I haven’t seen the twin towers of the World Trade Center, only the gaping hole they call Ground Zero. I remember the top-of-the-feeling, though, when my wife and I rode up to the observation tower of the Empire State Building. We snapped pictures like crazy, overwhelmed by the breathtaking view. New York seemed like a vast toy town, the skyscrapers dwarfed into insignificance, the rivers no wider than scarves or ribbons.

The people who worked in the Twin Towers no doubt got used to such views and came down to earth at the end of the day to return to homes like ours. They were no different from us ordinary people except in their workplace setting. That was enough to mark them for slaughter.

Only the survivors can tell what it was like when the planes crashed into the Twin Towers. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw it on television in Singapore. Such scenes were only seen in Hollywood disaster movies. But this was on CNN. Even before the horrified commentators could get over the shock of the first crash, a second plane crashed into the other tower.

America, the superpower, seemed defenceless as its tallest  buildings crumbled, belching fire and smoke.

We saw people crying, horrified. That’s what the terrorists wanted. They didn’t care who got killed as long as they made their point that America was no longer safe.

They failed to reckon with American resilience, though. New York was bustling when we visited the Empire State Building. Tourists were everywhere.

But life has changed for those whose loved ones were among the 3,000 killed on 9/11. I remember reading the obits which appeared in the New York Times. They were innocent victims of the terrorists’ murderous rage against America.

The terrorists have their sights not only on America. They are there in India, Britain, Southeast Asia and the Middle East. But the world can’t even agree on who is a terrorist. The "war on terror" has become deeply divisive, says the BBC. "Whereas Le Monde declared the day after 9/11: ‘We are all Americans now’, a placard at a demonstration in London recently read: ‘We are all Hezbollah now."

It’s sad when militants like the Hezbollah become popular because that can only encourage more violence. Didn’t we learn anything from 9/11? That it’s the innocent who die?