Today marks the 5th year anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center.
First, some reflection. I was working at Borders that day and everything was fairly normal. We got a call from one of our employees that a plane flew into the one of the towers of the World Trade Center. I believe, if I recall correctly, that I took either that call and/or the second call. I for one, and I think the others there were of similar thought, that it wasn’t too surprising, after all that sort of accident was bound to happen sooner or later. Of course we didn’t know at the time it was an act of terrorism, and I for one was figuring it was just a small plane not a passenger jet. Soon after we she called again and said another plane crashed into the other tower. At this point we knew something was up and I went into the break room to try and get a picture in on the TV. The sceene was devastating. The two towers were aflame and people were stuck on the top floors. I don’t recall if we turned the big TV on that we had out in the main room soon after this or after the towers fell… By the time the towers fell, our customer count was essentially zero and everyone was more interested in going home with their family and watch the events unfold. My thoughts turned not only to the victims that we saw, but also curiosity about the Borders at the World Trade Center, how were my fellow employees there. (We learned later that most of them were not there yet, and that those that were got out safely. The store ended up being a total loss as one would expect.)
We soon attacked back at al Qaeda, freeing a country in the meantime. In the five years since, we have massively destroyed their infrastructure and captured many key leaders, though Osama bin Laden himself remains free. Not long after that, we made what was an essentially unrelated attack on Iraq. While the attack on Iraq was part of the global campaign against terror, it wasn’t related to the attacks 5 years ago today, regardless of what the left leaning mass media and far left wing radicals like Michael Moore would have us believe (see this and this just for starts). While many seem to think that the war in Iraq is the worst fallout as a result of the War on Terror, I would have to say the worst fallout is the attack on American’s Liberty by our own government and the Patriot Act. This isn’t a post about the war in Iraq and the like, so I’ll move on.
Soon came the conspiracy theories. The most interesting of which is Loose Change (you can watch the very interesting video for free there). While interesting, it takes a bit of stretch, even for a fan of conspiracy theory fan such as myself, to believe everything in this one. It is well worth watching though.
Five years on and the movies and TV movies roll out. The ones about the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania were probably okay, and I would have to guess the World Trade Center movie itself was okay, but the recent highly fictionalized TV movie account seemed in poor taste in my opinion.
Of course now the mass media continues to play up the terror. In No let-up in terrorist risk 5 years after Sept 11, typical of the kind of coverage we’ll be seeing today, we see the following quote. “I certainly don’t think we’re any safer, put it that way.” I have to disagree, the odds of being killed by a terrorist here in the United States is smaller. Is it much smaller? Perhaps not, but even then the odds were more likely of dying by a bee attack, lightning or meteor strike, and are even more so now. We are safe, and don’t need all the stuff our government is doing to our individual liberty to keep us safe.
This month’s Cato Unbound explores “9/11 Five Years After: Reassessing the Terrorist Threat and Homeland Security.” The lead essay, Some Reflections on What, if Anything, “Are We Safer?” Might Mean, is up now, and while I haven’t read it yet, should prove to be interesting reading. It will be really interesting to read the reaction essays that they put up. While recommending Cato publications, they also have a short article, It’s Not Another World War that was a good read.
Well, that is probably enough 9/11 reflection for me today… at least for the moment unless something on the Internet or TV gets me going.