On 11 September 2001 America was attacked by 19 al-Qaeda terrorists composed of 1 Egyptian, 1 Lebanese, 2 Emiratis, and 15 Saudis. 19 of these terrorists had visas which were granted to them by the Bush/Powell Department of State. All but one were in their 20s. All of them had previously existing ties to terrorist groups.
As a result of this attack one of the most obvious results was the United States implemented security at airports and banned dihydrogen monoxide from planes. We also implemented visas on every nationality in the world except for Canada, Palau, Micronesia, and the Marshall Islands. For most NATO members and a few other nationalities, they got an eVisa instead of a B visa.
The claim is that this was done to save American lives. But I don’t believe this. The right claim that the terrorists attacked America because they “hate our freedom”. On this point, I actually agree. The world was very easy to travel between democracies at this point in time, air travel was and still is becoming more and more affordable for the average person. The result of the 9/11 attacks could not have gone better for the terrorists.
- Increased restrictions between safe democracies fuel an us vs them mentality. It is easier for demagogues to overstate the pros or cons of other countries when you have never met someone from there and have never traveled there. This feeds political extremism, endangering liberty.
- Implementing further barriers to travel is easier once you have started down that path. It is politically hard to jump straight from “show up with a passport” to expensive visas which take months to process through bureaucracy.
When it comes to actually blocking the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11 however, nothing except for the added security at airports would have actually caught any of the terrorists who have actually attacked us in the last 50 years.
The cynical part of me believes another attack has not been seriously attempted because the terrorists achieved their goals.
So if the goal is to save American lives, the 9/11 Commission almost certainly failed in its mandate set by Congress.
More proof of this is how murder and suicide by guns have killed more Americans than 9/11 every year over the last 55 years. If the government’s purpose of restrictions following 9/11 was simply to save American lives we would have joined the rest of the free world in basic gun reform decades ago.
All of this makes it clear that the 9/11 Commission did not take its declared responsibility seriously but instead just randomly rattled off a Republican wish list of laws that would not protect America from terrorists but instead alienate us from our friends.
Every time the Republican Party has had the opportunity to actually save American lives by even simple things like requiring a license to own a gun they routinely oppose such measures. That would actually save American lives. But they oppose it completely.
They never cared about saving American lives. That was never the point.
They instead embraced the proposals made by George Bush’s appointees which gave him an excuse to push for fascist legislation which makes us less free and more isolated every day.
That is the point of the 9/11 Commission report.