America’s promise to never forget Sept. 11 is primarily, but not exclusively, about remembering the 2,977 innocents murdered nearly a quarter century ago on an otherwise perfect September morning. In addition to keeping the victims’ memories alive and honoring the heroism of first responders in Manhattan, at the Pentagon, and aboard United 93, not forgetting also means recalling who attacked and how such an operation was pulled off to avoid the specter of repeating one of the darkest days in America’s history.
In hindsight, there were significant failures across the government that spanned political parties and presidents, stretching back to the waning days of the Cold War, when few, if any, Americans knew the names al Qaeda or Osama bin Laden, and most, instead, were fearing Soviet nukes and mutually assured destruction.
The threat of a radical Islamist attack on the homeland was there, however, and the pieces — namely the fanatics who carried out the hijackings, the funders who enabled the plot, and even the strategy itself — were falling into place decades earlier.
The book “Ghost Wars” by Steve Coll focuses on the U.S. government’s, primarily the CIA’s, actions from the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan to Sept. 10, 2001, providing an illuminating and jarring account of where many things went wrong. To better understand how the age of terrorism came to be, Jack Carr’s “Targeted: Beirut” is a meticulous and gripping retelling of the 1983 Marine Barracks bombing that, now looking back, marked one of the earliest attacks in what became the War on Terror that dominated the lives of the 9/11 generation.
Reading those books outside the time their stories take place makes it seem obvious where problems arose and contributed to the shock of Sept. 11, 2001. Yet, if they’re so obvious now, why have some of those mistakes-turned-warnings not been consistently heeded?
The damage done during four years of President Autopen was evident in real time — warnings for border agents to stay alert for Islamic terrorists inspired by Hamas barbarians’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel, numerous Biden administration officials testifying to Congress about how all the alarms were flashing red — yet course was not changed.
The wide-open border remained a welcome mat for millions of “known gotaways” whose identity, affiliations, and intentions remained unknown, rather than a controlled entry point. Large sums of Iranian assets were unfrozen in a boon to the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism, and American deterrence in the Middle East was decimated by one weak, feckless decision after another.
Informed by the earlier days of the War on Terror — including the Beirut Barracks bombing — sensible people warned that the Biden administration’s policies and actions would get Americans killed in the Middle East. Tragically, we were right. Repeatedly. From the Abbey Gate bombing in Kabul during the shamefully executed withdrawal from Afghanistan to scores of Iran-backed terrorist attacks on U.S. forces that claimed the lives of U.S. service members, a weak America breathed new life into our terrorist foes.
The avoidable chaos, death, and increased danger to Americans at home and abroad for those four years was a result of the Biden administration — and a continuation of the Obama administration — willfully ignoring the lessons and warnings of 9/11, an abdication of the responsibility to never forget. It’s frankly miraculous that things did not get worse than they did, that more Americans were not killed abroad, and that there was not another coordinated terrorist attack on U.S. soil.
In what should be a relief to Americans and our nation’s allies, President Trump and his administration wasted no time doubling down on the national security policies enacted in his first term — all of which take the promise to never forget to heart while avoiding the pitfalls of America’s previous actions in the War on Terror.
American deterrence is strong again. Our word is respected, even among our foes — or else. We’re working with our allies in the region to spread stability, rather than maligning them to appease woke, mentally unstable idiots at home. What’s more, Trump has managed to expand American influence in the Middle East by building upon the success of the supposedly impossible Abraham Accords — and he’s doing it all without committing America or her sons and daughters to a war of indeterminate length.
Anyone who doubts the seriousness and efficacy of Trump’s efforts to contain and eliminate terrorism and its supporters in the Middle East should ask Iran’s nuclear scientists and Hamas’ leadership contingent in Qatar for comment.
These efforts tamp down the spread of terror at its roots, but Trump hasn’t stopped there. He’s taken the critical steps necessary to lock down America’s borders to stop the flow of illegal aliens from God knows where planning to do God knows what — while simultaneously rounding up and removing those who took advantage of Biden’s open borders. Both lower the immediate threat of an attack at home, but don’t entirely mitigate the increased risk created by Biden that will last for years.
Much as Trump seemed perhaps the most unlikely candidate for president in 2016 to achieve the right’s mission of overturning the Supreme Court’s flawed Roe v. Wade decision, Trump may also end up being the man to create a new reality in the Middle East that all but closes the book on its decades of radicalizing, training, funding, and defending bloodthirsty terrorists. His vision, ambitious as it may be, remains the best hope for now to at least isolate and contain the mistakes made by his predecessors.