Five years after Sept. 11, where do we stand?

Ross Weingarten Opinions Editor

Monday, Sept. 11 marked the five-year anniversary of what was perhaps the worst day in American history. The Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on America claimed 3,000 lives, and changed the world, and changed everything from airport security to U.S. foreign policy.

Everyone knows what came next. America, attacked from the outside like never before, rallied around President George W. Bush, outraged and crying vengeance. Bi-partisan politics took a backseat to patriotism as America embarked on wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. To date, approximately 3,000 American troops have died in combat.

Now, five years later, there are two obvious questions that must be asked. What has changed since Sept. 11? And perhaps more importantly, are we any safer than before?

The answer to the first is, in short, everything. On the one hand, much has changed since the Twin Towers fell, most notably the fact that America is at war after a decade of relative peace. However, it is the nature of the war that was most unexpected. In the aftermath of the attacks, the Bush administration made the grave miscalculation that democracy would spread in the Middle East if given a little push from the U.S.

While both Afghanistan and Iraq are now nominally democratic, there is still an incredible amount of work to be done. In Kabul, for example, the government struggles to centralize power while fighting drug-lords and a resurgent Taliban. In Iraq, sectarian violence between Sunni and Shiite Muslims has the country slipping towards Civil War, and neither U.S. nor Iraqi forces can do much to stop it. No weapons of mass destruction were found, and no link has been established between former dictator Saddam Hussein and Al-Qaeda. Life is difficult and dangerous for virtually every Iraqi, and few believe that Iraq is better off now than it was five years ago.

The American political picture has changed drastically as well. After the attacks, America completely acquiesced, with people on all sides of the political spectrum mobilizing to support the president. In the winter of 2001, Bush’s approval ratings were above 90 percent, the highest in American history for any president. Democrats and Republicans stood together and vowed to end the threat of terrorism.

However, politics today are perhaps more divided than at any point in our history. Opponents of Bush are outraged about how the war has turned out, and even more upset that the Bush administration used secret wiretaps and CIA prisons to track information and hold suspects, two moves that encroach on civil liberties and are on very shaky Constitutional ground. Supporters of Bush, on the other hand, say his opponents have no plan for the safety of Americans and are helping the terrorists by not supporting the war in Iraq. Bush’s approval ratings have slipped below 40 percent. And of course, there is the often forgotten fact that Osama Bin Laden, the mastermind of Sept. 11, is still at large.

So are Americans safer from the threat of terrorist attack than they were five years ago? News of foiled terrorist plots, such as one in August when British authorities arrested men who allegedly were planning to blow up passenger planes over the Atlantic Ocean, make it seem as if our borders are now impenetrable. However, the world is a much more volatile place than it was before Sept. 11. In the last five years, the number of Muslim extremists who despise the United States and are seemingly willing to die for their cause has grown exponentially. What started as Al-Qaeda has become something much larger. There is also the pending conflict with Iran, a nation long at odds with the U.S. that could soon possess nuclear weapons. Instead of spreading democracy, American foreign policy has spread hatred and distrust. And should another attack occur, America’s response is no guarantee, as our resources are still being stretched thinly across funding for war efforts and tardy relief efforts in the aftermath of the destruction of Hurricane Katrina.

What is clear is that the next five years will bring even more questions. Will Iraq undergo a civil war? Will the conflict with Iran become violent? Will there be a U.S. military draft? There is no doubt that Sept. 11, 2001 was a horrible day in American history, but in retrospect, it has become increasingly clear that when the Twin Towers collapsed, it was not the end of a horrific sequence of events, but rather the beginning of an age that has proved to be much worse.