On numerous occasions right after 9/11, President Bush said, "the terrorists will not win." Ten years later, President Obama on the 10th anniversary of 9/11 said that American is resilient and "we emerged stronger than before."
I understand that these words and phrases are meant to stoke patriotism at a time of national mourning and are very valuable for that purpose. It is the responsibility of the leader to be strong and inspire strength in difficult times and that is what Presidents Obama and Bush were doing.
But taking a more sober view, what does it mean to say that the "terrorists will not win." The metrics for winning are obvious in sports, politics, and even conventional warfare. What metric can we use to declare if the terrorists have won or lost? Similarly, I understand when we describe a person as resilient. But what does it mean to say that a country is resilient?
Take a minute to think about it yourself before reading my answers to those questions below. In particular, think through what would have to transpire for you to say that a particular country has not been resilient after a significant terrorist attack.
One way to measure is to count the number of terrorist attacks since 9/11. Since there have been 0, that is one way to claim "victory" or "resilience." Though not a perfect metric, because there is definitely much luck involved in having had 0 attacks since then. Also, when there is another attack (and there probably will be one someday), that doesn't immediately make us "losers" or not resilient.
I would define winning and resilience differently. My definition: conditional on protecting our population, have we maintained aspects of what makes American unique (our values, our exceptionalism). I would argue that in several ways we have not satisfied this definition.
First, America has compromised its ethical standing in the world through the use of torture. There is no longer any doubt that America engages in torture during the Bush/Cheney administration, which is against both the Geneva Conventions and our own core values. We have lost a large element of the moral high ground and that is truly tragic. While the Bush/Cheney administration destroyed the soul of America in this regard, Obama also deserves some criticism for white-washed this history instead of healing it. Andrew Sullivan has written prodigiously and passionately about this topic and I highly recommend reading his pieces.
Second, I have been shocked at how easily and quickly the American public has acquiesed to the government's prolific spying and information gathering of ordinary Americans. The American public rails against governmental over-reach in innumerable ways, but in one of the most important ways, incredible information gathering and the loss of privacy, the public has completely capitulated. Even after the Snowden files were released, there was almost no accountability and little public debate on the trade-offs, which still shocks me.
Third, I have been utterly disappointed by America's constant sense of pessimism and fear in the last 13 years. In the past, our attitude of optimism, which in many ways is uniquely American, is inspiring and is something I always valued and cherished. However, that optimism has given way to constant state of anxiety and fear it seems. I think this anxiety started after 9/11 but over the years, the Republican party and the mainstream media, each using its own brand of crazy/stupidity, has stoked these fears and brought out the worst in America. From immigration to ISIS to Ebola, American seems scared about everything right now. This despite the fact that the latter two have led a combined death of five Americans so far.
Even if terrorists don't kill another American, they have fundamentally changed core aspects of American exceptionalism. When a person or country has changed aspects of its core values for the worse, it becomes harder to argue that it has "won" or is "resilient."
