On 9/11, the terrorists lost. Yes, they destroyed the Twin Towers, damaged the Pentagon and killed a lot of people. Bin Laden’s goal was to immediately destabilize us, strike terror into our hearts, and bring down our morale, as Al Qaeda had brought down the towers.

The attack didn’t immediately cause disunity and panic. It brought us together. For a moment we were united across our many divisions. We were not White or Black, Asian or Brown. Covered in ash, we became one people, one nation.

First responders didn’t stop and demand the race, religion, or immigration status of the people they rescued. We joined hands and helped each other, held each other. As Churchill said of England during World War II, this was “our finest hour!” However, if you wonder today how the Department of Homeland Security, created in reaction to 9/11, rounds up people without warrants or individual suspicion, if you question the dramatic erosion of our rights to due process, being safe in our homes and our expectation not to be stopped, searched and arrested based only on the whim of ICE and DHS agents, look no further than 9/11; the nearly unrecognizable society we have become is the poisoned fruit of the toxic seeds the terrorists sowed on 9/11.

President George W. Bush was widely mocked for telling Americans to get back to work and get back to shopping—implying that if we stopped shopping, the “Terrorists win.” Some saw this as craven capitalism having nothing to do with healing our hearts and defeating the terrorists. While the phrase might be inartful, it was wise. If we stop acting normally, we won’t return to normalcy.

When “We the People” returned to our new normal, we did a better job of not letting the terrorists win than our government did.
The government’s actions and reactions were denials of normalcy, traditions, laws and guardrails. The toxic seeds didn’t instantly spread their poison but lay dormant. Then, watered by our tears, our fears and our government’s commitment to see that it “never happened again,” sprouted policies that have eroded our freedoms and made our xenophobic impulses move from occasional to a chronic condition that has diminished our freedom and our safety.

The 9/11 attack did not instantly break us apart, but it did move us to surrender cherished freedoms without much thought. It encouraged our acceptance of previously unthinkable actions. Our surrender took six weeks till October 26, when we passed the Patriot Act—a piece of legislation too long to be read by our legislators before being passed. The Patriot Act radically changed what the government was allowed to do in the name of security. It allowed for collecting personal data without a warrant. It accepted that under exigent circumstances there might not be time to establish probable cause. It permitted government agencies to surveil, search and track us.

Knowing that the American people were hurt and angry, the government had to act. They ignored the fact that the 9/11 terrorists came from Saudi Arabia because the Saudis were allies. They needed to find where the hijackers planned and trained for their deadly mission. This turned out to be Germany and San Diego. What to do?  We had to bomb somewhere, and Antarctica didn’t seem satisfying. So, Iraq it was.

Such was the rage that we threw out our rulebook to pursue our enemy. We infiltrated Muslim communities and mosques. We often deployed undertrained and undisciplined agents who became the forerunners of today’s abusive ICE, DHS and DOJ.

Abroad, prisoners weren’t classified as prisoners and therefore not recognized as POWs to whom the Geneva Conventions applied. They were “enemy combatants,” who had no rights. Since this wasn’t a “war,” they could be held forever.

We also threw away our moral compass by allowing torture. We claimed that we didn’t torture but only performed “enhanced interrogations,” by putting our enemies into “stress positions,” and using electric shocks and denial of sleep. We deemed it OK to sexually humiliate detainees by mocking them and parading them naked in front of women. We tolerated rendition to “black sites,” where they could be held and abused out of our sight.

If you want to know how we became so inured to today’s many outrages, look no further than the haste with which we pursued the “evil doers.” Look no further to understand Trump’s constant declarations of “National Security Emergencies” than the widely held image we accepted that our danger was like a nuclear weapon hidden somewhere in a major city, and we had captured the terrorist who planted it. What would you do to save the city from nuclear destruction? Would you yell? Would you put him into a stress position? To save a city, would torture be ok? The normal temptation is to say “Yes.” But if we do, everything becomes an exigent circumstance and a national security emergency. The guardrail that had protected us is gone.

When we look at what Trump does, at the norms that have been shattered, the freedoms we have lost, we must know that 9/11 set us up to tolerate the destruction of what made us a great democracy.

The title of this article is “The Terrorist Won,” but this isn’t yet true. They are winning, but they haven’t won yet. We must remember the six weeks after 9/11 when we were strong, courageous and committed to embracing all that had made us, not perfect but great. We must remember when patriotism wasn’t centered on fear, violence and revenge but on healing and embracing each other.  I believe our “Better Angels” are now ready to inspire us if we’re ready to listen.