c. David Grim (5/11/08)
It's a bit strange to think that a car bomb could have gone off in Times Square and killed a bunch of people, and yet the plan was (apparently) foiled by attentive New Yorkers. It's been almost nine years since "the day everything changed forever", and it seems surreal that we have been living on the edge of a precipice since then. There's no real way to know how many close calls we've had in the ensuing years. But I can tell you that 9-11 truly does seem like history to me now.
I suppose this (non) event was eclipsed by the oil spill, and that makes sense to me. An environmental catastrophe of an undetermined magnitude seems so much more elemental. But the long-term damages caused by the ongoing situation are impossible to assess. It's a lot easier to see, in retrospect, what the last decade of "terrorism" has cost us.
I can't help but wonder about America's response if the latest plot would have been successful. Would there have been calls for a new wave of reprisals against Muslims? Would the Obama Administration experience intensified criticism? Or would the nation have pulled together in the face of adversity, and worked together to formulate a rational plan to confront our internal security. Somehow I doubt we'd have seen a return of those once-ubiquitous flags on every SUV on the nation's highways.
I can only hope that Obama and Co. stay on top of the security situation. I don't now khow this country would weather more chaos and crisis.
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