This Friday will mark the day 25 years ago when time itself appeared to stop dead.

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It was as if all extraneous thought and activity was suddenly required to make sense of one imponderable moment.

Rarely had a non-state actor so fully seized the initiative, dictating the stances of nations and the futures of millions. Never had that chilling import been so visible to so many so quickly.

In hindsight, the devastating September 11 attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York and the Pentagon, marked a hardening of hearts, a closing of borders, and a debasement of human rights.

Illegal and ill-advised wars were launched. Backs were turned as "black sites" used torture. Revenge was unleashed. Millions suffered. Through its unbounded evil, al-Qaeda had successfully coaxed the world into a more primitive state, luring a self-assured West into a ceaseless betrayal of its proclaimed values.

As a historic turning point, the Japanese air raid on the US Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbour is comparable but the world only learned of it after the event.

Much of this heinous attack, though, was witnessed live in America and around the world. Crucially, there was no known endpoint during those first traumatised hours, nor in the days and weeks that followed.

That gnawing fear and the graphic images, made it feel personal, relatable.

Like the terrifying glacial avalanche in Nepal-Tibet of August 26, 2026, in which the last hopes of finding survivors have all but disappeared, the colossal terror of "9-11" was leveraged well beyond those trapped in the planes and towers. Indeed, well beyond America itself.

Its unfathomable hatred and incredible success became ingrained thanks to the stunning live coverage as it unfolded.

These two mass-casualty events - one painstakingly contrived, the other an accident - are........

© Canberra Times