Reflections on the 25th Anniversary of the 9/11 Terrorist Attacks

For those of us who vividly remember September 11, 2001, it is difficult to believe that 25 years have passed since that horrific, historic day when 19 Muslim hijackers took control of four airplanes; the hijackers crashed two of the airplanes into the World Trade Center and one of the airplanes into the Pentagon before passengers on the fourth airplane made sure that it crashed in an open field instead of hitting its designated target, most likely the U.S. Capitol building. That morning, I was at my parents' house when the first airplane crashed into the World Trade Center. For a fleeting moment, it was possible to believe--or at least hope--that this was a terrible accident, but after the second airplane crashed into the World Trade Center 17 minutes later we knew that we were under attack. I will never forget one of the TV talking heads saying something to the effect that we will have to spend millions of dollars to investigate this attack and find out who is behind it. I ruefully said to my parents, "They can save that money or send it to me, because I know the answer: Khalid Sheikh Muhammad and Osama bin Laden."

My point was less about my intelligence and more about the willful stupidity of our leaders and our media members. Just eight years earlier, Islamic terrorists bombed the World Trade Center, causing extensive damage while injuring over 1000 people and killing six people, an attack that should have been foreseen and prevented if the U.S. government had thoroughly investigated the assassination of Rabbi Meir Kahane, as I explained in "Our War is With the Jews": Main PLO Faction Admits the Truth:

[Y]ears later (after the 9/11 attacks) "a Congressional investigation revealed that bin Laden had paid the legal fees of El Sayed Nosair, the man who murdered Rabbi Meir Kahane on November 5, 1990. Failing to distinguish between good and evil prevented U.S. authorities from fully investigating the Kahane murder and discovering the connections between Nosair, Omar Abdel-Rahman (the 'blind Sheikh') and bin Laden's al Qaeda; at the time, Kahane's murder was blithely dismissed by the media and by the U.S. government as a radical Arab killing a prominent Jewish figure but we now know that this crime was the first terrorist act committed on American soil by the group that eventually attacked the World Trade Center in 1993: bin Laden's confederates failed to bring down the Twin Towers that time but the next group that bin Laden sent succeeded eight years later. The idea that Kahane and bin Laden are equally radical and equally dangerous is an example of the pernicious, fallacious thinking that Vladimir Nabokov called 'poshlost.' There are not two equally valid sides regarding Kahane and bin Laden; Kahane proposed political solutions (with which one is free to agree or disagree), while bin Laden proposed (and delivered) mass murder around the globe; it is impossible to act correctly without making correct distinctions."

The failure of Western governments to sufficiently confront the nations and groups that foment Islamic terrorism has repeatedly led to suffering. Instead of defeating her enemies, Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza in 2005. Soon after, Gazans elected Hamas to power. On October 7, 2023, Hamas conducted a mass casualty terrorist attack in Israel during which more than 1200 people--mostly Jews--were killed, more than 3400 people were injured, and over 250 people were taken into Gaza as hostages. Proportional to population size, Israel's casualties on that day were the equivalent of more than 10 times the casualties that the U.S. suffered on 9/11. 

Too many media outlets focus on so-called "Islamophobia" instead of reporting about the openly declared jihad that is being waged by Islamists against the West. It is painful to see the large numbers of young people who have been seduced by the toxic marriage of Leftist political and economic ideas with Islamism.  

It may seem unpleasant to some people to speak of killing one's enemies, but I began Violence, Non-Violent Non-Cooperation, and Human Nature by noting that violence is "an inescapable reality of life": 

Violence is an inescapable reality of life. It is not possible to survive without committing violence and, indeed, one's ability to survive is directly proportional to one's capacity to both withstand and deliver violence. If you doubt this premise then just consider how you obtain food, water and shelter: none of those essential commodities can be procured without committing violence against other life forms, from tiny microbes to large plants and animals. Killing is an essential part of living.

Non-violence is an aspirational ideal for human beings interacting with other human beings, but elevating non-violence as the highest ideal can sometimes endanger the most innocent and vulnerable among us. The truth of that seemingly paradoxical statement can be seen by closely examining the concept of non-violent non-cooperation. Mahatma Gandhi's campaign of non-violent non-cooperation is credited with ending the British Empire's rule over his native India. Gandhi instructed his followers to not fight the British militarily, but to refuse to cooperate with the British through boycotts and other measures. Gandhi's goal was to highlight the inequities inherent in British control over the Indian people. Gandhi did not view the British as inherently evil; rather, he sought to expose the evil inherent in colonial rule, and thus exercise moral suasion over British society to end such colonial rule.

Gandhi's ideal of non-violent non-cooperation worked in India because Britain, while flawed, was a nation built on the rule of law. Similarly, when Dr. Martin Luther King adopted Gandhi's principles as cornerstones for the Civil Rights Movement in America, he operated under the basic assumption that non-violent non-cooperation would force the American people to see the evil inherent in Jim Crow laws/segregation, and thus exercise moral suasion over American society to end Jim Crow laws/segregation. Britain and America did not seek to annihilate the Indian and Black people respectively, and thus it was possible to awaken the collective consciences of those countries to the injustices inherent in the way those countries treated Indian and Black people respectively. 

Non-violent non-cooperation can be very effective in open, democratic countries that have racist laws and/or racist subcultures. Non-violent non-cooperation is much less likely to be effective in closed, non-democratic countries that consider mass extermination to be an acceptable policy choice. Failing to distinguish between open, democratic countries, and closed, non-democratic countries is to engage in what Vladimir Nabokov termed "poshlost," for which he gave the following explanation: "Poshlost speaks in such concepts as 'America is no better than Russia' or 'We all share in Germany's guilt.' ...Listing in one breath Auschwitz, Hiroshima, and Vietnam is seditious poshlost."  

Western civilization is involved in a war that it did not choose--but must win--versus people and nations who do not value life or place any importance on the protection of human rights; these people and nations proudly chant, "We love death more than you love life."

After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, President George W. Bush declared, "Whether we bring our enemies to justice, or bring justice to our enemies, justice will be done." It took nearly 10 years to find and kill Osama bin Laden, but the U.S. finally accomplished that necessary task, and the U.S. along with her allies must continue to eliminate not just terrorist leaders but the rank and file members of terrorist groups who seek to destroy our society. This mission requires clear thinking that distinguishes good from evil, the kind of thinking that is the opposite of the Leftist ideology that challenges the foundational concepts of Western civilization, including equality theory, legal reasoning, Enlightenment rationalism and neutral principles of constitutional law.

The painful lesson of 9/11 can be summarized by an ancient piece of Jewish wisdom that is quite fitting to quote on the eve of Rosh Hashanah: "Anyone who has pity on the cruel, will show cruelty to the merciful." The self-proclaimed "progressives" who pretend that they care so much about Gazan civilians are siding with the very people who elected Hamas and who stormed into Israel side by side with Hamas terrorists, and they are making common cause with Iran while slandering both the U.S. and Israel; by having pity on the cruel, such people are not only being cruel to the people who are most in need of protection but are endangering the very survival of Western civilization. If you doubt that, then just consider how many Jews around the world need armed protection to publicly observe Judaism. Jews are being openly hunted while Leftists cheer--and if you think that the hunting will stop with the Jews, then you have not only failed to learn the lesson of 9/11 but you have failed to understand the difference between Western values and the Leftist/Islamist ideology seeking to destroy the West.

President Biden's Defining Moment: The Triumph of the Taliban

President Joe Biden has been a politician for over five decades without producing a single defining moment--until now. "The Triumph of the Taliban" will forever be a chapter in any history book covering military/political fiascos, alongside "The Fall of Saigon" and other ignominious events. President Biden's Afghanistan debacle will have disastrous consequences not only in the short term for those who are currently suffering persecution and murder in the grip of Taliban tyranny, but also in the long term: the United States has vindicated the predictions of her enemies that she will flee Afghanistan in disgrace, and the United States has also shown that she is not a trustworthy ally. 

The errors and missteps of previous Presidents do not change the fact that President Biden bears responsibility for this failure, and for the subsequent ripple effects--which could include attacks against American targets (very possibly on American soil) by terrorists who are given aid, comfort, and support from the Taliban. It is worth noting that Taliban leader Khairullah Khairkhwa was released from Guantanamo Bay in 2014 by President Obama against the counsel of the Pentagon, who considered Khairkhwa to be a dangerous threat. Thus, there is a direct line from President Obama's miscalculation/underestimation of the threat posed by the Taliban to the mistakes made by President Joe Biden, who of course was Vice President during the Obama administration.

As darkness descends upon Afghanistan, where are all the self-proclaimed "progressives" who love to chant antisemitic slogans while claiming to be concerned about Arab/Muslim rights? Why don't self-proclaimed "progressives" speak out on behalf of the Taliban's victims? If you are awake and honest, you know the answer, and it is the same answer that explains why the self-proclaimed "progressives" could not care less about China's persecution of the Uighur Muslims: if it does not make dollars then it does not make sense to self-proclaimed "progressives," who are focused on "activism" that puts money in their pockets. 

In Anti-Semitism Isn’t Merely Another Kind of Hate, Ruth Wisse connects the dots between left-wing ideology, antisemitism, and anti-Zionism:

Anti-Semitism is a form a of hatred, but it's more than that. People organize against the Jews as part of an ideological struggle. Scapegoating Jews for the suffering of another people provides an explanation for its misery, an outlet for its anger, and a target for its aggression...

Zionists who thought anti-Semitism was directed against them because of their dispersion were surprised to find it was even easier to blame them in their homeland. But a small people with a hugely magnified image proved the perfect foil for any anti-liberal cause. When Rep. Rashida Tlaib claims that people working "behind the curtain" to stop a "free Palestine" are "profiting" off Americans, she obviously isn't talking about Tutsis or gays.

While Israelis have no choice but to repel those who attack them, Americans and Jews prefer to ignore or justify the aggression. Progressives say: Who, us? We're anti-fascists, so how can we be Jew-baiters? Ignorant or disingenuous, they ignore that the driving force of anti-Jewish politics since 1945 has been not fascism but the Arab-Muslim war against the Jewish state, supported by Marxist ideology.

If you are a Black Lives Matter activist who chants anti-Israel slogans but says nothing about China, the Taliban, and other repressive regimes then there is no other way to put this: you are a fool and a sucker. I understand and sympathize with Black people who rightly protest past and current discrimination but--as Wisse correctly notes--scapegoating Jews (and/or Israel) for the suffering of Black people does not in any way help Black people, and in fact gives strength to ideologues who seek to repress freedom everywhere. If you assert that Israel is somehow bad but that the Taliban are not bad (or are irrelevant), then you are, as Wisse aptly put it, "ignorant or disingenuous."

All of the entertainers and rappers who accuse Israel of genocide should go to China or Afghanistan, try to protest in the streets (or even just publicly perform their songs and videos) and then see what happens. The last time the Taliban ruled Afghanistan, they converted a major sports stadium into a venue for public executions. You think that the American justice system is bad? It is far from perfect to be sure, but it beats mass public executions without a trial for anyone who allegedly violates Islamic fundamentalist laws. 

After US Withdrawal from Afghanistan, Implications for Israel Look Grimmer examines what Israel (and other countries) can learn from the rapid and tragic fall of Afghanistan:

As Israel observes the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban, it's difficult to forget the capitulation of the Iraqi army to ISIS in 2014 or the EUBAM observers who fled as Hamas seized power in the Gaza Strip in 2007, not to mention visions of the United States fleeing Saigon in the spring of 1975 as part of the collapse of the Vietnam War.

Noting the coincidental, yet equal number of years separating each of the Middle Eastern incidents in which Islamic fundamentalists defeated their adversaries, Eran Lerman, vice president of the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security, half-jokingly called it the "seven-year-itch."

"What worries me," he says, "is a much broader symbolic message that Islamist radicalism is once again on the march, the Americans have no staying power, and the West is in decline."

Lerman suggests that Israel learn lessons from the past, saying it should "band together with other countries to hold against the tide."

Referring to Israel's own concerns of Islamic fundamentalists taking over Palestinian areas besides Gaza, which Hamas already controls, Lerman says "I hope we never again hear lectures from the Americans on how you can trust Palestinian security forces to run their country and keep us safe once we leave."

Israel has long argued that a future Palestinian state left to its own devices and without Israeli oversight would easily collapse if confronted by a terrorist organization like the Islamic State (ISIS), the Taliban or Hamas.

The fall of Afghanistan only strengthens Israel's argument and, as Lerman argues, its leaders must learn the lessons here.

While that article focuses on the potential negative implications for Israel of the resurgence of the Taliban, the reality is that all Western democracies are weakened and imperiled any time Islamic fundamentalism gains momentum. The Taliban and other Islamic fundamentalists divide the world into two categories: Dar al-Islam (Abode of Islam) and Dar al-Harb (Abode of War). Islamic fundamentalists believe that all lands that are not Dar al-Islam must be captured by force. There is no possibility for peace or compromise (other than temporary, strategic peace agreements that are made to bide time for conquest, a tradition begun by Muhammad himself). 

Shortsighted people who believed that the Taliban's horrific policies and actions during the 1990s in Afghanistan were of no relevance or concern to the United States received a rude and violent wake up call on September 11, 2001. Let's hope that we will not need another mass terrorist attack to understand and confront the danger to freedom everywhere posed by the frightening gains made in recent years by Islamic fundamentalists, including the Taliban.  

President Biden ran his campaign based on his competence and his compassion. Let's hope that during the remainder of his term he displays both qualities to a greater extent than he has thus far.