Ten Years of... Terror?

Today is ten years since the September 11th plane hijackings and suicide flying. It is strange to think it has been that long. My sister wrote an article about what it means to her. So I thought I would write down my take. Basically I remember what she does, especially the golden sphere and my parents debating doing the World Trade Center or going over to the Empire State Building because it was like $20 per person for an 80 second elevator ride. I remember getting a pressed penny on the top floor because I collected those on our family vacations. I remember that overall the floor was pretty empty with few tourists compared to the Statue of Liberty earlier in the day. I also remember vividly standing at the corner of the building closest to the other WTC and it was a windy foggy day, well foggy above 900 feet. We watched the building visibly move towards and away from each other with an amplitude of perhaps 8-10 feet out of the maybe 50 feet away from each other they were. Needless to say it took a little effort just to walk to the windows and look down. We generally walked around the perimeter staying away from the windows.

Since then 1766 Americans have died in Afghanistan and 4474 Americans have died in Iraq in addition to the 2819 people killed on the day of the attack. Osama Bin Laden has been stopped. Saddam Hussein has been stopped. Interesting to note, none of the Hijackers came from Iraq or Afghanistan or Pakistan or Iran for that matter since those countries seem to get some bad publicity. We've had anthrax problems and scares. Shoe bombers, underwear bombers, and others creating terror.

Personally I think terrorists is a bad name for them. As soon as we call someone or group a terrorist, they are. They have created terror in us. Wouldn't it be more appropriate to call them insurgents or militants or rebels or misguided people raised in a life of poverty and under-education?

We are where we are.