Remembering 9/11

It is close to 10 years since the horrible terrorist attacks on the United States. At the 10 year anniversary, many politicians and mass media will try to drum up patriotism and unity by forcing our nation to remember the reality of these brutal attacks. All of this will make me quite sad, because in my view, we have not learned the right lessons from this tragic event. Here are my views.

Box Cutters

As we all know 19 men boarded 4 different planes in Boston, MA, and then successfully hijacked all 4 planes with nothing more than box cutters. Basically way back in 2001, it was possible for 4 guys to hijack a plane with box cutters. The worst part was the plane that made it all the way to the Pentagon, which is somewhere around a 2 hour flight. The 4 hijackers were able to subdue the entire crew and all the passengers on the plane for more than 2 hours with the threat of paper cuts. The only bright spot (if you can call it that) was the plane that crashed somewhere in the Pennsylvania country side. The passengers were able to over take the plane so that it was not able to carry out the last part of its mission. Little attention or tribute is paid to the flight that crashed in Pennsylvania, but in my view, these are the true heroes of 9/11. They stood up to the box cutters.

The only true hope was for the crew of the planes to unite with the passengers, and overwhelm through sheer force the hijackers. I honestly believe that the Pentagon disaster could have been averted if everyone united. After all, we are the United States.

TSA

But instead of learning the true lesson, which is that we will unite against terrorism, our government under George W Bush decided an entirely different tact. They decided that Americans were not following enough rules. If all Americans follow enough rules then somehow we will be safer. If we take off our shoes at the airport, we are safer. If we throw away a 12 oz bottle of saline solution, we are safer. And if we turn off our iPod, we are safer. This is the wrong message to send to Americans. When faced with a threat such as the 9/11 terrorists, we as Americans need to unite and use our survival instincts and we will survive.

It gets worse, since unemployment in 2001 was rather low. So Bush had to quickly cobble together this new TSA rule-enforcing monster behemoth. I think it is safe to say that the TSA recruits at the time, were not representive of the American work force as a whole. They were the ones that could be hired quickly. That is the people that were unemployed during an economic boom. Or worse yet, working at TSA was a step up on their career ladder. Read More