9/11 - uncommon sense
On 9/11, 2001, 2,977 people died.
Bush, who was - if anything - barely elected and a President with no mandate, siezed on 9/11 - like any President would - and went to work trying to do what he thought was appropriate as a response.
The two wars it spawned dragged on and largely helped him be re-elected. It also largely dismantled US citizen's civil liberties and rights to due process, and wreaked god only knows how much damage on the country via tax cuts for the 1%.
Those wars were predicted to top out at about 6 Trillion dollars, but that was before ISIS. Now - who knows.
The implementation of the Patriot Act was supposed to "only" cost, 1 Trillion up through 2006, but again, that's got to be a very low estimate in 2015.
Between all of this, and the endless other chicanery involved when a country goes to war, I don't think it's a stretch to say that 9/11 cost the country close to 10 Trillion dollars, if not more.
And when I say 9/11 I really mean: the reaction to 9/11.
But what of the human cost of the reaction to 9/11?
Well, as far as Americans are concerned, 6866 troops have died in Iraq and Afghanistan. Many thousands more have been wounded irreparably - including many that are homeless or who have committed suicide.
So, 9/11 killed less that half - 44% - as many people as the reaction to 9/11 has.
Have we accomplished our goals? Is Iraq no longer a "threat" to American interests? Is Afghanistan now free from the tranny of the Taliban?
Have Islamic extremists been stopped from committing brutal acts of mass terror around the world?
And now, after Paris, we are seeing the same sort of talk, the same sorts of planning to over react and curb freedoms, the same swing to the right and the same nonsensical march towards war.
Apparently we just can't be taught as a species to avoid making the same mistakes time and time again.
And btw: we lose as many Americans at the end of a gun every 33 days as we did on 9/11. We lose as many Americans to cars every 5 weeks as we did on 9/11.
Ask yourself why those deaths are totally fine, and just the cost of doing business, but 9/11 required 10 Trillion dollars, a loss of many freedoms and many thousands more human deaths. The answers aren't great, because they reflect the fragility of humanity.
Wise up folks. Sometimes the solution is worse than the problem.
= new reply since forum marked as read
Welcome to DU. 
Face it, by most rational and human basis even when only considering our own, but also when considering the full consequences, it does not measure as an appropriate response. Even in the "Machievellian" outlokk toward it the ends did not justify the means.
Even Machiavelli would have scoffed at this policy 
It feels like we not only moved back from our previous humanitarian ideas but we took a giant leap backward from the age of reason.
