Americans are looking back on the horror and legacy of 9/11, gathering Monday at memorials, firehouses, city halls and elsewhere to observe the 22nd anniversary of the deadliest terror attack on U.S. soil.
Commemorations stretch from the attack sites — at New York’s World Trade Center, the Pentagon and Shanksville, Pennsylvania — to Alaska and beyond. President Joe Biden is due at a ceremony on a military base in Anchorage.
His visit, en route to Washington, D.C., from a trip to India and Vietnam, is a reminder that the impact of 9/11 was felt in every corner of the nation, however remote. The hijacked plane attacks claimed nearly 3,000 lives and reshaped American foreign policy and domestic fears.
You do know terrorism is more than just a mass death -situation? You DO know that right? Please say you do. Also please say it isn’t normal for you to destruct complex issues into simple black and white matters for them to be examined out of context. You’re too old for that kinda stuff and I would expect better from someone with that many years under their belt, even though you seem to lack any hint of empathy towards anyone
The deaths from COVID are higher in number, but have had less of a societal shift (although it probably should have resulted in one). There were all the days afterward where we all expected to be attacked again at any time. People were absolutely terrified. That took a huge psychic toll on the nation. People were literally getting PTSD because they expected Bin Laden to attack again and maybe with a dirty bomb this time. The government pushed through the Patriot Act with almost unanimous consent. And suddenly, we were at war in Afghanistan and 200,000 people were killed in that war.
9/11, as they say, changed everything. And that isn’t literally true, but things seriously changed in the U.S. and not for the better.