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Remembering 9/11: What did America learn?

By Christopher Curran
Posted 9/14/16

Like most Americans, I remember exactly where I was and what I was doing when the United States was attacked on Sept. 11, 2001. Unlike the bombing of Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, on that crystal clear beautiful morning 15 years ago there was not a

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Remembering 9/11: What did America learn?

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Like most Americans, I remember exactly where I was and what I was doing when the United States was attacked on Sept. 11, 2001. Unlike the bombing of Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, on that crystal clear beautiful morning 15 years ago there was not a looming world war that many Americans thought we were destined to enter. To most of us, terrorism was something that occurred in the Middle East or in Africa. We read about incidents that were in the third or fourth sections of major newspapers with names of places we vaguely recognized as the epicenters of global unrest.

We did suffer terrorist attacks at home prior to 9/11, in the parking garage of the World Trade Center in New York City in 1993 and at the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995. Yet, our government still did not make sufficient changes in our protectiveness to safeguard America from future attacks.

However, the soldiers of religious fanaticism and unabridged hatred were incubating plans of devilment targeting America for some time.

Perhaps more importantly, why were we the targets of such malice and destruction by radical religious jihadists on 9/11?

Our response as a country united in tragedy was varied and steadfast. Many first responders showed outstanding gallantry and imperiled themselves to save their fellow Americans. Our government implemented many policies that were beneficial and also made many severe and costly mistakes.

The optics engrained in our minds of the collapsing of the World Trade Center towers, the scorching of the field in Pennsylvania where courageous passengers thwarted an attack on the capital, and the burning of the Pentagon will never fade in our collective memories. We were forever changed. So on this anniversary of arguably the worst attack on American soil in history since either the War of 1812 or the American Revolution, let us reflect on how we are different. Are we sufficiently vigilant and can a similar attack of that magnitude ever happen again? Simply, what have we learned from 9/11 15 years later?

The shock of 9/11 reverberated around the world. But in our country, the heinous events erased our sense of security and safety.

We learned that we as a nation had been too lax and too complacent in our degree of vigilance. We had not reacted adequately when the parking garage in the World Trade Center had been bombed in 1993. In that terrorist attack, a truck bomb stocked with urea-nitrate-hydrogen explosive combination destroyed an extensive amount of the understructure and killed six and injured over one thousand innocent people. Six terrorists were convicted in United States courts and sentenced with criminal penalties, not as enemy combatants.

However, there were signs of our nation being in the crosshairs of organized terrorism before that despicable act. An Egyptian Army officer, Emad Salem, was working with the FBI in 1992 and together they were able to determine the eventual perpetrators long before the actual attack several months later. The FBI suspected the assailants were gathering explosive material but were constitutionally constrained from acting upon the information. Because the law enforcement paradigm at the time was one of crime and punishment and not potential terrorism by enemy combatants, which should be treated as a possible act of war, the FBI was hamstrung. That attitude was dramatically changed after 9/11.

Further, when domestic terrorists Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, with the assistance of Michael and Lori Fortier, used a truck bomb crammed with ammonium nitrate fertilizer to explode the Alfred Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, 168 people were killed, of which 19 were children. More than 800 people were injured. The vulnerable state of our federal buildings was improved after this tragedy, but not as much as needed to thwart the forthcoming attacks we would endure later.

Besides these terrible wake up calls to our vulnerability, our U.S. embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and Nairobi, Kenya had been attacked by Al-Qaeda. Still Americans were not acutely aware that they were being threatened until the catastrophic events of 9/11.

We were rocked out of our mistaken feeling of security that pristine September morning when the terrorist organization Al-Qaeda led by the religious zealot Osama bin Laden orchestrated coordinated attacks on the Twin Towers, the Pentagon, and the White House by the hijacking of passenger jetliners in an attempt to demoralize America. The intended attack on the White House was foiled by courageous passengers who challenged the terrorists, which resulted in the plane being downed in a field in Pennsylvania. In New York, the finest and bravest firemen and policemen rushed at great personal risk into the ground zero area to save their fellow citizens. Many lost their lives, many were injured, and many were exposed to toxins that would jeopardize their health later on.

Medical professionals worked around the clock for weeks to attend to the massive amount of casualties. First responders from all over the Northeast contributed men and equipment to assist their New York brothers and sisters in service.

Consequently, the indecent acts of terrorist venom which sought to divide and devastate our society made us more united.

However, our society was changed greatly in order to preserve our safety and sovereignty. President George W. Bush’s administration formed the Department of Homeland Security. The idea was to better coordinate information between agencies and to form a system of threat evaluation that could appropriately warn the public of impending attacks. Air travel became tedious and complicated. To prohibit weapons from getting on planes, intrusive screening became the norm. No-fly lists delineated who might be a threat. Federal properties were barricaded to prevent vehicle bombs. Also, the Patriot Act gave constitutionally questionable powers to law enforcement to detect potential acts of terrorism. And “GITMO” was built in Cuba in order to detain those suspected terrorists without a due process of law.

What did America learn from 9/11? We learned we need to continue to support our fellow citizens in times of crisis, we need to always stay vigilant, and we need to never forget that certain people hate us because of who we are – free Americans who believe in religious pluralism. 9/11 taught us many lessons we should never forget!

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  • Justanidiot

    911 was an US government run operation.. Its goal was to strip away individual rights and to feed the defense industry.

    Thursday, September 15, 2016 Report this

  • Straightnnarrow

    SHHHH!!

    CC would not want to hear about paranoia-inspired conspiracy theories while his favorite, John Kasich (son of postman) is in Washington ironing out TPP passage with BO. He can only bear smooth words!

    Friday, September 16, 2016 Report this