. This
is an ideological goal of fundamentalist islamic extremism, as it is a compatible ideology with their own.
This terrifies me more than planes flying into buildings, because ultimately, I fear the fictional villain of the Avengers movie may prove right:
"Kneel! Is not this simpler? Is this not your natural state? It is the unspoken truth of humanity that you crave subjugation. The bright lure of freedom diminishes your life's joy in a mad scramble for power. For identity. You were made to be ruled. In the end, you will always kneel."
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The TSA is inefficient and poorly run, but a great deal of that is due to the requirements imposed on them by victim politics, and if nothing else they at least make it harder by forcing anyone planning an attack to defeat their methods.
