Akron Beacon Journal...
A decade later
Editorial 

Never before had the country experienced such a devastating attack. This was the mainland, airliners hijacked, then deployed as missiles, striking the towers of the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon across the river from Washington, D.C., on a brilliant September morning. A fourth plane may have been targeted at the Capitol or the White House. Courageous passengers disrupted its mission, forcing the airliner to crash in a field in southwest Pennsylvania. In a matter of hours, almost 3,000 people were dead. 

The world witnessed much of the ghastliness on television, the planes, the fires and then the collapse of the towers into dust and wreckage. For Americans, it was hard not to watch the events without thinking that they required an equally powerful response. 

Thus, the “global war on terror” was launched, George W. Bush ordering his attorney general and others to do whatever it took to prevent another such attack. One decade later, the question hovers over the day: What has the country learned? 

One thing is that our response required precision, above all else. 

To be sure, that meant routing the al-Qaida terrorist network and the Taliban, its host in Afghanistan. A world that rallied to the American cause saw clearly the moral and strategic imperative. What has become plain since those early days is how close authorities were to discovering and stopping the plans of Osama bin Laden and his ilk. They need only have connected those available dots. 

Thus, the past decade might have gone differently. First, smash al-Qaida and the Taliban, and the case would be made easily to deliver subsequent blows if the terrorists reorganized there or elsewhere. The military blow would be joined by an overhaul of intelligence. It would involve less than a huge Department of Homeland Security or a hastily crafted Patriot Act. Rather, agencies and offices would collect and share information more effectively, the country committed to the fight (as it was not in the 1990s), from tracking the finances of terrorists to enhancing security at airports. 

Many sound steps were taken under the Bush White House and now the Obama team. It is no small achievement that the country has not been hit again by terrorists. We are less vulnerable. 

What has darkened the achievement has been the imprecision. The mission in Afghanistan has been much more costly because of the shift in focus that led to the war in Iraq. As it is, 6,000 Americans have died in the two conflicts, tens of thousands suffering lasting wounds. Saddam Hussein has been toppled and hanged. Yet the justification for the invasion never was nailed down. The mission lacked the unifying imperative of a World War II, and that was before countries learned about the absence of weapons of mass destruction. 

President Bush recovered ground with the surge. Iraq now holds elections, yet it remains on the edge of breaking apart, power yet to change hands peacefully. A terrible price has been paid, in lives, treasure and, more, in reputation. The abuse of prisoners by Americans at Abu Ghraib reflected a larger pursuit, a descent into torture — in violation of treaties and laws, at great cost to the country’s moral authority and influence. 

Many of us talk about American exceptionalism. What that has meant, in part, is the country holding true to principle, refusing to weaken in dire moments. Yet weaken the country did. Osama bin Laden wanted to see the United States in “bleeding wars” in Muslim countries. He wanted to spread fear among us. 

Recall the Bush White House bouncing an economist who projected the price of the Iraq mission would exceed the advertised $60 million, even reach $100 million. Joseph Stiglitz, a Pulitzer Prize winning economist, has put the “conservative tally” at $3 trillion to $5 trillion for both wars. 

How imprecise, and the miscalculation pertains to torture, too. Listen to those who know well interrogation methods, and they insist torture is counterproductive, the information gained either suspect or serving no value in court. 

So, it fails the test of practicality — before weighing the careless violation of the law. Those violations extended further, to the Guantanamo prison, where the Bush administration sought a legal black hole. Thankfully, the Supreme Court blew the whistle. Yet Guantanamo remains open, Congress playing to fears, the Obama White House going along, pushing aside the plentiful evidence of civilian courts successfully handling, and convicting, terrorist defendants. 

Barack Obama made many promises about repairing the excesses of the Bush “war on terror.” He kept his word in abandoning the use of torture (though the Bush precedent remains). At the same time, he has followed in the Bush path, opting for military commissions, the suspension of habeas corpus and the use of the state secrets doctrine. 

To his credit, the president brought improved focus, perhaps most telling, in the drone strikes, the taking out of al-Qaida leaders, driven by the intelligence crucial to combating the terrorism of Islamic extremists. The advance in information triggered the killing of Osama bin Laden, finally, four months before this day marking a decade later. 

That kind of precision, tactical, strategic and moral, long has been missing in this fight. It involves, in part, gathering good information and persuasively assembling the evidence. It is the way forward, the country remaining vigilant, yet avoiding sloppiness that diverts attention from other pressing priorities, at home and abroad, whether advances in education or the rise of China. 

That September morning turned overwhelmingly dark. What the country didn’t need to lose was so much perspective. 

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