Twenty years of terror

FEE's Dan Sanchez writes, "The US government exploited that 'mandate' to the hilt, waging a 'Global War on Terror' that destroyed the lives of hundreds of thousands abroad and trampled the liberties of millions at home, only to finally begin to wind down twenty years later in disaster and disgrace.

But the damage encompassed even more than that.

“Oh mijo, they attacked us,” she said over the phone.

I didn’t know what she was talking about, but those three words—”they attacked us”—were clear enough to trigger an instinctual response of dread.https://t.co/qX6p6B8waR — Jon Miltimore (@miltimore79) September 12, 2021

The Global War on Terror set the standard for crisis response for the next twenty years. Every time the public is retraumatized by a new scare (like the financial crisis of 2008 or the COVID crisis we’re living through now), it responds by flocking in terror to the arms of the government.

Indeed, as Robert Higgs showed in his book Crisis and Leviathan: Critical Episodes in the Growth of American Government, history demonstrates that it is not just war that feeds the state, but any sufficiently big and scary crisis.

That is why governments are so eager to instigate, exacerbate, and perpetuate wars and crises."

Read the entire column.