by Gerard Coulombe

Created on: October 26, 2009   Last Updated: October 29, 2009

Often asked in our beloved country is the reasonable question: Are we safer from terrorism today than we were eight years ago? The answer we get from all responsible people and agencies is, "We are safer today than we were prior to 9-11-2001."

In light of the images we lived with, the real terror of its aftermath, and the questioning that took place, high and low, following the terrorist attack on New York City, we have slowly gained sufficient confidence in our government's capability to safeguard our borders and our people against those individuals who, ultimately, mean to do us irreparable harm.

Some may ask, How can anybody think that we Americans can be protected from fanatics determined to act on their beliefs in a cause so fraught with insane hatred, that they could prepare themselves to fly as many commercial aircrafts as they managed to commandeer into designated targets such as the Twin Towers?

Well, we all know how, and in great detail, starting with their willingness to expend time and energy in this country sufficient to allow them to control aircrafts in flight.

The time that has elapsed, the preparation that we all assume has been taken, the moves that terrorist cells have made, and the preparatory actions taken in and out of country have all indicated not a loss of interest in dealing punishment upon us, but a weakness in their methods that blessedly and reassuringly, as well, those dedicated to preventing an attack are succeeding in thwarting.

It is not as if we have been getting up every morning of our lives since 9-11-2001, with an alarming sense of foreboding as we tune in to the morning news whether on radio or television or "CNN Breaking News."

Generally, we may even accept that something will happen just as it does in bits and pieces to so many of our neighbors all across the country, and we at times imagine that nothing quite as bad will ever happen to us again.

That is not and cannot be the certainty we some time look for in things that come and go and disrupt in some slight or major way the course of our lives.

I, for one, need to believe that our people employed in the work of protecting the rest of their fellow Americans are doing their absolute best to accomplish just that. And it is not unreasonable of me to believe that that is the way it is, tonight, and will be tomorrow morning, and for all of our future days.

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