DUHbya solemnly declaring the “first war of the new millennium.” My heart fell: the first, meaning he knew there would be more war. Endless war. Hope for a new age died with those words.

“You’re either with us or against us.” Swaggering idiot.

The thugs who raged against dissent. How many of those same people openly hate the president today?

The odious un-American “PATRIOT” Act, unread by those who rushed to make it law. "Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism." (Renewed under Obama.)

My shock at first hearing “Homeland Security.” It still appalls me.

The militarization of the police. Heavily armored “cops” with tear gas masks and bayonets lunging at peaceful protestors. A local sheriff sneering, “Let me at them.”

Machine guns in a backwater airport like Albuquerque’s. I didn’t fly again for eight years – not for fear of terrorists, but disgust at our response.

Free Speech Zones in cages.

You cannot be free and afraid. You cannot have peace and rage. Wounded, we made many wrong choices. We’ll never fix the worst of our mistakes.

Post-9/11 permanent state of war should have ended long ago – The Washington Post

By Eugene Robinson, Published: September 8

There never was a “war on terrorism.” It wasn’t “terrorism” that crashed airliners into buildings on that brilliant Tuesday morning. The attacks were carried out by a 19-member assault team from al-Qaeda [mjh: largely Saudis, our “good friends”], a terrorist organization then being sheltered by the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. There most definitely was a war against al-Qaeda, and we won. …

[W]e’re stuck in a dour, wartime mind-set that in many ways resembles clinical depression. … Yet here we are — for all intents and purposes, paralyzed. …

It’s hard to overstate the extent to which the 9/11 attacks magnified the nation’s anxieties — not just about terrorism but more generally about the future. Perpetual war produces a state of mind in which differences of opinion become questions of patriotism, adversaries become enemies and ideological territory must be defended inch by inch. Now, after 10 long years, perhaps we can finally get unstuck. Bin Laden is dead, his terrorist organization in shreds. The al-Qaeda that attacked us on 9/11 is defeated.

Post-9/11 permanent state of war should have ended long ago – The Washington Post