September 11, 2001 is a demarcation line in our history. The 21st century had just begun and we were living through an optimistic moment. There were the “before times” and then the “after times.”
That day 19 hijackers in four planes took the lives of 2,997 and 411 first responders in the attack at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and in the crash of United Flight 93 in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. The attack death toll is still growing.
To date over 8,200 people enrolled in the Federal World Trade Center Health program including 5,844 first responders and recovery workers have since died, many from illnesses and cancers linked to toxic exposures at Ground Zero. The program’s enrollment-death figures include deaths from all causes, but the larger truth is unmistakable: the consequences of that day did not end with the attacks.
In that horrible moment, America became perhaps as unified as it had ever been. Twenty-five years later, that level of national unity is almost unimaginable.
In the “after time” we reacted.
We launched the Global War on Terror: first invading Afghanistan, then Iraq; later carrying out military operations in Syria and deploying U.S. forces, advisers, and counterterrorism personnel across much of the world, ultimately deploying to over 80 countries. The human and financial costs were immense: more than 7,050 U.S. service members died and over 53,000 were wounded in post 9/11 wars and the US has spent over $8 trillion pursuing them. Nearly a million civilian deaths are related to these operations with multiple million lives wounded, shortened and economically ruined.
After nearly a quarter-century of continuous conflict, the Taliban again runs Afghanistan, Iraq remains shaped by the influence of Shiite militias and vestiges of ISIS and its remnants have not disappeared from the region. And rather than learning the costly lessons from those wars, the United States has spent the last six months at war in Iran.
The Patriot Act was enacted in the name of National security. It significantly expanded federal authority to conduct domestic surveillance and monitor communications. In the process we accepted profound intrusions on our Fourth Amendment privacy rights.
And now with advanced digital systems and the deployment of AI tools state surveillance is omnipresent in most of the world.
We have spent $160 billion on TSA airport security and endured multiple billions of man-hours standing in security lines, often shoeless, waiting.
Facebook did not exist until 2004. Now we live our lives glued to screens and addicted to the stimulation of emotional irritation.
On this day I mourn the lives lost in the attack, I also mourn the “before times”.
Dan Splaine
Publisher
Publisher’s Perspective is a note from Nashua Independent founder and publisher Dan Splaine, written to leave readers feeling informed and reflective about the community and the journalism that serves it. Each installment aims to slow things down for a moment, invite readers to think more deeply about what’s happening around them, and consider how a strong, engaged news ecosystem can shape the city’s future.
