A year on, amid the elegies for the dead and the ceremonies of remembrance, there are the impertinent questions: Is there really a war on terror; and if one is indeed being waged, how's it going?
The Taliban are out of power, and Afghan peasants are free to grow opium poppies again. The military budget is up. The bluster war on Iraq is at full volume. On the home front, the war on the Bill of Rights is at full tilt, though getting less popular with each day as judges thunder their indignation at the unconstitutional dictates of Attorney General John Ashcroft, a man not high in public esteem.
On this latter point we can turn to Merle Haggard, the bard of blue collar America, the man who saluted the American flag more than a generation ago in songs such as "The Fighting Side of Me" and "Okie from Muskogee." Haggard addressed a concert crowd in Kansas City, Mo., a few days ago in the following terms: "I think we should give John Ashcroft a big hand ... (pause) ... right in the mouth!" He went on to say, 'the way things are going, I'll probably be thrown in jail tomorrow for saying that, so I hope ya'll will bail me out."