This week represents the five-year mark since the worse domestic attack in the nation’s history. The September 11th attack of 2001 changed America’s political reality forever. It changed how we see the world, but also changed how the world sees us. I don’t want to call it an anniversary, because anniversaries are something you celebrate—or give some special attention to. If we give special attention to anything, it should be the 3,000 plus lives that we lost in the attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and in a field in Pennsylvania, the last of which could have made 9/11 more cataclysmic than it was if the plane had made it to the White House or the Capital Building. America went into a cloud of confusion, out of which it still hasn’t come. And with our heads in a cloud, our government has used the 9/11 attacks as a political opportunity that started as a War on Terrorism, but has turned into a War in Iraq, and an impeding war in Iran, a heightening conflict in North Korea and anti-American sentiment around the world.

The American people are stuck in the middle—not knowing what to believe, what our government is saying about them or what the world is saying about us. All Americans know is that we were attacked, and innocent people died, and innocent people are still dying…and we’re just as confused today as we were five years ago. So, five years later, what do we know (or don’t know) about 9/11 and why it happened, and what’s to keep it from happening again? Not much.

Five years later, we still don’t what the government knew before it happen. We don’t know which intelligence agency knew what. They claim they knew it was coming, but didn’t know when—largely because they weren’t talking to each other. Five years later and hundreds of millions of dollars later, a commission report stated that the intelligence community is still not talking to each other and the databases are still disconnected. We don’t know who didn’t read their memo first, Condi Rice or President Bush. Neither has accepted any responsibility. We still don’t know what really caused 9/11. The “company line” is that it was by people who don’t like our way of life (freedom and democracy). The world community believes that it was the U.S.’s one-sided support of Israel as the mediator in the “peacekeeping negotiations” in the Middle East. Ironically, since 9/11, the U.S. has been the biggest advocate (and facilitator) for the establishment of a Palestinian homeland.

Five years later, the United States is deep into a war in Iraq and we don’t why we’re there (it’s been proved that Iraq had no ties to the terrorist attacks), and don’t know why we can’t leave (other than ego). Like Viet Nam, it’s a war the U.S. cannot win, but Bush is now on record saying we’ll be there for as long as he’s President. And we still don’t know where Osama Bin Laden is? The CIA-trained Bin Laden (he was the U.S.’s point person for Afghanis in the 1980 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan) has managed to play the world’s best game of “hide and seek” with the U.S., releasing tapes every six months to taunt the U.S., while continuing to keep us on edge that another attack is coming. But we don’t know when (sound familiar). And we don’t know to what level our government is prepared to prevent it. Not a comforting thought, but the reality of living in America these days.

Well, after five years after 9/11, what do we know? We know airport security is tighter on the front-end. But while every passenger is damn-near strip searched at every airport in America, the back door is open on airports tarmacs and security areas are constantly invaded by investigative reporters. While airplanes leaving U.S. airports are apparently safe, those coming into the U.S. are now targets (as the Heathrow Airport incident demonstrated)—so we have to rely on other nations’ security measures to help save us. We know airline passengers, as agitated as we are going through an airport, better be on their “best” behavior on-board, or your flight will be turned around (and that’s after you’re tased and held down by the other passengers—and don’t walk toward the front of the cabin, that’s a beat-down, fo’ sho’). We know our government is spending billions of dollars on a war in Iraq that could go to national security and real terrorism prevention.

We know the American people have fielded the brunt of the nation’s anti-terrorism efforts. 9/11 has produced the biggest invasion of privacy (the Patriot Act), the biggest over-reach of government authority (suspicion of Habeas Corpus), and the greatest loss of civil rights protections since the post WW II era of McCarthyism. The big “Red Scare” of Communism has nothing on the bigger “Arab/Muslim Scare” of terrorism. The invasions that the American people endure by their own government are seen as “minor inconveniences” to avoid future terrorist prospects.

But the American people feel no safer, and protection from future attacks cannot be guaranteed, so we put our fates in “Bush We Trust.” Not a comforting feeling, given we now know our government lied to us about Iraq—there were no weapons of mass destruction—and that our President is clueless when it comes to understanding diplomacy politics. And we know that, despite the capturing and killing of Al-Khata and Hesbellah operatives, that Osama Bin Laden, the real life “boogie-man” to the American people, is still out there, and that fact will give a pass to our President to continue to step (or mis-step) out in search of terrorists everywhere. When will it end? Probably never…or until the U.S. changes it posture toward theocracies. Like I said, Never…

Five years after 9/11, confusion still reigns, questions about our safety still arise and the future remains uncertain. That’s what the date 9/11 reminds us of, every time it comes around.

Anthony Asadullah Samad is a national columnist, managing director of the Urban Issues Forum and author of "50 Years After Brown: The State of Black Equality In America". He can be reached at AnthonySamad.com.