Until his legacy dies, he lives on, as strong as ever.
...
Can I at least bring a tube of toothpaste with me when I travel now?
Hopefully the emphasis on terror will be reduced, though. Bad driving, bad diet and many other causes have definitely killed more people each than 9/11 since it happened, but it's a lot easier to focus on an external enemy you can see, especially when it has a shark-attack-like amplification on our perception of danger.
Just two recent examples are the 'troubles' in Northern Ireland and Jewish terrorism in Palestine before the British withdrew. They are both examples of effective terrorism campaigns done by small groups.
Just because it happened in America for the first time doesn't mean it's not happened in the rest of the world many times.
PS: I watched it live on TV missed the first attack, but saw the other two get reported and personally I was never really that strongly impacted. More WTF? than run for the hills.
Fortunately, it seems that the number of motivated crazy people in the world is fairly low.
> personally I was never really that strongly impacted
I'm guessing you don't live in the New York area. Events can seem a bit unreal if you have no personal stake in them. It may seem trivial next to the loss of life, but looking at that hole in the Manhattan skyline where the towers used to be is still a bit tragic.
I could see a changed "Manhattan skyline" as a significant impact for many people. For a while I could see the section of the pentagon hit by the airplane outside my window, but there is little lasting visible impact on the structure. Internally, they did a fair amount of renovation for example added some glow strips on the floor pointing to the exits which seems like a good idea, and gas makes which seems less useful (and more creepy). You can even go on tours of the pentagon which seems risky, but I suspect the benefits outweighs the risks.
However, that's all fairly long term effects. As to being up close and personal, a coworker of mine was in a conference room when 1/2 the people at the table where taken yet he had no problem going back to work at the pentagon. Sure, it's a target, but numbers suggest being a truck driver to be a far more dangerous profession.
When it comes down to it terrorism is simply not that effective. Several paces have had sustained terrorist attacks for long periods of time and people don't react that much.
The key word in my statement was 'impact'. Look around you and tell me which of the events you've mentioned had a comparable impact on world events and the feeling of vulnerability of hundreds of millions of people.
Some other recent historical examples:
- Red Army Faction in Germany in the 70's and 80's
- Brigate Rosse in Italy in the 70's and 80's
- Numerous aircraft hijacking in the early and mid 70's. This introduced the first wave of improved airport security
- Chechnyan separatists in Russia in the 1990's and 2000's
All the major cities in Europe experienced hijackings, bombings, kidnappings and hostage drama. Most people today don't even know who Ilich Ramirez Sanchez is, or the PLFP, or as you mention the Red Army Faction
On that note, both the mini-series 'Carlos' and the German film 'Baader Meinhof Complex' are fantastic.
Not true. Counterexamples that spring to mind are Gavrilo Princip and John Brown.
Second definition from American Heritage Dictionary:
2. A colleague.
I realized I was replying to a tangential remark, but it wasn't just language nitpicking. The implication that the US were in war against the people in the country that Bin Laden happened to be from, was serious enough not to let it go unchallenged.
(source: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/05/02/world/20110502...)
I don't see that happening anytime soon unfortunately.
How challenging would it be to poison a reservoir, poison random groceries across the country, blow up the Alaska Pipeline, etc. Any motivated terrorist would attack us where we aren't so vigilant. I'm honestly pretty unsure about how many motivated terrorists there are out there-- if there were out there (and well-financed), couldn't they be crippling us with a dozen different types of attacks?
The TSA is like putting your hand on a screen door to keep out the wind. We've got better things to do with our time and money.
Someone who just tries to cause as much damage or kill as many people as possible, is not a terrorist. I think they are just known as criminals or militants.
The connection being that they're "in the Pacific" same as Japan and Fukushima, and that made her scared.
TV scare-mongering made a lady from Uruguay feel afraid from something that happened literally half a world away from where she's going... if someone poisoned an US city's water, she's never going to the US again for certain.
Terrorism is not about terror: http://www.gwern.net/Terrorism%20is%20not%20about%20Terror
It's certainly true that terrorists will look for a soft target if they want to carry out an attack. Our air security procedures here in Australia aren't so draconian as the US and it hasn't caused us any problems. Though it has resulted in some other draconian policies such as banning photography in certain public places (such as public transport) in the name of terrorist. Because surely a potential terrorist would make themselves stand out by using a blatantly obvious SLR camera rather an an obscure camera hidden in a pocket or a bag. Not to mention they could just memorise what they see and sketch it later.
The rest of the DHS is what's scary, especially Customs. That is where the siezed domain names and the "Constitution-free zones" come from.
Maybe I'm the only one who thinks that people asking to photograph you naked so you can get on a plane is outrageous, though, because nobody else at the airport seemed to mind...
I don't think this child play is really meant to give any doubts about its intent even centuries ago
a comment by Veridical Driver, 2011-04-01 at 5:01 pm, on http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2011/04/gri...
You can have a few small containers - up to 100mL in each. I was able to fly with toothpaste, deodorant, insect repellent and sunscreen in my carry-on luggage on a recent trip. Nail clippers are allowed too.
Funnily enough, there are no such restrictions on domestic flights.
Only toothpaste, what about your shaving gear? Maybe we shouldn't have any security at all, it's so inconvenient.