UG, I disagree.
Although 9/11 was tragic, and killed a lot of people in a manner that is very rare in America (hostile, dramatic, large-scale, and relatively sudden), people here die all the time to other causes. <A href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8792158/">Some 42,636 people died on the nation’s highways in 2004</a>.
What has been oppressive, however, are the actions afterwards. The PATRIOT Act is a very clear-cut case of oppressive legislation, threatening as it does freedom of speech, of the press, & simple privacy. There are other, more debatable examples: Iraq. (I have done no research.)
Oppression in my mind is something more omnipresent than one Tuesday morning. A regime, a way of life. A single act of terrorism is oppressive only if its shock value is milked for fear and, in turn, one allows him or herself to be oppressed & controlled by it--to <i>live</i> in fear of it. One is, I believe, still under the control of someone else if, regardless of how long after the fact, they act only for revenge & retribution.
The best way to fight terrorism is not to be afraid: to continue to live.