Judging by public reaction to events of the past decade compared with those of the last couple weeks, I suspect I’m a lot like most Americans: I was OK with the U.S. invading Afghanistan and Iraq for the better part of a decade. Anything to keep us safe. Holding hundreds in Guantánamo for years without charges, even torturing many of them? No one said war is pretty. Bombing campaigns which regularly kill women and children in northwest Pakistan? Well, al-Qaeda’s hiding in there somewhere. Asserting unprecedented powers to spy on, detain, and in some cases even kill U.S. citizens without judicial oversight? Whatever it takes to prevent another 9/11. But not letting me on a plane until I walk through a machine that creates a sort of naked image of me? No freedom-loving American can stand for that.
