Ten years on, the rubble from the terrorist onslaught has been removed - replaced, as such things always seems to be, by opportunistic tourist stalls as well as genuine tributes.
The smoke from smoldering ruins of great American landmarks has lifted - but little, if anything, is clear.
No one event has challenged or changed our very civilization like the hate-fueled hijackings of Sept. 11, 2001, and some effects are still being felt while others are only now being discovered.
Before 9/11, we could meet loved ones at the airport gate as they raced down the boarding ramp and into our arms. The terrorists took that away.
After 9/11, we still have our cherished freedom of movement, but it has been tarnished by knee-jerk attempts to impose a sense of security on a weary population. The very young and the very old are humiliated by intense screenings at the hands of an agency that has yet to prove its worth, while those who would actually harm our country can get as far as boarding an airplane with explosives tucked into their shoes and underwear.
Before 9/11, it would be unthinkable that torture abroad and a widespread invasion of privacy at home would be official policy of the United States government.
After 9/11, we are forced to concede that our present existence may rely on those very decisions - but we'll never really know for sure.
Before 9/11, wars were fought for reasons both noble and crude.
After 9/11, that hasn't changed, but the reaction to 9/11 has added a monstrously complex shadow government and secret businesses that flourish even as the rest of us labor in the light and wallow in the aftermath of recession - with another looming. Politicians insist that it's not the role of government to create jobs, but untold thousands are profiting from a culture of private warfare.
The terrorists are the ones who put us in this position, but our leaders have much to answer for.
Before 9/11, we could question our leaders about these things and demand the answers they didn't want to give us.
After 9/11, the terrorists have not taken this away - the rise of the vocal and influential tea party movement is evidence of that - but they have given the people we put into power new layers of excuses to hide behind vague notions of national security, eluding the accountability they owe us.
Before 9/11, we didn't really know our Muslim neighbors, nor the very different Sikh community that suffered the loss of one of its own in misguided retribution when Mesa gas station owner Balbir Singh Sodhi was gunned down simply because he wore a turban.
After 9/11, Singh Sodhi's survivors still live and work in the community where he died, fighting the ignorance that killed him. And the Valley's peaceful Muslim population is more visible and engaged than ever - a vibrant example of America's rich diversity and an unbowed spirit we need to see more often.
Before 9/11, the United States of America was the greatest country in the world - militarily, economically and culturally.
After 9/11, the one thing that's clear is those promises remain - and that we must fight if we want to keep them.
Leon Ceniceros posted at 8:07 am on Sun, Sep 11, 2011.
Yes, we are not the same America after 9/11 that we were before 9/11.
The same thing happened on December 7th, 1941, the Day of the Pearl Harbor Attack. The Liberals forget that. Americans back then were "forced" to endure "Black Outs", "Food Rationing", "Gasoline Rationing", "Flour and Sugar Rationing", "Travel Restrictions", "Identity Document Requirements at all times", "Telephone calls and letters and packages were inspected if suspicious". There was Internment of our Japanese-Americans not because of their ethnicity but because their safety in their community, in their neighborhoods was endangered as tens and tens of thousands of American Soldiers, Sailors, Marines and Airmen were killed fighting Japanese Military Forces. Many Japanese worked in the Fishing Industry near harbors and Naval Installations where spying was occuring. Many Japanese worked in the produce industry where irrigation and food contamination was suspect. Liberals forget these "hard facts" and instead focus on "individual liberties and rights". This was "uncharted territory" in the running of America. Did we do thing right ....were we humane in the treatment of these American citizens of Japanese descent...the answer is ...NO. Were there still biases and discrimination the answer is...YES. The same as it was in every Nation of the World at that Time.
Americans forget that the first..."SUICIDE BOMBERS" were....the ..."KAMIKAZI PILOTS" of the Imperial Japanese Navy. They committed suicide as they flew their airplanes into US Navy ships in the Pacific and killed thousands and thousands of American Military.
As for torture as a means of intelligence, we did it in World War II and so did the British and the Free-French. It was just covered up better.
I HATE GOING THROUGH AIRPORT SECURITY TOO. BUT WOULD I RATHER HAVE AN AMERICAN TSA AGENT RUN HIS/HER HANDS OVER MY BIG FAT BODY OR GO THROUGH AN X-RAY OR WHATEVER.....THE ANSWER IS A BIG FAT................YES.
BETTER THAT THAN TO HAVE SOME FOREIGN OR HOME-GROWN TERRORISTS BLOW MY BIG FAT BODY UP INTO A MILLION PIECES AT 39,000 FEET OVER BLYTHE, CA OR TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCES, NM.
DO I FEEL VIOLATED YES...BUT FROM THE PEOPLE WHO CAUSED 9/11, THE PENTAGON ATTACK AND THE SAD FATE OF UNITED 93.
AMERICA ISN'T TO BLAME FOR OUR WORLD....THE TALIBAN AND AL-QUEDA ARE.
Arizona Willie posted at 9:37 am on Mon, Sep 12, 2011.
Actually Leon, the Japanese Americans WERE interned because of their nationality / race. And their properties were seized. Their homes and businesses were taken --- and never returned. It was < assumed > they were collaborators / spies and they had no opportunity to prove otherwise. How do you prove you're NOT a spy?
Yes, we did eventually have units of Japanese soldiers but they were segregated and not allowed in units of Americans.
And Obama says the terrorist failed we are not afraid.
OH YES WE ARE AFRAID.
The terrorists succeeded in making us change our way of life.
You can't even go to a courthouse without having to go through metal detectors. And to get on a plane you have to get x-rayed and take your shoes off and get your crotch groped.
I'd call that being VERY afraid.
We should simply announce that we will trace any terrorist activity to the country of origin of it's perpetrators and nuke it out of existence.
Then resume our previous way of life.
We are so afraid of having a hundred or so people killed on an airplane that we have destroyed the American spirit.
We need to close a lot of overseas bases and bring our troops home and station them on OUR border instead of some other countries borders and seal the border. Over 600 people from the Middle East have been caught coming across our southern border and that's ONLY the one's we CAUGHT.
Dale Whiting posted at 5:27 pm on Tue, Sep 13, 2011.
On December 7, 1941 we were attacked in Hawaii [US soil] and in the Philipines [foreign soil we were occuplying] by Japan, an ally of Germany and Italy, primarily because we will unwilling to let them expand their sphere of influence in the east Pacific. In effect we were treating the Japanese Empire as if it was a second class nation. Clearly it was not. We wanted to dominate the Pacific.
On September 11, 2001 we were attacked in Washington, D.C. and in lower Manhattan but not by a nation or even by a religious movement, but by those who as members of a religious movement used it for cover and as a recruiting tool. They too were displeased by our domination of the lands they treasured. If you have not been there and talked to those pro-western Muslims who are troubled about how US influence has tained other Muslims' opinions of US, you probably cannot or will not come to see the problem as the so called terrorists see it. And not until we can see ourselves as others see us, can we come to change the way we are being treated. All the missles, nuclear warheads, speers and swords in the world cannot change the opinion of those who "hate us" for what we appear to them to be.
Now in response to loosing upwards of 3,000 soles on 9-11 and perhaps an additional 6,000 killed and 60,000 wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan, we have killed or caused to be killed well over 100,000 natives in Iraq and who really knows how many in IAfghansitan, ruining the Iraqi economy and angering a great many Afghans whose only wish since Ghengis Kahn has been to be left alone.
Ron Paul has the right take on this problem. We never should have left. And the sooner we come home, the better.
The best news today is that representatives of Palestine are petitioning the UN for recognition of Palestine as a separate and independent state, just about the same way Israel did in 1948 [or was it '47 or '46?] The grounds and justification for recongnition of Palestine are the same today as existed for Israel in 1948, and likely even stronger.
Israel has a choice. Either recongnize Palestine and deal with it as an equal, or have those Arabs with Israeli citizenship, whose birth rate is higher than the European Jewish desendants in Israel, eventually come to out number non-Arab peoples and have a Muslim majority rule Israel down the road. But the current condition of Apartheid in Israel and on the West Bank and in Gaza cannot be allowed to continue.Israel has just lost its strongest Muslim national ally, Turkey, and is loosing Egypt. No way is the US going to step in to save Israel's behinds! Israel has very little oil [it;s all off shore]and the cold war ended years ago.