Journalist murders remind America of terrorist threat
- By Mitchell Blatt
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E-mail China.org.cn, September 10, 2014
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A video clip released by the Islamic State showing the last moment of U.S. journalist James Foley before he was killed by IS. [CNTV] |
I was in class in middle school when there was an announcement over the loudspeaker that airplanes had struck the World Trade Center towers in New York. The principal used delicate language when addressing the students, but I knew it was an attack. Commercial airline pilots don't hit skyscrapers by accident. The rest of the day was surreal. Rumors circulated that a hijacked plane was heading towards my hometown, Cleveland, Ohio, but it turned out to be a false alarm. Even after watching the images on TV when I got home from school, the magnitude of the attacks was hard to comprehend.
It was like life stood still for the next week. All news was 9/11 all the time. The National Football League and Major League Baseball canceled all sporting events that week. I went to the Cleveland Browns game the next weekend. I remember the patriotic songs they played all throughout the game. "I'm proud to be an American, where at least I know I'm free…" Lee Greenwood's song became familiar at sporting events and was inserted into the seventh inning stretch at baseball games. Using the restroom, I could hear the guy next to me saying we were going to get bin Laden.
If seeing 3,000 of our fellow countrymen murdered in broad daylight and landmarks of New York City's skyline disappeared from the sky wasn't enough, the rest of the year featured anthrax letters and an attempted shoe bombing by Richard Reid. "Panic" might not be the right word -- the threat posed by international terrorist organizations was real -- but there were major changes made to people's lives that seem unnecessary in today's light. A school field trip to Washington, DC was canceled. Many Americans weren't traveling anywhere, let alone to the capital.
Now, thirteen years after, the weight of the attacks has been fading for Americans. Much of the public is tired after years of war and tightened security procedures at airports. Yet the attacks left a lasting legacy on American politics and a feeling that will not soon leave. If we needed a reminder that radical theocratic terrorism remains a problem that can't be ignored, ISIS provided it with their surge through Iraq and the murder of two American journalists and thousands of Syrians and Iraqis.
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