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The war on terror primed America for autocracy

economist.com

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Re: The war on terror primed America for autocracy

#111

Post by s5300 »

derektank wrote: post #64
Animats wrote: post #19

Yes. History will record that bin Laden won. There's a pre-9/11 book about bin Laden, "The Man Who Declared War on America". Bin Laden was interviewed. Consider the situation at the end of the Clinton administration. The US was at peace. The Soviet Union was gone. The US got along with China and Russia. No major enemies remained. The federal budget was balanced. Bin Laden looked at that, and realized that America had…

Bin Laden’s ultimate objective was to evict US military forces from the Middle East. In response to 9/11, we massively expanded our footprint in the region and formed even deeper relationships with the Saudi government (whom Bin Laden hated for in his view, “[suspending] Islamic laws, and replacing it with statuary laws”). You can read it all in his original, late 90s declaration of jihad against the United States[1]…

[dead]

Re: The war on terror primed America for autocracy

#112

Post by crote »

andsoitis wrote: post #43
rayiner wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I seem to recall the Economist wholeheartedly supporting the Iraq War. Am I wrong?

Yes, they ran a leading editorial titled "Why war would be justified", arguing that confronting Saddam Hussein was "the least bad of the limited range of available options". However, they reversed position in 2007, calling the invasion a debacle.

It would've been more surprising if they hadn't reversed their position, well after it became painfully clear to everyone that the war had been a terrible idea.

Re: The war on terror primed America for autocracy

#113

Post by marcus_holmes »

Morromist wrote: post #78
SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How old are you? I think a lot of younger folks don't fully adjust for important factors: plane hijackings used to be much more common, 9/11 was committed by the second group of Islamic terrorists who tried to blow up the World Trade Center, and 9/11 was the third major terrorist attack by Al-Qaeda in a 4 year span. It's easy now to say that it was a crazy worst-case scenario, but that was not at all obvious then; fo…

It was a crazy time, not in the danger from hijackings but the enormous amount of fear and cowardice America built up within itself. It was crazy because of the mass hysteria not the violence. Take this example: 1.2 million Americans died from Covid. 3000 americans died in the twin towers attack. That's 0.25% of the number that died from covid. However we gave up considerably more liberty to defend against the hijack…

Or guns. I find it crazy that the US gave up a ton of freedoms to stop the terrorists, but refuse to give up their guns. The guns clearly and obviously kill more people every year than the terrorists.

Make it make sense.

Re: The war on terror primed America for autocracy

#114

Post by pyrale »

rayiner wrote: post #25
xbar wrote: post #6

Exactly what everyone said when Patriot Act was passed and renewed repeatedly. America permanently traded away basic freedoms for the bogus promise of safety in the shadow of fear. And the Supreme Court was too scared to stop it despite its obvious constitutional problems. Crying eagle photos in chain-emails were sufficient propaganda to keep it in place.

It wasn’t just the GOTW. It was much of the 20th century from World War I onward. Each step led to further centralization of government, a larger and larger security apparatus, and more and more foreign entanglements. We are more or less retracing the path of Rome as the Republic expanded militarily until it was no longer practical to run it as a republic and it transitioned to empire.

> It wasn’t just the GOTW. It was much of the 20th century from World War I onward.

If you're looking for the seeds of imperialism, you'll find them all the way back to US independence.

The point the article is making is that 2001 was a tipping point in that evolution.

Re: The war on terror primed America for autocracy

#115

Post by sally_glance »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #106
rayiner wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rome took some unexpected Ls against the barbarians too. Didn’t change the trajectory of the empire.

The "trajectory of the empire" is that it became the Roman Catholic Church. Rome still rules a sizable portion of the world's population. I wonder if the USA is going the same way. Democratic Church of America?

Homelander approves.

Re: The war on terror primed America for autocracy

#116

Post by zwarag »

xbar wrote: post #6

Exactly what everyone said when Patriot Act was passed and renewed repeatedly. America permanently traded away basic freedoms for the bogus promise of safety in the shadow of fear. And the Supreme Court was too scared to stop it despite its obvious constitutional problems. Crying eagle photos in chain-emails were sufficient propaganda to keep it in place.

> Crying eagle photos in chain-emails

Can someone elaborate? Whwre is this reference comming from? A simple web search did not yield much

Re: The war on terror primed America for autocracy

#117

Post by JuniperMesos »

NordStreamYacht wrote: post #68

FTA: "In 1776 the American colonists rebelled against what they saw as the arbitrary and tyrannical British monarchy." I like the sly use of "what they saw" - typical British snark.

There's plenty of American historiography that questions the motivations of the American revolution and how tyrannical the British monarchy was actually.

Re: The war on terror primed America for autocracy

#118

Post by rob74 »

> Less than a month after 9/11 President George W. Bush invaded Afghanistan, starting a war that would last for 20 years and kill more than 6,000 American military personnel and contractors before its ignominious end.

...and again (despite the Economist being British), the US-centric view that led to Trump declaring that NATO has never done anything for the US. In fact, after the US was the first (and so far only) country to invoke NATO article 5 after the 9/11 attacks, NATO troops were also sent to Afghanistan, and Wikipedia lists the following military casualty numbers:

USA: 2420

UK: 457

Canada: 159

France: 90

Germany: 62

Italy: 53

Others: 338

more details, including deaths per million population, where Georgia and Denmark are before the US: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coalition_casualties_in_Afghan...

Re: The war on terror primed America for autocracy

#119

Post by maciejw »

I recommend a book 'Silk Roads' by Peter Frankopan. It’s an attempt to show world’s history as a continuous movement of center of civilizational gravity. It’s not without flaws, but interesting nonetheless.

Frankopan describes most of modern US history as a series of blunders. This approach is maybe a bit harsh, but it shows how difficult it is for a dominant power to stay on top.

I would summarise the book with a sentence „When you reach the top, the seeds of your decline are already planted”. In fact you can look at China or India - future dominant powers, and guess which of their flaws will make them fall.

Re: The war on terror primed America for autocracy

#120

Post by throwitaway222 »

Bush did far more evil things and non-legal killings than Trump. He CREATED Ice, homeland security, etc.. So yeah, Bush was THE authoritarian, no need to jump forward 15 years, that's just TDS. Trump for the most part is just reinforcing existing laws, something that simply stopped happening during Biden's term. If you really think Trump is more authoritarian, then you forgot.

Never Forget.

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