If you were to ask me, i'd say the terrorists won the 9/11 battle.
I totally disagree. Their intentions were to bring us to a screeching halt. They attacked our financial and business center for a reason. Instead we continued to live our lives. The terrorists always assume honor is an indication of weakness, and they did not expect we would pull together as a nation like we did. If Al Gore had been president, they would have been right and we probably would have lost the battle.
By the way, my comment about us not rioting was referring only to the aftermath of 9/11. I was certainly not claiming that Americans are all individually saints or that Americans never riot. The aftermath of 9/11 could have been much more chaotic than it was. My point was to directly compare the deadly riot over the Koran-flushing rumor to our lack of rioting after 3,000 civilians were slaughtered.
That said, I disagree with your general moral equivalency tone, and I have no problem stating that America is the greatest country on the Earth, and in general we respond with more civility than the Muslim world does.
Well, the markets were closed for several days and saw the largest single-day dip after opening in the history of the market.
I doubt they thought we would never again open the stock market. I don't think they thought they were going to destroy a large country with 4 airplanes. I think they wanted to stop things for awhile, scare the s**t out of people for years to come, and put some inconveniences on the lives of Americans for years to come.
For the most part, that has happened.
I think a better response would have been to seal up the borders and allow legal citizens to continue their lives as usual, without passing any more domestic laws. THAT would have been a defeat.
Instead we've opened the borders wider, reduced civil protections of citizens, and stepped up surveillance and suspicion of the citizenry while scaring people into accepting it because it "makes us safer".
When I have to pass through a metal detector to take my kid to see "Sesame Street Live", and explain wy I have a bottle opener on my keychain (yeah, i'm going to rob Big Bird with it) ... I would say that the cavedwellers consider it a success.
And that's really too bad. A mere shutting off of the borders and deporation of those who are here illegally would all but eliminate the foreign threat. Instead we're groping 60 year old grandmothers wearing underwire bra's as the fly from Cincinnati to Cleveland to see their grand kids.
Really, who do you think is laughing?
As to our moral superiority, I don't know where we rank. I'm glad we aren't Rwanda, but the folks in England and Iceland don't seem to be incredibly oppressive either. I like to think we are pretty on-blanace with the rest of the first-world countries.
Then again, if I haven't lived there, it's hard to say.