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A review by glowe2
Reign of Terror: How the 9/11 Era Destabilized America and Produced Trump by Spencer Ackerman
challenging
informative
reflective
medium-paced
3.0
The author argues that the response to the 9/11 attacks allowed Americans to persecute Muslims and people from Arabic countries without regard to human rights or due process. The pressure to monitor external hate groups resulted in both the Republican and Democratic party leaders allowing the further development of a surveillance state that grew to encompass both suspected terrorists and the American public. He believes the breakdown of civil liberties and release of racial hatred ultimately leads to the Trump presidency and the continuation of the Forever War on Terror.
The book is critical of both political parties - Bush for skirting laws using 9/11 as an excuse, Obama for believing the security state abuses could be contained by implementing legal controls, Trump for trying to use the intelligence agencies to advance his political career and finally all of them for making excuses for the abuses that occurred under their administrations.
The book is interesting to read and you quickly see how easily humans will take advantage of situations to act like barbarians while justifying their behavior to others as being "necessary". However, the book tends to skim important subjects like can democracy and security co-exist that probably should have been expanded further. The author acknowledges this in an appendix that he felt torn between multiple stories and he decided to concentrate on the racial hatred that 9/11 unleashed.
The book is critical of both political parties - Bush for skirting laws using 9/11 as an excuse, Obama for believing the security state abuses could be contained by implementing legal controls, Trump for trying to use the intelligence agencies to advance his political career and finally all of them for making excuses for the abuses that occurred under their administrations.
The book is interesting to read and you quickly see how easily humans will take advantage of situations to act like barbarians while justifying their behavior to others as being "necessary". However, the book tends to skim important subjects like can democracy and security co-exist that probably should have been expanded further. The author acknowledges this in an appendix that he felt torn between multiple stories and he decided to concentrate on the racial hatred that 9/11 unleashed.