Curmudgeon's Corner

9/11 Revisited

Posted by Al Campbell on May 2, 2011

U.S., Political, Quality of Life

9/11 Revisited…

Osama has been found and killed.  He was the manifestation of evil from my perspective.  The news that hit us last evening brought back the images of September 11^th, and I was saddened even as I inwardly celebrated the success of the SEAL teams and of the lengthy intelligence gathering process that led to his being found.

I found myself thinking of the twin towers and the memories of those sights on television that fateful day.  I found myself thinking of all those men and women who have given their lives and all those who have lost their loved ones since the morning of September 11^th.

I found myself wondering if this would actually negatively impact the movement Osama led or if it would simply embolden those people to even greater acts of evil.  I thought about the fact that much time had passed while we searched before Osama was found.  That wasn’t by accident; some of our purported allies in the fight against terrorism are anything but sound and trusted allies.

We are not likely done with this mess.  I suspect we will be subjected to more threats, and I suspect that the ramifications of our success in finding and eliminating this man will spread across other parts of the world.  We will reduce our forces in that part of the world because we can’t sustain everything in which we are now engaged, and because we are not accustomed to, nor willing to, endure the homeland sacrifices such as were our forbearers during World War II and then the Korean ‘Conflict’.

There can be an argument as to whether we have been successful at limiting terrorism in our homeland or if we simply have been lucky that the attempts so far were not as well orchestrated as were those of the four teams that hijacked the airliners that fateful morning.  I really wish I were more confident that we are actually in control of homeland security, but…I am not confident.

I hope that we will redouble our security efforts for we have a porous southern border that our politicians and government seem to ignore.  We have a porous northern border that seldom is even discussed in terms of terrorism even though we’ve caught people who crossed from Canada into the U.S. with terrorism in mind.

So, for the moment, there has been some closure extracted.  But only time will tell if this was merely symbolic or if it has the substance we’d hope.