It’s ten years since the world stopped in horror when the World Trade Center in New York suffered and unimaginable attack that destroyed billions of dollars worth of investment, and more importantly the lives of an approximate 3,000 people. Sadly of course the true numbers of deaths will never be known.
The attack was also the catalyst for two of the most destructive and expensive wars ever conducted by the USA, i.e. the incursions into both Iraq and Afghanistan. Each of those has cost untold trillions of dollars and uncounted numbers of deaths and injuries amongst combatants and non-combatants alike.
The economic, social and political fallout from the attacks and the wars is yet to be fully realised but it’s almost certain to affect the course of world history for 100 years. Whether this will be for good or ill is for history to determine, right now all that concerns me is the number of lives ruined around the world for what would appear, from the outside, would seem to be for no good reasons. Perhaps religion is sufficient cause for some, revenge might be another, perhaps access to oil resources is enough… I wouldn’t be so sure.
For my own part I recall getting up in the morning (on the 12th September in Sydney) and watching in complete shock as events unfolded in front of me. My wife was working for IBM at the time and had flown over to New York to take part in a series of meetings so I also remember clearly the sudden panic when I realised I had no idea if she was ok. I knew she wasn’t supposed to be anywhere near central NY but she could have gone sightseeing, gone to a meeting… I had no idea and for several hours I was unable to make contact at all.
Remember at that time none of us had any idea if these were one off attacks or the start of a major war on US soil! For all we knew there were other hijacked planes still flying towards targets, and having lived through the IRA attacks in London were aware how easy it would be to plant car bombs at strategic points around a city to cause even more chaos!
Eventually however, my father in the UK managed to get through to her to make sure she was safe and well, tho of course it was still several days before she was able to fly out and back home. The experience really affected her of course and even now she can’t watch any scenes of the attacks without having to either switch to another channel or walk out of the room.
If this is how she feels after all this time, what the memories and experiences of those who were close by must be like I dread to think.
It’s hard to believe that ten years have drifted by. The images we see on the television bring back the trauma as clearly as if it was yesterday. For those who lost loved ones in the attacks it must be a thousand times worse. We can’t do much to help ease the pain… but we are thinking of you.
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