Back when this thread started, I wasn't quite as aware of what the OP was going through when 9/11 happened, or as aware of how closely she and her colleagues were involved in the aftermath.
I can see why it's such a worry and such a trigger.
For my age group in Europe, We grew up with Terrorism.
The supposedly Irish terrorism in Britain and northern Ireland, and the little bits that got into the Republic - like the Dublin bombings, which conveniently occurred on the morning of the day that the Irish parliament was due to debate increased security measures, and was expected to reject the proposals.
Although the full truth has never come out clearly about the "Irish" terrorism. There is widespread evidence of state sector collusion on both sides of the supposed sectarian and nationalist divide.
The whole Truth did however come out in continental Europe, back in about 1990.
The supposedly "Left wing" terrorism of the Red Brigades, Red Army Faction/Baader Meinhoff etc, which had killed well over 100 people on continental Europe, including the kidnap and murder of a former Italian prime minister (Aldo Moro)...
Was shown (In Italian parliamentary investigations and in contemporary and later investigations in other European countries) to have been orchestrated by parallel structures (secret armies) within NATO. Generally known now under the name "Gladio".
That knowledge has largely gone back down the memory hole. Only vids taken from crappy VHS recordings of the three part BBC "timewatch" documentary describing Gladio, are still circulating.
I guess that we'll never know either way about the background to 9/11.
However - the extent to which 9/11 facilitated the Neo-Con program for instilling fear and imposing restrictions on Americans at home and for continuous and glorious wars and extending American hegemony over seas.
It was certainly too good a crisis for the Neo-Cons to sit on their hands and waste it. Even if they hadn't created the crisis in the manner that Gladio had created terrorist crises in Europe.
Turning again to Irish Terrorism
Northern Ireland consists of six little counties and a population of a little over 1 million people. That population is approximately half "catholic", half "protestant".
Of the half that is Catholic, there are all shades of opinion from completely opposed to the pIRA to passive and active support, and of course a very few who actively took part in violence.
Here we have a dilemna
- Is one of the top five militaries and secret services in the world, backed by one of the top five largest economies in the world, actually incapable of controlling less than half the population of six little counties?
or,
- Did the British forces not want to control the Irish paramilitaries, but rather to facilitate them ?
I can't rule out the first of those. Cock-up does usually trump conspiracy, and the state sector is remarkable for its incompetence.
but neither can I rule out the second being used in order to apply a "strategy of tension" in which the population is encouraged by terrorism (or settlement of incompatible cultures amongst them - as in Irish Plantation, or by uncontrolled crime), to trade its freedom and its money - for the illusion of a little security.
Applying either horn of that dilemna to post 9/11America, and the possibility of another act of the same or greater magnitude than 9/11 certainly can't be ruled out. The regime contains both incompetents and it contains individuals who have incentives to stage Reichstaag fires, or lie about Gulf of Tonkin incidents, in order to further their ambitions.
My conclusion is the same as last time - We can't individually find out or do much about it, so to avoid un necessary distress, turn the (gaslighting) tv off!