9/11: A strategic victory for terror

By James W. Dolan

The 9/11 attack was an enormous strategic victory. There was no need for a follow-up attack because the effects of that day are still being felt and will be long into the future.

The consequences are profound and far-reaching. The damage both in blood and treasure extends far beyond the World Trade Center. The terrorists in their wildest dreams could never have expected the attack to have been so successful.

The attack has generated two wars, both ongoing, neither of which appears to be going well and there is no end in sight. Hundreds of billions of dollars have been spent in those conflicts and thousands (mostly Afghans and Iraqis) have been killed.

Over 3000 Americans have lost their lives and over 24,000 have been wounded. The cost of treating those veterans for their injuries to body and mind will extend well into the 21st century.

Billions have been spent on security trying to recapture that sense of invulnerability we felt before 9/11. The attack was supposed to terrorize us and that is just what happened.

Their principal objective was not to cause death or the destruction of the towers; it was to generate pervasive fear that would prompt an exaggerated response to shatter our belief that we were safe and secure, cause us to divert billions of dollars into unproductive security measures, and diminish our image in the world.

They hit the jackpot. Instead of calmly and patiently developing a counter-terrorism plan and the means to implement it, we struck out blindly by declaring war on terrorism. We overreacted and, in my opinion, we continue to do so.

Sure, the terrorists have not launched a successful attack in the United States since 9/11. They don't need to. The fault line created by 9/11 and the government's reaction to it has extended throughout the country and beyond. Over five years later new fissures continue to appear.

The chain reaction of events set off on 9/11 is still developing. How and when it will stop is anybody's guess. So distracted are we that New Orleans has yet to comeback from the devastation cause by Katrina. We lack the energy and the resources to rebuild a great American city.

We charged into Iraq under the false impression that the country was a haven for terrorists. It was not when we invaded but it may be by the time we pull our troops out.

"We have nothing to fear but fear itself," was President Franklin Roosevelt's famous statement after the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Instead of heeding those words after 9/11, the current presidential administration's words and actions were more characteristic of a western gunfighter itching for a chance at vengeance and not particularly concerned with who gets in the way.

Precise strikes by air and special forces units based on sound intelligence &endash; more in the spirit of an elevated police response than a war &endash; could perhaps have been more successful and certainly less costly. Blunders are inevitable even in a just war. What makes them all the more unbearable is when the underlying war is itself a blunder.

The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in the city of Sarajevo in 1914 set off a chain of events &endash; miscalculations that ultimately resulted in the First World War. The consequences of 9/11 continue to spread. Who knows where it will finally end? At a time when we needed Cool Hand Luke, we got Hulk Hogan.

There more than likely will be other attacks, but the terrorists don't seem to be in any great hurry. They are probably waiting until the last one is over. Through it all, Osama Bin Laden remains at large.

Despite our national outrage at the attack, what was necessary was a calm, intelligent and measured response. Instead, by overreacting we played into the hands of our enemies.

After 9/11 more thought should have been given to what our enemies wished to achieve by the attack. Certainly, some reaction was prudent and necessary but not to the extent that we cripple ourselves. We should have guarded against the risks of a self-inflicted wound.

By not controlling our fears, we have handed our enemies a strategic victory far beyond what they could have expected. President Roosevelt was right; fear is almost as dangerous as hate.

James W. Dolan is a retired Dorchester District Court judge who now practices law.