Timothy Garton Ash on the new US heroes after 9/11

The "war on terror" is no longer the way forward for the US, but Obama's new job creation initiative could be, historian and commentator Timothy Garton Ash writes in the left-liberal daily La Repubblica: "[The cost of counter-terrorist action] could rise to as much as 4.4 trillion dollars. ... This amounts to something like a quarter of the US's soaring national debt. ... It's not just a matter of how much investment in human resources, skilled jobs, infrastructure and innovation the US could have bought for 4 trillion dollars. ... Above all, it's the opportunity cost in terms of national focus, energy and imagination. If you want to understand a country, ask who its heroes are. In this decade, the US has had two kinds of hero. One kind is the businessman-innovator: Steve Jobs, Bill Gates. The other is the warrior: the marine, the Navy Seal, the firefighters. ... What president Barack Obama [said] this week in his special address to Congress about job creation will be more important to them than even the most eloquent words he might muster when he speaks in Washington ... on the September 11 anniversary this Sunday. Honour to those warriors, but the heroes America needs now are the heroes of job creation."

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