9/11 and the Aftermath

                  

On a clear and sunny morning September the 11th America and the world are changed forever. At 8:46 a.m. a hijacked Flight 11 loaded with 92 passengers slams into the north tower of New York's World Trade Center. Shortly there after at 9:03 a.m. Flight 175 with 65 passengers flies into the south tower of the World Trade Center. President George W. Bush learns of the attacks at 9:05 a.m. while sitting in a second grade classroom at an elementary school in Sarasota, Fla. White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card informs him of the attacks, whispering into his ear during the students' reading lesson. At 9:37 a.m. Flight 77 with 64 people crashes into the pentagon. After burning for 56 minutes, the south tower of the World Trade Center collapses at 9:59 a.m. The fall, which kills approximately 600 workers and first responders, lasts 10 seconds. At 10:03 a.m. the fourth and final hijacked commercial airliner with 44 passengers aboard crashes in a field in Shanksville, Pa. At 10:28 a.m. after burning for 102 minutes, the north tower of New York's World Trade Center collapses, killing approximately 1,400 people. All told the September 11th attacks resulted in 2996 innocent deaths as well as the 19 hijackers. More than 90 countries lost citizens in the attacks on the World Trade Center. Most of those who died were US citizens. It quickly became evident that the perpetrators of the attack were cells of Islamic extremist from the radical Sunni Islamist terrorist group al-Qaeda headed by Osama Bin Laden. In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks America invaded Afghanistan in search of Osama Bin Laden, as well as al-Qaeda leaders and their operatives and sought the removal of the Taliban by force and the installation of a democratically elected government. In subsequent years the United States, under the Bush administration, America would also invade Iraq, remove Saddam Hussein from power and seek to install a democratically elected government, all under the banner of the Global War on Terrorism.

 

The rationale for the Iraq War has been a contentious issue since the Bush administration began actively pressing for military intervention in Iraq in late 2001. The Iraq Resolution of the U.S. Congress articulates the primary rationalization for the Iraq War. The U.S. stated that the intent was to remove "a regime that developed and used weapons of mass destruction, that harbored and supported terrorists, committed outrageous human rights abuses, and defied the just demands of the United Nations and the world". Throughout late 2001, 2002, and early 2003, the Bush Administration built a case for invading Iraq, culminating in then Secretary of State Colin Powell's February 2003 address to the Security Council. Shortly before the invasion, the U.S. and UK emphasized that Saddam Hussein was developing "weapons of mass destruction" and that he thus threatened the world. Shortly after the invasion, the Central Intelligence Agency, Defense and Intelligence Agency, and other intelligence agencies largely discredited evidence related to Iraqi weapons of mass destruction program as well as links to Al-Qaeda. But after 13 years of war the question remains. Are we safer?

 

According to CBS, "America's foreign policy community has never been in so much agreement about the performance of an administration overseas, 84 percent of the respondents think that we're losing the war on terror," Mike Boyer, editor of the Terrorism Index, says. The numbers show that with the exception of Afghanistan, the experts think the Bush administration's actions actually had a negative impact on the war against terror. Eighty-seven percent say the Iraq war has hurt us, 81 percent say Guantanamo Bay prison has."At the core of Osama bin Laden's argument is the belief that the U.S. is a nation that is a predatory power; that is, seeks to occupy other countries, Muslim countries, seeks to steal their wealth and destroy their religion, and by using our military the way we have, and particularly by invading Iraq, we have inadvertently confirmed that message for lots of people in the Muslim world who are sitting on the fence," believes Daniel Benjamin, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic And International Studies. Benjamin, also the co-author of "The Next Attack," says, "What we have is something that is spreading, something that is becoming more dangerous. It's like a cancer that has metastasized and so, instead of being able to point at just one tumor, you're looking at a lot of bad news in a lot of different places." The names of the recognizable bogeymen the United States went after, guns blazing after 9/11, Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, have been overshadowed by the name of a greater terror, the real enemy, the president and the policy experts agree, is radical Islam. So how does the United States fight enemies like these? That's where the controversy comes in. "If we cast this as a war of religions, if we cast this as a clash of civilizations, we really are playing into our enemy's hands because there are 1.2 billion Muslims in the world, and we don't need 1.2 billion enemies," Daniel Benjamin says."Our goal is to destroy radical Islam. That is the priority and along the way if we irritate or alienate people, well so be it," Daniel Pipes, director of the Middle East Forum explains the strategy, saying, "The rough model for what we do in this war would be the cold war which lasted for decades. You do everything. "If polls are to be believed, something else is missing. According to a CBS News/New York Times poll, 45 percent, nearly half the American public, don't believe that a president, any president, can do much about terrorism. But number one on their list: 82 percent said reducing our dependence on foreign oil. Their rationale, why hand billions of dollars over to the very people who want to attack us.

 
With today's security apparatus the 9/11 conspirators would never be able to conduct the same kinds of actions today as they did pre-9/11 getting into the United States, taking flight lessons, and wiring money overseas without catching authorities' attention. Their command and control centers in Germany, where a cell in Hamburg is believed to have planned the 9/11 attacks, as well as Afghanistan and Pakistan either no longer exist or have been severely crippled. Their ability to conduct such an attack has been greatly diminished. Not to mention the raid that killed Osama Bin Laden and the many missions and drone strikes that have killed leaders of al-Qaeda and their affiliates. Al-Qaeda is but a shell of its former self. Mainly new groups have aligned and claimed affiliation with al-Qaeda in recent times ranging from the Arab Spring through the Syria conflict. However, they are predominately local warring factions concentrated on the conflicts taking place in the middle east and in no way the well funded, well trained, well organized and highly secretive al-Qaeda of old. Without a doubt we have severely crippled al-Qaeda's ability to stage an attack on our homeland. Unfortunately, Islam is going through their dark ages and we have not been able to defeat al-Qaeda in ideology. That they must overcome in time and in solidarity. Today our greatest threat is the paradox of the "lone wolf". The singular unremarkable individual deeply embedded in our society who through a set of dynamic psychological responses or pure sociopathic behavior ideologically aligns themselves with the message of al-Qaeda or other terrorist activity and attempts to strike at our homeland. This in time may prove to be the most difficult adversary to overcome.