Eight years ago today our morning was interrupted with the live broadcast of hijacked passenger jets flying into the World Trade Center, followed by the Trade Center’s collapse. We were all startled and frightened, in part at the unknown scope of the attacks and the exaggerated estimates of fatalities.
Eight years later it is possible to look back and indulge our inveterate tendency toward self-criticism and partisan rivalry to rehash everything we have done and not done and how that might have been done more perfectly. But it is also possible to take a step further back from the whole series of events and recognize that the terrorists who perpetrated the attacks were completely unsuccessful and we have been completely victorious.
The terrorists who died in their mission killed thousands of innocent civilians, and accomplished nothing constructive for the cause for which they believed they were fighting. If anything, the people for whom the terrorists in their delusions believed they were of service have suffered on account of the attacks, with no compensating benefit.
In the 220 years since we achieved independence from England, there has only been one foreign attack on American soil, and it was a total failure. OK, two if you count Hawaii before statehood, and three if you count the Lusitania when it was off the coast of Ireland. But those attacks did not wind up going well for the attackers either. We are the strongest and the freest nation on earth, and a handful of misguided fanatics lack the power to change that, even if they think of a clever way to kill a lot of innocent people.
Certainly a time to pause and continue to wonder why. It still doesn’t make sense and the attacks served no purpose whatsoever. Such a waste in so many ways.
booper, let’s see now. They put every single airplane over the United States on the ground and kept them there for days. They froze the American financial markets for 4 days. They proved that we are vulnerable to attacks that would traumatize and terrorize the country using tools readily available to them without having to import weapons of mass destruction. They lured us into two unpopular military events for 8 years and counting, resulting in thousands of young Americans being killed and wounded. Even though there have been no subsequent attacks on our soil, it sure looks to me like they have, indeed, “served a purpose”. Read my blog…
Well… yes and to add to The Pot Stirrer, they did achieve one of their two stated goals: Getting US troops out of their holy lands in Saudi Arabia. Which was a good idea anyway but I hate having to give Al Qaeda credit for forcing us to do that.
On the other hand it seems like Al Qaeda has shrivelled up quite a bit. We sure don’t need to be sending troops into Afghanistan on account of them any more.