It’s been 15 years since an unelected administration put us on the permanent war footing we inhabit today, and transformed our nation utterly.

I wish I could say a terrible beauty is born, but unlike the Irish revolution, the post-9-11 American state can claim no beauty to accompany its terrors.

15 years in, I think it might be useful to look back and remember that we didn’t have to come this way. The great, progressive thing about history is that it shows actual people making actual choices. We are where we are, not because the politics of this moment was inevitable, like gravity, but because people chose this path over others.

Imagine if we'd called the 9/11 attack a crime against the people of the United States. Not an act of war—a crime. The word "war" justifies—or is supposed to justify--a whole range of things in this culture. The word “war” suggests certain kinds of actions, and certain kinds of responses.

War: a state of armed conflict between different nations or states or different groups within a nation or state.

The above definition of “war” shows that the 9/11 attack actually fit rather uncomfortably within our definitions of war. Al-Qaeda was not a “different nation or state” nor was it a group within our nation-state. But we chose to define their actions as war. When we described the 9/11 attack as an act of war, and then subsequently said we were waging a War on Terror, that meant that our proper response was:

1. a massive military buildup
2. a police state at home to make sure no subversion could interfere with the massive military buildup, whether from foreign infiltrators or unruly citizens
3. armed soldiers and militias being deployed to over 100 countries in the world.

The “war paradigm,” as Sidney Blumenthal called it, also lent itself to some truly despicable things like black sites and torture worldwide, as well as lesser but still rotten sins like suppression of the press.

War: a situation in which people or groups compete with or fight against each other

Once we dispense with the idea of nations (as in the definition above), suddenly it’s much more comfortable to define our conflict with al-Qaeda as “war.” It makes sense, you see! This isn’t about nations. We're waging a war against an enemy that exists all over the place. Wherever terrorism exists, we need to be there to wage war on it! So obviously, we have to send troops to over 100 “countries.” I put that word in quotation marks, because we don’t have to respect those “countries’” boundaries. Their borders are meaningless to us—not surprisingly, since we just gutted the meaning of the word “nation.” Terrorism might be in one of those “countries,” and we have the right, no, the duty, to follow terrorism wherever it goes—whether the people who live there agree to let us in, or not. After all, we are at war with it.

I expect people will, rightly, want to talk about American exceptionalism here. But it’s not like America gets to emerge unscathed from this barrage of Orwellian redefinition. A War on Terror not only requires that we redefine the idea of “nations;” it also requires that we transform the notion of home. Instead of being the thing we defend and love, “home” becomes one of the “countries” terrorism might turn up in. That’s why we need a Department of Homeland Security. We need mass warrantless surveillance, detention centers, indefinite detention and the like, because terrorism might turn up at home. If terrorism turns up at home, guess what? We have to be ready to wage war on it here!—even if that means waging war on our own citizens. In fact, we’re keeping track of our citizens, their doings, and their words, BEFORE they do anything wrong, as if we’re sure they’ll be traitors and terrorists sooner or later.

As I said once on Daily Kos long ago, “..isn't the problem here that the government takes on, arbitrarily and without justification, an adversarial attitude towards its citizenry?" I was talking about the NSA. But this arbitrary and unjustified adversarial attitude toward US citizens mirrors the arbitrary and unjustified hostility abroad. The police state is the war state when it’s at home. Neither has much to do with the rule of law.

Most of these things—torture, surveillance, unlawful detention, censorship-- are commonly found in the vicinity of war, even the most justified war. Watch Foyle’s War for a (fictional) examination of how war and the rule of law tend to be at odds. Yes, it’s not factual, but it’s more fun than reading Sidney Blumenthal’s article “The Rule of Law vs the War Paradigm.” https://www.opendemocracy.net/democracy/law_war_3731.jsp (Actually, I’m kidding Sidney Blumenthal; his article is an excellent analysis of how the Bush administration changed, and sometimes dismantled, our legal framework in order to establish the permanent war footing we’re on now. It’s also an interesting reminder of what political discourse used to be like before the Obama/Citizens United era.)

Now imagine that the 9-11 attacks were not an act of war, but a crime. Imagine that the US government responded to the attacks as a crime. OK. How do we respond to a crime?

Well, we get investigators on the case, so we can find out definitively who the criminals are (and hopefully where they are). In this case that would be the people who planned and supported the action, since those who hijacked the planes are dead. Since they have a multinational network, we need to cooperate with police and investigators in multiple countries, and military intelligence types as well. We find out as much as we can, within the law, to further our investigation.

Law: the system of rules that a particular country or community recognizes as regulating the actions of its members and may enforce by the imposition of penalties.

I emphasize "within the law" because, since we are looking to prosecute a crime, rather than wage a war, we cannot let ourselves become lawless. Whereas war, I’d argue, encourages lawlessness, a criminal investigation that doesn’t stay within the law threatens the foundations of its own authority. Therefore hauling random people--or even particular people--off to some dark hole and tormenting them with the cruelty of the Nine Hells is out. You’re not a mob boss. Lowering yourself to the level of the criminals you’re pursuing destroys, at the very least, your reputation. Since the law is a social construct, dependent on the “recognition” of many people to survive, enough enforcers of the law behaving lawlessly will eventually destroy the law.

Propaganda and bigotry can help the lawless with this problem, and delay the inevitable for quite some time.

But hauling people away to a dark hole and tormenting them isn’t just out because it's against the law. It's also out because your overwhelming need, as an investigator, is to get accurate information, and tormenting people is not the most effective way to get accurate information, as even professional interrogators admit: (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/dec/09/senate-committee-cia-tor...) War, like criminal investigations, does require reliable information. But war often also requires the demoralization and pacification of a population. It's been obvious from the outset that the "War on Terror" has prioritized the latter need over the former. Waterboarding a person 183 times makes no sense in the context of extracting accurate information. It makes lots of sense in the context of demoralization and terror.

Back to the idea of 9/11 being a crime against the American people. Our first step is investigation, establishing and activating the networks that will get us reliable accurate information. Once we've established who the criminals are, and where they are, the next step is to capture them alive, and bring them back for trial.

Crime: an action or omission that constitutes an offense that may be prosecuted by the state and is punishable by law.

This is the point where War on Terror apologists like to mock civil libertarians and, well, anybody who cares about ethics. Because this is the point where you probably will need military action to bring the criminals back and have them stand trial. International mass murderers like Osama bin Laden are generally protected by a lot of people with guns, and dug in or entrenched somewhere as secure as possible. You can't just have a police investigator walk up and say "I arrest you, Osama bin Laden, for the crime of conspiring to kill 3,000 people. You have the right to remain silent..." because that investigator will be dead before he gets anywhere near Osama bin Laden. You need to get past the people with guns to get to the leadership who actually made the plan. So yes, there will be some military action done here. Perhaps it will be done by international police alone, but it's more likely that there will be a cooperative effort between police and the militaries of various countries.

But that does not, repeat NOT, mean a "Coalition of the Willing" fighting an "Axis of Evil." It doesn’t mean you’re waging a war, particularly not an endless one. You're still trying to uphold the law. You're just having a hell of a time getting to these particular criminals. And once you do get them, you do not blow the criminal away along with a few of his wives. You do not shove a bayonet into his body. The objective of law enforcement is to bring the criminal back alive, because the immediate goal of law enforcement is not a dead body, but a trial. (Some of us think the ultimate goal of law enforcement should not be a dead body either, but that’s a story for another time).

Crime: illegal activities

So, here you are, trying to bring criminals back to face trial for the crime of conspiring to kill 3,000 unarmed people. You’ve figured out who the criminals are, where they are, and how many guns they have, and you’ve shot your way in to the leaders who planned the crime. Now you’re in the presence of the man who said he planned it all. With guns on him from all sides, you have a legal authority step forward and say: "Osama bin Laden, you are under arrest for the crime of conspiring to kill 3,000 people. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say may be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to consult an attorney before speaking to the police and to have an attorney present during questioning now or in the future. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you before any questioning if you wish."

Neoconservatives have often mocked this imagined past. That mockery is their justification of the permanent war paradigm.

War: an organized effort by a government or other large organization to stop or defeat something that is viewed as dangerous or bad

Yet imagine what this would mean. No Iraq War. No war in Afghanistan—since any military force present at the arrest withdraws afterwards. No war in Pakistan—at least, none that involves the United States. No war in Syria. No expanded version of the Islamic State.

And probably: No black sites. No justification of torture. No constant paranoia. No redefinition of the American people as adversaries of their government. No suppression of the press and over-reliance on the odious Espionage Act. No constant stream of Pravda-like propaganda.

and possibly, though not certainly, no Patriot Acts I and II.

Crime: an act that is foolish or wrong

Now imagine what would happen after Osama bin Laden was brought back for trial. In addition to the exhaustive examination of his own crimes, he would, of course, mount a defense. In that defense he would almost certainly tell everything he knew about US collaboration with him over the years, in particular his connections to the CIA. At the same time that bin Laden and al-Qaeda were globally discredited for their brutality, the US government, in particular its covert aspects, would be discredited for brutal hypocrisy—at least abroad.

At home, the American people would divide. Some would immediately disbelieve everything the mass murderer said and defend their government. Others would believe the testimony, and be outraged. Still others would want an investigation, to find out what really is true. The two latter groups would unite behind the idea of investigating our government, in particular the CIA, to find out the truth. At least some of the families of the victims would agree. The moral authority of those families would make it very difficult not to mount at least the appearance of an investigation. The old police state, instead of receiving a vast influx of power and funds, would receive, in PR terms, a black eye, and in legal terms—at the very least—extreme inconvenience. Making the PR argument for new wars would also be more difficult, at least until the question of the US collaborating with terrorists that then come back and kill American citizens was cleared up.

Coming to where we are now was not inevitable.
Where we might go from here is not inevitable.
We must not let them colonize our imaginations.

[EDITED to put the right poet's name in, dammit!]
As Wendell Berry says:

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer. When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.

So, friends, every day do something
that won’t compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
…
Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.
http://www.context.org/iclib/ic30/berry/

I would add: honor the dead by fighting like hell for the living.

Blessed be.