VOA News: Carolyn Presutti- 'Memorial Service in New York Honors Victims of 9/11 Attacks'

Source:VOA News- a woman being interviewed for this piece.

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From Wikipedia 

"Ten years ago, the United States homeland came under attack. Islamic terrorists flew hijacked passenger planes into the two World Trade Center towers in New York and another into the Pentagon outside of Washington. A fourth plane crashed in Pennsylvania.  Sunday, family members attended a 10-year anniversary memorial service, where they were the first to tour the 6.5-hectare site on the original World Trade Center location.  VOA's Carolyn Presutti reports." 

From VOA News

I guess most like Americans when I heard about the terrorists attack on 9/11 2001, I was shocked and was wondering how this could happen to us. We are such a huge rich country in between two huge oceans, how could we be attacked like this by anyone? Then I heard how we were attacked not by bombs or missiles or tanks or guns but by hijacked planes that were hijacked to be used as weapons to crash into large buildings, with no regard for the passengers on the plane. Who were just trying to get from one place to another and not a threat to anyone or the people in the buildings. Who were guilty of nothing other than going to work that day. As well as no regard for the family and friends of these victims who lost their love ones. 

Then I went from shocked to pissed off, who did this and how and where are they. And lets go get them, for revenge, sure but also so they couldn't attack us or other innocent people again. Similar to the Pearl Harbor attack in 1941, we responded to that attack very effectively as we responded to the 9/11 attacks very effectively as well.

I don't say this proudly but perhaps the only time I ever felt proud of President George W Bush and saw him as President of the United States. And not just President of the red states and how he reacted to when he first got the info about the 9/11 attacks with that angry look on his face. And how he addressed the construction workers in New York City on the site of where the attacks were where one of them was speaking to the audience and others were yelling and interrupting. And President Bush said something to the effect: "we hear you, the world hear's you and soon the people who knocked down these buildings down will hear you as well. 

It's not an accident that President Bush had approval ratings in the 80s shortly after 9/11, because there was this feeling that he was trying to unite a divided country. 

 I wrote a blog post about the War in Afghanistan yesterday, I supported that war, we were attacked and Afghanistan was harboring some of the terrorists responsible for these attacks. We were more within our rights to go in there and take those terrorists out and if the Taliban Regime got in our way. We were more than with our right to take them out as well and we knocked them out of power. NATO backed our War in Afghanistan and have been assisting us from day one, because one of its members was attacked and the Taliban Regime was harboring some of the terrorists responsible for the attacks. 

Our original mission in Iraq in 2003 was to knock out the Hussein Regime in Iraq and remove the WMD. Mission Accomplished, why are we still there? The major question is America safer as a result of 9/11 and at what cost either way. We are safer in the sense that we now know what we are dealing with in Islamic terrorism. And how to prepare for it and we've taken out a lot of their assets including their leader Osama Bin Laden. 

And we now have a central authority that got off to a rough start in the Department of Homeland Security. Where they also have a Representative on the National Security Council. So we are clearly better prepared to deal with the terrorist threat but again at what cost. 

If you believe as I do that you can't have security without freedom, then you'll believe we are not safer. At least in the sense that we've subtracted some of our freedom for security. And I would argue unconstitutionally as well with parts of Patriot Act with law enforcement now being able to read our books and emails and with the warrantless wiretapping. 

Overall America has paid a heavy price for 9/11, for one thing we always have to remember it, the people who are old enough to remember it and lived through it. But also our economy we've gone through two recessions, the first one of 2001-02. We came out of that all right with the economy taking off in 2004. 

The second one of course we are still struggling to recover from, it's not called the Great Recession for nothing. We've had the worst ten years economically we've had at least since the 1970s or longer. And partially as a result have piled up a huge debt and deficit. That people born after 9/11 will have to pay back.