In this country, I think its different than many others. You can't expect the government to go, "Whoops, we took away all of your rights." and everyone to sit around on their hands murmering "Damn, I hope I don't say anything stupid and get sent to the gulag." There would be repurcussions not seen since our Civil War, more than likely right on that scale. Anyway, thats just an explanation for why I don't think 9/11/2001 could have had stripping the populace's civil liberties away.
However, we have been allowed to see that there are indeed a large amount of the population willing to give up civil liberties in the name of fighting terrorism. A big mistake, IMO, because this "war" will go on for hundreds of years. Security in the name of freedom as it were.
But, I don't think that was in Al Qaeda's primary or secondary objectives.
It certainly would appear to me, that they (A.Q.) wish to polarize this country's population. Form two distinct factions that vehemently hate each other. With all of the liberal and conservative labelling and **** flinging, I'd say they were fairly successful. Those who hate or despise all middle easterners, and those who want to only fight terrorists - regardless of their skin color or religious preference.
Another goal I percieve is theirs, which sort of follows along the lines of polarizing the country, is to give credence to the leadership's goals - whatever they may be - without any second guessing. Allowing them to enforce martial law, or worse - invade any country they saw fit. We see it on this board all the time. Anyone who criticizes the current administration is labelled as a (and this sort of proves that this country is polarized and scared) Bush hater, or Bush is hitler recitation. It scares me when criticism of the leader is met with such blind loyalty, would we really have seen this prior to 9/11/2001 - I haven't ever witnessed anything like that here in the US. Scary to say the least.
Simply put, I believe their goals were to scare us into choosing sides. Then having these two sides live in fear while we attack each other, various other nations who use to be allies, and nations which we percieve as direct threats that may or may not be and also may or may not even have real terroristic ties.
I see no way they could beat us by just blowing up building after building, not a snowballs chance in hell. What they needed to do was inflict fear (by definition, what terrorism is) and allow us to use that fear on each other in a self destructive manner.
Maybe I'm wrong, but they did accomplish a major victory here in the US. We have changed dramatically after 9/11/2001, now we are all under surveillance and all a potential enemy.
-SW
