What Price Terror...$700+ Billion Maybe?

Has Al-Quaida already won?

What was the goal of the 9/11 attacks on the United States? From the terrorists’ perspective the goal seemed to have had a part 1 and part 2. Part 1 was to physically strike the symbols of US economic, military and political power. The terrorists more than achieved their goal regarding the strike on the symbol of economic power (the twin towers certainly are gone). As for the symbol of military power, they only got a chunk of the Pentagon. And as for the symbol of political power, well we got to them before they got to the Capitol. But, regardless of what their motivation was, and what one might believe the US’ role may have been in nurturing that motivation, achieving part 1 of the terrorists’ goal required no action on our part. Meaning, simply, that one can not control another’s behavior; the actions another chooses to take. We can put certain things in place to mitigate the choices another might make and increase the likelihood that they might take one action over another. But, in the end, a person’s decision to do anything; to take a particular action, is their own.

Truly the only thing one can control is one’s own behavior. The choices we make; the actions we take (however justified or not) are our own. At the point of decision-making, we are alone in determining what we will do next and what impact, if any, we will allow the actions of others to have on us. Therein lies the rub regarding what was likely part 2 of the terrorists’ goal.

While only the terrorists’ can tell what their complete goal was for the attacks, given the scale of the attacks, I can’t help but wonder if they wanted something more beyond part 1. What about after the attacks? It seems to me that they would have wanted the attacks to subsequently have some longer-term, painful, negative impact on the functioning of the US in the areas of economic, military and/or political power. It seems to me that would be the completion of the goal – the final act of such brazen attacks (I don’t have a terrorist mind so that’s the best my imagination can do). But in order for this hypothetical part 2 to occur, the terrorists’ actions (even the full completion of part 1) are insufficient. It is not enough for someone to take action against you in order for their intended impact of that action to result. For the intended impact to result, your response to that action is required. And not just any response, but a specific response – one that is complicit in the result of the intended impact. Thus, in order for a part 2 of the goal of the 9/11 attacks to occur, whether we knew it or not, it required that we respond to the attacks in such a way as to lead us to experience exactly what the terrorists’ may have wanted: some longer-term, painful, negative impact on our economy, military and/or political power.

So, what was that response? What choices did we make?

• We gave broad powers, and seemingly a blank check, to the president to wage war on our behalf


• The president used that power to start a war in Afghanistan to go after those who attacked us


• He then used that power to leave the war in Afghanistan undone in order to start an unnecessary, unjust and illegal war in Iraq that had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks


• During this time that we are fighting two wars abroad, losing precious lives on all sides, and spending amounts of taxpayer money that are so large at times it makes me believe the government is dealing in Monopoly money – it seems nobody was ‘minding the store’ at home


• While we were hanging on by our fingernails to the very last of a fraying thread of morality we once had as a nation in our response to the attacks, it seems morality and ethics had long since left those who run the institutions that form our economy here at home


• A blind eye was turned and financial institutions and Wall Street, it seems, were allowed to run-a-muck and create a complex, global web of economic disaster primarily through questionable (and maybe we will find someday, illegal) subprime mortgage lending practices


• The reality of these mortgage-backed securities that are now worth little has resulted in an economic crisis worldwide, to which the US Congress has responded (with more taxpayer money) by bailing out 3 institutions (in the billions of dollars) and the White House calling for an additional $700 billion bailout plan for all the financial institutions involved


• And we are still fighting two wars…did Parker Brothers even create that much Monopoly money?

These were our choices in response to the 9/11 attacks. Where we are today, is the result - not of the attacks, but of the choices we made in our response to them.

We didn’t have a choice in being attacked. We had all the choices in how we decided to respond. Has Al-Quaida already won? Economically, one must wonder. But how much more they will win and how complete their achievement of a part 2 of their goal depends solely on us and the choices we continue to make – including the choices we make not only in our leadership (those elected to represent us) but also in how we hold our leadership accountable to ensure that the choices they make on our behalf are in our own best interests. It isn’t just our leaders’ job to ‘mind the store’ and to determine the choices made on our behalf. In this "government of the people, by the people and for the people," that job belongs to us all. While we are in this process of taking our country back…let’s be sure to take our control back…over the one thing we do have control…the choices we make!!

Own your choices. Take control of you & what you create from your choices. Allow others to do the same. BE ILLUMINED!