Are we any safer 9/11?
Professor talks about changes made in policy
By Dominic Desmond, news editor
Posted on September 14, 2006

The images were searing. They were constant. They were real. It also seemed to many at that time those images would change everything — people, the United States and the world.

Five years after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and the downing of Flight 93 in a field in Pennsylvania, the times have changed, but not the entire world, as some have charged.

“When 9/11 actually, happened, I initially thought, everything’s going to change,” remembered Jonathan Keller, professor of political science, “and everything seemed so different right afterwards.” Now, he believes the effects of that day may not be as seismic as the end of the Cold War and the shrinking of the world due to globalization. Keller does concede that America’s foreign policy has changed, but he said the jury’s still out on how the changes that Sept. 11 wrought will play out in history books.

“The longevity of those changes is unclear at this point,” Keller said. “It’s hard to be in the middle of history and gauge — ‘How important are these events?’”

Regardless of how important these events were or are, sophomore Elysia Woodward won’t travel overseas by plane.

“I’ve always wanted to travel overseas,” she said. “[Terrorism] is an extra thing to worry about.”

She also worries about her boyfriend, Thomas DeLovely, who is serving in the Navy.
“It’s scary,” Woodward said. “I worry a lot. It’s concerning.”

Woodward is quick to point out things have definitely changed. But she’s wary about how to define change.

“I refuse to believe nothing has changed,” she said, “after all the bloodshed.”

DeLovely, an Aviation Electrician Mate, is more worried about being blown off the flight deck of the aircraft carrier he works on. He’s also aware that the world and the United States have seen some changes since Sept. 11.

“The biggest change is that it’s had is beefed-up security,” DeLovely said. “And that we are paranoid because of the possible danger out there.”

When the attacks happened, Blue Ridge Community College psychology Bud Levin was teaching class. He just went on teaching. He didn’t want to give a victory to the terrorists. 

“It wasn’t going to hit suburban Weyers Cave,” Levin said. “People were running around like chickens with their heads cut off.”

Levin sees a problem with way the media reported the attacks and other major catastrophes. He says there’s a difference between what is an actual threat and what is perceived. Perceived threats, Levin said, are those that relate to one’s own anxiety.

“The perceived is what hits the front page,” he said. “The actual threat is on page six.”

Levin said it is possible for someone to detonate some sort of dirty bomb in JMU’s football stadium, but that the chances of that happening are almost zero.

For Levin personally, nothing much has changed. Besides teaching, he’s also a reserve major for the Waynesboro Police Department and vice president of the FBI’s Futures Working group. Professionally, things have changed a little for him.

“I’m on and off airplanes more,” Levin said. “And my taxes are going up.”
Foreign Policy, a magazine published by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, dubbed Sept. 11, 2001, as “The Day Nothing Much Changed.” The magazine cites that the 40-market days after that day, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed above its Sept. 10, 2001, high. The magazine went on to point out 14 buildings that were erected, proposed or were under construction — all of them taller than the World Trade Center.

Keller remembered being a little afraid while he was driving from class to class when he was a graduate student at Ohio State University. After five years, that fear has subsided, and he’s not about to take any drastic measures if another terror attack happens.

“I can’t afford a bomb shelter,” Keller said.