The United States will never be able to fully recover from the wounds of the deadly attack on the World Trade Centre and Pentagon on the fateful day of 11 September 2001 – an event that changed the course of American history forever.
With the 9/11 anniversary just a few hours away, Americans dread another terrorist attack. The fear is more palpable than ever before, even surpassing the fear on the first anniversary of the attack, a poll has suggested. The reason: IS threats.
Of late, the nation has been on the edge in the wake of the brutal beheadings of the journalists by the barbaric Islamic State militants – an event that tends to have triggered a wide-spread sense of collective consternation and panic, more than what the country has ever felt in 13 years.
According to the new NBC News/Wall Street Journal Poll, 47% Americans believe that the country is less safe now than it was before the 9/11 event. This is a significant increase from even a year after the attack actually took place. In 2002, when the country was asked if the nation was less safe, only 20% had agreed.
The level of fear of an imminent major attack is also up substantially from last year when only 28% felt there could be a repetition of the historic day.
More importantly, only 25% of Americans now feel the nation is safer than before 9/11, according to the poll -- suggesting that no other foreign entities had ever installed so much horror in the minds of Americans than the blood-thirsty, ferocious extremist jihadist group, the Islamic State.
The dreaded outfit has lately shown unmatched audacity to provoke the United States with direct threats in gruesome videos that showed on two occasions, the beheading of American citizens, shaking the American government to its very core.
In its own words, the Pentagon over the weeks has conceded that the threat posed by the group, backed by its prowess and sophistication, is like nothing they had seen in recent history.
