View From the Legislature

How Much Have Things Really Changed?

  • Kelvin Goertzen, Author
  • Member of the Legislative Assembly, Steinbach

Last week Thursday was September 11th, a date that since 2001 will forever be remembered for the horrific terrorist attacks that happened in the United States. Those who were alive and who were old enough to comprehend the attacks that took place that day will never forget where they were. They will also likely never forget how they felt as they saw airplanes strike the World Trade Center buildings in New York.

The immediate days that followed 9/11 were filled with incredible uncertainly. Were there more attacks imminent? Were more terrorist cells active in North America? How had the hijackers come to North America? Not long after, the war on terror began and the world watched as battle waged in Afghanistan and Iraq. In the immediate years after the attacks there were large ceremonies at the scene of the crashes held each September 11th. I visited Washington D.C. nearly three years after the attacks and the heightened sense of security and concern was still evident.

Thirteen years later and things seem in many ways the way they were prior to 9/11. Ceremonies still happen each September 11th but they are smaller and more private now then they were in the early years after the attacks. Leadership in the Middle East has changed with the removal of Saddam Hussein and the weakening of Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan but the Middle East remains very much a dangerous place. Both Syria and Iraq are again struggling with civil war and many citizens are being persecuted because of their faith and their ethnicity.

The new terrorist threat of ISIS has nations again forming a coalition to deal with extremism. U.S. President Barack Obama is reluctant to say that the United States is engaged in a war with these terrorists but it’s hard to know what else to call it.

While September 11, 2001 is often referred to as the day the world changed, there are many things that have not changed. While the names and the players are perhaps different than prior to 9/11 the end result, civil war, international terror and extremism remain. And of course just as these things still exist after 9/11 they existed before 9/11 as well.

Canada will once again respond as part of a coalition of nations to the new terrorist threat that is posed by ISIS. Through the use of special operation forces and strategic military infrastructure we will be a part of standing up for freedom and security as so many generations have done before. And as before, Canadians will pray for their safety and pray for the peace and security of all of the people of the world. Because in the end, that change is the most desired, and the most elusive.