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Kinda Making Progress
Six years after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and the loss of nearly 3,000 Americans, is our nation safer? Answers to this question are pretty subjective, but the overall consensus is a decisive maybe.
According to the Los Angeles Times, the director of the National Counter-Terrorism Center, John Scott Redd, testified to the Senate that, "We are safer today than we were on September the 11th, 2001....But we are not safe, and nor are we likely to be for a generation or more. We're in a long war; we face an enemy that is adaptable, dangerous and persistent." This long view approach to the War on Terror seems both reasonable and optimistic, but this is not the same government message that the American people heard when President Bush uttered the now-infamous phrase "Mission Accomplished." It is a much more nuanced and honest appraisal of the current state of affairs.
Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton, two writers for The Washington Post, are also describing the War in more equivocal terms. They write that "Progress at home -- in our ability to detect, prevent and respond to terrorist attacks -- has been difficult, incomplete and slow, but it has been real. Outside our borders, however, the threat of failure looms." Just like Director Redd is backing off from an extremely optimistic view, the media is backing off from an extremely pessimistic view. Kean and Hamilton's language is not as catchy as "No Blood for Oil" or "Bush lied, Thousands died," but it is much more candid.
Politics on both the left and the right have dominated our understanding of this war. The rhetoric always seems to be black or white, yes or no, win or lose. Winning the War on Terror is a work in progress, and, on this anniversary, let's put aside the tired rhetoric, and come to terms with the new consensus, however ambiguous it may be.