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Best story about how the war on terrorism, er, struggle against extremism has affected your life

Suspect thy neighbor

Not since the Red-baiting heyday of the Cold War have Americans been encouraged to participate in such a communal state of distrust. With admonitions from government officials, and signs posted everywhere crowds gather charging us to be diligent for signs of suspicion, we enter the public arena with a lost innocence, a reduced collegiality and an uncontrollable tendency, as a people, to look askew at foreigners or just freaky-looking people in our midst. This loss is a burden we all share, and one whose collective toll multiplies with every distrustful glance.

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"Coming back from South America with a bunch of pain killers. I decided to ditch them on the plane, and then got `randomly` searched twice in Atlanta," "former co-worker spent 4 months in jail because he had a misdemeanor on his record from high school, he was born in Iraq, and has a green card but no citizenship. It`s messed up. They locked him up for no reason, then let him out for no reason. He was out for a couple of months, then won the lotto. I guess he had a lot of good karma built up," "Friends going to fight in Iraq, wondering if they`ll come back," "I find it more difficult to criticize my friend`s racist comments about a cab driver," "I know this seems minor, but the train is always late now because of some bomb threat, particularly the red line," "My best friend lost his leg in Africa. It didn`t generate any headlines, but in June 2003 my friend was assigned to Task Force—Horn of Africa, which was opening a new front in the `War on Terror.` A B-52 went a mile off course and bombed his unit (they were the medivac unit, he`s a doctor)," "My family in Iraq now has to deal with terrorists that never existed in my former country before. Thank you, struggle against extremism, for being the bearers of extremism in an otherwise liberal Iraq," "racism I sometimes face on a daily basis because I can pass for being Muslim," "Thought better of flying with Bill Ayers` `Fugitive Days`," "Taking off my shoes at airports: I don`t wear socks with holes anymore."

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