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After 9/11, the U.S. shook the world: invading and occupying Afghanistan and Iraq; straining alliances and creating new ones; torturing; hunting terrorists to the ends of the earth; new, capacious legal and military licenses were spun up in the service of keeping Americans safe.
So much blood, so much treasure, so many lives irrevocably altered, nations traumatized, entire communities in Iraq and Afghanistan obliterated, more nameless stars on the wall at Langley, caskets draped in American flags lifting off on midnight flights from desert airstrips.
It was done in the name of keeping Americans safe. And the cost was so, so high, for so many. It was also vengeance for the nearly 3,000 Americans who died in an act of senseless evil.
Now we have nearly 100,000 dead Americans from COVID-19. The last few months have been a vast charnel house for the American people. But now, we can't go abroad looking for monsters to destroy--though some will try. We have allowed a city larger than Asheville to be vaporized.
Orwell said that, "to see what is in front of one's nose needs a constant struggle." Beyond the macabre death toll and nauseating human tragedy, certain illusions are being vaporized as well. Or maybe, to our detriment, they won't be.
