American Zeitgeist

Before the United States entered the crossfire of war and nation-building in Afghanistan and Iraq, and suicide bombs poured flames across the skylines of London, Beslan, Madrid, Istanbul, Bali and downtown Manhattan, there was an optimistic moment at the turn of the millennium, when almost anything seemed possible. But with the War on Terrorism entering its sixth year, that pre-9/11 spirit already seems a long way behind us. As public relations disasters like the Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo Bay prison scandals roil throughout the Muslim world, images of the kidnapping and execution of Americans and civilian contractors by a committed insurgency offer chilling evidence of the hatred provoked by U.S. foreign policy in recent years. American soldiers—and twenty times the number of Iraqis—are dying every week in lands where they are seen as occupiers. Meanwhile, only the barest roots of democracy have taken hold in the rattled capitals of Baghdad and Kabul. With instability looming across a swath of territories in the Middle East, and Al Qaeda vowing to attack America at home again, an alarming amount remains unclear about the extent of the dangers we are facing. Rumors of Osama bin Laden’s imminent death or capture waft intermittently through the media, while fear of intifada-style attacks are an unspoken tension on subways in every major city. In one of the most divided periods in U.S. history, questions of American empire and unilateralism are being levied abroad by friend and foe alike through the splintered lens of the War on Terrorism. What began as a widely supported effort to protect American lives has led us to an uncertain crossroads, more alone now than we have ever been. American Zeitgeist explores the underlying fractures of the War on Terrorism, considering how what America is, what it does and what it represents have become the most explosive questions on the world stage since September 11th.