9/11: Eleven Years Ahead…Looking Back, Locking Down and Heroes No More

Twin Towers Memorial

It’s been a long eleven years since that tragedies of 9/11/2001. The United States has changed, and the world changed as well. The United States employed stringent security at airports nationwide and tightened its borders. Analysts and officers were employed by the FBI and other government agencies to crack down on terrorists within and outside the U.S. borders. Federal agencies were employed to scour the internet for terrorist cells. The United States armed forces finally eliminated their major threat, Osama Bin Laden, but possibly at the expense of other countries’ well-being. After four or five years of peace, again turmoil rears its ugly head. Worldwide economic downfall bit hard everywhere forcing federal and state law enforcement agencies to cut back. No more actively hunting terrorists unless they posed a major threat somewhat immediately. Now what’s brewing are homegrown terrorists once again, and with the distractions from the upsurge of street violence in many cities, law enforcement is spread quite thin.

The $700 million project of the National Sept. 11 Memorial and Museum at the World Trade Center in New York is projected to be completed in 2014, and it has attracted 4.5 million visitors within its first year. However, the economy is stifling. Although the completion of the project can and will stimulate the economy, the project’s feasibility may be difficult as government agencies tighten their belts. The project may have to rely on more private donations in due time. Unfortunately, as most of us would be more than willing to contribute, the ability to contribute may be a different matter, and most of us are not billionaires with lots of disposable income.

The Zadroga Act, named after NYPD Detective James Zadroga who died after working ground zero at the age of 34, was signed into law nearly two years to compensate the hundreds of rescue workers and people at ground zero on September 11, 2011. With the recent addition of cancer to the illnesses from working at ground zero, the $2.77 billion government fund will be reduced per sickened first responder. However, as of today, none of the sickened workers have yet to see this money. And with nearly 400 residents and rescue workers having already died from cancer since September 11, the news is a bit hard to bear for these people that gave their soul to rescue lives that fateful day. Now these heroes are paying with their own lives…

Overall, the United States has become somewhat safer, but the government agencies are still disorganized. We can have someone enter JFK airport via water without anyone stopping them. Yet the TSA is more than willing to strip-search grandmothers and young children. This is a bit contradictory and dangerous for the well-being of Americans. The economy is in malaise worldwide at this point and so are a lot of Americans. Xenophobia doesn’t benefit anybody. Paranoia doesn’t benefit anybody. And politics just falls incredibly short.