On this eighteenth anniversary of the September 11, 2001
Terrorist Attacks on the World Trade Center in New York, the Pentagon in
Virginia and over the skies of Pennsylvania, we Americans remember the nearly
three thousand people who were massacred by Islamist al-Qaeda terrorists.
We recall the heroism of the
civilians who resisted the hijackers on Flight 93 and the bravery of the first
responders, many of whom sacrificed their lives or were seriously injured. We also think of the rescue-workers who died
or who are still suffering from exposure to the unhealthy air over the rubble
of the Twin Towers.
It is also appropriate to thank the
many public policy-making officials, military servicemen, intelligence agents,
federal and state law enforcement officers and civilians who have contributed
to the success of the United States and its allies in the Global War on
Terrorism that has prevented another September 11-scale attack.
Although reduced, the threat of
al-Qaeda and other Islamist terrorists and militant jihadis around the world to
Americans and others remains, especially from smaller-scale attacks. Since the U.S.
and its allies, including the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, overthrew the
Taliban de facto Afghan regime that had provided safe haven to al-Qaeda, which
had plotted the attacks from Afghanistan,
the Taliban has tried to regain power.
Backed by the American-led coalition, Afghanistan has tried to keep the
Taliban from power to prevent it from becoming a safe haven again for Islamist
terrorists. The U.S. and its
allies have withdrawn a significant number of their forces from the theater of
operations as they have trained and supported Afghans, but the Taliban have
gained significant territory and have attempted to make Americans and their
allies weary by occasionally killing their soldiers in order to encourage
opposition to the War on Terrorism. As a
result of this global Islamist strategy, isolationism on both the far left and especially
on the “nationalist” far right has increased, which encourages more killings of
Americans by Islamists in Afghanistan
and elsewhere, especially in places where strategic military victory is
unlikely. Before September 11, al-Qaeda
had cited U.S. withdrawals
from Vietnam, Lebanon and Somalia because of popular
opposition, not military defeat, as examples encouraging this Islamist
strategy.
The political pressure to “end” the
war in Afghanistan, as opposed to continuing to fight the Islamists to prevent
them from being able to launch more attacks on the U.S. homeland, let alone of
winning the war by defeating them decisively, led former U.S. President Barack
Obama to begin negotiations with the Taliban, even though the Afghan Islamists had
been state sponsors of terrorism. His
successor, Donald Trump, has continued the negotiations, without regard to the
allied Afghan government, to surrender much of Afghanistan to the Taliban,
which could allow al-Qaeda and other Islamists based there to become a greater
threat not only to Americans abroad and U.S. interests, but once again to the
American homeland. It would further
encourage Islamists who have been waging a war of conquest for 14 centuries
that they have more resolve than the most powerful non-Muslim States and that
the Islamist strategy of terrorism and guerilla attacks to kill soldiers,
regardless of any strategic gains, to defeat military even great powers, which
suggests that their violent jihad (Islamic holy war) is divinely-favored. And it would discourage non-Islamist Muslims
from allying with the United
States and its allies.
To reduce the threat of Islamism
and prevent another September 11-scale attack and to reduce or eliminate all
terrorist and other violent jihadist attacks, it is necessary instead to defeat Islamists
militarily, including the Taliban, especially in a decisive manner.
