However, the response has been staggeringly perverse; we have had hundreds of thousands of people die (you don't even hear about the daily bombings in food markets in Iraq or Afghanistan now and that's without counting Syria, Lybia, Egypt etc.), we have Orwellian surveillance which only a few years ago would have been dismissed as crazy tin-foil hat nonsense but for the fact Edward Snowden revealed all the theories were true and things were much worse than even the tin foil hat people yelling at secret-spy-trees said. And that does not start to cover the censorship (see elsewhere on HN today for that).
The response has grown a whole industry of fear-mongering and schemes to stop crazy make-believe terrorist plots which simply defy the laws of physics (and common sense) yet no-one will tell The Emperor that he has no clothes on. Well, not anyone he is prepared to listen to. The clothes makers have become insanely rich in the process of making their wares too. What's a few dead people in far off places if you're getting rich, right ?
Meantime, US judges complain about the crazy Catch-22 goalpost moving unfairness and still people languish innocently in Guantanimo and die in what can best be described as "unclear circumstances".
A nation founded on rebellion against unfair and unjust oppression, seeking life and liberty. Indeed, the question is "America, what has happened to you ?"
But also, what has happened to all the other countries who joined in this madness and keep it going ? They have responsibility too.