September 11th - are we moving forward or in circles?

Last week was the 8th anniversary of the tragic events and senseless deaths of September 11th, 2001. Living out of the country now it was interesting to hear about the events and to be in a context where it was referred to but didn't consume the national/media attention. What's interesting about the day was the recreation of the event, displays and representations of the airplanes hitting the tower amidst the moments of silence, reverence and remembering.

I'm all for that and yet I found myself wondering, why do we insist on remembering where we were at that moment, or rewatching in a near addiction-to-pornographic-like-violence of that terrible day. Why is it that we are so quick and eager to remember and yet I find it nearly impossible online to read or hear of people's analysis of where we've gone and been since that day? How is it that we've gone from a moment of near universal unity in the face of such horrific and inhuman terrorism to a world splintered by politics, torn by war and now consumed by the complications of global economic re/dep-ression? How is it that we can't seem to learn more than how to remember from an event that should be forcing us to (more than) annually ask ourselves how have we gotten to this point? Why did this happen? How can we stop such terrorism from happening again, besides merely by invading and attacking far away lands in order to get the terrorists before they can get us?

Granted I live in France, the land of un-freedom fries, so others here asked similar politically/nationalistically challenging questions. So maybe I'm a traitor. Maybe I'm a patriot. In any case I find it ironic that the only analysis-like clip I encountered online was this funny and thoughtful bit using stormtroopers reflecting on the destruction of the death star posted on collegehumor.com.