Was 9/11 really that bad?

There is an interesting Op-Ed piece by Prof. David A. Bell in the Los Angeles Times entitled "Was 9/11 really that bad? - The attacks were a horrible act of mass murder, but history says we're overreacting." He has a lot of interesting points to make, but concludes by saying that "we also need to overcome long habit and remind ourselves that not every enemy is in fact a threat to our existence." I don't think the Neoconservatives agree with that perspective.

My own view, since 9/11 itself has always been that yes we have grossly overreacted to the events of 9/11.

I remember the first time I heard the words "America is under attack" and "This changes everything" feeling that the sentiment of those words was completely out of proportion to the actual events of 9/11. I was in Washington, D.C. at the time and had just walked back from staring at the burning Pentagon and had been sitting in a Senate hearing room at 10:00 a.m. Yes, I knew and believed that there should be a significant response to the attacks, and I even knew then on that very day (morning) that the Neoconservatives would likely use the attacks as an excuse to invade Iraq and depose Saddam Hussein, but I also knew that all of this would likely be a gross overreaction to the actual events themselves.

I feel that the Neoconservatives and the rest of the so-called Pro-Israel Lobby were in fact the worst hijackers on that day, hijacking U.S. foreign policy and putting the lives at many, many American citizens at risk for their own political agenda. Face it, more U.S. troops have already died, not to mention the many thousands more who have been maimed for life, as a direct result of the incredibly misguided invasion of Iraq that was improperly linked to both the events of 9/11 and the whole, overall, equally misguided "War on Terror" than the total deaths and injuries on 9/11 itself. The war in Iraq and the whole so-called "War on Terror" is a truly gross overreaction to the actual attacks of 9/11.

Yes, the attacks of 9/11 were in fact quite bad, but the response has been far worse.

-- Jack Krupansky