9/11

Do you remember where you were and what you were doing when you heard about the attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001?

I was on a highway off ramp about three miles from my office. The ramp was packed with cars, waiting for the light to turn green, and I was switching channels, trying to find a music station that hadn’t gone to commercial. All of a sudden I hit a news broadcast about a plane having just flown into one of the towers of the World Trade Center. Illogically, I thought it was some sort of hoax at first, like The War of the Worlds radio broadcast that improbably fooled thousands of people into thinking Earth was under attack by Martians. But that was just me in a state of shock. And then I thought–as most did at that stage–that it was a horrible accident, that something had gone wrong with the plane, causing it to go out of control and crash into one of towers.

By the time I made it to my desk, about 15 minutes later (parking where I was working then was murder), everyone was glued to what news websites they could get to (most were overwhelmed). I managed to get to the BBC’s site and soon had several people in my cube, watching the BBC coverage over my shoulder. We were all in shock, some of us were crying. It was terrifying.

The company announced over the PA and in email that if anyone needed to go home, especially if they had family in New York City, they could go. We were also told we could spend our time trying to get news about what happened. I don’t think I got any work done that day. The company I was working at back then had people in the World Trade Center, and kept us all updated with any news of the fate of company personnel.

I listened to the news on the radio all the way home and immediately turned on the TV when I got home and watched the news until late. The next few days were more of the same.

Other than the attack itself, the thing that moved me to tears was the reaction of other nations. When they played our national anthem after their own in London, and the Prime Minister made a speech about solidarity, I just sort of lost it. In other countries, it was the same. This was something humanity could empathize with. It wasn’t a war with soldiers getting killed in the line of duty–something they’d trained for–it was civilians, going about their daily business in an office building, or flying from one place to another. And horrifyingly, the people who did it sincerely believed God wanted them to do it and would reward them in heaven for murdering all those people, from so many nations.

I look back on it now, nine years on, and wonder what the years that followed the attack would have been like had it never happened. No war in Afghanistan, certainly. The war in Iraq might have happened. President Bush seemed determined to find an excuse to send troops in; trumping up an Al Qaeda connection just made the sell that much easier for him. The Administration wouldn’t have had as much ammunition to do the things it got away with, like wire tapping civilians without warrants. On the flip side, President Bush’s claim that he kept America safe from terrorist attacks (9/11 happened on his watch) would have held more water. Of course, it’s possible he might not have won a second term, either.

The fact is, the terrorists failed to achieve their goal: The United States was not brought to its knees. Our culture was not destroyed. American did not fall. They poked the dragon, and the dragon poked back. Unfortunately, it also thrashed around and hurt itself and others in the process.

We’ll never know how America or the world would have been different if the 9/11 attacks hadn’t happened. The only certainty is that the families who lost loved ones might still have them with them, and Americans would not have had to live in a culture of fear for the rest of the decade.