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13 years after 9/11, one sad conclusion: The terrorists won

BY JOE BRANCATELLI ,Chicago Business Journal Thirteen years to the day after the 2001 terrorism attacks downed four passenger aircraft and slaughtered nearly 3,000 people, it is hard not to conclude that the terrorists have won.
And that's not just because another president went on television last night to give another speech about another crisis that requires America to fight another amorphous terrorist group that poses another existential threat to our way of life.
We've lost. You and me, business travelers everywhere and civilized human beings from Maine to California, from London to Timbuktu, from northwest China to the Middle East to Southeast Asia. The goal of a terrorist is to make us fear living our everyday lives. And live in fear we do — if not fear of the terrorists themselves, then fear of the things we do to fight against those who commit atrocities on innocents.
When was the last time you went to the airport not dreading the time you spend at a Transportation Security Administration checkpoint? The security kabuki is ridiculous at best, almost always demeaning and sometimes criminal. It's all especially absurd when you realize that an ISIS fighter killed in Syria last month once worked at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. He even had a security clearance to clean planes.
Been through a major rail terminal lately and seen National Guardsmen toting weapons? Back in the day, I used to arrive at international airports or overseas train terminals and shake my head in disbelief because there was a conspicuous military presence. Now I see it whenever I pass through Grand Central Terminal, in my own hometown of New York, and never think twice about it.

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