What does this say about us? America turns its resources to fighting the vague but real threat of terrorism. We start two wars. Support another one. The Middle East is radicalized, and new terrorists attracted daily with marketing campaigns more effective than Nike’s slam dunks.
And what do we get? At home gun crime and murders are skyrocketing. Law enforcement officials say we’ve rerouted funds and officer staff time away from programs that kept crime down, and towards preventing terrorism. Sure, we’ve still got three strikes, and an incarceration rate something like ten times any other country but the dictatorships we pretend not to resemble in certain uncomfortable respects. But people are killing each other on the streets again.
Time to declare Mission Accomplished again?