Democracy has put together an excellent symposium on the impact of 9/11. Corey Robin distills what we've learned about the role of fear in our politics. Lawrence Korb thinks our overreaction "decimated" the U.S. military:
From 2005 through 2008, the Army could not achieve its goal of ensuring that 90 percent of its new enlistees were so-called Tier I recruits (those with high school diplomas and who scored at least average on the Armed Forces Qualification Test). The Army compounded the problem by issuing 80,000 of what it called moral waivers between 2005 and 2008. These waivers allowed individuals with criminal convictions and even felonies to enlist.
Finally, repeated tours to combat zones without sufficient dwell time, or time between deployments, also took a toll on the individual men and women serving and their families. Close to 500,000 soldiers have developed mental problems, and divorce and suicide rates have skyrocketed.
Full symposium here.
The Dish 