EDITORIAL – Can we blame it on the man?

The world has changed a lot in five years.

Some of us are a little more scared, some of… The world has changed a lot in five years.

Some of us are a little more scared, some of us a little less trusting. There are those of us who are afraid of terrorism, and others who are more afraid of their own government.

Anniversaries elicit reflection from people who feel a connection to that date, and you’d be hard pressed to find an American who has no reaction to the anniversary of Sept. 11, 2001.

This year, along with the growing number of docu-dramas running on television and in movie theaters, we find ourselves reading headlines about workers who are suffering from illnesses related to the air quality of post-attack lower Manhattan.

“We watched him progressively getting worse until he died at home, on the floor of his bedroom with his daughter sleeping on the bed,” Joseph Zadroga recalled as he wiped tears from his eyes.

Zadroga was testifying about the January 2006 death of his son James Zadroga, an NYPD detective, at a congressional hearing last week. Zadroga’s death was directly linked to his 500 hours of work at ground zero, the Daily News reported.

Thousands share the same fate as Zadroga, according to a new study from Mount Sinai Medical Center, because they were falsely told that the air was safe to breathe. After years of being ignored and turned away when they sought medical treatment for their increasing respiratory problems, many people are looking to the government for answers.

The study indicated that illnesses resulting from the air quality at ground zero is “more widespread and persistent than previously thought,” according to a New York Times article. These health problems aren’t expected to be short-term, either. About 70 percent of the 10,000 ground zero workers reported significant increases respiratory ailments between 2002 and 2004, the study explained. The Times also reported that the Bush administration had a hand in wording cautions issued for lower Manhattan, choosing to omit strong, cautionary language.

So five years later, we still have problems. People are still dying because of their time spent at ground zero and in lower Manhattan in the days and weeks after the attacks. If the government is so concerned with memorializing the heroes who lost their lives on Sept. 11, why are they ignoring the heroes who are suffering and dying years later because of their efforts post-destruction? If these people don’t get help, it’s as if the terrorists are still killing people.

The world is a different place in the new century, after Sept. 11. We’re not as afraid of terrorism as we are the government’s response to it. They’ve wasted enough time, alienated many and violated civil liberties all in the name of this ambiguous “War on Terror.” And what do we have to show for it?

A new brand of McCarthyism is lurking in the background as the Bush administration pounds the podium across America, likening this time in history to other great wars, like World War II. The arbitrary color-coded scale, indicating how scared we should be today, is of little or no use. Consequently, we’re just not certain how fearful we should be of the world, and how much is just manufactured to keep people dependent on a defunct leader.

It’s not fair to say the Sept. 11 attacks were a result of Bush being in office. But we wonder what the days, and even years, since would have been like if we had another commander in chief to follow. For many Americans, fear has taken hold, whether real or manufactured, and there is little or no confidence in the future.

Five years later, we look back and wonder if the world has been forever changed and if most of our problems since then are directly related to one man.