After 9/11 The World Changed #405
By Hank Silverberg
Commentary
A Shift In World View
Much has been written in the last week about 9/11, 2001. People across the country reflected on their memories of that day. What has not been talked about much is how The United States of America was changed by the event. Many individuals changed. But the country as a whole seems like a very different place.
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Some of the changes are obvious. There are barricades in front of most government buildings, and checkpoints inside most of them that were not there for most of our country's life.
Getting on an airplane has become an ordeal with several checks before you board the plane.
But I see other changes that are not so obvious.
When terrorists struck the United States on 9/11, NATO invoked Article 5 for the first time, coming to the defense of the USA, offering aid in catching Osama Bin Laden, helping to keep our economy steady as well as protecting our citizens abroad. Some of them joined our war effort in Afghanistan as we tried to quell a rise in terrorism. Our friends proved to be our friends. Our enemies saw what solid alliances can do even as they dragged us into what seemed like an endless 20 year war.
Today, thanks mostly to the foreign policy of Donald Trump, but partially to a change in the general mood of the country, it's doubtful that NATO would help us with a similar tragedy.
We learned from 9/11 that oceans can no longer protect us from attack and that our domestic weapons systems, water supply, electric grid, our education system and our corporations are now all targets for our enemies.
We also learned that our young people are often influenced by radical propaganda that can dominate the internet with disinformation and turn them against their families, their communities, or their country. Nowhere is that more obvious than the vitriolic rhetoric surrounding the war in Gaza where words like "colonizers" and "genocide:" are being misused on a daily basis.
Before 9/11 we used to laugh about the long-gone "Duck and Cover" drills of the 50's and 60's that were supposed to protect us in a nuclear attack. But after 9/11, the Department of Homeland Security was created to deal with terrorism, and there was increased use of "active shooter" drills and lockdowns in our schools and public offices.
(Note: DHS has seemed to turn a blind eye to domestic terrorism.)
Our broken immigration system had been a problem for decades before September 11th, but no one wanted to deal with it. After 9/11, it became easier for politicians to revert to long abandoned tropes from the past that blame immigrants for almost everything bad that happens in America. And that blame, like in the early 20th century, is often based on race, ethnicity or religion. But this time it has produced armed federal police (ICE) hunting down people in the streets.
Thanks to the internet, September 11th also enhanced a general distrust in government functions and a rapid growth in conspiracy theories.
All this contributed to the rise of Donald Trump and the return of Ameria First populism, the same failed ideology from the 1930's which ultimately left us unprepared for dictators across the globe and a world war in the 1940's. Now, it threatens an even bigger disaster.
The United States seems to have collapsed onto itself, ignoring world events that do not have a direct affect on us, and mishandling the ones that do. That collapse has been enhanced by the government's attacks on the free press, and a general decline in the quality of journalism across the board.
Students in high school and college right now look at 9/11 as history the same way my generation looked a Pearl Harbor or Gettysburg. But they seem to be getting a distorted view of what actually happened and what the world was like before that terrible day.
We must get a handle on this soon or the very concept of a representative democracy and our basic rights could be a thing of the past.
News You May Have Missed
Secret Vote? Maybe Not
With all the talk about voter fraud or rigging elections comes a story out of Georgia which challenges the entire concept of a secret ballot.
Security experts say Artificial Intelligence is making it possible for voters to be matched with their ballots AFTER THEY HAVE BEEN CAST.
The Christian Science Monitor is reporting that a flaw in Georgia's voting equipment does not allow votes to be changed or cast doubt on the outcome of an election, but could allow someone to see how you cast your vote. Increased use of AI has revealed this flaw which could exist in other states that use Dominion Voting systems, though other states do not allow the release of public records that are needed to exploit the flaw.
Ballot secrecy is one of the basic rights under the Constitution.
Georgia and Dominion Voting Systems, now renamed Liberty Vote, have been the focus of several lawsuits over voting issues, and Georgia is a key battleground state in the closely watched U.S. Senate races this year.
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2026/0913/elections-midterms-georgia-democracy-ai
Another Court Loss For Trump
President Trump has lost another battle over his efforts to gut FEMA. A federal judge in San Francisco ruled Friday that Trump broke the law when he enacted a plan earlier this year to reduce FEMA's workforce from 23,000 to less than 12,000. That reduction also included contracts for hundreds of temporary disaster first responders.
The judge said the move violated the Emergency Management Reform Act that was passed after Hurricane Katrina. The union representing those workers had filed the lawsuit. The ruling though, did not order any specific remedies. That will come in a separate order next month after both sides have had a chance to talk about appropriate relief, which could include reinstatement.
The cuts have clearly hampered FEMA's ability to help the American public deal with natural disasters.
A GAO report in August found that "FEMA cannot be assured that the agency is positioned to effectively meet its mission needs."
https://rollingout.com/2026/09/13/fema-cuts-ruled-illegal-judge-deal-trump/
Dumbest Quote Of The Week!
This week's dumbest quote comes from House Speaker Mike Johnson.
He was asked whether the White House had a blank check to continue the war with Iran.
He said, "No."
Okay, that's fine, but then he added:
"The war is not continuing. What we're trying to do now is resolve what has already been a big success."
Apparently Speaker Johnson hasn't heard about the continued strikes in the Strait of Hormuz by both sides, nor can he clarify just what the "success" in that conflict has been.
His comments will come as a surprise to the more than 50,000 U.S. military personnel deployed in the Middle East region right now.
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This article was published on 9/11. It's my memory of that day. I publish it again here because it fits the topic.
A 911 Story, A reporter’s journal
By Hank Silverberg
On Sept 10, 2001, I was a reporter/producer for Washington’s
All-News Radio Station, WTOP
I worked the 3pm to 11pm shift. My job at the time was to
cover some breaking stories at night, like town meetings and crime, but also to
help set up some live interviews for the morning drive team.
On that night, I was working with WTOP Sports Director Dave
Johnson on what we thought was a major breaking story. Dave had learned basketball Legend Michael
Jordon would be coming to play with the Washington Wizards.
We worked until 1 Am setting up reaction interviews for the
morning anchors and I left the newsroom feeling it was a job well done. It
would be a superb morning drive on Sept 11.
None of the interviews scheduled after 8:46 AM ever made it on the air.
They became unimportant.
The attack on 9/11 changed the world in an instant.
I was sound asleep when the first plane hit the World Trade
Center. I was awakened by a frantic phone call from one of my daughter’s Girl Scout leaders who wanted
to talk to my wife about canceling the meeting that night
I asked why.
“Well because of the bombings” she said.
There was a second delay in my sleepy, foggy brain.
“Bombings , what bombings?
She then told me about the first plane hitting the World
Trade Center but I never heard the end of the sentence. I hit the TV remote and turned on CNN just in
time to see the second plane hit the towers live at 9:03 AM.
I was out the door in 5 minutes, headed for my car and
headed for the radio station.
I called in on my cell phone.
“Go to Dulles International Airport”,said the editor.
I headed that way, but I got a call back minutes later and
was told to forget it the airport had been closed. I was asked to come into the
station.
As I headed up I-95 I could see the smoke coming from the
Pentagon which had been hit by the third plane at 9:37 AM
I learned later that my colleague Jonathan Warner, on his way to work for his regular shift, had
seen the plane hit the west side of the Pentagon in his rearview mirror just
after he passed the building.
I could not get onto I-395 which had been shut down. At the mixing
bowl all traffic was detoured onto the Beltway headed towards Fairfax County
and eventually Montgomery County. Maryland. I got into DC the long way, from the west end on River Road. It had taken me 90 minutes from pajamas to the
newsroom. Much of the highway traffic had been headed out of the city.
At the radio station, calm chaos. Almost everyone had
reported in or had headed to key points of the disaster. All commercials had been scratched and it was
full speed ahead.
Shortly after I arrived, I received a tip from a friend I
knew in the Senate Press gallery on Capitol Hill. The entire complex was being
evacuated. We learned later that was because they thought Flight 93, which
crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania at 10:03 AM was headed for the
Capitol. I believe we were the first to
report that based on my tip.
My assignment, that day was to go on the air live every 20
minutes and do a general summary of the latest information which was coming in
fast. I did that for 15 hours
straight. Many of my colleagues worked
much longer hours.
Basketball was irrelevant for weeks. Commercials and sports
reports were canceled for days.
The world had changed forever.
Reporters cover lots of tragedies and sometimes the
devastation of it all doesn’t hit us until the end of a day. The death toll for 9/11, 2001 was 2,977. But it
didn’t really hit me what it all meant until I got home late that night, turned
on the TV and watched the towers fall
again, the hole in the west wall of the Pentagon that was still smoldering and the wreckage in the ground in
Pennsylvania.
Every generation seems to have a seminal event that
radically changes their view of the world.
For my parents it was Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.
For my generation, the Baby Boomers, it was November 22nd, 1963. when the mood
the country changed, a precursor to the rest of the turbulent 1960’s. The Kenndy assassination produced to changes in security and access to
Presidents and for many of us it
increased our interest in politics and world events with the reality that
political violence was not isolated to third world countries.
9/11 changed
everything again. Millennials may not have noticed right away. We lost a little bit of our security that day.
Oceans no longer protected us from attack. And we lost a little of our
freedom.
The United States is a different place now.
(My latest book "The Campaign" can be purchased at the links below. Or you can buy a copy by emailing me at: HankSilverberg@gmail.com for instructions on how to get a copy at a reduced price and with my signature)
(You can also join me at this event next weekend!!)
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-campaign-hank-silverberg/1126429796
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