Tagged: 9-11 Tenth Anniversary

In Murfreesboro, Tenn., more than 5,000 people are expected Sunday for the annual Sept. 11 memorial. What started as a small flag ceremony at the Rutherford County's Sheriff's Department 10 years ago is now a major community event. Murfreesboro has been dealing with another legacy of the attacks, which is playing out in a controversy over a mosque.

A Local Response To The Trauma

At the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, a small temporary exhibit marks Sept. 11, 2001. Along with artifacts found in the wreckage of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon — like a smashed firetruck door and twisted bits of fuselage — is a bin filled with every imaginable object people have tried to carry on airplanes.

When Americans are asked what Sept. 10, 2001, was like, many call that Monday "normal" or "ordinary."

"Just a normal summer day," one man said.

That all changed on Sept. 11.

Nine individuals told All Things Considered where they were on Sept. 10. They talked about some of their serendipitous experiences, near misses or devastating turn of events of that day — the day before America was interrupted.

Ten years ago Friday, a team of al-Qaida agents carried out an assassination that was the first step in their plan leading to the Sept. 11 attacks. In the north of Afghanistan, suicide bombers posing as journalists killed Ahmad Shah Massoud, the most famous leader of Afghan resistance against Taliban rule.

Today, posters of Massoud still adorn shops around northern Afghanistan, and admirers held a huge commemoration of him Friday near his home.

But 10 years after his death, Massoud's legacy has been overshadowed by a grueling war that grinds on with no end in sight.

Is America safer today than it was a decade ago?

That question has been raised repeatedly in the discussions surrounding the 10^th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.

But authors John Mueller and Mark S. Stewart feel it's the wrong question. They pose a different one: are the vast increases in security spending justified by the threat of future attacks?

U.S. spending on homeland security and domestic intelligence has consumed nearly a half-trillion dollars over the past decade. It was just over $20 billion in 2001, this year it will top $72 billion.