15 Years After 9/11, Is America Any Safer?

Safer? I don't know that would depend on the metrics you wanted to use to measure it and first you would have to define what is safe. I am not going to side with Trump or Hillary here. Overall I certainly think we are better off. What options are truly feasible is hard to say without the details and knowing what deals are being made behind the scenes. I do know that America has been relatively safe for most of its existence because of two large bodies of water. Even during WW I & WW II we barely suffered the consequences of our lack of preparation as the rest of the world succumbed to total war. The same can be said for terrorism. The rest of the world has been dealing with terrorism off and on for......... it seem like forever......... Until 9-11 we did not really view terrorism as a US problem. We live in a relatively safe society that became complacent after the cold war. No real challenges to meet. No major worries except who might be our next adversary. Unfortunately we mostly thought in terms of countries and not ideology. Ideology is nothing more than gang mentality and cannot be fought in the same manner as a nation with borders and a central government. There is no physical entity to attack, no ground to hold, only an idea. The lack of understanding this cost us Viet Nam back in the day. The Viet-Cong were not fighting for the North or the South but for the idea of having their own country again. There are just enough isolationist in government to curb decision makers into believing we do not have to play nicely with others as we did during the cold war with the USSR. That was evident during the planing stages of how to deal with Afghanistan. We literally did not have any current intelligence place. We have operated for to long thinking that we are the sole supper power left and that we can dictate what we want and on the terms we want. That is not true. We are not alone on the planet and it's not just our lives that matter. The US represents approximately 4 1/2 percent of the world population (which is somewhere around 7.4 billion people). That is a lot of people who do not live as we do (for anyone who has traveled outside of the US extensively we are the 1% of the world population that so many protested not long ago). That is a lot of people who can either like us or hate us. Who can help us or hurt us. We have an immigration problem because people in Central America would rather die trying to sneak into our country and do manual labor for pennies than remain where they are. That is a real problem that a wall and more guards will never fix. But instead of helping with the economies of Central America countries and stabilizing their governments we discuss walls, guards and drones etc. All of which cost us money while improving relations could make us money through trade and improved relations that might actually translate into improved security through better intelligence networking. I think monies spent on border guards and walls could be better spent on our own infrastructure like roads, bridges and healthcare. Russia has used the heavy fist method in dealing with terrorism for its entire existence and has gotten little back in return with respect to its security. We live in a global economy now. Our flu vaccine is based on what happens in Asia each year. When Britain voted to leave the EU our stock market tanked. Terrorism is a global problem where a terrorist can be in Chad on a Tuesday and in the US by Thursday with no one the wiser. Terrorism will only be won on the world stage not individually. The technology that we take for granted in our daily lives has forever placed everyone together on the world stage for better or worse. This is were we are. We can view fighting terrorism like playing the game whack-a-mole. Certainly we can keep up for a while but we will never defeat terrorism entirely. Not alone and not with a club, just ask any member the a gang task force in a major city.

We have let in too many unvetted people, so safety is not where it should be on the scale.

America is by no means Safer .
Under the current Presidential Regime we Have Been set UP for an attack from inside our own country.