Seven years later

Matt Y just completed an all-star caliber morning of blogging over at his site but this post, in particular, really caught my attention:

If you’d told me on the morning of September 12 that seven years later the country would have gone without an additional al-Qaeda attack on US soil, I’m not sure I would have believed you. If you’d told me that more Americans wound wind up dying in Iraq than died in the World Trade Center, I’m almost positive I wouldn’t have believed you. And if you’d told me that seven years later Osama bin Laden would still be at large, I’m sure I wouldn’t have believed you.

Thinking back on the morning on 9-11-01, I'd have to whole-heartedly agree. Watching TV that morning in my small one-bedroom apartment in Dallas, I just assumed that we were on the cusp of a Third World War and nothing would ever be the same.

And, that morning, I accepted the prospect of more terrorist attacks as a consequence of living in America. It was going to happen, it was only a matter of when. Deadly surprise attacks were inevitable.

Obviously, we've been more fortunate than that. But to watch events unfold over the past seven years (seven, it's been that long) has been remarkable: Osama is still alive, we've come to accept airport intrusions as a fact of travel, and, yes, more Americans have died in Iraq than the World Trade Center.

Like Matt, 23-year-old Blackink wouldn't have believed it either.