Those of us Americans of a certain age can remember exactly where we were the day President John Kennedy was shot or when the first men landed on the moon. Likewise, we can all remember where we were on that day ten years ago when the planes hit the World Trade Center. How the world has changed irrevocably since then!

I was at my desk at the ABC Television headquarters, a few miles north of the twin towers, on that beautiful Tuesday when one of my colleagues poked his head in and said that a plane had hit the North Tower of the World Trade Center. We thought that it might be an accident; after all a B-25 bomber had hit the Empire State Building in 1945. Just as I turned my TV on, the second plane hit the South Tower, ending any doubt about an accident. We were in shock as the news came in about the Pentagon and the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania. We watched in horror as people jumped 110 floors to their deaths from the sky-high inferno.

An unidentified New York City firefighter walks away from Ground Zero after the collapse of the Twin Towers September 11, 2001 in New York City. [Photo: Anthony Correia/GettyNorthAmerica/CFP]

And then the towers fell.

I remember walking home in a mental fog through Central Park to the East side of Manhattan. Everyone else was similarly dazed. Since public transportation was seriously disrupted, thousands were out on the streets in a state of mass shock. They say that smell is a powerful stimulant and I still remember the awful burning smell that lingered for weeks. Looking south from my 33rd floor window I could see the smoke rising from where the twin towers had always been. The next day I walked to Central Park and there was an eerie silence from the complete lack of air traffic over Manhattan.

I was taken by the American Red Cross to Ground Zero a few weeks later and that terrible pungent smell continued to linger there. Ashes still filled the air. Going inside that tomb where 2,753 perished was a profound experience. There was silence and reverence as workers tried to find more remains.

My next strongest memory is of the thousands of handmade posters with pictures of the missing. We read them and cried for people we would never meet. The posters gave the largest city in America a sense of intimacy it has not known before or since.

The immensity of the tragedy was brought home to me around Christmas time when some volunteers from ABC's parent company, Disney, held a gift giving event for the children of parents who had perished. Hundreds of poor souls came by that December afternoon. We could share our caring and our love with them, but we could not comprehend the enormity of their loss and suffering.

We all pulled together. We were proud to be Americans and there was a unique sense of camaraderie. For a brief time the world loved us and grieved with us; but thanks to the likes of President Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, the era of good feelings ended with a bang, first in Afghanistan and then in Iraq. I am uncertain as to whether these wars were about oil or about feeding the military-industrial complex; but I believe that there must be a connection to them both.

It almost seems as if al-Qaeda staged 9/11 to promote the building of a vast security apparatus. Before that date, life was relatively simple. Now there is a vast industry that scans us, gropes us and intrudes into our lives many times each day.

I do not honestly believe that Islam is a religion hell-bent on terrorism and holy wars. I think that it has been hijacked by perverts who have twisted the original meaning of the religion like a pretzel to serve their own demonic, selfish ends.

What is most surprising to me is that there hasn’t been more terrorism in America during these last ten years. Is it due to increased security and vigilance? Most likely that’s a large part of the answer. But considering the bomb explosion the other day in New Delhi, and recent reports out of Libya that large numbers of surface-to-air missile have gone missing, I am deathly afraid that it is just a matter of time before there is another, much worse, 9/11.

It should come as no surprise, then, that American officials are frantically investigating the "specific and credible threat" of a car or truck bomb attack in New York and/or Washington, DC to mark the 10th anniversary of 9/11.

Harvey Dzodin currently is a Senior Advisor to Tsinghua University. He was Director and Vice President at ABC Television in New York from 1982 until 2004.

Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors, not necessarily those of China.org.cn.

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