The United States of Fear

Since September 11, 2001, fear has been the main engine of change in the United
States. Who would have thought that across the US, where people boast that it
is the home of the free and the land of the brave, people would gladly surrender
their freedom and liberty because they so fear terrorism?

Who would have thought that the US would allow, much less pay for, the National
Security Agency to intercept and store 1.7 billion emails, phone calls and other
communications - every single day - and pay for 30,000 people to listen in on
phone conversations in the name of fighting the fear of terrorism?

Who would have thought that people across New York City, where people are proud
of their diversity, would fear construction of a mosque and community center
downtown?

Who would have thought that people across the US, where people argue that they
helped bring down the wall that separated East and West Germany, would so fear
their neighbors to the South that they support construction of a wall of
separation with Mexico?

Who would have thought that some of the highest lawyers in the land would write
memos illegally authorizing the torture of people in the name of making the US
safe?

Who would have thought that Democrats would compete with Republicans to try to
keep the globally shameful Guantanamo prison open so that people inside the US
would not have to fear having living near prisons with alleged terrorists in
them?

Who would have thought that people in New York City, a place where people admire
their own toughness, would fear having criminal trials of alleged terrorists in
their city?

Who would have thought that in the US, where people take pride in the
constitutional independence of the judiciary, those judges would turn down the
case of Maher Arar, who was captured in the US and flown out to a Syrian prison
to be tortured, because they fear that even looking at the case would interfere
with national security?

Who would have thought that the people of the US would fear to have Uighurs,
members of persecuted ethnic minority who struggled for their freedoms against
China, allowed to live even temporarily in the US?

Who would have thought that the people of the US would so fear the possibility
of the Taliban ruling Afghanistan and the false possibility of weapons of mass
destruction in Iraq, that we would send our sons and daughters to die by the
thousands in Iraq and Afghanistan?

Who would have thought that there once was a US president who said "the only
thing we have to fear is fear itself - nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror
which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance..."?

You tell me what happened to the land of the free and the home of the brave
since September 11, 2001.