The Patriot Post® · 9/11: The Islamist Threat Is Still a Clear and Present Danger

“There is a rank due to the United States, among nations, which will be withheld, if not absolutely lost, by the reputation of weakness. If we desire to avoid insult, we must be able to repel it; if we desire to secure peace, one of the most powerful instruments of our rising prosperity, it must be known that we are at all times ready for war.” —George Washington (1793)

In this year that we celebrate American Liberty’s 250th anniversary, we also observe the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 Islamist attack on our nation — the most devastating attack on civilian targets by a foreign adversary in our nation’s history.

While domestic enemies of American Liberty, the leftist political advocates of statist tyranny, perhaps pose a greater threat to our nation’s future than do foreign terrorists, the latter pose an active and imminent threat and are still a clear and present danger.

At the close of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia on September 17, 1787, Benjamin Franklin was asked if the delegates had formed a Republic or a monarchy. “A Republic,” he famously responded, “if you can keep it.” Given the very real threat of domestic nuclear attack by Islamic adversaries, Franklin’s qualification, “if you can keep it,” is more relevant now than ever.

This week we honor the memory of 2,977 victims who were murdered in the September 11, 2001, terrorist assaults. The victims were killed by 19 Islamist al-Qa’ida hijackers who weaponized four commercial jetliners in a plan hatched in Afghanistan by Osama bin Laden.

On the evening of September 10, those victims prepared for the next day’s work and travel. The 11th dawned as a beautiful, clear day across the Eastern Seaboard, with unlimited ceiling and visibility. It started as an ordinary day for each of those victims, but only one would live beyond 10:30 on September 11 — a Pentagon victim who died six days later.

At 08:46, the deadly chronology of events began when American Airlines Flight 11 from Boston crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center, tearing a gaping hole in the building and setting it afire. At 09:03, as millions of Americans watched live coverage, United Airlines Flight 175 from Boston crashed into the south tower. Both buildings were saturated in burning jet fuel, and hundreds of people were trapped above the impact zones. Almost 50,000 people worked in the two towers, and the attackers wanted the loss of life to be tenfold the actual loss.

At 09:30, President George W. Bush, speaking in Sarasota, Florida, announced that the country had suffered an “apparent terrorist attack.”

At 09:37, American Airlines Flight 77 from nearby Dulles International Airport crashed into the Pentagon, killing 59 passengers and crew, and 125 in the Pentagon.

And at 10:03, United Airlines Flight 93 from Newark, New Jersey, crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, southeast of Pittsburgh.

As it turned out, passengers aboard Flight 93 were aware of the other attacks. They formed the first line of defense to protect our homeland in the coming battles against Islamist terrorism, forcing Flight 93, which was likely headed for the Capitol, to crash.

At 10:05, millions of Americans witnessed in real time, the south tower of the World Trade Center collapsing onto the streets below. At 10:28, the north tower collapsed.

In 79 minutes, it was over. But the consequences were just emerging and will never subside.

In addition to the 2,977 people who were murdered in those attacks, there were more than 6,000 others injured, and many more afflicted with the invisible injuries of trauma and loss. Many others would die from health conditions associated with Ground Zero.

The overwhelming majority of the victims were civilians.

But in New York, there were 441 first responders killed in the World Trade Center attacks. Among them were 344 members of the New York City Fire Department and Fire Patrol. There were 72 law enforcement officers killed, including 37 officers from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, 23 officers from the New York City Police Department, and 12 officers from other agencies. And there were eight EMTs and paramedics killed that day.

Inside the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, there were 55 military personnel among the 125 who were murdered there.

(You can learn more about all the 9/11 victims at the 9/11 Memorial site.)

At home in Tennessee that morning, my first reaction after witnessing the second plane hit the WTC south tower, not being clear if these events were the beginning of a lengthy series of attacks, was to check coms associated with a national security post I held at the time. I then pulled my young children from their elementary school and fueled up our vehicles. We were otherwise already prepared for a regional or national security crisis, as you should be today, per the information we provide on our Emergency Preparedness and Response Planning pages.

Another distinct memory from that day: Hours after the attack, I received a call from an Army intel officer with whom I had attended a national security briefing shortly after the February 1993 bombing of the WTC north tower by Islamist terrorists led by Ramzi Yousef and his uncle Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who also helped plan the 9/11 attack. Their strategy was to topple one tower into the other, and if they had placed their truck bomb at a corner of the building’s garage instead of the center, they might have succeeded.

My colleague reminded me that I had stated in that briefing, “The next time they hit WTC, they will do it from the air.” For the record, I have no recollection of making that comment.

That evening, President George W. Bush addressed the nation, declaring, “America was targeted for attack because we’re the brightest beacon for freedom and opportunity in the world. And no one will keep that light from shining.” He added: “This is a day when all Americans from every walk of life unite in our resolve for justice and peace. America has stood down enemies before, and we will do so this time. None of us will ever forget this day.”

In the days that followed, President Bush drafted a War Powers Resolution “against those nations, organizations or persons he determines planned, authorized, harbored, committed or aided in the planning or commission” of the attacks. On September 14, the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force passed in the House without amendment by a vote of 420 to 1, with 10 not voting. It passed in the Senate by a vote of 98-0.

Our nation was united across all lines.

That AUMF set into motion Operation Enduring Freedom, which launched the Global War on Terror (GWOT).

In Bush’s speech to the nation about OEF and “taking the battle to the enemy,” he invoked the last words recorded from United Flight 93 — those of Todd Beamer as he rallied his fellow passengers, saying, “Let’s roll.” Bush declared, “My fellow Americans, let’s roll.”

Bush made clear that this was a “Long War Strategy” that would require years of military and diplomatic commitment: “The American people must understand this war on terrorism will be fought on a number of fronts, in different ways. The front lines will look different from the wars of the past.”

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld declared, “This is a war that is going to be a long war, and it is going to take years ... like the Cold War did.”

OEF was followed by Operation Iraqi Freedom two years later, and by other special operations over the next two decades.

On the Long War, in 2008, John McCain channeled Don Rumsfeld when asked by a reporter if we would need to stay in Iraq for 50 years. McCain was skewered for responding, “Make it a hundred.” But as I had argued years earlier, that is what it would take to contain the emerging WMD threat — and still is.

Notably, Bush’s War Powers Resolution has withstood repeal efforts to this day, especially by Democrats after Joe Biden escalated military actions in Somalia in 2022 — reversing Trump’s orders for withdrawal.

Over the past 25 years, there have been 7,052 U.S. military personnel and 8,100 U.S. military contractors, both American and foreign, killed in the Global War on Terror. They were fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, and sons and daughters. Though the GWOT is often claimed to be our longest war, I am grateful that there have not been far more casualties. That is of no solace to the families of those killed on 9/11.

Notably, by the time bin Laden was finally killed in 2011, Barack Obama had expanded GWOT operations to 13 nations.

There are some perilous parallels between the years before 9/11 and the domestic risks we face from foreign adversaries on U.S. soil today.

In briefings shortly after 9/11, it became clear that although Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and bin Laden were the “masterminds,” Bill Clinton’s ineptitude paved the way for the attacks.

The terrorist cadre planned the 9/11 attacks during the last three years of Clinton’s presidency, training cell leaders and prepositioning assets in the U.S., which went undeterred by the Clinton administration.

Prior to 9/11, as confirmed by Michael Scheuer, former CIA chief of the bin Laden hunt team, our SpecOps had not one but two opportunities to kill OBL before 9/11. Yet with Osama literally in their sights, Bill Clinton ordered that we hold fire in both of those operations. Notably, he subsequently lied about his failure to take out Osama.

Consequently, OBL’s 9/11 jihadis began entering the United States under Clinton’s watch. Hijacker pilot Hani Hanjour had received his commercial pilot certificate in the U.S. in 1999. In January 2000, Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi arrived in San Diego, California. In July 2000, the three additional hijacker-pilots, Mohamed Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi, and Ziad Jarrah, arrived for additional flight training in Florida. The remaining “muscle” hijackers entered the country after the pilots, between December 2000 and July 2001 — all on valid non-immigrant temporary visas.

In its findings, the bipartisan 9/11 Commission Report chastised both the FBI and CIA under Clinton administrators for failing to follow leads regarding the terrorist plotters, noting our country had “not been well served” by either agency. In fact, Stanford University Fellow Amy Zegart documented 23 investigative leads the FBI failed to follow, any one of which may have led to the disruption of the 9/11 attack.

However, at the time, some agents were being accused of “religious profiling” when attempting to open case files on Islamist suspects they considered threats. The fact is, Islamist terrorists are profiling us, and we, thankfully, started profiling terrorists after 9/11.

Ultimately, Bush was forced to clean up years of acquiescence to Islamist terror by the Clinton administration, just as now President Donald Trump is endeavoring to clean up the Iran nuclear threat after years of prior administrations’ failure to confront that threat head-on.

The parallel here: Given that the pilots of the 9/11 aircraft entered our country legally with visas during the Clinton administration, consider how many potential terrorists entered our country illegally during four years of open borders under the Biden/Harris regime, particularly from Muslim immigration.

Moreover, in the days ahead of the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attack, Biden and his leftist cadre surrendered Afghanistan to the Taliban and retreated.

Trump had already initiated a troop drawdown in 2020, as outlined in the Doha Agreement, contingent on the Taliban meeting certain conditions (which were certainly not met under Biden). Trump also planned to position key military assets in the region to enforce that agreement.

But in April 2021, when Biden announced he would withdraw ALL forces, he set into motion an overnight resurgence of the Taliban, who in just weeks had retaken power in most Afghan provinces and reinstalled their oppressive leaders. Biden’s actions also invited a reign of terror against anyone known to or perceived to have collaborated with American military forces or civilian aid providers.

In doing so, Biden and his ilk denigrated all the blood and treasure we spent to keep our nation safe for the last two decades.

And that retreat quickly reconstituted the al-Qa’ida and ISIS terror network threats, leaving our nation exposed to far more formidable Islamist terror attacks than we faced before 9/11.

To be clear, if you thought 9/11 was catastrophic, the consequences of a nuclear “Islamic Bomb” detonation in the U.S. are far more significant. The threat of a catastrophic nuclear attack on the U.S. mainland by Islamist terrorist surrogates is considered low, but the scope of such an attack is enormous.

Iran has been the principal state sponsor of Islamist terror for two decades, and that includes the Hamas attack on Israeli citizens in October 2023. (Notably, in a nation of 9.4 million people, 1,200 Israelis murdered in that attack equates to almost 32,000 dead in America.)

Neutralizing Iran’s nuclear weapon ambitions is long overdue. Trump’s actions to do just that extend the Long War initiated by George W. Bush in 2001.

Trump needs to finish the job in Iran, and do a much better job ensuring Americans understand that the stakes are exponentially higher than the 9/11 attack.

Bush declared then: “We are determined to fight this evil and fight until we are rid of it. We will not wait for more innocent deaths. ... All nations, if they want to fight terror, must do something. It is time for action. Over time, it’s going to be important for nations to know they will be held accountable for inactivity. You’re either with us, or you’re against us in the fight against terrorism.”

Trump has rightly demanded the same support from our allies in actions against Iran.

Looking back 25 years, it is apparent that there is a direct correlation between the amount of time since 9/11 and the erosion of our national resolve to prevent another exponentially more catastrophic attack. And with that has come a denial in some quarters that Islamist ideology continues to call for the annihilation of all “infidels.”

WE MUST NEVER FORGET. EVER.

FOOTNOTE 1: The families of 9/11 victims have asked New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani to stay away from their memorial ceremony, and delivered a petition to his office signed by more than 100,000 people affirming their request. Speaking for the families of victims, Charles Wolf, whose wife perished that day, issued this statement: “We are asking respectfully that he not show up. ... It is a private ceremony. It is not a public ceremony. Mayor Mamdani, please do not come.” Among their objections is Mamdani’s high-profile association with Hasan Piker, the radical social media influencer who declared “America deserved 9/11.”

FOOTNOTE 2: President Trump presented the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, to the family of Welles Remy Crowther, “the man in the red bandana.” Crowther, then 24, was working as an equities trader on the 104th floor of the south tower. “Welles saved many, many people before losing his own life in the South Tower lobby when the building came down,” said the president. The award was “in honor of his incredible bravery and all of the other countless unknown acts of heroism that day,” he added. “He just did things that people said were not even imaginable — up and down, up and down, up and down, over and over again, saving life after life.” His mother responded that on that day, “He was no longer an equities trader on 9/11; he was a firefighter.”

Semper Vigilans Fortis Paratus et Fidelis
Pro Deo et Libertate — 1776

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