My SDP colleague posts below, very well, on the anniversary of the worst attack on American soil ever launched by a foreign power. I will add a meditation of my own. On the one hand, the destruction of the Twin Towers demonstrated the weakness of our enemies. To get at us, they had to hijack our own aircraft. They can't produce any of their own. They are culturally and technologically retarded.
On the other hand, the attack revealed the vulnerability of modern civilization. I continue to think that the Oklahoma City bombing was the most frightening terrorist event to date. The 9/11 attack showed brilliance on the part of the terrorists, but it also depended on a safe haven in Afghanistan and big purse that could be stored in the world banking system. Those were things that the Bush Administration could get at, and it did.
But Timothy McVeigh, with help from Terry Nichols, blew a hole in the heartland and killed 168 people. That one nutcase could do that is a sign of how vulnerable all of us are.
The thing is, neither of these events really scared us. New York City is a long way away for most Americans, and the Oklahoma City bombing still feels like one of those occasional catastrophes. Let's hope that it stays that way. If we really do get scared, everything might change.
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