Bauer and his team were bigger war criminals than the people they tortured and persecuted. I was going to say that this was created in the wake of 9/11 and, fo

Bauer and his team were bigger war criminals than the people they tortured and persecuted. I was going to say that this was created in the wake of 9/11 and, for the US, it was a sort of catharsis. But the US hasn't existed without an enemy, it appears to proactively create them. The X-Files is one of the few series I know to directly call that out, because that's been US modus operandi ever since the Brits and the Confederates stopped being an enemy. An entire episode is literally "what do we do? we have no enemies." But of course, the show continues with the invention of a new threat.