"After the United States faced another existential threat in the immediate aftermath of the September 11 attacks...."
I'm amazed at how accepting the media is of the threat of terrorism. That statement implicitly compares al Qaeda to the Soviets. The Soviets who, if they had had a bad day and decided to say "screw it" and wipe out capitalism for good could have done so within an hour. A country which, at any moment, could have pressed a button and killed a billion people. (And to be fair, the US of course had/has the same ability.)
This is being compared to a loose organization of fanatics where the worst-case scenario was pretty much, "What if they crashed the fourth plane into the White House and killed the President!"
I think we need an enemy. The country is built on it. After four decades of the Cold War, we needed something to put in the "USSR" slot. Terrorists are a terrible fit, but it's the best we could find.
Any given couple of days more Americans die from heart diseases than those who died by the 911 attacks, I have yet to see someone call those "an existential thread for America".
But we never learn. The best thing that could happen right now for the NSA and the military in the mist of this criticism is another attack on US land, the former will say " see! This is why we need to spy today more than ever! " and the military would get another major money injection for decades to come and it gets to invade any country where they think the enemy might be.
I do not think the country needs an enemy, but I believe leaders want one. Perhaps they imagine themselves as a Winston Churchill or other great military leader. Or, it could simply be the need to call great attention to one area so that they can re-organize things in another without political opposition.
This. Islamic terrorists (or any other variety) have never presented an existential threat to the United States. Moreover, we aggrandize those very terrorists by making the claim.
"After the United States faced another existential threat in the immediate aftermath of the September 11 attacks...."
I'm amazed at how accepting the media is of the threat of terrorism. That statement implicitly compares al Qaeda to the Soviets. The Soviets who, if they had had a bad day and decided to say "screw it" and wipe out capitalism for good could have done so within an hour. A country which, at any moment, could have pressed a button and killed a billion people. (And to be fair, the US of course had/has the same ability.)
This is being compared to a loose organization of fanatics where the worst-case scenario was pretty much, "What if they crashed the fourth plane into the White House and killed the President!"
I think we need an enemy. The country is built on it. After four decades of the Cold War, we needed something to put in the "USSR" slot. Terrorists are a terrible fit, but it's the best we could find.