May 2, 2011

Bin Laden maybe dead, but he is still winning the war on terror

‎"The slaying of multitudes should be mourned with sorrow. A victory should be celebrated with the funeral rite." - Tao Te Ching 31


Bin Laden is dead. But does this mean that we've won the "War on Terror?"

We, as a nation, never tried winning the “war on terror” by simply acting like adults and going about our business.

We, as a nation, never tried winning the “war on terror” by staying true to the supposedly American values of freedom, openness, and tolerance.

I remember a time when the only reason you had to get in line at the airport was so somebody could check that you had an airplane ticket. That seems insane today. Or is it that so much of our world today is insane, that sanity seems a perverted deviation from the new normal?

Bin Laden may be dead, but we’ve changed. We’ve changed a lot.

America has become a twisted monster; we are wrought with suspicion. Our identity has become tied to violence. Our foreign policy has become based on war.

We have become callous to murder.
We have become callous to torture.
We have forgotten the rule of law.
We have forgotten “innocent until proven guilty.”
We have forgotten the things we stood for as a nation.
We have lost our fundamental identity as freedom-loving people.
We have been thoughtlessly willing to give up our innate liberty for false promises of security.
We have become infantalized.
We have become monsters.

The biggest blow on September 11th, 2001 was not the WTC or the Pentagon. It was the psychic wound we inflicted on ourselves and our national identity.

Bin Laden may be dead, but he is still winning the war on terror.

And he’s winning by quite a lot.

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