the DON JONES INDEX…
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GAINS
POSTED in GREEN LOSSES POSTED in RED 9/11/26... 14,318.72
9/4/26... 14,376.51 8/28/26... 14,378.09 6/27/13...
15,000.00
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(THE DOW JONES INDEX: 9/11/26... 52,064.10; 9/4/26...
53,686.11; 6/27/13…
15,000.00) |
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LESSON for FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER ELEVENTH, 2026 – “LOOKING BACK at NINE ELEVEN!”
Today is September
eleventh, and the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Nine Eleven – a day described in life-altering, even
apocalyptic terms... the day America lost its innocence, the day we all came
together, the day we embarked upon Holy War.
Takeaways from NBC
recapitulate the history of the Day.
“Twenty-five
years after two hijacked planes brought down the World Trade Center in clouds
of dust, Lower Manhattan is thriving. The observatory at the rebuilt One
World Trade Center looks out over New York City from the country’s tallest
building, its height a symbolic 1776 feet. The 9/11 Memorial & Museum draws
about 9,000 people a day.
“At the
Pentagon, more than one million people visit its outdoor
memorial each year: 184 benches over pools of water, placed in
the path of the third hijacked plane.
“Near
the field where the fourth plane crashed outside Shanksville, Pennsylvania, the
passengers are honored with a white marble wall of names.” The motto is:
"A common field one day, a field of honor forever." (“Looking back at 9/11”...
ATTACHMENT ONE)
Fifteen
of the al-Qaida hijackers were from Saudi Arabia. The others were from Egypt,
Lebanon and the United Arab Emirates.
Nearly
3,000 people died in the Sept. 11 attacks, most at the World Trade Center.
The youngest was 2 1/2 ,
one of eight children killed.
Osama
bin Laden, the al-Qaida founder whom NBC called “angry over U.S. foreign
policy”, was killed in a raid on Pakistan, “but the man accused of being the
mastermind, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, remains imprisoned at the U.S. Navy base in
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.”
His
trial date is finally expected to begin on June 5, 2028.
Dignitaries
expected to attend Friday’s commemorations include former US presidents Bill
Clinton, George W Bush and Barack Obama, and some other former mayors of New
York.
The White
House has said Donald Trump is not attending (GUK, below) but is expected to
commemorate the 9/11 attack on the Pentagon at that
site close to Washington DC, a decision that also has also drawn criticism.
US
vice-president JD Vance is expected to represent the White House in New York.
While Iran and the
U.S.A. continue to exchange drone and missile strikes in and around the Straits
of Hormuz, the New York sky was lit up with happy drones last night (ATTACHMENT
TWO) and tonight will feature an even bigger spectacle after dignitaries,
celebrities and Americans gather at the World Trade Center, Pentagon and
Pennsylvania sites.
Mighty speeches will
be made and controversies arise – especially at the World Trade Center site
where patriots, Port Authority officers (Fox, ATTACHMENT THREE) and even former
Mayor Rudy Giuliani (Guardian U.K. Sep. 7: ATTACHMENT FOUR) are warning present
Mayor (and Muslim) Mandami not to show his evil
Islamic face at the ceremonies.
In an
interview with right-leaning Newsmax at the weekend, Giuliani said: “Having lost friends there and being very close to many of the
families, it offends me that he’s coming.”
Rudy remarked
that the terrorists brought their ideological opposition to the United States
“in the name of the Muslim religion” and “weren’t hiding it like Mamdani is
trying to hide it”. He also declared the opinion that the mayor supports a
notion that Islam should be America’s dominant religion.
Mamdani has
previously spoken about how an Islamophobic backlash built after the 2001
attacks and had made anti-Muslim prejudice “a fact of life” for Muslim
Americans. “It was this horrific day that was also, for many New Yorkers, the
moment at which they were marked an ‘other’,” he told the New York Times last year.
Cyndi Lauper will
perform for Americans who just want to have fun beneath the glow of Ground Zero’s iconic annual “Tribute
in Light” — the
projection of two blue beams where the Twin Towers once stood. (New York Post, ATTACHMENT FIVE)
The one-hour special will air on
Disney-associated platforms starting at 8 p.m. to coincide with the annual
“Tribute in Light” installation. And the
National Park Service has upgraded its Pentagon memorial. (ATTACHMENT SIX)
Under the fun, serious people in the
Pentagon itself are weighing sobering evidence and making serious decisions as
the Iranian war passes the half year mark, voters looking towards the midterms
are seeing fuel-driven inflation spiking and some military leaders are saying
that the conflict is draining America’s munitions reserves.
Tech has
grown exponentially over the last quarter century, but even in 2001, the National Security Agency (NSA – based in Fort Meade, MD and
not the Pentagon, so not damaged in the attack), our nation's signals-intelligence
organization, intercepted communications indicating a possible imminent
terrorist attack three days before it happened.
(Newsweek, ATTACHMENT SEVEN) They did nothing.
So the right-wing Washington Times invites us to remember not only
Osama bin Laden but the so-called “mastermind” of the attacks... Khalid Sheikh Mohammed... who was apprehended
on March 1, 2003, in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, in a joint CIA-Pakistani
intelligence operation. “He has been held since then and has not yet been tried
— though a trial date of June 2028 has been set — because much of the evidence
obtained against him was obtained through waterboarding and other forms of
coercion.” (It is not a coincidence, the WashTimes
added, that both bin Laden and
Mohammed were caught or killed in Pakistan.
ATTACHMENT EIGHT)
The Moonies at WashTime further believe there is a meme floating around
Facebook that “we learned everything we need to know about Islam on 9/11.”
That is untrue. We are still learning.
The ideology of Islam requires
these terrorist atrocities. In an
unusually bipartisan conclusion, the WashTimes
declared that, as long as the Democrats’ “big tent” accommodates people such as
Hasan Piker (who declared that we “deserved” the 9/11 attacks)
and... also... as long as Republicans such as Vice President J.D. Vance
“tolerate Tucker Carlson (who is antisemitic and has declared certain Israeli
officials “enemies of civilization”), we cannot win the ideological war.”
On the
Long Game Podcast (ATTACHMENT NINE, yesterday), Admiral William McRaven who
commanded the operation Neptune Spear that terminated Osama Bin Laden, warned
that partisanship – and, notably, President Trump and WarSec
Hegseth’s military purges were endangering military
security.
When the topic turned to the Trump
administration’s removal of senior military leaders without a public
explanation, McRaven argued that the firings could make officers more reluctant
to give presidents and defense secretaries their candid judgment, replacing
merit with perceived political loyalty. “My job is to provide my best advice,” he
said of serving Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. If officers fear
that speaking plainly could end their careers, he warned, “that’s no way to run
a military.”
A podcast peanut agreed on
the damage partisanship was doing to security, adding: “September 11th proved
if a national tragedy was to befall us, in that very instant we can unite as a
people with a single purpose of mind. And, we did for a short time. Our
divisions since then have become wider, more vitrolic.”
The liberal
Salon (ATTACHMENT TEN) warns that Americans should never forget that Sept. 11th
having become the starting point for a series
of political choices that reshaped American life and, in turn, reshaped the
memory of the day itself.
Some of the results
were the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and, now Iran; crippling inflation and...
for Salonista Stephanie Martin... creating an atmosphere “that allowed for expanding government
surveillance, enlarging presidential power and narrowing the space for dissent.”
“For others,
the day – and its aftermath – represent restored American pride and military
perseverance.
“For still
others, 9/11 remains most powerfully a story about innocent lives lost and
ordinary people behaving with extraordinary courage.”
For other liberals,
some of the presumed verities of the day have proven not so. The Independent U.K. (September 8, ATTACHMENT ELEVEN) found first
responders who dispute President Trump’s claim to have been near
the World Trade Center site in the immediate aftermath
of the attacks and his boasts about having sent crews from one of his
construction projects to assist in recovery efforts.
A few hours later,
they also reported on Trump’s “stunning lack of empathy”
during a speech in front of first responders and families who lost loved ones
on September 11th, 2001. (ATTACHMENT
TWELVE)
Speaking in front of
the White House he promised the partisans that Iran will never have nuclear
weapons and told the story of Howard Lutnick,
his current Secretary of Commerce and former CEO of the financial services firm Cantor Fitzgerald —based in the top
three floors of the North Tower of the World Trade Center in 2001. The firm lost almost 700 employees in the
September 11th attacks, and, Trump said, “Lutnick
avoided the same fate only because he’d taken his son to school that morning.”
Then he congratulated some first
responders including Welles Crowther, the “man in the red bandanna” who guided
people to safety before perishing himself.
ABC (ATTACHMENT THIRTEEN) added that Crowther, also a volunteer firefighter, would be awarding the
Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Far less
sympathetic was the Daily Beast’s Farrah Tomazin
(ATTACHMENT FOURTEEN), who noted that Trump’s “wild remarks” as took
his years of embellishing his role in the aftermath of 9/11 to another level
“by suggesting firefighters pulled him from Ground Zero.”
The comments, Tomazin
reported, “appear to be an extension of a story Trump has told before,
including during a head-scratching interview on Newsmax
in 2021.
“But it immediately sparked a backlash
online,” she added, with critics suggesting it sounded as though the president
was claiming he had been pulled from the rubble as though he was one of the
September 11 survivors.
“So many lies. It’s exhausting,” quipped
artist Angu Walters.
“Our president is completely delusional,”
said Huffpost senior White House correspondent S.V.
Date.
“Don’t allow Trump to sully the 9/11 tragedy
with his sick fantasies,” added Tara Setmayer, co-founder of the Seneca
Project.
Golf writer Rick Reilly claims to have
“first-hand knowledge that the president was lying,” posting on X that he with
the future President in his Trump Tower apartment on Fifth Avenue in midtown...
two miles from the WTC and looking through a telescope. “I watched the twin towers fall through
that,” Trump said... “it’s solid gold.”
(Presumably the telescope, not the tale.) “Those were his exact words and not a single
word about going down there to help," Reilly X’d.
The New York Times reported
last month that Trump decided to skip the official 25th-anniversary
commemoration in New York City, in part because he wanted to deliver a speech,
and event organizers informed his team that political remarks are not allowed.
However, he furiously rejected
this and accused New York Times reporter Maggie
Haberman, who co-authored the report, of being a “fake reporter” and “an
unattractive person both inside and out.”
PBS reprinted a fact-check
on Trump’s Nine Eleven whereabouts after he told
Fox News's Trey Gowdy he’d gone to the ruins the following day and been
carried from the site when the nearby One Liberty Plaza — formerly called the
U.S. Steel Building — started to creak, prompting fears of a collapse.
"We
thought it was coming down on top of us, and two firemen, big strong guys — I'm
not the smallest guy in the world — they grabbed me under the arm, said, 'Got
to get out of here,' and they literally lifted me up. This is not easy to
do," he said. "I'm big. They lifted me up and they started running
with me. I said, 'Fellas, I can run myself,' but they were amazing. But they
thought it was coming down. It didn't come down." (ATTACHMENT FIFTEEN)
Among the
“Beastly” President’s other whoppers de-facted by PBS
and PolitiFact were an interview by a German TV
station on September 13th, appearances reported by
the Associated
Press, CNN
and even a Newsday puff piece describing Trump at Ground Zero "every hair
in place and impeccably dressed in a black suit."
Former New
York Police Commissioner Bernard
Kerik told the conservative website Breitbart that Trump "was on
Ground Zero numerous times — no cameras, no press, no nothing, but he came down
to motivate and inspire the men and women down there that were working on the
pile."
CNN (ATTACHMENT SIXTEEN) reported that the President had
leavened his praise of the 9/11 first responders with plugs for his own
political priorities... “arguing for his war with Iran
and comparing the danger officers faced during 9/11 to the threat of communism
— one of his frequent digs at the Democratic Party ahead of the midterms.”
Mr. Trump praised the bravery
of first responders in the 2001 attacks carried out by al
Qaeda terrorists, many of them from Saudi Arabia, and
leader Osama bin Laden, who operated his network from Afghanistan.
The president also said he
would eliminate the separate threat — today — from Tehran.
“We’re right now fighting because we have a
certain nation that wanted a nuclear weapon,” Mr. Trump said of Iran.
“They were very close to getting it, and now they have no chance of getting it.
They will never have a nuclear weapon.”
(Washington Times, Sept. 8: ATTACHMENT SEVENTEEN)
Stocks dropped to start the
shortened trading week on Tuesday as oil prices rose to nearly $100 per barrel
because of new Middle East turmoil.
Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen attacked oil sites in Saudi Arabia,
hurting 73 people and disrupting oil markets.
The BBC (ATTACHMENT EIGHTEEN)
memorialized victims – some of their families following he
legal proceedings against alleged
9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his co-defendants - a process Tom Resta (who lost his brother, wife and unborn newphew) describes as "laborious and tedious".
Mohammed - often referred to as KSM - has now been held at Guantanamo
for 20 years without ever being convicted.
The pre-trial process has been going on for so long that it has now been
presided over by five different military judges.
Last month, as the 25th anniversary approached, there was a flurry of
movement and something of a breakthrough, with a trial date set for June 2028.
But Resta said he was bracing himself for
further delays, and with so much time having passed, some of his relatives
feared they would not live long enough to see the trial.
"My father will be 98 in November, and I don't think he's
expecting to see it. I have a lot of family members - aunts, uncles - that
would all like to see it happen. But my parents in particular, I don't think
they expect to live long enough," he said.
"Hopefully all the defendants will still be alive by the time we
get to trial. That's a big worry," he added. Others like Stephan Gerhardt, who lost his brother
Ralph, expressed concern that they would not see see
Mohammed and his alleged co-conspirators convicted before they died.
"They're getting elderly… I don't want them to pass away without being
convicted, because that would be an injustice to all the family members - that
we captured these people, but we never got to try them and convict them for the
mass murder that they did of our loved ones."
Mohammed has been charged with offences including conspiracy and
murder, with 2,976 victims listed on the charge sheet. He had previously said he planned the
"9/11 operation from A to Z" but days after the trial date was set
for 2028, the military judge threw out confessions made by Mohammed to FBI agents
on Guantanamo Bay after he was brought there from secret CIA prisons known as
"black sites", which he had been held in for years. In his ruling,
the judge described Mohammed's treatment by the CIA as "extraordinary
physical and mental abuse".
"Every single issue has been litigated through the issue of
torture," said Kasey McCall-Smith, an international law professor at
Edinburgh University.
She said the defendants were subjected to "years of abuse",
including waterboarding and stress positions.
"If we would've not tortured them, the legal implications here
would've been much, much simpler. They probably would've been sentenced to
death a long time ago," said Gerhardt. "I can't control what the
government did, and we've got to live with the impacts."
Others, while also hoping for a speedy trial and lethal conviction,
weren’t bothered by the torture.
When the trial does eventually start, at a military court at
Guantanamo, it has been estimated that it will last about a year. By 2028, KSM will be only 63, so he’ll have
plenty of time to rot in prison, unless given the death penalty.
As the relatives of the victims prepared for another anniversary
marking the death of their loved ones, Gerhardt said he was looking forward to
a time that the trial was over and he no longer had to think about or travel to
Guantanamo.
"It's a place I don't want to come back to. I want to live my
life, enjoy my passions and my memories of Ralph," he said.
Some families, however, have a
higher priority than watching KSM being “put to sleep” like an unwanted
kitty-cat as opposed from swinging on the end of a rope or being eaten alive by
pigs.
Juliette Scauso was four, the youngest of four children, when her
father, firefighter Dennis Scauso, was killed in 9/11
another BBC dispatch reports.
For 25 years, the only
physical trace Juliette Scauso has had from the last
day of her father's life was his mangled firefighter helmet. (ATTACHMENT NINETEEN)
Dennis Scauso
is one of more than 1,000 people killed on September 11 in New York who have
yet to be identified, according to New York City's Office of Chief Medical
Examiner. Nearly 3,000 people died in the World Trade Center attacks that day.
“Human remains were damaged
in the plane crashes and fires caused by jet fuel, meaning the office had only
portions of victims for DNA samples,” Angela Soler, director of forensic
anthropology in the city's medical examiner office, told the BBC.
“Remains from the World
Trade Center have been packaged and sealed to help preserve DNA for testing in
the years to come. Soon after the attacks, individuals were identified using
fingerprints or dental records, but as time went on, when neither was
available, the office turned to DNA.”
Last year, the city announced that with the help of DNA, 24 years later,
it had identified three new victims - Ryan Fitzgerald, a 26-year-old currency
trader, Babara Keating, a 72-year-old who was aboard
American Airlines Flight 11 from Boston to Los Angeles, and a woman whose
family kept her identity private.
And last month, the city announced the identity
of a previously unknown victim of the terrorist attacks - the 1,654th person -
using a new technology called forensic investigative genetic genealogy - or
FIGG.
"There is real promise
in using this approach," said Soler. "There's hope for more families
to receive answers, and hopefully we'll be able to test more remains in the
future using this technology as well."
On Friday morning, Genelle Guzman-McMillan,,, an
employee for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, working on the 64th
floor of the North Tower trapped beneath the smoldering debris for 27 hours…
the last of the WTC survivors pulled from the rubble… appeared on discussed her
rescue, her memoir and the television movie Angel in the Rubble: The Genelle Guzman Story, which premieres on Lifetime.
Some
survivors, however, have experienced years of physical and mental illness after
the three attacks. 911memorial.org, an
advocacy agency for survivors reports that toxic dust has damaged or destroyed
their health as advocacy efforts “to secure congressional
funding for immediate and long-term medical monitoring, research, and treatment
programs” remain ongoing. (ATTACHMENT
TWENTY)
The World Trade Center (WTC) Health Program is a
limited federal health program administered
by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, part of the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the U.S. Department of Health and
Human Services. It was established by
the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act of
2010. In 2015, the Program was reauthorized until 2090. Tens of thousands
are sick and, according to officials, over 8,000 people enrolled in the program
have died (from all causes, not only World Trade Center-related
conditions). But the program provided assistance and support to roughly
140,000 members across all 50 states until March of this year.
Despite the upcoming
anniversary... HealthSec Robert Kennedy Junior shut down
the agency, fired some of its workers and reassigned the rest of its personnel
– mostly to the immigrant hunting ICE. (New York Daily News, ATTACHMENTS TWENTY ONE
and TWENTY ONE.A)
Kicked aside by the Kennedy heir,
the liberal Mother Jones reported that more people have now died from 9/11 than on 9/11. (ATTACHMENT TWENTY TWO) But tens
of thousands of other 9/11 responders and survivors who were promised care
through the World Trade Center Health Program, a federally funded lifeline
meant to treat the long-term medical consequences of that day, sicken and die
because funding has never kept up with the number of people afflicted.
The Fire Department union officials and
representatives for first responders held a rally on Wednesday to address what they call “a continuing health
emergency.
“Fire officials say 343 FDNY
members were killed on 9/11, and since then, 453 members have died from
9/11-related illnesses. More than 12,000 members have also been diagnosed with
at least one World Trade Center-related illness, according to the World Trade
Center Health Program.” (CBS, September
9th, ATTACHMENT TWENTY THREE)
"People got sick because the
leaders they trusted lied and told them they were safe to breathe in toxic
air," said Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who has been
accused of indifference, if not collusion with the terrorists, due to his
religion.
In
another blow to the sick, the survivors and the families of Nine Eleven, the
Federal government has decided
not to appeal the recent bombshell ruling by a military judge
that barred Khalid Shaikh Mohammed’s 2007 statements to the FBI from being used
at trial.
The cases of Mohammed (also known as
KSM) and his alleged partners-in-crime Walid bin Attash, Mustafa
al-Hawsawi and Ammar al-Baluchi have “notoriously dragged on for decades
amid a series of legal squabbles, including over whether confessions
obtained via torture are admissible in court,” reported the New York Post. (Sep. 7th, ATTACHMENT TWENTY FOUR)
Military judge Lt. Col. Michael Schrama set the June 2028 trial date in the case last month
— before issuing his ruling axing Mohammed’s statements from the case days
later.
The military did not make the decision public
— citing a “security review” — but sources familiar with its contents said the
judge ruled that the admitted terrorist was subject to “severe coercion” from
his years of CIA torture at secret “black site” jails. “Schrama
also noted that Mohammed was not offered a chance to speak with an attorney,”
according to sources cited by the Post.
Mohammed,,, apprehended
on March 1, 2003, in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, in a joint CIA-Pakistani
intelligence operation... had been
set to admit his role orchestrating the heinous attacks in 2024 when he and two
of his alleged al Qaeda cronies agreed to a stunning plea
deal with the Biden administration that would have spared
them the death penalty.
“Amid the public outcry from some victims’
families over abandoning the death penalty in favor of life sentences, Biden
officials abruptly changed course and attempted to cancel the deal, leading to
years more of litigation without a trial.”
In defense of Islam, if not necessarily the
Nine Eleven, Al Jazeera writer Mansoor Adayfi remains
defiant – claiming that the attack “was avenged on us,” meaning the Muslims of
the world. (ATTACHMENT TWENTY FIVE)
Adayfi, arrested in the post Nine
Eleven roundup of Muslims, now says he refuses to forgive the American devils
because of his nearly 15 years of treatment no human
being should ever endure. I was one of countless innocent people “kidnapped
during the global campaign of the United States of revenge and terror after
September 11, 2001, which justified the illegal invasions of Afghanistan and
Iraq, unleashed and legalised torture programmes in CIA black sites and at Abu Ghraib, and turned
Guantanamo into a laboratory of dehumanisation.”
In my cell, Adayfi
added, “I once opened a boxed meal to find the words: “We Will Never Forget, We
Will Never Forgive” scrawled on the inside of the box. I wrote back: “We Will
Never Forget, We Will Never Forgive, We Will Fight For
Our Justice.” For this, the camp administration penalised
me with “food punishment” and solitary confinement, claiming that my message
was a death threat.
“Today, on the 24th anniversary
of the September 11 attacks, “Never Forget, Never Forgive” echoes once again.
These words are presented as grief and as a desire to honour
the memory of those lost, but they also carry darker implications,” as a
rallying cry for “revenge, retaliation, retribution, or vengeance, rather than
as a thoughtful appeal for justice, accountability, and meaningful reflection.”
On behalf of the tens of millions
afflicted by the American Satan in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen and Somalia (to
name only some), Adayfi says he will refuse to
forgive in the name of the (Islamic) dead who, of course, “cannot forgive” and
those who do commit “an act of betrayal” against Allah.
Twenty five years after Nine Eleven, he asks why it is “always the wronged
who are asked to forgive? Why must the abused carry the moral burden of healing
a world that continues to brutalise them? Long before
any investigation, accountability, or even acknowledgement of harm takes place,
the wronged are urged to move on for the sake of peace and others’ comfort.
This pattern is clear in the behaviour of the US,
which marches forward proudly, cloaked in the language of democracy and human
rights, while the victims of its brutality are told to wait, to be patient, and
to forgive.”
“This moral double standard
reveals everything about who is recognised as human
and who is not. When the US kills, tortures, or disappears people, such actions
are framed as necessary, strategic, or even heroic. But when survivors speak
out, demand accountability, or refuse forgiveness, they are portrayed as
bitter, vengeful, and ungrateful. This hypocrisy is no accident; it is built
into the very architecture of oppression.”
Concluding with a demand for
justice and reparations he asserts that the US has not officially ended the
so-called war on terror and, in fact, continues to support policies “that
subject Palestinians to starvation and mass slaughter. Guantanamo remains open, and the machinery of
detention, torture, and extrajudicial killing continues in various forms
against the likes of innocents like KSM.
“Perhaps the only principled
response to such atrocities is to refuse to forgive and to refuse to forget.
Never forgive. Never forget.” A new
generation of Islamist youth are listening, and rising up.
The complicated relations between
America, Israel, Iran and Saudi Arabia (epitomized in the religious war between
Sunni and Shiitic Islam, Christianity and the Judaism
from which all are descended) were addressed by Ali Larijani, secretary of
Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (Palestine Chronicle, March 15, 2026)
who claims that the remnants of “Epstein’s network” that, themselves, committed
the attacks on their own country in a “false flag” conspiracy against God’s
people and are now plotting a sequel.
“Posting on the social media platform X on March 15, Larijani wrote
that he had heard that “the remaining members of Epstein’s network have devised
a conspiracy to create an incident similar to 9/11 and blame Iran for it.”
He added that “Iran fundamentally opposes such terrorist schemes
and has no war with the American people,” stressing that Tehran is acting in
self-defense against what it describes as the US-Israeli aggression on
Iran. (ATTACHMENT TWENTY
SIX)
“Larijani’s remarks came amid nearly two weeks of escalating
Iranian warnings that Israel, backed by the United States, was seeking to widen
the battlefield by striking sites in neighboring and Arab countries and then
attributing those attacks to Iran or forces aligned with it,” the Palestinian
Chronicle reported
“Iranian officials increasingly describe this as a coordinated
false-flag campaign aimed at isolating Tehran politically and pulling
additional regional actors (principally the Sunni Saudis and affiliated Gulf
States) into the war.
On March 3, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil
Baghaei warned that those attacking Iran could
attempt to engineer incidents designed to expand the conflict.
The issue gained wider attention the same day when American
commentator Tucker Carlson said that Saudi Arabia and Qatar had “arrested
Israeli Mossad agents planning bombings in those countries.”
Carlson then asked, “Why would the Israelis be committing bombings
in Gulf countries, which are also being attacked by Iran?” before adding
another question: “Aren’t they on the same side?” the Turkish journal TRT World
reported on March 3.
Carlson continued by arguing that Israel was seeking to widen the
confrontation across the region, saying: “Israel wants to hurt Iran, and Qatar,
and the UAE, and Saudi Arabia, and Bahrain, and Oman and Kuwait.”
On March 4, TRT World reported that Iranian officials were
accusing Israel of carrying out several drone strikes
on energy and civilian sites in the Gulf “in order to provoke regional anger
and drag Arab states into the confrontation.”
In that context, one Iranian official told TRT World: “I can
categorically say that some of the attacks were not carried out by us.”
Iranian officials have continued to repeat a consistent
distinction in their statements. They say Tehran publicly claims the operations
it carries out and targets only military or strategic sites linked to the war.
Larijani’s P.C. assertation has gained attention partly because Western
reporting “has acknowledged the development of US loitering munitions that
resemble Iranian designs, including drones similar in configuration to the
Shahed-136.
“Tehran has incorporated those reports into its own narrative,
arguing that reverse-engineered systems could be used to simulate Iranian
attacks.”
An AI Overview on Larijani’s
claims that “members of an Epstein-linked network
were plotting a 9/11-style false-flag attack to frame Tehran” cited the release
of more EpDocs including one file, which shows an
invitation for Ghislaine Maxwell to join a secret "shadow 9/11
commission". (ATTACHMENT TWENTY SEVEN)
Ghislaine
Maxwell's sister, Christine Maxwell, co-founded Chiliad. This software company
provided intelligence tools used during the 9/11 investigations
The TRT World report of February
9th (ATTACHMENT TWENTY EIGHT) reported that
Ghislaine, “disgraced British socialite and accomplice of
convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein” had emailed
approximately 42 contacts, wishing eradication of Arabs worldwide, according to
newly unveiled files.
Maxwell’s email contained a fictional narrative set in the year 2032,
depicting a world where "the Arabs" had been eradicated globally.
In this imagined future,
a father tells his son about a historical event called "9/11”. The son asks what "Arabs" were,
implying they no longer exist. “The father explains that Arabs were a people
who carried out the 9/11 attacks, after which the world united to eliminate them
entirely.”
Maxwell allegedly sent
the email to dozens of her contacts, including billionaire Thomas Pritzker
among other elites in Epstein/Maxwell network before her December, 2021
conviction on five federal felony counts “related to her role in recruiting,
grooming, and facilitating the sexual abuse of minors in connection with Jewish
American financier Epstein between 1994 and 2004,” TRT added.
She has signaled she
would testify if granted clemency by US President Donald Trump, “claiming she
could say both Trump and former President Bill Clinton did nothing wrong in
their ties to Epstein.”
Bipartisan Congressional
kickback against the prospects of a deal to exculpate Trump for a pardon
included Rep. James Walkinshaw (D-Va), who said:
"What we did get was another episode in her long-running campaign for clemency
from President Trump. And President Trump could end that today — he could rule
out clemency for Ghislaine Maxwell, the monster."
"NO CLEMENCY. You
comply or face punishment," Rep.Anna Paulina
Luna (R-Fl), agreed on a social media posting.
"You deserve JUSTICE
for what you did you monster."
A paywalled Atlantic
expose of Al Qaeda collusion with the Saudi royal family (May 20, ATTACHMENT TWENTY NINE) reported that a “blue ribboned commission” had concluded
that Osama bin Laden had pioneered a new kind of terrorist group—combining
superior technological know-how, extensive resources, and a worldwide network
so well coordinated that it could carry out operations of unprecedented
magnitude becoming the first nonstate actor that rivaled nation-states in the damage
it could wreak.
Oops!
“That assessment now appears wrong,” Atlanticists
Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon shrugged.
A nation state?
Maybe Monaco. Maybe Moldova...
maybe even Haiti. So
if our understanding of what transpired on 9/11 turned out to have been flawed,
then the costly policies that the United States has pursued for the past
quarter century have been “rooted in a false premise.”
The new normal is that al-Qaeda
“had significant, indeed decisive, state support for its attacks,” with the Saudi
government providing crucial assistance to the first cohort of 9/11 hijackers
to crawl into America. But hey – why
worry... nobody feared nor hated the men from Mecca so long as they kept
selling oil even as the conspiracy included “the Saudi embassy in Washington
and senior government officials in Riyadh.”
At home, Muslims... although mostly not as
bitter as Adayfi (Attachment Twenty Five, above) are
still speaking out against what they view as unfair persecution and suspicion
based on the actions of extremists whom they denounce... indeed, some of the
alien emigrants having specifically fled their homelands because they were
tired of the millennia old religious wars going back to before the advent of
either Jesus and Mohammed to the days of the historical Odyssey when Greek
classicists clashed with Persian and Babylonian Zoroastrians.
Six days after Nine Eleven, President George
W. Bush visited the Islamic Center of Washington to
meet and greet Nihad Awad,
cofounder of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and gave a speech
condemning Islamophobia while Awad replied: “I stood
shoulder by shoulder with the president of the United States denouncing what
happened and calling for unity.”
A 2021 Associated Press poll found that more than half of those
polled have unfavorable views toward Islam — “an assessment, Awad said, that has likely not improved in recent years
under a president who speaks of Muslims in a very different manner than Bush
did in his 2001 speech.
“Today we are living under an administration that has been
thriving on division and pitting Americans against each other,” Awad told NBC’s Washington DC station (ATTACHMENT THIRTY)
More than 60 Muslims died as a result of the 9/11 attacks,
including office workers, restaurant employees and first responders who worked
in and around the World Trade Center.
“American Muslims refuse to be defined by guilt by association,” Awad said. “We love America. This is our home, and it's
going to be our home for hundreds of years for our children and grandchildren.”
Not so, according to whomt Newsweek described as an (unidentified) “person in
the crowd” responding to Ted Cruz’s fiery defense of Trump and denunciation of
Dems… particularly Muslims El Sayed and Mamdami… at
the Dallas Trumpapalooza by shouting out: “They
should be shot! (9/10, ATTACHMENT THIRTY ONE)
Cruz declaimed "We are witnessing a new and dangerous
red-green alliance. Communists and Islamists coming together and sweeping over
the Democratic Party,” and warned against Sharia law (not exactly a bad thing
as regards telemarketers and identity thieves – it being hard to afflict people
with your devices on one hand!),
His remarks were interrupted by a member of
the crowd shouting, "HE SHOULD BE SHOT!" It was immediately unclear
to Newsweek reporter Anna Commander at the time of publication
whether Cruz heard the shouts as he was delivering his speech.
Democratic Congresswoman Debbie Dingell of
Michigan reacted
to the moment on X on Thursday, saying, "There aren’t even words
for how chilling and disturbing this is. Threats of political violence are
dangerous, unacceptable, and have no place in our democracy. I pray for the
safety of all my colleagues on both sides of the aisle. This is clear hate, and
we must stand up to it wherever and whenever we see it."
Cruz lauded assassinated conservative Charlie
Kirk, but Newsweek cited other killings of politicians (as well as United
Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson by Luigi
Mangione whom some regard as a hero.
AN
ARRAY OF BAD ACTORS
The Council on Foreign
Relations, on the occasion of the 25th, wrote of terroristic threats
– foreign and domestic, old and new – adding that: “Policymakers have been slow to recognize the
danger,” (Sep.
8th, ATTACHMENT THIRTY TWO) marking the anniversary with a stunning
lack of preparedness to handle mounting new threats and resurgent old ones.
“Rapidly evolving technologies such as drones make the U.S. homeland vulnerable
to attack by terror groups. Combined with the weaponization of social media by digitally
savvy terrorists, the country faces the phenomenon of increasingly lethal
autonomous weapons and emerging populations of radicalized youth.”
Three Councileers
cited Hamas terror attacks on Israel, the war with
Iran and technological developments like the cheap drones omnipresent across
the MidEast and in Ukraine.
The
Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) documented more than four hundred illegal drone flights over U.S. airports
in the first quarter of 2025 alone. The U.S. military recorded three hundred
fifty incursions at more than a hundred bases. And a senior U.S. Department of
Homeland Security (DHS) official told the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2025
that roughly one hundred fifty drones per day were detected
crossing the U.S.-Mexico border during the first half of 2025.
“Al-Qaeda
and its many franchises are still active in Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia.
Its even more extreme offshoot, the self-declared
Islamic State, and that group’s global network of branches are active in those
same regions. The Iranian threat network, composed of long-standing terrorist
proxies such as Hezbollah and Hamas, is now reportedly joined by pay-for-hire
criminals, including “Russian mobsters, Mexican cartel hit men and a (One) Canadian
Hells Angel.” The Trump administration has also designated Latin American
narcotics traffickers as foreign terrorist organizations and, as ever, there
are the domestic lone wolves, nihilistic violent extremists,
and just plain head cases – all of whom are grooming angry children and publishing
their manifestoes on social media.
“Iran
has repeatedly threatened President Donald Trump and the
senior U.S. government officials responsible for the 2020 targeted
assassination of Qasem Soleimani, the commander of
Iran’s Quds Force. Those include the former secretaries of state and defense,
as well as the national security advisor, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff, a U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, and a 2020 presidential
contender. The threat to Trump has been taken seriously, as evidenced in July,
when he covertly changed aircraft to fly back to the United States from
the NATO Summit in Turkey.”
AI
ENTERS THE ARENA
Terrorists
will increasingly exploit artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance their
operations. Of particular concern... aside from the week’s torrent of
troublesome techspeak concerning biowarfare researches... is AI’s ability to
identify cultural trends “and even nuanced subcultures that extremists can
engage with in specific ways. For instance, Islamic State affiliates are using
AI to make fabricated news content seem real, with fake anchors
such as those on the News Harvest show. If it has not already
happened, AI will soon enable terrorists to sharpen communications and propaganda, generate
deepfakes and disinformation, recruit fighters, and conduct surveillance and
target selection.”
And
turn lose AI apps that, given the usual instances of incompetence and malice,
hold the risk of going rogue and releasing their germs and their language into
the wild.
The
most recent U.S. National Counterterrorism Strategy released in May
2026, cites
“Narcoterrorists and Transnational Gangs, Legacy
Islamist Terrorists, [and] Violent Left-Wing Extremists, including Anarchists
and Anti-Fascists” as the main terrorist threats facing the United States, but
makes only passing references to state-sponsored terrorism and cyberterrorism
and omits violent, far-right extremists—each of which poses serious challenges
to the United States’ security and safety.
“Funding for programs has dried up,” the three Coucileers
point fingers, and the lack of government interest in managing global
coalitions to build more resilience online and offline “is a serious error in
judgment and a missed opportunity.”
Another
series of CFR takeaways, this published on September 8 by “experts and staff”
(ATTACHMENT THIRTY THREE) reflect the globaloney on Nine Eleven from the likes
of South Africa (America’s “knee-jerk response” has created a “hyperfocus on al-Qaeda and its affiliates” while ignoring
Africa) and Nigeria – whose delegate says that the war on jihadis in America,
Europe and the Mideast have made the continent a “haven for fleeing jihadis and their local
affiliates” of which only Boko Haram is largely known while Western resistance
appears more oriented towards “protecting Western national interests in the
mineral resources of West Africa than counterterror.”
In
the Americas, Héctor Cárdenas, President of the Mexican Council on Foreign
Relations derides America’s “imagination” by reordering foreign policy around
terrorism to an excessive degree, contributing to costly overreach in Iraq and
diverting attention from other threats taking shape closer to home. “The
United States, Canada, and Mexico could have built an integrated security
community—perhaps eventually establishing a structured partnership
between Mexico and NATO—capable of confronting terrorism, organized crime,
illicit finance, cyber threats, and border vulnerabilities but that has been
blown apart by the war on drugs and, this month, the war on Canada.
Guido
Steinberg, Senior Associate, German Institute for International and Security
Affairs says that his country is the new epicenter of Jihadist Terrorism in
Europe culminating on the devastating attack on a Berlin Christmas market in
2016. In the mid-2010s, Germany opened
its borders to more than two million refugees from war-torn countries such
as Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria; this influx of refugees (especially from
Syria) has strengthened the jihadi scene in Germany and probably contributed to
the electoral victories by Neo-Nazis across the country.
In
the East, Australian elites and diplomats blame America for its failed and
failing wars that have exposed
a lack of strategic vision, eroded the United States’ hegemony, and generated
an “isolationist streak” and democratic backsliding.
“Violent extremism today is less an external assault on the state than a symptom of something happening within it.” And
Turkey decries “an aging
world order” receding and so paving the way for a more unpredictable,
fractured, and conflict-ridden interim where revanchism, nationalism,
xenophobia, authoritarianism, polarization, and gross economic inequalities are
all on the rise, alongside an impending climate crisis.” They, at least offer six proposed solutions
(see attachment).
The
Combatting Terrorism Center (CTC) at West Point reported, in 2010, that the relationship between al-Qa`ida and
Iran was “shrouded in mystery.” Before
and after the September 11 attacks on the United States, al-Qa`ida
operatives transited Iran, and some found sanctuary in the country after
fleeing Afghanistan in late 2001.
Yet even then, “the hints of
occasional operational cooperation between al-Qa`ida
and Iran were outweighed by the considerable and public evidence of the deep
animosity between Sunni extremist al-Qa`ida and Shi`a extremist Iran – a religious ideological dispute that has
escalated into open warfare.
Bin Ladin’s son, Sa`ad, reportedly left
Iran in 2008. The circumstances are unclear about whether he was released
by Iranian authorities or if he escaped. One of Bin Ladin’s daughters left Iran
for Saudi Arabia this year via Syria but any contention that mutual hatred of
the West might provoke more cooperation between the terrorists has apparently
been shattered... America now considers the Saudis to be allies, despite
die-hard resistance from the families of the dead of Nine Eleven. (ATTACHMENT THIRTY FOUR)
Since 2003, al-Qa`ida’s franchise in Iraq has killed thousands of Iraqi
Shi`a and scores of senior Shi`a leaders. “Al-Qa`ida
argues that the Shi`a are pawns of Iran seeking to restore “Safavid” control of
the country”, a reference to the first Shi`a Persian dynasty that fought the
Ottoman Empire for control of Iraq in the 17th century; their first leader in
Iraq, Abu Mus`ab al-Zarqawi, was notoriously
vicious in his hatred for the Shi`a, even earning a private reproach from Bin
Ladin’s deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, for his indiscriminate attacks on Shi`a
leaders, mosques and processions and his depiction of the Iranians as “an
insurmountable obstacle, a lurking
snake, a crafty and malicious scorpion, a spying enemy and a mortal venom”
who “stabbed the (real) Muslims in the back” when the Ottomans were at the
gates of Vienna in 1683.
Memories are long in al-Qa`ida.
CTC correspondent
Bruce Riedel, author of “The Search for Al Qaeda: its Leadership, Ideology and
Future” (2009) opined that peace between the Muslim factions might be a “price
worth paying” for Iran in the face of Western aggression against its nuclear
program but such has obviously not resulted
Five
years ago, the Libertarians at Cato dipped their toe into the waters of
terrorism and diplomacy – insisting that “Iran (was) dangerous, but Saudi Arabia (was) worse.”
Again, as with the West Pointers, Cato’s Doug Bandow (Jan. 5, 2016, ATTACHMENT THIRTY FIVE) called the Saudis “the more reckless of the two states, executing
an important Shia cleric and severing diplomatic relations with Iran,” which he
considered a bad thing.
No great
lover of the liberty-loathing Islamists, Mr. Bandow did admit that Tehran’s Islamic regime since the 1953
US-sponsored coup elevating the Shah until his
regime change in 1979, has been “authoritarian at home, dominated by
intolerant fundamentalism, politically repressive... a persistent persecutor of
minority faiths,” and groomer of interventionists abroad, backing Hezbollah and
Syria’s Bashir al-Assad,” (subsequently also regime-changed). Long antagonistic
to the U.S., Iran has also displayed a “disturbing interest” in nuclear weapons
and ballistic missiles.
Iran may be
a threatening actor, say the Libs, “but American officials have unintentionally
made it as threatening as possible. Even worse, however, is Saudi Arabia,
considered by Washington to be a valued ally and partner”...
a totalitarian state which, opined the Wall Street Journal, “acts as a tool of
plunder for some 7000 princes and their families.” They, however, have oil – leading both Bushes
and Barack Obama to offer up their “slavish praise.”
Freedom
House rates the kingdom at the bottom in terms of both civil liberties and
political rights. Human Rights Watch
reports that Saudi Arabia continues “to try, convict, and imprison political
dissidents and human rights activists solely on account of their peaceful
activities,” systematic discrimination against women and religious minorities
continues with the regime prosecuting individuals for “dissent, apostasy,
blasphemy, and sorcery.”
Non-Muslim foreigners (including millions of
low-paid “guest workers”) and non-Sunni Saudis “must practice their religion in
private; apostasy by Saudi citizens is punishable by death.”
According
to Wikileaks, no less an authority than Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
later confirmed that money continues to flow from well-heeled Saudis to
terrorists. And the monarchy has generously supported, with money and weapons,
Syrian rebels, mostly those who range from jihadist to the more extreme.
“At least
as an energy producer Saudi Arabia is supposed to be friendly to the West.
However, the royals market their oil because they need
the money, not because they like Americans (or Europeans or any of their other
customers). Any successor regime also would sell the oil, since drinking it
isn’t an option and the revenues would be necessary in order to stay in
power.” Cato even asserts that one of
the most positive geopolitical impacts of the fall in prices (a decade ago) was
weakening “malign energy autocracies and kleptocracies, including the kingdom.”
Now that
prices are back up, the Saudis are hoping that Uncle Sam will free up the
Straits of Hormuz and the latest chokepoint... the Red Sea.
Instead of
being treated as an ally, Saudi Arabia “should be a pariah,” argued Freedom
House President Mark Lagon. At the very least, “U.S.
officials should drop the faux intimacy and treat Riyadh as Washington once
treated Moscow - an important power to be engaged, not supported, endorsed,
praised, subsidized, and reassured.” Ultimately, Cato concluded, “regime change
in Riyadh is as necessary, indeed, perhaps even more so, than regime change in
Tehran.”
Why not the
both?
Politico
(Yesterday, ATTACHMENT THIRTY SIX) ventured that,
maybe, the reason is that the U.S.A. is running out of munitions, money and
people as it pursues its obsession with American ethnic cleansing.
For the first time in history,
personnel from the nondeportation sections of the
(Department of Homeland Security – DHS), including its intelligence arm and the
arm of Immigration and Customs Enforcement that focuses on criminal
investigations, are now assisting with the apprehension, detention and removal
of unauthorized immigrants in the United States.
DHS is now “almost entirely
focused on apprehending unauthorized immigrants, having cut many staffers that
worked on issues ranging from protecting against hackers to intelligence
analysis, and reassigned counterterrorism investigators and others to work on
deportations.
“As a
result, DHS is less equipped to respond to threats against the United States
than just a few years ago.”
And
the terrorists luv it!
POLITICO
spoke with 10 lawmakers and former and current U.S. officials familiar with the
Department of Homeland Security – many of whom voiced concerns about DHS’s
readiness given the changes made since Trump took office in January 2025.
DHS defended its approach to
counterterrorism in a statement, arguing that “counterterrorism and immigration
enforcement go hand in hand.”
“Child exploitation, trafficking, terrorism,
scams, and smuggling all have a nexus to illegal immigration,” DHS said.
“Despite multiple Democrat shutdowns of DHS, the Department is more than
equipped to keep Americans safe in an ever-changing threat landscape.”
White House spokesperson
Lauren Bis claimed that the Trump administration has detained thousands of
known or suspected terrorists “and also accused former President Joe Biden of
allowing the entry of potential terrorists in the United States.
“President Trump unleashed
ICE and federal law enforcement to target the worst of the worst including
national security threats, terrorists, and violent criminals,” Bis said.
But at least 1,000 Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) staffers have left
the agency since Trump took office.
While Homeland Security
Markwayne Mullin is working to reverse some of the sweeping cuts, CISA may have
difficulty staffing up quickly, at a time when both Republicans and Democrats
have flagged the need for it to help the U.S. respond to the threats posed by
advanced artificial intelligence models.
In addition to the 6,000 FEMA staffers cut since Trump took office,
“hundreds of agents at Homeland Security Investigations, which is part of ICE
but handles complex criminal investigations including counterfeiting,
cybercrime and terrorism, have been detailed
to the Enforcement and Removal Operations arm of ICE to help apprehend
unauthorized immigrants.
Amidst recent reports that terrorists
are using AI to develop new and lethal diseases, former Secretary Kristi Noem also gutted the Office of Countering Weapons of Mass
Destruction – the office that prevents attacks against the U.S. using chemical,
biological or nuclear weapons.
“The Trump administration’s
sweeping changes to DHS and these other agencies could come under scrutiny if Democrats retake control of Congress in November’s midterm
elections,” suggested Politico.
Democratic lawmakers have
signaled that investigating these reallocations of resources will be a
priority.
Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.),
the top Democrat on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, sent letters
to the Justice Department, DHS, ODNI, the State Department and the White House
this week reminding them of their obligation to retain records associated with
these staffing redirections — a sign Democrats may wish to hold hearings about
these decisions in the next Congress.
“You take your eye off the ball, certain things are going to be missed. Certain things
are going to escape our attention,” said Jeh Johnson, who served as Homeland
Security secretary from 2015 to 2017 under the Obama administration, referring
to the changes at HSI.
Republicans largely
defended the department, but some still had critiques of DHS cuts at a number
of agencies tasked with preventing or responding to attacks against the
homeland. “(M)oderates
like House Homeland Security Chair Andrew Garbarino
(R-N.Y.) and Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), are leading a push to resuscitate
CISA, but Politico believes the damage may be long lasting,”
“It’s
been 25 years since suicide attackers hijacked commercial airplanes and crashed
them into key sites around the U.S., killing nearly 3,000 people. While the
September 11, 2001 attacks reshaped countless aspects of life in this country,
one of the most consequential changes has been in how the nation thinks about
and polices immigration.”
Education
and the youth of the future are a concern of the New York Post (ATTACHMENT THIRTY EIGHT)
where Shrin Yadegar advised
Americans to sit down with your children, tell them what happened and, iff they are old enough, show them the Nine Eleven footage.
Not because America was
perfect on Sept. 10, 2001. It wasn’t. And not because every decision our
government made after Sept. 11 was correct. It wasn’t.
Tell them Osama bin Laden and
al-Qaida were responsible. Teach them the difference between Islam, a faith
practiced peacefully by millions of Americans, and Islamist terrorism, the
extremist ideology used by al-Qaida, Hamas, Islamic State (IS) and other
proxies to justify mass murder.
“We shared (then) something
that seems increasingly difficult to say today: America, for all its flaws, is
a force for good, and loving your country should not belong to one political
party.
“You don’t have to be
Republican to be patriotic. You don’t have to be Democrat to care about
injustice. Twenty-five years ago, those ideas weren’t mutually exclusive.”
It’s not just America at risk
from resurgent Islamism… ABC News reported that Euroteens
are going online to be radicalized as Lone Wolves. (Sept. 8, ATTACHMENT THIRTY
NINE)
“It’s
violence for the sake of violence,” European Union Counter-Terrorism
Coordinator Bartjan Wegter
told The Associated Press in an interview, ahead of the 25th anniversary of
the Sept.
11 attacks on New York and
Washington in 2001.
Providing
data from Italy, German and the Finnish teen who stabbed three females, posting
a “manifesto,” that said he wanted to do something “significant” and
“exciting.” No political motive was given for his rampage, according to an EU
document on the emerging threat of nihilistic extremist violence.
“It’s
very much a fascination with violence. It’s violence as a means of asserting
oneself, as a means of gaining status in those online communities,” Wegter told AP. “There’s not a direct link with ideology.”
That
other ABC (the Australian broadcasting corporation) reported that the
Aussies invoked Article IV of the ANZUS Treaty to convey support for the United
States, and the military action that would come next. Then-prime minister John
Howard had been in Washington on September 11 and could see from his hotel
window smoke rising from the Pentagon.
(ATTACHMENT FORTY)
But the ABC, over there, also questioned the replacement of
Saddam Hussein and the war on Iran which… some believe… may result in a
“Chinese century.”
The
political repercussions from the 9/11 wars still have a ripple effect. The
presidency of Joe Biden never recovered from the chaos of the US withdrawal
from Afghanistan and the return to power of the Taliban. In that moment, his
poll numbers cratered and he never managed to regain the initiative.
Pre-9/11,
immigration was primarily an economic issue, with policy geared towards
supplying American businesses with an ample stream of cheap labour.
In the very week before September 11, the Bush administration had been
negotiating the liberalisation of immigration
controls with the Mexican government led by president Vincente Fox. It would
have set up a temporary worker visa program.
After
9/11 immigration became a national security issue. It remains so to this day.
Nativism and Islamophobia became more commonplace and less welcoming for new
arrivals. America became more inclined to countenance Trump as president, a
nativist firebrand who called during the 2016 campaign for a ban on immigrants
from mainly Islamic countries. Fed up with the 9/11 forever wars, the country
warmed to a candidate promising to put “America First”.
Now,
25 years on, a country that came together in that awful hour is marked more by
mutual loathing. Bipartisanship has given way to hyper-partisanship. The US
alliance system has frayed, as old friendships have degenerated into outright
hostility. The age of America, that period of post-Cold War unrivalled
ascendancy, has come to an end. The attacks of September 11, and the response
of successive presidents at home and abroad, are the key to understanding its
waning.
And
amidst a nation consumed by mis- and dis-info, a distractive celebrity culture
and omnipresent media overkill, Fox (ATTACHMENT FORTY ONE)
summoned up historian Asaf Romirowsky to ask why
Hollywood is ignoring or mishandling the Nine Eleven
“True, Oliver Stone gave us
World Trade Center, and Paul Greengrass United 93, both celebrations of
ordinary Americans making extraordinary sacrifices on that fateful day. But
other than these two dramas and a handful of notable documentaries, the great
cultural machine that, for nearly a century, had told us the stories we needed
to hear to make sense of ourselves and the world went largely silent. In fact,
the last feature film on 9/11 was made over a decade ago, with none currently
in the pipeline.”
Why?
Fox being Fox, Romirowski concluded
“…(y)ou can blame it on progressive
sensibilities, a DEI
mindset, and not wanting to risk being accused of Islamophobia by
producing movies that make Muslims look like the bad guys.”
We knew the Nazis were bad
because we had decades of movies exploring their wickedness, he recalls, and
even if we couldn’t agree on the scope of American military engagement in
Southeast Asia, no serious Hollywood filmmaker thought it wise to glorify the
Vietcong or their supporters. “The result was a culture that could have robust
disagreements about important questions without losing track of the fact that
America was a benevolent nation doing its best to safeguard freedom, democracy,
and the other virtues of Western civilization.
“When Hollywood went silent
and stopped making thoughtful movies about our wars, it created a huge cultural
vacuum. And because nature abhors a vacuum — life, as a famous Hollywood movie
once put it, always finds a way — that vacuum was filled by conspiracy
theories. Crackpots like Alex Jones
and Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson can only thrive because people need
stories to help them make sense of the world, and if serious filmmakers won’t
tell them, then the lunatics sure will.”
A charge from China (via the Foreign Relations Council, ATTACHMENT FORTY TWO) is that one of the responses to Nine Eleven was a
protracted twenty-year antiterrorism crusade in Afghanistan. “That expensive
war cost many lives, did not eradicate the Taliban or al-Qaeda, and should be viewed
as a strategic and tactical failure,” opined a Shanghai Fellow named Y Li Hongmei. “The current wars in the Middle East, including
U.S.-Israeli military strikes against Iran, echo
these previous actions and could weaken regional governance and breed
new anti-American and anti-Israeli hatred—a catalyst to new extremism
and terrorism.”
He
contrasts the American Satan with China, which “advances security through
domestic development as part of its antiterrorism practice. This
practice has yielded positive results, with China having no terrorist
attacks for several consecutive years.”
(And murdering dissidents and, hopefully, the Taiwanese – but, after
all, the Council on Foreign Relations is, by definition, “foreign”. Mr. Y. proceeds to the premise that there are
no good terrorists or bad terrorists—“all terrorists
are the common enemy of humanity and threats to peace,” —and he singles out
South Asia... meaning India, which China considers its immediate threat:
politically, economically and militarily.
The
CFR also sought the advice of members – and received same – from Juan Battaleme, Board Member, Argentine Council for
International Relations (Argentina) said that “(i)n Latin America, violent extremism manifests more subtly
than what Europe and the United States have historically confronted. The
primary threat is not ideological in nature; it stems from organized crime
networks engaged in drug, human, and other material trafficking... and the
United States is taking a lead in combating the criminals via the Shield of the Americas initiative
(which most Americans view as the junkyard into which President Trump dropped
Kristi Noem) but... since criminal networks exist and
will endure because they supply the vices people want.”
More
representatives included Tamir Hayman Executive Director, Institute For
National Security Studies (Israel) called Nine Eleven “a pivotal turning point
in how liberal democracies contend with terrorist organizations” which
generated the Afghan, Iraqi wars, the Islamic State (and resulting mass
immigration that resulted in a political backlash in the United States and
Europe, rife with xenophobia, immigration restrictions, and rising
populism.” (ATTACHMENT FORTY THREE)
Ms.
Hayman discriminates between what has worked, to date... supporting foreign
wars and high tech such as “building cyber-based intelligence capabilities”
and “rapid biometric identification”. which “has revolutionized control over
the movement of people.” What has not
worked has been the continued failure to regard ideology as a “core driver of
terrorist threats” from the Nine Eleven to Israel’s failure to prevent the
October 7, 2023, Hamas attack.
She
regards not only Hamas but all of the people of Gaza (as well, probably, as the
West Bank or – indeed – the entire Muslim world) not as “rational,
state-like actor(s) but, rather, followers of “Hamas’s genocidal ideology...”
defeating terrorism while preserving democratic values (at home, but not
necessarily in the troubled regions) requires treating ideology as central to
strategic assessment, “pairing military action with credible political follow-through,
and updating legal frameworks to meet evolving threats” (which some may view as
justifying the Israeli settler genocide against the Muslim barbarian hordes).
South
African Gustavo de Carvalho cites instance of terrorist terror and government
counter-terror terror in Kenya’s mass roundups of civilians... largely
Somalis, for example... which “shows the cost of calling something terrorism:
the word imbues authorities with extraordinary powers, but the infrastructure
of counterterrorism rarely says when those powers should stop.” Other incidents dating to back before the
Nine Eleven... Al-Qaeda’s 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Nairobi and
Dar es Salaam, for example... show the ineffectiveness of African governments
in dealing with terror while preserving human rights.
“Woke”
Canadians, the Jerusalem Post charges, have been told to avoid describing the
likes of Nine Eleven as “terrorist attacks” (ATTACHMENT FORTY
FOUR) – essentially marrying politically correct blindness with random
authoritarianism.
Basem Boshra (the name’s the game), senior director of
journalistic standards and public trust at CBC News, has ordered journalists to
report that “the hijackings led to passenger
jet crashes in Washington, DC, Pennsylvania and Manhattan” as opposed to
being the first and only cause... CBC spokeswoman Kerry Kelly telling the Post
that it is the practice of the CBC to “exercise extreme caution before using
the words terrorist and terrorism.”
Language
police like Brodie Fenlon, CBC news editor-in-chief and general manager, have
ordered reporters to call Nine Eleven (as also bombings in Moscow, London and
Madrid) “attacks” as opposed to “terror”.
“The
CBC is choosing to redefine terrorism in a way that downplays the atrocity of
9/11. Refusing to call it an act of terrorism dishonors the victims, their
families, the survivors, and the first responders who witnessed the horrors of
that day,” replied an outraged Canadian MP Rachel Thomas. “9/11 was an act of terrorism. Full stop.”
In the post-WW2 confluence of Israeli and
German objectives, DW.com’s Benjamin Alvarez Gruber
interviewed orthopaedic surgeon Gordon Huie,
who helped treat victims after the twin towers collapsed and lost his sister
Susan in the attacks and now suffers from cancer linked to Ground Zero dust
exposure. (ATTACHMENT FORTY
FIVE)
As
the US
approaches the attacks' 25th anniversary, Huie hopes
remembrance will focus on the victims and survivors rather than political
divisions.
Germany
itself looks back to the planning of the Nine Eleven by the so-called Hamburg
cell... where lived three of the hijackers, led by Egyptian-born pilot Mohammed
Atta, who had come to the northern German city in the early 1990s to
study. (DW, 9/9. ATTACHMENT FORTY SIX)
In
whole, the so-called Hamburg terrorist cell was believed to have included six
men, among them Moroccan national Mounir al-Motassadeq.
“He was charged as an accomplice in the world's first trial related to the September
11, 2001, attacks. In 2003, the Hanseatic Higher Regional
Court sentenced him to the maximum 15-year prison term for aiding and abetting
thousands of murders and for membership in a terrorist organization. After serving his sentence, al-Motassadeq was deported to his native Morocco.”
Another
suspected attacker from the circle around Atta was Ramzi Binalshibh, who was
born in Yemen and had been held without trial at the US detention facility
at Guantanamo Bay
since 2006. Murat Kurnaz, who
was born in Bremen and held a Turkish passport, was released in August 2006
after nearly five years without evidence establishing his involvement in the
terrorist attacks.
"No
one doubts, and neither do I, that Mr. Kurnaz suffered terribly in
Guantanamo," said then-Foreign Minister and current German President
Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who said: "That is why we also sought to
ensure that he was treated in accordance with the rule of law. But at the same
time, please understand that we were also obliged to ensure security in our own
country."
In
2013, Germany's highest court ruled that parts of the country's anti-terrorism
database were unconstitutional generating populist outrage over the years –
culminating in the recent election of neo-Nazis campaigning on fear and
loathing of the growing population of Islamic refugees.
UN.org
reported (9/10, ATTACHMENT FORTY SEVEN) that – in a statement marking the anniversary – António
Guterres paid tribute to victims, survivors and first responders who
rushed to ground zero – the World Trade Center’s twin towers in New York – just
a few miles south of UN Headquarters.
“As we
mark this somber occasion on 11 September, we remember the nearly 3,000 victims
– from the United States and more than 90 countries – and stand with their
families and loved ones,” said the UN chief.
In 2006
Member States adopted the UN Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy,
strengthening security measures in the wake of the deadly attacks which upended
geopolitics across the world.
But
too many nations also adopted unnecessary and disproportionate responses that
have seriously undermined rights, civil society, civic space, democracy and the
rule of law, according to a group of over 30 UN independent experts who have exposed
“(grave) violations of international law” including assassinations dressed up
as “targeted killings”, torture disguised as “interrogation”, secret detention,
enforced disappearances and unfair military trials and special courts,
including at the US-operated Guantanamo Bay facilities.
UN
Spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric recalled “a sense of panic” in the UN
Secretariat building. “It was like an
explosion, and the shockwaves from it can still be felt today,” he said.
The
religious rage and hate remains, but ABC also notes
remaining Al Qaedists are adapting high tech to their
terror, issuing a “chilling” video which calls upon the "covert
mujahidin" to launch cyber attacks against the
U.S. networks of both government and critical infrastructure, including the
electric grid in video was obtained by the FBI last year, and released by the
Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. (ATTACHMENT FORTY EIGHT)
George Weigel looks back to a dinner in the papal apartment with John Paul
II and three of his closest associates several weeks after the attacks –
recounting in his book “Lessons in Hope: My Unexpected Life with St. John
Paul II” that he’d told the Pope that he believed the terror was a turning-point in world history; “an example of the mystery
of evil at work through the corruption of an already defective monotheism; a
possible moment of moral sobering-up in the U.S.; and a very complex mess from
a strategic and international-political point of view.” (ATTACHMENT FORTY NINE)
Asking whether jihadism,
“a form of Islam detached from reason and determined to impose a coercive
Islamist regime on the world,” was the primary cause of 9/11, Weigel now
believes “(t)he tremendous national solidarity expressed on the awful day
itself and in the weeks immediately following is virtually impossible to
imagine today, as our public life has descended into a miasma of conspiracy
theorizing, including a virulent antisemitism that, like all such eruptions of
Jew-hatred and Jew-baiting, is always a sign of cultural decay.”
Yet
he cannot think about 9/11, 25 years later, without remembering something else:
“the passengers on United 93, who took counsel with each other and decided to
risk dying as free men and women rather than certainly dying as jihadist cannon
fodder — and in doing so, prevented the destruction of the U.S. Capitol. Their
example ought to inspire us to do better as a civil society and a political
community than we are doing at present.”
|
IN the NEWS: SEPTEMBER 4TH
to 10TH, 2026 |
|
|
|
Friday, September 4, 2026 Dow:
53,559.99 |
Beyonce
celebrates her 45th with a new album. Not co-operating is Mother Nature with
brutal heat and powerful storms; flooded roads and cancelled airplanes menace
Labor Day weekend. The Dome covers
America from Nebraska to Norfolk. Two
tornadoes strike DC and two hurricanes target Hawaii but the merchers are undaunted, selling summer stuff at
discounts. Laboring politicians include Veep Vance whose not-war escalates as gas prices keep rising
expressing contempt for Iran’s capacity for cyberwarfare. Nine Eleven
families demanding “closure” accuse Saudis of collusion with al Qaeda back in
the day so we should support Iran which President Trump calls “a military
conflict”, against “small potatoes”, not a war, despite Sec. Pete’s
preference for the term. He also
appoints Army Corps of Engineers Adam Telle to replace Army Sec. Dan Driscoll
– fed up with Hegseth’s antics. Crime and justice carry on at home. Suspect with a knife on the Brooklyn Bridge
says he wants to die. Police oblige
him. ICE officer shoots a Venezuean alien in Minneapolis and is arrested; a black
woman in Florida shoots white road rager but is
freed on the “stand your ground” law.
Lindsay Clancy jury remains hung (or unhanged); partisans rassle, DA
Tim (not Ted) Cruz insists that “children were murdered.” 150 families sue
Roblox for letting pedophiliacs groom their kids and the courts allow LSU to
recruit pro football failures. |
|
|
Saturday, September 5,
2026 Dow: Closed |
It’s National
Tailgating Day (where weather permits) and NCAA football season begins with
thrillers, NFL rejects, upsets and blowouts. Clancy hanged jury provokes a mistrial and
the partisan powwows begin with mediots debating
“was it murder or was it madness”; the many
denouncing the single juror holding out for conviction. Some want him arrested and jailed, but the man is a hero, of sorts for
standing his ground. The eleven “not
guilty” jurors wholly bought into the “post-partum depression” argument of the
jail shrinks so Sweet Lindsay goes back to a “mental health facility”, still
blaming the doctors who filled her with pills. A ruling on a new trial is expected on or
about Sept. 29 while midtermer politicians
debate over whether crime is out of control (a contention the FBI disputes,
saying violent crime dropped by 9.3% in 2025 (murders and
armed robberies even more) and the war in Iran. CentCom says
Iranian missiles fired at Hormuz tankers and warships failed due to Iranian
incompetence – the U.S. fires back at Tehran’s “shadow fleet” of oilies. Arizona
Senator Mark Kelly (the DJI choice for 2028) says the war is “a game” for
Trump. DefSec
Hegseck (since we’re not in a war) fires more
military brass as Witkoff and Jared go to Kyev again for more talks that go nowhere. |
|
|
Sunday, September 6, 2026 Dow:
Closed |
It’s Talkshow Sunday and also Read-a-Book
day (some now comparing Dolly to Gloria Steinem as feminist icons –
howsoever differently dressed).
Indonesian airports close after the infamous Krakatoa volcano erupts
(but not as violently as in 1883). EnSec Chris
Wright appears on both NBC and CBS praising the President and predicting the
end of the Iranian was (as opposed to some who say it’s already over). Wafflin’ Chris
says we may not achieve regime change but are destroying Iran’s nuclear
infrastructure. “Trust us” on gas
prices going down but, on the other hand, it’s been a 47
year war (and Trump compares it to Vietnam). Former Armed Forces chief Frank Kendall,
now laboring for the far-right Center or American Progress nonetheless
parrots some anti-Donnie Republicans by saying that Trump is getting bad
advice. He says that Dan Cain is
trying to keep the military nonpolitical but that all the good people are
leaving and “all the guardrails are gone.” On the Roundtable, former RNC chair Doug Heye echoes pessimistic pachyderms by admitting that gas
prices will stay high for a long time.
Perennial roundtabler Donna Brazile doomscrolls that, while
jobs are up, more so for women, voters still can’t afford a hamburger or
(small?) potato salad for Labor Day.
Susan Glasser from the New Yorker says Trump has pivoted and now hates
all the people of Iran, not just in the regime; Charles Lane of the Free Press
says that Iran can hold on despite its failed economy because the regime
doesn’t care for the people either, On the midterms, Heye
says that if Dems win they’ll “want to fight, never negotiate” while Glasser
and Brazile praise Gloria Steinem as their model. |
|
|
Monday, September 7, 2026 Dow:
Closed for Labor Day |
It’s Labor
Day, and seems Americans want less labor, more shopping... sales on
Halloween, even Christmas merch beginning.
The meat eaters will be happy after President Trump cuts tariffs on
foreign beef but cattle ranchers claim cheap alien burgers will put them out
of business. “American beef,” they
say, “is what made America great.”
(POTUS waffles, however, on dyeing his hair as he introduces his new military
uniforms, modeled after “Star Wars” troopers.) Mixed messages after jobs report that, of
rise to 162,000, 158,000 went to women... new hires at Burger King and ICE,
firings at Jaguar U.S., Uber AI robotaxi delivery
drivers purged as are Army’s only climate scientist and editor of “Stars and
Stripes”. Pivot by Teamster Shawn O’Fain to MAGA could also be called bipartisanship, tho’ some donkeys call it treason – given labor’s U.S. membership
at 10%, Alabama falls to 6% but celebrates anyway with annual Moon Pie eating
contest. “We are not the enemy,” other
labor bosses try to convince voters in advance of midterms Bipartisanship squeaks, if not roars as
most condemn the dying (and especially killing) for political motivations as
former Trump official and Ohio Gov. candidate Vivek Ramaswamy denounces
failed assassination attempt on Democratic rival. In the courts,
trial of Charlie Kirk assassin Tylor Robinson begins as do parental suits against Roblox
for child endangerment; Clancey hanged jury
decision on retrial set for 9/29 |
|
|
Tuesday, September 8,
2026 Dow:
52,768.88 |
Thirtieth
anniversary of “The View”. Sixtieth
birthday of Adam Sandler and anniversary of “Star Trek”. Three thousand tourists sail on Star Trek cruise
(over water, not space) with William Shatner at 95 giving his
discourses. With three generations of
Trekkies, fourteen films and 900 hours of TV – the latest produced by Eugene
Roddenberry Junior whose spokesthings say “Star
Trek always has to hope for a better future,” – Shatner adds” “We live by
discovery.” Hawaii socked again by Lowell with two
feet of rain, 70 mph winds centered over Kauai and falling trees killing
people. Fortunately for the Hawaiians,
Marie turns back to SoCal – unfortunately for Angeleńos, like
Nick Cage, whose beachfront mansion disappears into a sinkhole. Alongside the floods and high surf, heat
dome brings 113° temps. NOAA calls this
the hottest summer ever and driest in 25 years, despite floods. Lindsay Clancy lawyer says that the sole
holdout juror for conviction “has his right” to dissent, but it’s not like a
scene from “Twelve Angry Men”. While
waiting for decision on retrial, he wants to sue her pill pushing doctors,
says rumours about her ex-husband Patrick shouldn’t
cause the mob to persecute him and lobbies President Trump for pardon. The President, meanwhile is busy with the
Iranian war (where three tankers are bombed, leading Tehran to boast of
capturing a defective drone. Gas and
oil prices rise as he defends the Confederate army, censors history and
proposes to rename New Mexico to New America. |
|
|
Wednesday, September 9,
2026 Dow: 52,380.66 |
Lindsay
Clancy lawyer says that the sole holdout juror for conviction “has his right”
to dissent, but it’s not like a scene from “Twelve Angry Men”. While waiting for decision on retrial, he
wants to sue her pill pushing doctors, lobbies President Trump for pardon,
and says rumours about her ex-husband Patrick
shouldn’t cause the mob to persecute him while some want to prosecute the
still unnamed juror. Extremist doomscroller
Jacob Coxon (27) quits Anthropic and Open AI
techie, saying the malevolent machines will exterminate humanity by the end
of the decade – older (29) moderate Anthropist
graduate of Harvey Mudd College, Evan Hubinger (pacė
Roger Carmel!) says there’s only a 10% chance of extinction. Happy?
AI and an oversupply of overeducated Millenials
mean fewer jobs for college graduates but high school and tech schoolers
doing OK... Hong Kong, tho’, is replacing fry guys
in fast food outlets with robots. After Dolly’s sister says she had cancer
for months, sick celebrities now include Ol’ Joe
(prostate cancer), Billy Joel treated for water on the brain, Real Housewife
Brandi Glanvill for a “fungal ball” in her cheek. Jimmy Kimmel returns from long, hot summer
vacation amid rumours he’ll follow Colbert into the
void next year. Canadian revenge
tariffs begin at midnite: PM Carney says: “When you
get attacked, you get attacked.” Girl
Scouts debut two new cookies... one of them for dogs. |
|
|
Thursday, September 10,
2026 Dow:
52,064.10 |
Charlie’s
Angels turn fifty – Jaclyn Smith writes her memoirs and appears on the box
with Kate Jackson and they tell stories about Farrah, calling the show
pioneering for strong, tough women while being a “fashion check”. President Trump’s angelic plan to give
every American $5,000 (provided Republicans win the midterms) does not
inspire gratitude – many believe it is either a scam or a bribe. Numbers crunchers say the scheme will cost
$1.3T, Republicans like John Thune and Susan Collins oppose... even Fox News
waffles... but Donnie has one defender: Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa) who denies
he’ll be switching parties. Iran bombs nine more US warships in Hormuz
and Houthis shut down other Saudi port in the Red Sea, but POTUS says not to
worry, the war is over and we won.
Also disbelieving – the stock markets which sink on the news that gas
and oil prices will rise again and inflation is becoming troublesome (prices
up 3.4% but wages up only 0.3). Seahawks beat Patriots in NFL opener. Coco Gauff heads four Americans in U.S.
open and Dolly Parton’s people release her first posthumous single: “Bound to
Ride”. |
|
|
The Dow Jones Industrial Average
dropped sharply by over 600 points on Wednesday and 300 on Thursday due to
surging oil prices, escalating Middle East conflict, and rising Federal
Reserve interest rate hike concerns but recovered this morning after a better
than expected consumer price Index report.
(See index below) Key Factors Behind the
Drop
Inflation (above) also increased – the
greatest hike being a seasonal jump of 10% for fuel oil prices. Don Jones is hoping for a mild winter! |
|
|
ECONOMIC INDICES (60%) THE WEEK’S
CLOSING STATS... |
|
|
|
|
|
CATEGORY |
VALUE |
BASE |
LAST |
CHANGE |
NEXT |
VALUE (ORIG.)** |
CHANGE (to JAN – JUNE 2026) from 100% |
JULY 17 Reconfigured |
AUG. 21 |
LAST WEEK |
THIS WEEK |
OUR SOURCES and COMMENTS |
|||||||||||||||||||||
|
INCOME |
(24%) |
6/17/13* |
% UP – DOWN |
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Wages (hrly. Per cap) |
9% |
1350 |
8/21/26 |
+0.346% |
8/26 |
1,909.78 |
70.89% |
1,353.92 |
1,353.92 |
1,353.20 |
1,353.20 |
1,357.88 |
https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/average-hourly-earnings
37.62 37.75 |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
Median Inc. (yearly) |
4% |
600 |
8/21/26 |
+0.063% |
9/4/26 |
1,474.31 |
40.75% |
600.80 |
601.46 |
602.49 |
602.82 |
603.10 |
http://www.usdebtclock.org/ 68,273 316 |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
Unempl. (BLS – in mi) |
4% |
600 |
8/21/26 |
+2.44% |
8/26 |
555.52 |
|
614.28 |
614.28 |
629.26 |
629.26 |
629.26 |
http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000/ 4.1 nc |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
Official (DC – in mi) |
2% |
300 |
8/21/26 |
-0.116% |
9/4/26 |
216.73 |
|
299.92 |
309.27 |
318.34 |
318.71 |
318.99 |
http://www.usdebtclock.org/ 6,881 873 |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
Unofficl. (DC – in mi) |
2% |
300 |
8/21/26 |
+0.007% |
9/4/26 |
259.80 |
|
299.62 |
284.26 |
283.90 |
283.86 |
283.82 |
http://www.usdebtclock.org/ 14,041 042 |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
Workforce Participation Number Percent |
2% |
300 |
8/21/26 |
-0.013% -0.028% |
9/4/26 |
295.81 |
|
299.98 |
298.74 |
297.95 |
297.81 |
297.73 |
http://www.usdebtclock.org/ In
162,083 062 Out
106,465 526 Total: 268,548 588 60.355 338 |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
WP % (ycharts)* |
1% |
150 |
8/21/26 |
-0.163% |
8/26 |
149.25 |
|
149.27 |
149.27 |
149.27 |
149.03 |
149.03 |
https://ycharts.com/indicators/labor_force_participation_rate 61.40 |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
OUTGO |
(15%) |
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Total Inflation |
7% |
1050 |
8/21/26 |
+0.4% |
8/26 |
901.77 |
|
1050 |
1052.10 |
1051.05 |
1051.05 |
1046.85 |
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm
+.1 .4 |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
Food |
2% |
300 |
8/21/26 |
+0.1% |
8/26 |
257.37 |
|
300 |
299.40 |
299.19 |
299.19 |
298.89 |
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm +.1 .1 |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
Gasoline |
2% |
300 |
8/21/26 |
+3.9% |
8/26 |
181.96 |
|
300 |
320.10 |
329.38 |
329.38 |
316.53 |
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm -2.9 +3.9 |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
Medical Costs |
2% |
300 |
8/21/26 |
-0.2% |
8/26 |
267.14 |
|
300 |
300.30 |
298.50 |
298.50 |
299.10 |
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm +0.6 -0.2 |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
Shelter |
2% |
300 |
8/21/26 |
+0.3% |
8/26 |
238.38 |
|
300 |
299.70 |
299.40 |
299.40 |
298.50 |
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm +0.1 .3 |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
WEALTH |
(6%) |
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Dow Jones Index |
2% |
300 |
8/21/26 |
-3.02% |
9/4/26 |
400.18 |
|
299.80 |
295.37 |
300.67 |
305.29 |
296.71 |
https://www.wsj.com/market-data/quotes/index/ 53,686.11 52,064.10 |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
Home (Sales) (Valuation) |
1% 1% |
150 150 |
8/21/26 |
-1.97% -0.53% |
9/4/26 |
137.08 |
|
155.60 154.17 |
152.61 158.23 |
150.38 151.69 |
150.38 151.69 |
147.42 150.88 |
https://www.nar.realtor/research-and-statistics Sales (M): 4.06 3.98 Valuations
(K): 431.4
429.1 |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
Millionaires (New Cat,) |
1% |
150 |
8/21/26 |
+0.011% |
9/4/26 |
137.72 |
|
150.15 |
150.32 |
159.66 |
159.78 |
159.95 |
http://www.usdebtclock.org/ 24,439 454 |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
Paupers (New Category) |
1% |
150 |
8/21/26 |
+0.038% |
9/4/26 |
134.69 |
|
149.92 |
149.82 |
145.53 |
145.49 |
145.44 |
http://www.usdebtclock.org/ 37,058 072 |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
GOVERNMENT |
(10%) |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Revenue (trilns.) |
2% |
300 |
8/21/26 |
+0.107% |
9/4/26 |
485.69 |
|
300.85 |
301.77 |
302.70 |
302.65 |
302.96 |
http://www.usdebtclock.org/ 5,592 601 |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
Expenditures (tr.) |
2% |
300 |
8/21/26 |
+0.094% |
9/4/26 |
287.16 |
|
299.59 |
298.86 |
297.98 |
292.19 |
291.91 |
http://www.usdebtclock.org/
7,414 423 |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
National Debt (tr.) |
3% |
450 |
8/21/26 |
+0.062% |
9/4/26 |
344.44 |
|
448.90 |
446.23 |
440.85 |
440.49 |
440.22 |
http://www.usdebtclock.org/ 40,111 144 |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
Aggregate Debt (tr.) |
3% |
450 |
8/21/26 |
+0.18% |
9/4/26 |
352.67 |
|
448.15 |
445.20 |
441.60 |
440.68 |
439.89 |
http://www.usdebtclock.org/ 114,801 5,073 |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
TRADE |
(5%) |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Foreign Debt (tr.) |
2% |
300 |
8/21/26 |
-0.062% |
9/4/26 |
252.18 |
|
295.57 |
293.90 |
293.46 |
293.22 |
293.04 |
http://www.usdebtclock.org/
9,609 616 |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
Exports (in billions) |
1% |
150 |
8/21/26 |
-1.27% |
8/26 |
197.73 |
|
145.70 |
145.70 |
140.98 |
140.98 |
139.19 |
https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/current/index.html 314.7 310.7 |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
Imports (in billions)) |
1% |
150 |
8/21/26 |
-2.83% |
8/26 |
130.49 |
|
145.32 |
145.32 |
150.83 |
150.83 |
146.56 |
https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/current/index.html 388.0 399.3 |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
Trade Surplus/Deficit (blns.) |
1% |
150 |
8/21/26 |
-17.27% |
8/26 |
182.61 |
|
108.06 |
108.06 |
121.12 |
121.12 |
100.20 |
https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/current/index.html 73.3 88.6 |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
SOCIAL INDICES
|
(40%) |
|
Events of the Week |
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
ACTS of MAN |
(15%) |
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
World Affairs |
3% |
450 |
8/21/26 |
-0.1% |
9/4/26 |
466.24 |
|
448.20 |
448.65 |
444.61 |
444.17 |
443.83 |
Nepalese deaths up to 1357, missing now 5,000 (inc. 75 Americans) but heroic rescues continue ten days after. Germany elects new-Nazi regional candidate. Two pilots killed in Greek air show crash. Filipino wedding takes place in flooded church. King Charles denounces Harry and Meghan as untitled commonists. |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
War and terrorism |
2% |
300 |
8/21/26 |
-0.1% |
9/4/26 |
280.07 |
|
298.80 |
298.22 |
295.85 |
295.55 |
295.25 |
Norway seizes Russian ship in remote Arctic without reprisal. In the Mideast, Israel kills eleven Lebanese and the U.K accuses them of ethnic cleansing. Yemenese Houthis attack Saudi Arabia (a few nine elevenish Americans approve) and Iran boasts of capturing a defective American drone. |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
Politics |
3% |
450 |
8/21/26 |
-0.1% |
9/4/26 |
450.15 |
|
448.20 |
447.75 |
445.97 |
445.07 |
444.62 |
Multiple injuries as shooter attacks Ohio governor rally. Missouri state house candidate caught planting drugs on opponent. Politicians decry food stamp fraud, real or not with Feds cutting off funds to states with too many poor people; suffering families looking forward to President Don’s... |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
Economics |
3% |
450 |
8/21/26 |
+0.1% |
9/4/26 |
426.64 |
|
450.00 |
449.55 |
446.40 |
445.51 |
445.96 |
... $5,000 giveaway (if Republicans win midterms). Canadian tariffs begin at midnight. “When you get attacked,” says PM Carney, “you get attacked.” POTUS week also includes his speech at Dallas Trumpapalooza, defense of Confederate army, censoring history and issuing EO’s to change the name of New Mexico to New America. US job numbers up but downside includes VW
50,000 job cuts. LIV golf goes
bankrupt. |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
Crime |
1% |
150 |
8/21/26 |
-0.2% |
9/4/26 |
201.34 |
|
149.55 |
149.40 |
149.40 |
149.10 |
148.80 |
Police shut down LA street takeover with mass arrests. Five killed in Philly terror fire, Bad Dad murders infant daughter but Virginia mom gets 6 months for letting daughter walk outside in a gated community with security guards... who call the police on her. |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
ACTS of GOD |
6% |
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Environment/Weather |
3% |
450 |
8/21/26 |
-0.1% |
9/4/26 |
275.85 |
|
447.30 |
446.85 |
444.16 |
443.28 |
442.84 |
The long hot (on coasts – NOAA calls it the hottest ever... and driest in 25 years except in the Midwest) summer continues. Easterners are grateful that Atlantic hurricanes are quiescent, but Hawaii is battered again by Lowell (with Norbert on the way). High surf in So.Cal washes away homesand Nicholas age mansion falls into a sinkhole. |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
Disasters |
3% |
450 |
8/21/26 |
+0.1% |
9/4/26 |
463.08 |
|
450.00 |
449.55 |
448.65 |
449.10 |
449.55 |
Five killed, five more injured in Amazon cargo air crash in Miami. Six children survive lightning strike in South Carolina. Violent American Airlines passenger duct taped to seat. Two more deaths at Burning Man – foul play not suspected. Ten die in Mexican fireworks fest fiasco. Toddler dies after shooting self with unattended gun, also in S.C. The good news is that 15 yr. old survives three days in frigid Bering Sea and another Nepalese landslide rescue after ten days. |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
LIFESTYLE/JUSTICE INDEX |
15% |
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Science, Tech, Education |
4% |
600 |
8/21/26 |
-0.1% |
9/4/26 |
617.97 |
|
600.00 |
600.00 |
598.80 |
599.40 |
598.80 |
Average US reading scores decline 14%, fall below China. See results here. Renegade AI techs who can read, and think, say the robots will kill us all, or maybe just 10% of us. Bad drone nearly shoots down Zelenskyy plane, good drone rescues drowning child. Apple introduces IPhone that folds in half – and it’s only $1,999.00. Latest social media scam is Doctor Impersonation. |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
Equality (econ/social) |
4% |
600 |
8/21/26 |
-0.1% |
9/4/26 |
675.06 |
|
603.00 |
603.00 |
602.41 |
601.81 |
601.21 |
Heather Nabozny becomes first MLB head groundskeeper, Charlie’s Angels congratulate themselves for improving female images on TV. Food stamp cutoffs starving children, overwhelm charities. |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
Health |
4% |
600 |
8/21/26 |
-0.3% |
9/4/26 |
440.46 |
|
595.06 |
595.06 |
593.25 |
593.84 |
592.03 |
Healthcare costs predicted to rise 8% in 2027 – hospital consolidations blamed. Beach bacteria bingo drives Vibrio disease for Labor Day. Walmart E-Colicious frozen blueberries joined by blackberries and strawberries, by sour chocolate milk, salmonellic alfalfa sprouts joined by broccoli sprouts. Eat meat, live long and prosper! Sick celebrities included Dolly Parton who hid her cancer for months, real housewife Brandi Glanville (fungal ball in face), Billy Joel (water on the brain) and Joe Biden says he has prostate cancer. |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
Freedom and Justice |
3% |
450 |
8/21/26 |
-0.1% |
9/4/26 |
477.76 |
|
449.55 |
449.55 |
447.75 |
447.75 |
447.30 |
Criminal cases ongoing include Lindsay Clancy mistrial (copycat killer of 2 year old says he’d been indwelt by The Devil ) as holdout juror revealed as wife beater and Patrick Clancy says he’s being persecuted by the social media mob. Start of Charlie Kirk trial. Civil cases include flackery and fakery in Flock privacy v. safety confrontations, and upcoming SCOTUS ruling on cutting mail in ballots that favor Democrats. |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
CULTURAL and MISCELLANEOUS INCIDENTS |
7% |
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Diversive incidents***
Cultural
Sporting
Transitional
|
4% |
600 |
8/21/26 |
-0.1% |
9/4/26 |
595.85 |
|
450.45 |
450.45 |
453.60 |
454.05 |
453.60 |
“Spiderman” #1 at B.o. for 6th straight week. Competition to include a Mel Gibson sequel to the “Passion of the Christ”. TV creative arts Emmys go to Bad Bunny. Jimmy Kimmel returns from long summer vacation, denies this will be his last season. Archivists bring up early Dolly pictures working for Candid Camera. Seahawks defeat Patriots in NFL opener and NFL cashing in doubling gambling to $60B, but “microbets” called “objectionable” in view of player influencing (i.e. corruption)... other “influencers” swarm and disrupt U.S. Open, sister actors (Williams) lose – but winners include four Americans – RIP: ESPN hockey analyst Barry Melrose, rasslers Andy “the Butcher” Williams and Bill Dundee,
former Chicago Bear Matt Suhey, Couple in West
Virginia married for 73 years die within hours of each other. R(etire)IP: WNBA
commish Cathy Engelbert |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
Miscellaneous incidents |
3% |
450 |
8/21/26 |
nc |
9/4/26 |
555.05 |
|
450.90 |
450.90 |
454.51 |
454.51 |
454.51 |
“Stunning swarm of sharks” off Long Island shore. Adults in tizzy over teen “Cat in the Hat” pranksters. Tasteful experts say that Americans are giving up on pumpkin spice, embracing apple and banana flavored thingies. Girl Scouts debut two new cookies... one of which is for dogs. |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
ATTACHMENT
ONE – FROM NBC
LOOKING BACK AT 9/11: HOW THE
ATTACKS SHAPED THE LAST 25 YEARS (TAKEAWAYS)
The deadly attacks on U.S. soil
changed the country in many ways, and the impacts are still reverberating
through our society.
By NBC Staff
Twenty-five
years after two hijacked planes brought down the World Trade Center in clouds
of dust, Lower Manhattan is thriving. The Financial District is now FiDi, with twice as many residents, and new bars and
restaurants in a neighborhood that once closed up when Wall Street’s trading
day ended. The observatory at the rebuilt One World Trade Center looks out over
New York City from the country’s tallest building, its height a symbolic 1776
feet. The 9/11 Memorial & Museum draws about 9,000 people a
day.
At
the Pentagon, more than one million people visit its outdoor memorial each year: 184 benches over pools of
water, placed in the path of the third hijacked plane.
Near
the field where the fourth plane crashed outside Shanksville, Pennsylvania, the
passengers are honored with a white marble wall of names. The motto is: "A
common field one day, a field of honor forever."
The
country will come together on Friday over a shared national tragedy, but other
changes remain controversial.
The
U.S. went to war in Afghanistan and Iraq, and both conflicts defied quick
military victories. Protests follow the Department of Homeland Security and its
agency, ICE, created after Sept. 11, over the tactics used toward migrants and
refugees. Then-President George W. Bush claimed expanded powers for the
presidency including military tribunals and harsh interrogation methods that
critics call torture and that have thwarted prosecutors.
Osama
bin Laden, the al-Qaida founder angry over U.S. foreign policy, was killed in a
raid on Pakistan, but the man accused of being the mastermind, Khalid Sheikh
Mohammed, remains imprisoned at the U.S. Navy base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
A military judge has ruled that his confessions to F.B.I.
agents could not used against him because they were
not made voluntarily. Mohammed was waterboarded in 183 rounds while he was held
earlier in secret C.I.A. prisons. His trial date is now set for June 5, 2028.
HOW THE 9/11 ATTACKS UNFOLDED
On
the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, 19 men hijacked four commercial planes bound for
California from Boston, Newark, New Jersey, and Washington, D.C. Two of the
planes, American Airlines Flight 11 and United Flight 175, departed from
Boston, headed to Los Angeles. Each plane had five hijackers aboard. At
Washington Dulles International Airport, another five hijackers boarded
American Airlines 77, also bound for Los Angeles. The last flight, San
Francisco-bound United Airlines Flight 93, left from Newark International
Airport with four hijackers on board.
Two
of the planes flew into the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers, the third caused
a portion of one of the Pentagon’s rings to collapse and the fourth crashed
into a field outside Shanksville after passengers stormed the cockpit.
Fifteen
of the al-Qaida hijackers were from Saudi Arabia. The others were from Egypt,
Lebanon and the United Arab Emirates.
Nearly
3,000 people died in the Sept. 11 attacks, most at the World Trade Center.
The youngest was 2 1/2 , one of eight children killed.
The
remains of more than 1,600 victims in New York City have been identified,
leaving 40 percent of those who died unidentified. In August, a woman was identified using a new method, a combination
of DNA analysis and research involving public genealogy databases.
People
continue to die from Sept. 11-related diseases, from cancers, respiratory
illnesses and others. More than 152,000 people have enrolled in the
federal World Trade Center Health
Program.
Twenty-five
years later, the World Trade Center has mostly been rebuilt, four skyscrapers and
2 World Trade Center under construction. The Pentagon was repaired in less than
a year.
FOLLOWING THE FALLOUT 25 YEARS LATER
NBC
Local stations across the U.S. have been reporting on how the Sept. 11 attacks
transformed the country in the quarter century since.
Families
reflect on how their lives were changed. First responders and others are
struggling with Sept. 11-related illness. New documents are calling into
question reassurances that New Yorkers received about the safety of the air
after the World Trade Center fell.
Here
are some of those stories.
HOW ‘HOPE' ENDURES DECADES AFTER SEPTEMBER 11 ATTACKS
The
25 years since the attacks have brought tragedy and heartbreak, but also grit
and resilience. NBC New York’s Andrew Siff shares one family’s full-circle
moment.
FDNY RELEASES REPORT ON 9/11 AND FIRST RESPONDERS
The
FDNY released a landmark report on the Sept. 11 terror attacks and the impact
on first responders' health in the 25 years that have followed.
The
report follows the physical and mental health of 15,000 EMS providers and
firefighters who were exposed to the air at the World Trade Center in the aftermath
of the attack. While the devastating health impacts to first responders at
Ground Zero have been known for years, the report builds on existing research
and brings it up to date, 25 years later.
The
report shows more than 12,000 have been diagnosed and certified with at least
one related physical or mental health condition.
It's
been a quarter century since the September 11 terror attacks and tri-state
families are still losing loved ones who died with 9/11-related illnesses. On
Monday, a wake was held for former FDNY Lieutenant Gerard Reilly. NBC New
York's Chris Glorioso reports.
In
the same week that the country is marking the 25th anniversary of the attacks,
New York City released about 170,000 pages of documents related to post-9/11
air quality and health risks -- a trove of paperwork within
which some notes suggest city officials knew of the potential environmental
dangers and legal exposure in the fairly early aftermath of the terror attacks.
One
undated internal document -- a letter to former Mayor Rudy Giuliani's deputy
mayor, Robert Harding -- listed various potential grounds for lawsuits against
the city, including health advisories that caused people to return to the area
too soon, causing toxic exposure, rescue workers being provided with faulty
equipment, and police failing to secure businesses from looters. X55
Another
memo early in the Michael Bloomberg administration, five months after 9/11,
said the city was "leaving itself open to a barrage of lawsuits. At the
least, we should discontinue telling people to clean their apartments with wet
mops and rags." The note added that the city should ask the federal
government for cleanup funds.
Read
the story on NBCNewYork.com.
DISPATCHER RECALLS FIRST REPORTS ABOUT PENTAGON ON 9/11
A
police officer who spotted American Airlines Flight 77 just seconds before it
hit the Pentagon radioed what he saw to dispatcher Kyra Pulliam. NBC
Washington's Paul Wagner spoke with her.
HOW THE NATIONAL CATHEDRAL PLAYED A PIVOTAL ROLE IN HONORING
9/11 VICTIMS
Three
days after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, President George W. Bush gathered
rescue workers and military members for a prayer service at Washington National
Cathedral. For the first time, we’re hearing from one of the reverends who made
that service possible.
The
service honored the stories of sacrifice and acknowledged the grief that
engulfed the nation in the wake of Sept. 11.
"Inside
the World Trade Center, one man who could have saved himself stayed until the
end at the side of his quadriplegic friend," President George W. Bush said
during the service.
Read
the story from NBC Washington's Aimee Cho.
‘LOCKING THE DOORS AND LOSING THE AIRCRAFT': INSIDE REAGAN
NATIONAL AIRPORT ON 9/11 AND ITS AFTERMATH
Chris
Browne, who was in charge of Reagan National Airport on 9/11, spoke with News4
about that day and what has stuck with him 25 years later.
It's
been a nearly quarter century since 9/11, but the magnitude is still fresh on
the minds of those who were right there.
"I
turned to my colleague and said, 'This is a terrorist incident. We're in
this,'" recalls Chris Browne, who was the manager of Washington Reagan
National Airport at the time.
Browne,
now the director of the National Air and Space Museum and a former naval pilot,
says he knew immediately that it was a terrorist incident. By the time the
world was watching live on TV, a second plane was headed for the World Trade
Center.
ATTACHMENT TWO
– FROM ABC NEW YORK
DRONES RECREATE TWIN TOWERS, HONOR VICTIMS AHEAD OF
25TH ANNIVERSARY OF 9/11 ATTACKS IN NEW YORK
A drone show illuminated the
skies over New York Harbor Wednesday night as part of a tribute marking the
25th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terror attacks.
Thursday, September 10, 2026
5:35AM
NEW YORK (WABC) -- A drone
show illuminated the skies over New York Harbor Wednesday night as part of a
tribute marking the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terror attacks.
The artwork, titled
"2,977 Lights Over New York Harbor," featured 2,977 lights, one for
each person killed in the 9/11 attacks. The lights rose over the harbor before
assembling into the outline of the Twin Towers at full architectural scale.
According to organizers, the
commemorative public art installation was developed in collaboration with
members of the 9/11 community, including family members, survivors and first
responders.
The project was unveiled
ahead of Friday's anniversary observance and was presented as a free public
event focused on reflection and unity.
Organizers said the aerial
display was shaped by a collective of voices that included Brenda Berkman, an
FDNY first responder and artist; Tim Brown, an FDNY first responder in 1993 and
2001; Terry Strada, president of 9/11 Families United and the widow of Tom
Strada; Jim Smith, whose wife, NYPD Officer Moira Smith, was killed in the
attacks; and Genevieve Siller, daughter of Stephen Siller.
ATTACHMENT
THREE – FROM FOX
RETIRED PORT AUTHORITY OFFICERS TELL MAMDANI, HOCHUL
TO STAY AWAY FROM GROUND ZERO ON 9/11
Retired
Port Authority officers suggested that Mamdani recognize the anniversary through
a written statement, public message or a separate event
9/11 families seek to ban NYC Mayor Mamdani from 25th anniversary
ceremony
By Stepheny Price Fox News Published August 29, 2026 11:00pm EDT
.
Retired
Port Authority police officers are demanding that New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Gov. Kathy Hochul
skip Ground Zero’s 25th anniversary 9/11 commemoration, saying their attendance
would inflict "deep pain" on victims’ families, survivors and first
responders.
In
separate letters dated Aug. 14, John McDevitt, president of the Port Authority
Retired Police Association, urged the two Democrats not to attend the Sept. 11
ceremony at the site of the deadliest terror attack in U.S. history.
"For
us, September 11 is not a political occasion, a photo opportunity, or a
platform for public officials," McDevitt wrote to Mamdani. "It is a
solemn day of remembrance for those who were murdered, those who responded,
those who survived, and the families who have carried these losses for
twenty-five years."
GOP
SENATORS RALLY BEHIND 9/11 FAMILIES IN PUSH TO BAN MAMDANI FROM ANNIVERSARY
CEREMONY: 'HE'S A DISGRACE'
The
group said the World Trade Center was "our home," noting that 37 Port Authority police officers and 47 other members of
the Port Authority family were killed in the 2001 attacks.
"Thirty-seven
of our brothers and sisters made the ultimate sacrifice," McDevitt wrote.
"Their memorial should not become the center of political
controversy."
MAMDANI
BOOED OFF STAGE AT NEW YORK CITY PRO-POLICE CELEBRATION: ‘WALKED OFF IN SHAME’
The letter said the retired officers have "profound
concerns" about Mamdani’s public statements,
political associations and positions, which they believe are inconsistent with
the sacrifice of victims and law enforcement officers.
"We
believe your presence at Ground Zero on this 25th anniversary would cause deep
pain to many members of the 9/11 community," McDevitt wrote. "It also
risks shifting attention away from the people whose lives, courage, and
sacrifice the ceremony exists to honor."
NEW
YORK GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE URGES 9/11 ATTENDEES TO TURN AWAY FROM MAMDANI
DURING CEREMONY
McDevitt
suggested Mamdani could instead recognize the anniversary through a written
statement, public message or a separate event.
"This
is our day to remember," he wrote. "Please allow us to remember in
peace."
The
association struck a similarly blistering tone in its letter to Hochul, taking issue with her decision to illuminate One
World Trade Center for Muslim American Heritage Month.
The
retired officers said they did not object to Hochul’s
proclamation itself, but to the decision to use the World Trade Center and
Ground Zero for the observance.
"We
believe that political pandering played a role in a decision that showed such
disregard for the significance of this sacred site," McDevitt wrote.
The
association called the decision "insensitive, tone-deaf, and an
affront" to those who served at the World Trade Center, victims’ families,
survivors and first responders.
"Because
of that decision, we believe that you have forfeited your right to stand
alongside us at Ground Zero on the 25th anniversary," McDevitt wrote to Hochul.
Hochul’s office pushed
back on the retired officers’ demand in a statement to Fox News Digital, saying
the governor "has enormous respect for all the families who lost loved
ones on 9/11" and will "proudly stand alongside them at this year’s
commemoration."
The
spokesperson added that Muslim New Yorkers "served as first responders and
helped unite the city in the aftermath of 9/11," and said, "The
Governor knows we can respect these families while being clear that
Islamophobia has no place in New York."
AMERICA’S HEARTLAND COMES FACE-TO-FACE WITH 9/11 HISTORY AS 25TH
ANNIVERSARY NEARS
Mamdani
previously said he plans to attend the commemoration and "proudly
honor" the families, survivors and first responders forever affected by
the terror attack.
The
retired officers’ demand comes as a petition asking organizers to bar Mamdani
from the ceremony has drawn more than 95,000 signatures.
The petition was launched in July by Giovanni Galante, whose wife,
Grace Catherine Galante, was killed in the Sept. 11 attacks.
MASSIVE PIECE OF 9/11 HISTORY MAKES STUNNING 10,500-MILE JOURNEY ACROSS
AMERICA
"Speaking
as the husband of Grace Catherine Galante, we are taking measures to shield our
loved ones by barring anyone who opposes our way of life from the
ceremony," Galante wrote on the petition page.
Former
Jill Biden spokesman Michael LaRosa, who also served as a special assistant to
former President Joe Biden, signed the petition and warned that Mamdani’s
presence would be a "lightning rod" that diverts attention from
victims and their loved ones.
The National September 11 Memorial & Museum previously told Fox News Digital that it keeps the
annual commemoration free of politics. Government officials who attend do not
deliver remarks and are asked to remain in a designated area, a spokesperson
said.
Fox
News Digital has reached out to Mamdani's office for comment.
Fox
News Digital's Charles Creitz contributed to this
report.
ATTACHMENT
FOUR – FROM GUK
GIULIANI SAYS MAMDANI SHOULD SKIP 9/11 CEREMONY DURING
RANT AGAINST ISLAM
New York City
mayor confirms he will attend memorial service but declines to respond to
Giuliani’s remarks
Edward Helmore in
New York Mon 7 Sep 2026 16.25 EDT
New York
mayor Zohran Mamdani is set to come face-to-face with Rudy Giuliani at the main September 11 memorial
service, just days after the former mayor – who led the city at the time of
the 2001 terrorist attacks – disparaged his Muslim
religion and said he should skip the ceremony.
In an interview
with right-leaning Newsmax at the weekend, Giuliani said:
“Having lost friends there and being very close to many of the families, it
offends me that he’s coming.”
Mamdani confirmed
on Monday, while attending a breakfast celebrating New York’s J’ouvert and West
Indian Day Parade celebrations in
Brooklyn, that he would attend the main ceremony and multiple 9/11 events on
Friday, to stand with the families of those who died and first responders – as
he did last year before taking office.
“I’m proud to
be the mayor of this city. I love this city. I love this country,” he said.
“What I want this week to be a focus on is on the families whose loved ones
were stolen from them 25 years ago in the horrific act of terror of September
11, and a focus also on the first responders who did everything they could.”
The mayor and
his office have declined to respond to Giuliani’s remarks.
Giuliani, the
former mayor and a close ally of Donald Trump, has said he will also attend
this year’s ceremony to mark the attacks by terrorists representing al-Qaida, who flew hijacked passenger planes into the twin
towers of the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan on September 11 2001.
Reflecting
pools with waterfalls constructed on the footprints of the towers and a 9/11 museum
now mark the site that was dubbed Ground Zero in the aftermath of the attacks,
and where each year the names of the almost 3,000 people who died are read out
by survivors and loved ones, in a solemn ceremony attended by national and
local leaders.
In the
interview with Newsmax, Giuliani was asked if Mamdani should skip the ceremony.
“Well, there’s no question he should,” he said.
Giuliani was
mayor of New York City
from 1994 to 2001. He ran unsuccessfully for president and, more recently, has
been an attorney to and a staunch ally of Donald Trump.
In the
convoluted tirade on air on Saturday, Giuliani threw insults and baseless
comparisons. He appeared to draw parallels between Mamdani’s faith and the 9/11
hijackers acting on the extremist orders of Osama bin Laden,
the jihadist militant and terrorist leader killed by US forces during the Obama
administration.
He remarked
that the terrorists brought their ideological opposition to the United States
“in the name of the Muslim religion” and “weren’t hiding it like Mamdani is
trying to hide it”. He also declared the opinion that the mayor supports a
notion that Islam should be the dominant religion.
Mamdani has
previously spoken about how an Islamophobic backlash built after the 2001
attacks and had made anti-Muslim prejudice “a fact of life” for Muslim
Americans. “It was this horrific day that was also, for many New Yorkers, the
moment at which they were marked an ‘other’,” he told the New York
Times last year.
Last week,
Mamdani issued an executive order designating 9/11 an annual official “Day of
Remembrance and Service” that requires the city administration to designate a
moment of silence to mourn those who were killed and affected by the attacks. A
second order established a new taskforce to help the city’s emergency
preparedness.
Several other
high-profile figures, including former New York governor George Pataki, have
voiced opposition to Mamdani’s attendance at the ceremony, and an online
petition arguing the same has gathered close to 100,000 signatures.
Dignitaries
expected to attend Friday’s commemorations include former US presidents Bill
Clinton, George W Bush and Barack Obama, and some other former mayors of New
York.
The White House
has said Donald Trump is not attending but is expected to commemorate the 9/11 attack on the Pentagon at that site close to
Washington DC, a decision that also has also drawn criticism.
US
vice-president JD Vance is expected to represent the White House in New York.
ATTACHMENT
FIVE – FROM NEW YORK
POST
CYNDI LAUPER
TO PERFORM AT FIRST-EVER 9/11 ‘TRIBUTE IN LIGHT’ LIVE BROADCAST
By Katherine Donlevy Published Sep. 8, 2026, 4:10 p.m. ET
The
Big Apple’s true colors will be shining through.
Pop
legend Cyndi Lauper will perform beneath
the glow of Ground Zero’s iconic annual “Tribute in Light” —
the projection of two blue beams where the Twin Towers once stood — Friday to
commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.
The
“Time After Time” and “True Colors” singer’s performance will conclude a
first-of-its-kind national broadcast that honors the memory of the victims
and “the
resilience of survivors, families, first responders, and
communities forever changed by that day,” the September 11 Memorial &
Museum announced Tuesday.
“I’m
grateful to be a part of the 9/11 Tribute in Light. It’s hard to believe that
it’s been 25 years,” Lauper said in a statement. “Like so many of us, I feel
like it was just yesterday.
“I
was outside the city that morning and desperate to get back to my family, a
luxury that, sadly, a lot of people were not afforded.
Bank
of America expanding Tunnels to Towers partnership, 9/11 memorials ahead of
25th anniversary
“I
am honored to sing for them, those that we lost, and the families and friends
who remain, and for my city. We will never forget.”
The
Brooklyn-born and Queens-raised singer will join Lainey Wilson and John Ondrasik of Five For Fighting for the first-ever “9/11
Tribute in Light: Live from Lower Manhattan” event.
The
one-hour special will air on Disney-associated platforms starting at 8 p.m. to
coincide with the annual “Tribute in Light” installation.
The
primetime special will be hosted by “World News Tonight” anchor David Muir,
“Good Morning America” co-anchor Robin Roberts and anchor Diane Sawyer.
Another
program, the “Paying Tribute: Live from Lower Manhattan,” will air ahead of the
inaugural event and will include inspiring stories of resilience and healing in
the wake of the 9/11 attacks.
As
in previous years, dozens of other buildings throughout the five boroughs — and
across the US — will also illuminate their facades and rooftops in blue to
coincide with the art installation.
ATTACHMENT
SIX – FROM ABC
PENTAGON
MEMORIAL GETS NEW NATIONAL PARK SERVICE DESIGNATION AHEAD OF 9/11 ANNIVERSARY
by Ida Domingo Wed, September
9, 2026 at 9:55 AM
WASHINGTON (7News) — The 9/11
Pentagon Memorial in Arlington has been designated an Affiliated Area of the
National Park System, formally recognizing the memorial’s national significance
ahead of the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.
The National Park Service
announced the designation Wednesday.
The new affiliation was
established through a Memorandum of Understanding among the National Park
Service, the U.S. Department of War and the Pentagon Memorial Fund.
The agreement creates a
formal partnership to help preserve and share the stories of the 184 people
killed at the Pentagon and aboard American Airlines Flight 77 on Sept. 11,
2001.
“The 9/11 Pentagon Memorial
is a place of remembrance, reflection and learning, and this affiliation recognizes
its enduring national significance,” said Jennifer T. Nersesian,
regional director of the National Capital Region of the National Park Service.
The memorial was authorized
by Congress in 2001. Families of the victims raised funds to build a permanent
memorial near the point where Flight 77 struck the Pentagon.
Ownership and day-to-day
management of the memorial will not change. The Department of War will continue
to manage the site.
ATTACHMENT SEVEN – FROM NEWSWEEK
‘ZERO HOUR’: INTERCEPTED COMMUNICATIONS SIGNALED AN
IMMINENT TERROR ATTACK
By William M. Arkin Sep
11, 2026 at 05:00 AM EDT
Yesterday: September 7
saw the terrorists en route to their 9/11 departure
points. The four hijackers of United Airlines Flight 93 were the earliest team in position.
September 8, 2001: The
National Security Agency (NSA), the nation's
signals-intelligence organization, intercepted on September 8 its first
communications indicating a possible imminent terrorist attack.
Between September 8 and 11,
the NSA would intercept telephone calls and other transmissions, but neither
translate them into English nor disseminate them.
THREE DAYS EARLIER...
ATTACHMENT
EIGHT – FROM WASHINGTON
TIMES
NEVER FORGET 9/11 MEANS FIGHTING THE IDEOLOGICAL WAR
America cannot defeat
terrorism while refusing to confront the beliefs behind it
By Jed Babbin - Tuesday, September 8, 2026
OPINION:
Friday marks
the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks that took nearly 3,000 American lives. It is
a day to mourn, not celebrate.
For those who
have forgotten, 19 members of the Islamist terrorist network al Qaeda hijacked four airliners, crashing two into
the World Trade Center towers
in New York and a third into the Pentagon. A fourth — which may have been aimed at the White
House or the Capitol — crashed in a field in Pennsylvania thanks to the heroism
of its passengers.
The two World Trade Center towers
collapsed, the Pentagon was
badly damaged, and the Pennsylvania field was strewn with dead bodies and
wreckage.
There was a
huge surge of patriotism after the attacks. People flew American flags on car
windows and outside their homes. President George W. Bush said
that those who had committed these atrocities would hear from us soon, and they
did.
It would be
wise for us to remember a few of the villains and heroes of 9/11. The principal villain was Osama bin Laden, who
eluded U.S. justice for about a decade. SEAL Team 6 caught up with him on May
2, 2011, in Abbottabad, Pakistan, and that ended his terrorist career.
Another alleged
terrorist, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed,
was apprehended on March 1, 2003, in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, in a joint
CIA-Pakistani intelligence operation. He has been held since then and has not
yet been tried — though a trial date of June 2028 has been set — because much
of the evidence obtained against him was obtained through waterboarding and
other forms of coercion. (It is not a coincidence that both bin Laden and
Mohammed were caught or killed in Pakistan.)
A great number
of other al Qaeda members
have been captured or killed in what Mr. Bush called a “global war on terror.”
Sept. 11 comments come
back to haunt left-wing Democrats
Remembering 9/11 — when
you’re too young to remember it
We seem to have
forgotten that war and several of its great heroes. Rick Rescorla,
for example, began his career as a British soldier. He immigrated to the U.S.
in 1963 and joined the Army. He fought as a second lieutenant in Vietnam and
became an American citizen in 1967.
When the 9/11 attacks occurred, Rescorla was vice president for
security in the south tower offices of Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, a financial
services firm. He led the company’s evacuation, seeing some 2,700 employees to
safety.
According to
the 9/11 Memorial
website, “He was last seen climbing up the stairs to make a final sweep for
other employees minutes before the building toppled.
His actions that day are credited with saving hundreds of lives. Rescorla
epitomized the soldier’s code: leave no man behind.” His body was never recovered.
Another hero —
among the passengers on Flight 93 headed to Washington — was Todd Beamer.
He, along with Mark Bingham, Tom Burnett, Jeremy Glick and
several other passengers, tried to regain control of the airliner and died in
the attempt when the aircraft crashed in a field near Shanksville,
Pennsylvania.
Beamer is
remembered for his words “Let’s roll” — overheard on an open phone line — when
the attempt to retake the aircraft was launched.
Rescorla,
Beamer, Bingham, Burnett and Glick tried to save lives. Then-Defense
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld rushed
outside to the Pentagon crash
site to help rescue the wounded before returning inside to direct the military
response.
They are all
heroes, as are the men and women who tried to save people from the devastation
caused by the terrorists who toppled the Twin Towers and crashed aircraft into
the Pentagon and
the field near Shanksville.
Some 343 New
York firefighters, 60 police officers (including 23 from the New York Police
Department and 37 Port Authority police officers), eight emergency medical
technicians and 184 people at the Pentagon died in the attacks.
We should mourn
them all.
There is a meme
floating around Facebook that we learned everything we need to know about Islam
on 9/11. That
is untrue. We are still learning.
The ideology of
Islam requires these terrorist atrocities, and we have never fought an
ideological war. Mr. Bush never understood it, nor did his CIA director, George Tenet.
Only then-British Prime Minister Tony Blair understood.
I learned from
Gen. Peter Pace,
then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the importance of fighting the
ideological war. As Gen. Pace said, the heart of the war is an ideological one.
Unless and
until we fight the ideological war, we cannot win the fight against Islamic
terrorism.
It is
apparently beyond us to fight the ideological war. As long as the Democrats’
“big tent” accommodates people such as Hasan Piker (who declared that we
“deserved” the 9/11 attacks)
and as long as Republicans such as Vice President J.D. Vance tolerate Tucker
Carlson (who is antisemitic and has declared certain Israeli officials “enemies
of civilization”), we cannot win the ideological war.
•
Jed Babbin is a national security and foreign affairs
columnist for The Washington Times and a contributing editor for The American
Spectator.
ATTACHMENT
NINE – FROM
THELONGGAME.substack.org
25 YEARS AFTER 9/11: ADMIRAL MCRAVEN’S WARNING FOR
AMERICA
The former
special operations commander on the raid that brought bin Laden to justice and
why politicizing military leadership could put America’s security at risk.
By Jake Sullivan, Jon
Finer, and the Long Game Podcast
Sep 10, 2026
Watch episodes of The Long
Game on YouTube.
Description:
Twenty-five years after 9/11,
retired Admiral William H. McRaven joins Jake Sullivan and Jon Finer to consider
how that day transformed America’s national-security institutions and what’s
putting their hard-won strengths at risk now. McRaven, the former commander of
U.S. Special Operations Command and Joint Special Operations Command, watched
the attacks from a hospital bed while recovering from a parachute accident. He
recalls calling his sons and telling them, “the world
has just changed. I don’t know how it’s changed. I don’t know what it’s gonna mean for us as a family, but make no mistake about
it, the world has just changed.” He also takes Jake and Jon inside the planning
and execution of Operation Neptune Spear, the mission that brought Osama bin
Laden to justice.
McRaven also discusses how
special operations forces are adapting from the post-9/11 counterterrorism era
to renewed competition with major powers; lessons from the wars in Ukraine and
Iran; and the meaning of servant leadership. He also revisits the advice that
made his 2014 University of Texas commencement speech famous: start the day by making
your bed.
Top of Form
Bottom of Form
References
& supplemental materials
·
William H. McRaven,
“Americans Deserve Answers From Hegseth,” The Atlantic, June 25, 2026.
·
William H. McRaven, “Never
Fight Alone,” The Atlantic, January 27, 2026.
·
William H. McRaven, Spec
Ops: Case Studies in Special Operations Warfare: Theory and Practice, Random House Publishing Group, February
4, 2009.
·
Carl von Clausewitz, On
War, Princeton University Press, 1984 revised
edition.
William H. McRaven, “Adm. McRaven Urges Graduates to Find Courage to Change the World,” UT News, May 16, 2014.
PEANUT GALLERY
We lose allies, we lose wars.
If Trump were to quit this
very second, it does not resolve our long term
problem. September 11th proved if a national tragedy
was to befall us, in that very instant we can unite as a people with a single
purpose of mind. And, we did for a short time. Our divisions since then have
become wider, more vitrolic. The ISIS attacks of the 2010s
showed us how vulnerable we were when we pretended transnational terrorism was
behind us. In Europe, the self-denial was deeper and wider. Perhaps if we could
reason with ISIS, AQ and every other group, we can talk and agree a way out.
"You have your part of the world, we have ours."
Adm McRaven's admonition is
for all of us. The military is a reflection of her people. The military has its
share of divisions similar to those in the civilian, non-military society. It
has crept into the senior leadership also while they are trying to maintain their
professionalism. "Why haven't they done something?" those of the
center-left has often said, and the legacy/new media, of Trump. The military
has pointed with rightful pride of keeping her troops in barracks at crucial
times. When you have click-bait headlines, "Military In
Full Revolt," "Military Despises Trump," etc., it only
exacerbates the situation. Forget about its misleading nature.
In the immediate days after
September 11th, my dad, a retired career Army man said if we could not wipe AQ
and their allies off the face of the earth, we deserve to lose our country, all
of it. He knew what he was saying was true. We are seeing the loss of our
country played out in real time. Trump is merely the trigger. Each day, we are
losing a bit of a country. And, when we lose a bit of it, there is no going
back.
ATTACHMENT
TEN – FROM SALON
WHAT WE FORGET WHEN WE REMEMBER 9/11
Scholars of
collective memory have long argued that that societies do not remember the past
simply by preserving it
By Stephanie A. Martin
published September 8, 2026 6:00AM (EDT)
This article
was originally published on The Conversation.
For much of the
past 25 years, each anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks has arrived with signs
and stickers reminding people to “never forget.”
I have always
felt unsure about what those words mean. For those of us who were alive in
2001, forgetting the day itself is almost impossible.
I remember the
shock and fear, the replays of the second plane
hitting the World Trade Center, and the moment the second tower fell. I
remember seeing on television the missing-person
photographs that covered New York and the awful recognition
that very few of those people were likely to be found alive. I remember
the bravery of the New York firefighters
and police.
My college
students have no such memories or feelings. Most were born years after Sept.
11, 2001.
Abdul El-Sayed answered
9/11 question honestly. CBS attacked him
They encounter
what happened through photographs, documentaries, memorials, classroom lessons
and stories told by people who were alive on that day. The National September
11 Memorial & Museum estimates that about 100 million Americans have been
born since the attacks.
The shift is
ordinary and still somehow startling. An event that once felt like it had split
time into a permanent before and after is fading into history
itself.
In my work as a professor of
politics and public affairs, I pay close attention to the stories Americans
tell about their past and the ways those stories shape civic identity in the
present. The 25th anniversary of 9/11 is especially interesting to me because
it marks a moment when an event once experienced as immediate and
world-changing is increasingly being carried forward through memory, ritual and
interpretation.
UNDERSTANDING
HISTORY INCLUDES FORGETTING
Scholars of
collective memory, also called public memory, have long argued that
societies do not remember the past simply by preserving it.
Public memory
describes how collective meaning gets made and remade through stories,
institutions, rituals and political arguments. For example, the
Department of Homeland Security was created in response to 9/11.
Many Americans understand DHS as a structural and cultural reform made to fix
the intelligence failures that the
attacks made evident.
Forgetting is
part of the process, too. As memory
scholar Paul Connerton has argued, some
forms of forgetting are not failures but necessary parts of social life.
No individual,
school or nation can keep everything equally present forever. History
accumulates faster than collective memory can accommodate it. The question,
then, is not whether Americans will forget parts of 9/11. They will. The more
interesting question is what remains after that forgetting takes place.
From the first
anniversary, commemorating the attacks has carried a careful choreography.
There is the annual reading of the names of those who
died, the memorial lights and the stories of first responders, each
of which keeps the human loss and courage of the day in view.
In a 2016 Pew Research Center survey,
76% of Americans named 9/11 as one of the 10 most consequential events of their
lifetimes. Nearly 1 in 5 said the nation’s immediate response to the attacks
was the moment when they felt most proud of the United States.
I understand
those points of view. Some of what I most want preserved about Sept. 11 is the
shared grief of those first days and the ways ordinary people revealed their
humanity under unimaginable circumstances.
Firefighters
climbed stairs and ran toward mortal danger, while a cascade of people tried as
hard as they could to get down. Office workers helped colleagues and strangers.
Families searched for missing loved ones long after hope had become terribly
thin. And passengers on United Flight 93 fought
back and forced the plane they were on to crash in a field in
the middle of Pennsylvania, sacrificing themselves in the hopes of saving
others.
Before 9/11
became a justification, a policy, a war or a political symbol, it was an
experience of shared human vulnerability.
POLITICS AND
ITS CONSEQUENCES
No event
remains sealed inside its original meaning. Sept. 11 became the starting point
for a series of political choices that reshaped American life and, in turn,
reshaped the memory of the day itself.
The attacks led
to the war in Afghanistan,
which lasted for 20 years after the invasion’s initial success in dismantling
al-Qaida and removing the Taliban government.
Next was the invasion of Iraq,
even though Saddam Hussein’s regime had no role in 9/11.
And the
aftermath of the attacks helped create an atmosphere that allowed for expanding
government surveillance, enlarging presidential power and narrowing the space for dissent.
Muslim Americans found themselves subjected to new suspicion and hostility.
Those
consequences now compete with the original experience of Sept. 11 for a place in its meaning.
For some
Americans, the attacks have become inseparable from the wars and broader official willingness to sacrifice
civil liberties in the name of security that followed. From this
perspective, 9/11 is remembered not only as a national trauma but also as a
warning about how fear and grief can make policies that once seemed unthinkable
appear necessary.
For others, the
day – and its aftermath – represent restored American pride and military
perseverance.
For still others,
9/11 remains most powerfully a story about innocent lives lost and ordinary
people behaving with extraordinary courage.
Each way of
remembering draws a boundary around the terrorism the nation experienced,
deciding how far beyond that September morning its meaning should extend.
Even events
once regarded as world-defining eventually have to share the historical
landscape with everything that follows. Since 2001, Americans have
experienced Hurricane Katrina, the 2008 financial crisis, the election of the first Black
president, the rise of Donald Trump,
the violence on Jan. 6, 2021,
and a global pandemic.
Sept. 11 has
not become unimportant because those things happened. Its place in the story
has changed because life – because the world – kept going.
For people who
were alive during the attacks, there is something sad about watching that
distance and diminishment happen. When an event once remembered in minute detail
becomes a date others know only from history, the passage of one’s own life
becomes newly visible. There is a strange nostalgia in realizing that something
once so immediate now belongs increasingly to people who know it only as the
past.
WHAT ARE WE TO
REMEMBER?
Maybe this is
why “never forget” feels both moving and impossible.
What is
supposed to be the subject of our remembering?
The people who died? The courage? The grief? The fear? The wars that followed?
The mistakes? The unexpected decency of people thrown together on an unbearable
day?
A society
cannot keep all of those things equally vivid forever. Nor should its members
confuse remembering everything with understanding anything. The task of
collective memory is inevitably one of selection.
For me, one
part of the memory seems especially important to preserve. Before Sept. 11
became an argument about war, security, patriotism or political allegiance, it
was an encounter with human vulnerability and then human resilience. The
solidarity of Sept. 11 and the political choices made in its aftermath were not
the same thing, even if they have become intertwined in our memory of the
period.
If the ongoing
march of history means Sept. 11 cannot always carry the emotional weight it
does for people who were alive when it happened, perhaps the best outcome would
be to focus on the collective grief, along with the extraordinary human
response that grief engendered.
Doing so would
not erase any of what followed. But it might help preserve the understanding
that the day was one of imaginable horror and tragedy before it became a
political inheritance.
This article has been corrected
with the location where UA93 crashed.
Stephanie A. (Sam) Martin,
Frank and Bethine Church Endowed Chair of Public
Affairs, Boise State University
This article is
republished from The Conversation under a Creative
Commons license. Read the original article.
ATTACHMENT
ELEVEN – FROM IUK
TRUMP CLAIMS FIREFIGHTERS CARRIED HIM AWAY FROM GROUND
ZERO RIGHT AFTER 9/11
President
boasts about his own presence at World Trade Center site in the aftermath of
attack 25 years ago this Friday
Andrew Feinberg Tuesday
08 September 2026 18:00 BST
Trump claims firefighters
carried him away from Ground Zero right after 9/11
President Donald
Trump used a White
House address marking the upcoming 25th anniversary of the
September 11, 2001 terror attacks to tout his administration's economic record
and brag about his own presence in the aftermath of the deadliest of that day’s
attacks.
The president was speaking at
the Ellipse near the White House on Tuesday, where a piece of structural steel
from the fallen World Trade Center twin
towers was on display as part of a nonprofit group’s commemoration of the
attacks. He said the “battered piece of steel” from the collapsed buildings was
“a reminder that America is blessed with a strength no fire can consume, no
evil can conquer, and no terror can destroy” before he segued into his own
remembrance of being at the attack site in the immediate aftermath.
“The United States Steel
Building was creaking, really creaking, and we thought it was going to fall
down. The truth is, it creaked a lot. It creaked. It still creaks, but it never
came down,” Trump recalled.
“And I'll never forget two
firemen. We thought it was coming down on top of us, and two firemen, big,
strong guys — and I'm not the smallest guy in the world — they grabbed me under
the arm, said, ‘Got to get out of here!’ And they literally lifted me up.
“This is not easy to do. I'm
big. They lifted me up and they started running with me. I said, ‘Fellas, I can
run myself,’ but they were amazing. But they thought it was coming down. It
didn't come down,” he added.
Trump has told that story
about his supposed presence at Ground
Zero at least once before.
During a January 2016
campaign stop in New Hampshire amid his first run for the presidency, Trump
told attendees at an event that a “screech” sound had prompted the reaction
from the firefighters.
“I was there when we actually
thought the U.S. Steel building was coming down and I'll never forget that I
was standing next to these two massive wonderful firemen and we heard a screech
... and everybody thought that the U.S. Steel building was coming down and it
was not so far from us. And these two guys there were massive guys, two really
big -- because I'm a big guy and they grabbed me. I must tell you honestly, I
never knew I could run that fast,” he said at the time.
Trump has repeatedly claimed
to have
been near the World Trade Center site in the immediate
aftermath of the attacks and has also boasted about having sent crews from one
of his construction projects to assist in recovery efforts.
But first responders who were
there say they never saw him on the ground. Yet the president continues to
insert himself into the narrative each year the nation approaches
the anniversary of the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people.
The president quickly pivoted
to boasting about how the country is now “stronger today than it's ever been
before,” citing recent stock market performance and quoting dubious and
unconfirmed statistics about the U.S. having a higher labor participation rate
than ever before while comparing the country today to the period immediately
after the attacks.
“When you looked at something
like took took place on September 11th, you say,
"I wonder if we could ever get back to a level of greatness. Well, we've
done it for the past few months,” he said.
Trump’s remarks on Tuesday
are not the only set he will deliver to commemorate the anniversary of the
terror attacks.
On Friday, he will speak at a
commemoration ceremony at the Pentagon, where 125 people working in the
building died in the attacks in addition to the 59 passengers and crew aboard
American Airlines Flight 77.
He will not join the four
living former presidents in attending the annual commemoration at the World
Trade Center site in New York, though Vice President JD Vance will travel there
in his place.
ATTACHMENT
TWELVE – ALSO FROM IUK
TRUMP JUST KICKED OFF HIS 9/11 COMMEMORATIONS IN THE
MOST UNSETTLING WAY
The president
showed a stunning lack of empathy during a speech in front of first responders
and families who lost loved ones on September 11th, 2001
BY Holly Baxter Tuesday
08 September 2026 12:40 EDT
We already knew, before
President Trump began his Tuesday morning speech commemorating 9/11, that he
wasn’t going to visit New York. He doesn’t intend to travel to Ground Zero to
stand alongside every other living U.S. president on Friday, where solemnity is
expected and speeches aren’t allowed. Because rules
be damned: Donald J. Trump was going to make a speech about that
day, and that was that.
So today, in front of a
21-foot steel beam salvaged from the wreckage of the World Trade Center and
transported to the Ellipse in front of the White House, he showed us what he
talks about when he talks about Sept. 11, 2001.
Trump opened by welcoming the
crowd to “one of the safest cities in the country,” which “was one of the unsafest” but is now cleaner and better, thanks to him. He
then talked unironically about DC’s “monuments, statues and fountains” looking
especially good, before meandering his way to the actual tragedy of 9/11.
Reading haltingly off a piece
of paper, the president then threw a couple of pre-prepared lines out about a
day “etched forever into the memories of Americans.” Then, he pivoted
immediately to Iran, or “a certain nation that wanted a nuclear weapon”. In
case anyone had missed that oblique reference, he added: “Iran will not have a
nuclear weapon,” and stopped for applause. The crowd obliged.
“We’ve punished them greatly,
as you know,” he continued. “We’ve really taken it to them. Nobody thought it
could go so well.” It was the first of a number of deeply unsettling moments.
The next was when the
president attempted to tell a story about Howard Lutnick,
the current Secretary of Commerce and former CEO of the financial services firm
Cantor Fitzgerald. Cantor Fitzgerald — which was based in the top three floors
of the North Tower of the World Trade Center in 2001 — lost almost 700
employees in the September 11th attacks, and Lutnick
avoided the same fate only because he’d taken his son to school that morning.
Or, as Trump put it, “his
wife would always be screaming at him: You never take our child to school,” so
“after four years, he did” though “he wasn’t happy about it.” Because of that
singular school dropoff, Lutnick
ended up elsewhere in Manhattan, watching the planes hit the towers where he
worked — “he got to see it,” as Trump told it — and so, the president mused,
“you could say he owes a lot to his son and to his wife.” The thing we ought to
understand, he added, is that “Cantor Fitzgerald was so hot” at the time, and
after “they all died,” Lutnick had to “start the firm
all over again.”
By the way, he concluded,
“the firm is now bigger, stronger, better” than it was before.
It’s a classic Trumpian
narrative arc: something bad or inconvenient happened, a big businessman came
in and rebuilt it, and everything is even better than it ever could have been
before anyway, thanks to that man’s grit and acumen. Except this time, the bad
and inconvenient thing that happened was the untimely deaths of 683 people, who
likely didn’t care that Cantor Fitzgerald was “so hot” when they realized
they’d never see their families again. The human tragedy of their fear and
terror and the grief and loss felt by their loved ones hung in the background
as the president focused solely on the miraculous escape of one man, who
happens to be in his Cabinet.
Then came a vintage Trump
9/11 story, which nobody has ever verified: a claim that he was present
at a construction site next door to the World Trade Center on
the day after the planes hit the towers, and that a firefighter “lifted me up
and started running with me” because they thought the building was going to
come down. He chuckled as he recounted this, adding a few times that it’s hard
to carry a man as big as him. Then he moved on to congratulating New York (at
this point I think many of us believed he was going to say “for its courage,” or
“for its dedication to pulling together in a terrible moment,” or “for its
spirit”) for its excellent “demolition crews” who worked to clear away the
rubble.
There was a quick aside about
first responders and their bravery, in which Trump sought to underline
repeatedly that “they knew what they were getting into” and “they knew what was
going to happen” when they started rescue attempts. He segued from this
straight into the importance of “law enforcement” and law and order in general,
adding that “other people want to go another way, they want to go a communistic
way. That’s not gonna happen.” The less said about
that, really, the better.
Trump then informed us that
he recently secured a “brand new beautiful” coastguard cutter for the city (“I
bought it myself, I negotiated the price, it was very expensive”.) The cutter
is going to be named after Firefighter Jeffrey Palazzo, who died on 9/11, and
so, Trump added, “I didn’t want to negotiate too hard” because of his memory. A
class act, truly.
The president moved to
introduce Alison Crowther, mother of the 9/11 hero Welles Crowther, who was
working as an equities trader in the World Trade
Center on the 104th floor on September 11th and who guided people to safety
before perishing himself. Welles, a trained volunteer firefighter in his
hometown, came to be known as “the man with the red bandana” by those who made
it out alive and were helped by him.
Trump goes on wild 9/11
rant after Maggie Haberman question sets him off
Alison Crowther
stood and thanked Trump for inviting her to speak Tuesday, adding that Welles’
legacy was about being “better, kinder and more compassionate,” and urging
people to “choose courage, compassion and service.” The president, in contrast,
had described Welles a few minutes earlier as “the man in the red bandana [who]
has become more famous than me,” adding with a laugh, “I don’t like it.”
The president’s final words,
spoken after Crowther, were that “our country is bigger, better, stronger than
before.” And with that, he wandered offstage in his big, white ‘USA’ hat,
neatly proving why nobody will miss him at Ground Zero on the actual
anniversary.
More
about
Howard Lutnick New York Donald Trump
September 11
attacks
ATTACHMENT
THIRTEEN – FROM ABC
TRUMP HONORS 9/11 VICTIMS AT THE
ELLIPSE, PLEDGING TO 'NEVER FORGET'
President Donald Trump has
honored the victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks by vowing to “never forget.”
By SEUNG MIN KIM Associated
Press September 8, 2026, 12:45 PM
WASHINGTON -- Nearly a
quarter century after a day “etched forever into the memories of
Americans,” President
Donald Trump honored the victims of the Sept.
11, 2001, attacks on Tuesday by vowing to “never forget.”
The event at the Ellipse was
spearheaded by the Tunnel to Towers Foundation and showcased a massive,
21-foot, nearly 17,000-pound steel beam recovered from the South Tower of the
World Trade Center in New York, which had traveled for months across the
country as part of the Steel Across America tour.
The steel beam will make its
way through New York in a procession on Friday by retracing the steps of fallen
New York City firefighter Stephen Siller. Trump’s
presence at the event on Tuesday just outside the White House began a week of commemorations that
will culminate in several events on Friday, including one at the Pentagon that
Trump will attend.
“This battered piece of steel
here today on the Ellipse is a reminder that America is blessed with a strength
no fire can consume, no evil can conquer and no terror can destroy,” Trump
said.
Trump noted that the Sept. 11
attacks were one of few moments in history that “divide time into really what
came before” and after.
His remarks briefly dipped
into the political, as Trump warned of people turning a “communistic way” — a
reference to his frequent attacks on Democrats as more democratic socialists
gain influence in the party.
During his remarks, Trump
paid particular tribute to two men who died in the attacks: Jeffrey Palazzo, a
New York City firefighter, and Welles Crowther, a young equities trader who
became known as the “man in the red bandanna” after rescuing several people in
the attacks.
Trump said the U.S. Coast
Guard will commission a new fast-response cutter this weekend in New York in
honor of Palazzo, a Coast Guard reservist who was working out of Staten
Island’s Rescue Squad 5 when he responded to the attacks 25 years ago.
And the president recognized
Crowther, also a volunteer firefighter, by awarding him the Presidential Medal
of Freedom.
Crowther’s mother, Alison,
and sister, Paige, accepted the award, which is considered the nation’s highest
civilian honor.
During his remarks, Trump
also recalled being near the site after the attacks and hearing the structure
then known as the U.S. Steel Building “creaking.”
“I was building a big
building in New York and I took the whole crew down there right after this
happened," he said. “We thought it was coming down on top of us. And two
firemen — big, strong guys, and I’m not the smallest guy in the world -- they
grabbed me under the arms."
“They lifted me up and they
started running with me,” he added. “I said, ‘Fellas, I could run myself,’ but
they were amazing.” It wasn’t clear from Trump’s comments precisely when the
event he described occurred.
In attendance were a
smattering of top Cabinet officials and members of Congress, including
Republican Reps. Mike Lawler of New York and Dan Meuser, whose Pennsylvania
district is near Shanksville, where Flight 93 crashed on Sept. 11, 2001.
Trump praised at length
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who was chairman
and CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald, a financial firm that had been housed at the
World Trade Center. Lutnick lost his younger brother,
Gary, as well as more than 650 employees in the attacks.
“He’s done an amazing job,”
Trump said of Lutnick. “He’s rebuilt Cantor
Fitzgerald, and he’s given much of the profits to some of the families or the
families of people who perished.”
About 150 first responders
from New York, as well as some from Washington and Pennsylvania, were in
attendance, Trump said.
“This steel beam represents
the best of our country," said Frank Siller, the
foundation’s chairman and CEO who is the brother of Stephen Siller.
“It’s important to recognize that the heroism that was exhibited that fateful
day was nothing short of incredible.”
___
Associated Press writer Will Weissert contributed to this report.
ATTACHMENT
FOURTEEN – FROM DAILY BEAST
TRUMP TELLS JAW-DROPPING LIE ABOUT BEING ‘RESCUED’ ON
9/11
By Farrah Tomazin Updated Sep.
8 2026 4:23PM EDT Published Sep. 8 2026 2:37PM EDT
Donald Trump took his years
of embellishing his role in the aftermath of 9/11 to another level Tuesday by
suggesting firefighters pulled him from Ground Zero.
The wild remarks were made at
a ceremony marking the 25th anniversary of the attacks, as the White House
honored a man who died saving people at the site.
Speaking on stage near a
display of structural steel that had fallen from the towers that day, Trump
veered into a story about his own alleged presence at the scene of the attack a
quarter-century ago.
“The United States Steel Building
was creaking, really creaking, and we thought it was going to fall down,” Trump
began.
“We thought it was coming
down on top of us, and two firemen - big, strong guys, and I’m not the smallest
guy in the world - they grabbed me under the arm, said, ‘Got to get out of
here!’ And they literally lifted me up.
“This is not easy to do. I’m
big. They lifted me up and they started running with me. I said, ‘Fellas, I can
run myself’ – but they were amazing. But they thought it was coming down. It
didn’t come down.”
The comments appear to be an
extension of a story Trump has told before, including during a head-scratching
interview on Newsmax in 2021.
But it immediately sparked a
backlash online, with some suggesting it sounded as though the president was
claiming he had been pulled from the rubble as though he was one of the
September 11 survivors.
“So many lies. It’s
exhausting,” quipped artist Angu Walters.
“Our president is completely
delusional,” said Huffpost senior White House
correspondent S.V. Date.
“Don’t allow Trump to sully
the 9/11 tragedy with his sick fantasies,” added Tara Setmayer, co-founder of
the Seneca Project.
And golf writer and author
Rick Reilly - who detailed Trump’s extensive golf cheating in his book Commander
in Cheat: How Golf Explains Trump - claimed he had first-hand
knowledge that the president was lying.
“I know this is BS because I
was with him in his Trump Tower apt once. I was
looking through his telescope. He said, “I watched the twin towers fall through
that ... it’s solid gold.” Those were his exact words and not a single word
about going down there to help," Reilly wrote on X.
Trump was in Trump Tower on
Fifth Avenue in midtown Manhattan when hijacked planes struck on September 11,
2001.
The building is two and a
half miles away from the World Trade Center or the U.S. Steel building he
mentioned in his story. The former U.S. Steel Building is now One Liberty
Plaza.
In several interviews that
day, Trump also talked about the other building he owned in Manhattan—40 Wall
Street–boasting that with the Twin Towers gone, his was now the tallest
building in the city.
“I was looking out of a
window from a building in midtown Manhattan directly at the World Trade Center,
when I saw a second plane at tremendous speed go into the second tower,” he
said in an interview after the attack.
“Soon after, I went down to
Ground Zero with men who worked for me to try to help in any little way that we
could.”
But there is no public
evidence to show Trump went to the steel building, or that he was rushed out by
firefighters.
He has repeatedly claimed for
years that he was at Ground Zero with a large crew of his workers helping with
the recovery in the days after 9/11, but people on site that day have said they
never saw him or a Trump-organized crew.
Trump Launches Vile
Attack on Female Reporter Over 9/11 Fit
The president’s comments came
as the nation commemorates the anniversary of the attacks that killed nearly
3,000 people.
Vice President JD Vance will
attend the anniversary ceremony in New York, while Trump will speak at the
Pentagon.
The New York Times reported
last month that Trump decided to skip the official 25th-anniversary
commemoration in New York City, in part because he wanted to deliver a speech,
and event organizers informed his team that political remarks are not allowed.
However, he furiously
rejected this and accused New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman, who
co-authored the report, of being a “fake reporter” and “an unattractive person
both inside and out.”
ATTACHMENT
FIFTEEN – FROM PBS
FACT-CHECKING
TRUMP'S STORIES ABOUT HIS OWN 9/11 RESPONSE
Politics Sep 8, 2026 4:44 PM EDT
This article originally
appeared on PolitiFact.
President
Donald Trump recounted his response to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in an
interview and event leading up to the 25th anniversary this week, repeating
statements that lack evidence about aiding in the recovery.
"I was
building a building in New York, and I had a lot of construction workers. And I
went down there very shortly thereafter, the following day — couldn't go down
the same day — but the following day," Trump said in the interview with
Fox News's Trey Gowdy that aired Sept. 6. "Very
quickly afterwards. And we worked long and hard."
In a Sept.
8 event honoring 9/11 emergency responders on the White House Ellipse, Trump said that
he was carried by firefighters from the site when the nearby One Liberty Plaza
— formerly called the U.S. Steel Building — started to creak, prompting fears
of a collapse.
"We
thought it was coming down on top of us, and two firemen, big strong guys — I'm
not the smallest guy in the world — they grabbed me under the arm, said, 'Got
to get out of here,' and they literally lifted me up. This is not easy to
do," he said. "I'm big. They lifted me up and they started running
with me. I said, 'Fellas, I can run myself,' but they were amazing. But they
thought it was coming down. It didn't come down."
The native New
Yorker has told a shorter version of
that story before. There are supporting accounts that a fear of the building
collapsing prompted evacuations, though none specifically say Trump was there.
A history page on the Federal Reserve Bank of New York's website says
employees were forced to leave the Fed building Sept. 12 because of concerns
that the nearby One Liberty Plaza might collapse.
Trump has long
talked about his 9/11 response, saying he spent a lot of time at Ground Zero
and brought hundreds of workers to aid in the recovery effort. Trump did
multiple interviews near the site on Sept. 13, and said at the time he had
brought construction workers to help out.
PolitiFact
previously found no evidence that
Trump brought hundreds of workers to the site, and other fact-checkers have
similarly found the evidence
lacking. Trump World Tower was
under development in 2001 in Midtown Manhattan, about 5 miles from the World
Trade Center.
When asked for
more information about how much time Trump spent at Ground Zero and how many
workers he brought, the White House referred PolitiFact to the Trump
Organization. The Trump Organization didn't return a request for comment.
HOW
INVOLVED WAS TRUMP IN THE 9/11 RECOVERY?
The earliest
video or photo of Trump near Ground Zero is from Sept. 13, 2001. He gave
an interview to a German TV
station and spoke with the press on other occasions that
day. He said he had workers aiding in recovery.
"I have a
lot of men down here right now," he told German TV station N24. "We
have over 100 and we have about 125 coming. So we'll
have a couple hundred people down here. And they're very brave and what they're
doing is amazing. And we will be involved in some form in helping to
reconstruct."
In another Sept. 13
interview, he said 100 men from his company were working at the
site, and he was there "to spur them on."
PolitiFact was
unable to verify that he directly aided in cleanup or visited the site
repeatedly in the following weeks or months.
Richard Alles, who was a New York Fire Department battalion chief
at the time, told PolitiFact in 2019 that
he had no knowledge of Trump being at Ground Zero, or bringing 100 or more
workers to help.
"There
would be a record of it," Alles said.
"Everybody worked under direct supervision of the police and fire
department and the joint commander for emergency services. Is there a chance he
was ever down there by himself and I didn't know it? It's possible, but I know
of no one who ever witnessed him there."
Other reports
place Trump near Ground Zero in the days after the attack, but the extent to
which he was involved in cleanup is unclear. News accounts described Trump
"giving high-fives to police officers and volunteers on their way to the
World Trade Center site," The Associated Press
reported. CNN referenced a
Newsday report that said Trump had been spotted at Ground Zero on Sept. 13,
"every hair in place and impeccably dressed in a black suit."
In a 2019 report from
the conservative website Breitbart, former New York Police Commissioner Bernard
Kerik said Trump "was on Ground Zero numerous times — no cameras, no
press, no nothing, but he came down to motivate and inspire the men and women
down there that were working on the pile."
TRUMP'S
COMMEMORATIONS ON THE 25TH ANNIVERSARY OF 9/11
Trump does not
plan to attend the 9/11 commemoration ceremony in New York on Sept. 11, instead
attending a ceremony at the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, which was also
attacked on 9/11.
The New York
Times, citing unnamed sources, reported that Trump's
decision to skip the New York event was, in part, because he
was not allowed to deliver a speech. The 9/11 Memorial and Museum has barred
politicians from speaking at the site since 2012.
Trump disputed
the reporting and insulted Times reporter Maggie Haberman in a Truth Social post.
"This is
more Corrupt News, I've been to New York many times over the years, and no one
ever speaks, it's a 'solemn ceremony!'" Trump wrote, adding, "I would
love not to speak, because I'm speaking all the time, and this is a day to
remember the victims, and their beautiful family members."
Vice President
JD Vance will attend the New York event, while other administration officials
will visit the Flight 93 National
Memorial site in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
ATTACHMENT
SIXTEEN – FROM CNN
TRUMP HONORS 9/11 FIRST RESPONDERS —
AND PLUGS HIS POLITICAL PRIORITIES
By Betsy Klein
President Donald Trump on
Tuesday honored the heroes who bravely ran toward the danger during the September
11, 2001, terror attacks as the nation prepares to commemorate the day’s solemn
25th anniversary.
He also used the event near
the White House in Washington, DC, to briefly plug some of his own priorities,
including arguing for his war with Iran and comparing the danger officers faced
during 9/11 to the threat of communism — one of his frequent digs at the
Democratic Party ahead of the midterms.
A crowd of first responders
from New York, Washington, DC, and Pennsylvania, along with service members,
Gold Star families and the families of fallen first responders gathered on the
Ellipse, where a 21-foot, 13,900-pound steel beam recovered from the World
Trade Center’s South Tower was on display.
“When we see this steel,
we’re reminded that no matter what threat or challenge comes our way, America
will fight. America will endure, and America will prevail,” the president said.
Trump, a native New Yorker,
recalled his own experience that day: “I saw things that I never want to see
again.” He described a trip to Ground Zero in the days that followed as “raw.”
The steel beam, which has
traveled from Lower Manhattan to key sites — including the Flight 93 National Memorial
in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, and Emma E. Booker Elementary School in Sarasota,
Florida, where then-President George W. Bush was reading with second grade
students when he learned the second tower had been hit — is part of a broader
educational effort to teach Americans about the service and sacrifice of the
heroes of 9/11. And it’s a reminder — as more Americans grow up who were either
too young to remember the fatal day or not born yet — to never forget.
At the entrance to the event,
images of more than 400 first responders who lost their lives provided a
reminder of the sacrifice. Trump repeatedly praised the first responders, but
also drew a comparison between the tragedy and the administration’s war with
Iran, now in its seventh month.
“We’re right now fighting because we have a
certain nation that wanted a nuclear weapon. They were very close to getting
it, and now they have no chance of getting it. They will never have a nuclear
weapon. Iran will not have a nuclear weapon,” he said.
Trump also posthumously
honored Welles Crowther with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Known as the
“man in the red bandana,” Crowther, an equity trader and volunteer firefighter,
made three trips to the South Tower’s 78th floor lobby to help guide people to
safety before the tower collapsed. Trump quipped during his speech that the
fallen hero had “become more famous than me. I don’t like it.”
The president recognized some
of the officials in the audience, including Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick — who at the time of the attack was the president
of Cantor Fitzgerald, which had offices in the World Trade Center and lost 658
employees, including Lutnick’s brother.
Lutnick
has come under scrutiny in recent days after the secretary falsely asserted in
a CNBC interview that no Americans had died during the war with Iran. Trump
preemptively sought to downplay the remark on Truth Social last week, and Lutnick later apologized for the comment.
“He’s got some faults, but
overall, he’s excellent,” Trump said Tuesday.
The president’s speech also
briefly veered political as he heralded the nation’s law enforcement,
suggesting that they are responsible for protecting the country from threats —
including communism, repeating a theme he’s used to attack Democrats on the
campaign trail.
“Our law enforcement holds
our country together in light of some threats. We have some very real threats
right now. We have people that want to go a different way, they want to go a
communistic way. Well, that’s not going to work,” he said.
Trump is not expected to
travel to New York City on Friday for anniversary ceremonies at the World Trade
Center, but will mark the moment at the Pentagon. Trump is not attending the
World Trade Center ceremony in part because he wants to deliver remarks, people
familiar with his plans said. Politicians have not been permitted to speak at
the event in New York since 2012.
CNN’s Alayna Treene contributed to this report.
ATTACHMENT
SEVENTEEN – FROM WASHINGTON TIMES
TRUMP COMPARES IRAN TO 9/11 TERRORISM, AWARDS MEDAL OF
FREEDOM TO GROUND ZERO HERO
President Donald Trump claps
after speaking during the Tunnel to Towers Foundation event for the 25th
Anniversary of 9/11, on the Ellipse near the White House in Washington,
Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2026.
By Tom Howell
Jr. - The Washington Times - Tuesday, September 8, 2026
President Trump said Tuesday
the U.S. has “really taken it to” the Islamic regime in Iran to
prevent it from getting a nuclear weapon, tying a memorial event for the 25th
anniversary of Sept. 11 to the current war in the Middle East.
Mr. Trump praised the bravery
of first responders in the 2001 attacks carried out by al
Qaeda terrorists, many of them from Saudi Arabia, and
leader Osama bin Laden, who operated his network from Afghanistan.
The president said he would
eliminate the separate threat — today — from Tehran.
“We will never forget. We say
it, and we mean it,” Mr. Trump said at a “Steel Across America” event on the
White House Ellipse.
“We’re right now fighting
because we have a certain nation that wanted a nuclear weapon,” Mr. Trump said
of Iran. “They were very close to getting it, and now they have no chance
of getting it. They will never have a nuclear weapon.”
Mr. Trump, working with
Israel, launched airstrikes against Iran on Feb.
28. Iran retaliated by shutting down the Strait of Hormuz, an
oil chokepoint, leading to months of fighting, diplomacy and economic pressure.
“We’ve really taken it to
them,” Mr. Trump said of the Iran war. “Nobody thought it could go so well.”
Pentagon using Cold
War-era law to replenish dwindling missiles, revamp supply chain
Lindsay Clancy’s
attorney asks Trump to pardon the killer mom
Why does Trump’s White
House ballroom upgrade trigger the unhinged left?
Stocks dropped to start the
shortened trading week on Tuesday as oil prices rose to nearly $100 per barrel
because of new Middle East turmoil.
Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen
attacked oil sites in Saudi Arabia, hurting 73 people and disrupting oil
markets.
Steel Across America is a
project in which a 16,900-pound steel beam from the south tower at
the World Trade Center is taken across the country from May to
September to remember the tragedy and its victims.
The beam is traveling more
than 10,000 miles and making 35 stops in 21 states and the District
before ending its journey at ground zero on Friday.
The effort is being led by
the Tunnel to Towers Foundation nonprofit that memorializes Sept.
11 and Stephen Siller, a firefighter who raced
through the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel to help after the attacks and died at
ground zero.
Tunnels to Towers CEO and
Chairman Frank Siller presented Mr. Trump with a
framed memorial flag that featured steel from ground zero.
Mr. Trump recalled
how Sept. 11, 2001, was a clear, calm day before an alert came over the
television about the attacks, which killed nearly 3,000 people at
the World Trade Center in Manhattan, the Pentagon outside Washington
and on United Flight 93, which crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
Mr. Trump said he looked
outside in Manhattan and “saw things I never want to see again.”
“We’re never going to see it
again,” he said.
Mr. Trump on Wednesday
awarded a posthumous Medal of Freedom to family members of Welles Crowther, a
24-year-old equities trader and volunteer firefighter who covered his face with
a red bandanna and guided people to safety in the south tower of the World
Trade Center before dying in the tower collapse.
Mr. Trump also acknowledged
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who lost family
members and many co-workers at Cantor Fitzgerald, the company he led at the
time, in the attacks on the World Trade Center.
Mr. Lutnick
had taken his young son to school that day, likely sparing his life.
ATTACHMENT
EIGHTEEN – FROM BBC
'CONSTANTLY ON MY MIND' - 9/11 AGONY
ENDURES FOR BEREAVED, 25 YEARS ON
By Alice Cuddy
The US
government has described it as the "most egregious criminal act on
American soil in modern history".
But a quarter
of a century on, the trial of its alleged mastermind is yet to begin and
families of those killed fear that time for justice to be delivered is running
out.
Tom Resta's brother John and his wife Sylvia, who was seven
months pregnant, were among the almost 3,000 people killed on 11 September 2001
when hijackers flew planes into the World Trade Center in New York City and the
Pentagon in Virginia. Another crashed in a field in Pennsylvania after the
passengers fought back.
The couple had
been preparing their unborn baby's nursery, painting
it with characters from the children's television show Blue's Clues in the days
before 9/11. They had dreamed of having a baby and doted on the children of
friends and family.
On the day of
the attacks, the couple - both traders - were working on the 92nd floor of the
north tower of the World Trade Center.
"After all
this time, it still chokes me up," Resta told
the BBC through tears. While 25 years have passed, he said 9/11 was
"almost constantly" on his mind.
New
Yorkers were 'lied' to about toxic air after 9/11 attacks, says Mamdani
New
videos of man in 9/11 lawsuit reveal extremist links
Resta
has been to the US naval base of Guantanamo Bay four times to watch complex
pre-trial proceedings for alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and
his co-defendants - a process he describes as "laborious and
tedious".
A military
prison was established on the base in south-eastern Cuba during the "war
on terror" that followed the 9/11 attacks, and Mohammed - often referred
to as KSM - has now been held there for 20 years without ever being convicted.
Relatives of
victims enter a lottery process to attend the proceedings in a high-security
courtroom, where thick glass separates them and members of the press from the
defendants.
The pre-trial
process has been going on for so long that it has now been presided over by
five different military judges.
Last month, as
the 25th anniversary approached, there was a flurry of movement and something
of a breakthrough, with
a trial date set for Mohammed for June 2028.
But Resta said he was bracing himself for further delays, and
with so much time having passed, some of his relatives feared they would not
live long enough to see the trial.
"My father
will be 98 in November, and I don't think he's expecting to see it. I have a
lot of family members - aunts, uncles - that would all like to see it happen.
But my parents in particular, I don't think they expect to live long
enough," he said.
"Hopefully
all the defendants will still be alive by the time we get to trial. That's a
big worry," he added.
Resta's
concerns that a trial could still be further delayed were shared by relatives
of other 9/11 victims.
Earlier this
year, Stephan Gerhardt made his sixth trip to Guantanamo. He said seeing convictions
for the death of his younger brother Ralph was vital for him, but something he
wished he no longer had to think about.
"I want to
concentrate on the memories," he said. "I
still have Ralph's car. I'm trying to restore it and get it in pristine shape
again… We were recently visiting my parents, and we found some of his things
that they were holding onto, and the emotion behind it is like, 'yeah, this is
just some old stuff, but it belonged to my little brother'."
Gerhardt said
his "biggest concern" was that he wanted to see Mohammed and his
alleged co-conspirators convicted before they died.
"They're
getting elderly… I don't want them to pass away without being convicted, because
that would be an injustice to all the family members - that we captured these
people, but we never got to try them and convict them for the mass murder that
they did of our loved ones."
Mohammed has
been charged with offences including conspiracy and murder, with 2,976 victims
listed on the charge sheet. He is accused of conceiving the idea of training
pilots to fly commercial planes into buildings and taking those plans to Osama
bin Laden, leader of the militant Islamist group
al-Qaeda.
He has previously
said he planned the "9/11 operation from A to Z".
But days after
the trial date was set for 2028, the military judge threw out confessions made
by Mohammed to FBI agents on Guantanamo Bay after he was brought there from
secret CIA prisons known as "black sites", which he had been held in
for years. In his ruling, the judge described Mohammed's treatment by the CIA
as "extraordinary physical and mental abuse".
He said the
confessions were not voluntary and could not be used against Mohammed at trial.
Experts say the
torture of Mohammed and his alleged co-conspirators has been the main reason
for the lengthy delays in the case.
"Every
single issue has been litigated through the issue of torture," said Kasey
McCall-Smith, an international law professor at Edinburgh University.
She said the
defendants were subjected to "years of abuse", including
waterboarding and stress positions.
John Ryan,
author of America's Trial: Torture and the 9/11 Case on Guantanamo Bay, said
last month's ruling means prosecutors lose what they had described as their
best evidence against Mohammed, but it is unclear how much it will impact the
case.
The prosecution
has other evidence, Ryan says, including intercepted phone calls and secret
recordings, but whether they can feature in the trial is not yet guaranteed.
"Mohammad's team and the other defence teams
will file motions to suppress some of these categories of evidence, as
well."
During the
George W Bush administration, the US admitted using "enhanced
interrogation techniques" to acquire information from suspects but said
these methods saved lives and never amounted to torture. President Barack Obama
banned them on his second day in office.
Relatives of
the victims say the torture of the defendants has so far blocked their right to
justice.
"If we
would've not tortured them, the legal implications here would've been much,
much simpler. They probably would've been sentenced to death a long time
ago," said Gerhardt. "I can't control what the government did, and
we've got to live with the impacts."
Both Gerhardt
and Resta travelled to Guantanamo in early 2025 when
Mohammed and two of his co-defendants had been due to plead guilty under a
controversial deal struck with US government prosecutors, through which they
would not face a death penalty trial.
The BBC was
with them at the base when the pleas were paused at the last minute after the US
government argued that to "deprive the government and the American people
of a public trial as to the respondents' guilt and the possibility of capital
punishment" would cause "irreparable" harm.
Legal wrangling
over the validity of the deal is continuing.
In
court with the '9/11 mastermind', two decades after his arrest
The
'9/11 mastermind' wants to plead guilty. Why is the US trying to stop him?
Some victims'
relatives viewed the deal as the only way through, while others criticised it as too lenient and lacking transparency.
Resta
said he had supported the deal to secure convictions.
"My
philosophy is these guys are not the kind of people that should be out walking
the streets, but as far as I'm concerned, they can just stay right where they
are. I just want them
convicted," he said.
Brett Eagleson, whose dad Bruce was killed in the attacks, said
he wanted a full trial, not a plea deal.
"It's not
so much that I'm taking an opinion on life or death for these prisoners, but I
believe in the judicial system and I believe that the process works and I
believe that a trial and discovery and sort of a public airing is the way to
flush the truth out," he said.
Eagleson
described the situation on Guantanamo as "a mess" and said he had
decided not to attend any of the pre-trial proceedings there.
"My overall
feeling is a sense of betrayal from the US government and a sense of extreme
frustration," he said. "They've botched every single part of this
trial."
With 25 years
having passed since the attacks, he said that while 9/11 was a constant
presence in his own life, to the wider public it was "becoming a
historical event".
"I think
people just assume that we got Bin Laden, we're out of Iraq, the war in
Afghanistan's over, and they just assume that chapter has ended."
When the trial
does eventually start, at a military court at Guantanamo, it has been estimated
that it will last about a year.
Professor Kasey
McCall-Smith said the point of the pre-trial proceedings had been determining
"what evidence gets in and what evidence doesn't get in".
"If that
is agreed in advance, the trial can be more expeditious," she explained.
As the
relatives of the victims prepared for another anniversary marking the death of
their loved ones, Gerhardt said he was looking forward to a time that the trial
was over and he no longer had to think about or travel to Guantanamo.
"It's a
place I don't want to come back to. I want to live my life, enjoy my passions
and my memories of Ralph," he said.
ATTACHMENT
NINETEEN – FROM BBC
'WE NEVER RECOVERED HIM': QUEST TO
IDENTIFY REMAINS FROM GROUND ZERO CONTINUES
Juliette Scauso was four, the youngest of four children, when her
father, firefighter Dennis Scauso, was killed in 9/11
For 25 years, the
only physical trace Juliette Scauso has had from the
last day of her father's life was his mangled firefighter helmet.
Scauso's
father, Dennis - part of a New York City Fire Department (FDNY) hazmat unit for
12 years - initially was not scheduled to work on 11 September, 2001, but
switched shifts for the overtime pay.
The Long Island
father of four was likely in the South Tower of the World Trade Center when it
collapsed, the Scauso family was told. The helmet
with his badge number was found months later.
"I've
spent essentially my entire life knowing my father died, and learning to live
with the fact that we never recovered him," said Scauso,
who was four when he died.
Dennis Scauso is one of more than 1,000 people killed on September
11 in New York who have yet to be identified, according to New York City's
Office of Chief Medical Examiner. Nearly 3,000 people died in the World Trade
Center attacks that day.
Last month, the
city announced the identity of a previously unknown victim of the terrorist
attacks - the 1,654th person - using a new technology called forensic
investigative genetic genealogy - or FIGG.
"There is
real promise in using this approach," said Angela Soler, director of
forensic anthropology in the city's medical examiner office. "There's hope
for more families to receive answers, and hopefully we'll be able to test more
remains in the future using this technology as well."
Since 9/11,
Soler's office has sought to identify the remains of the 2,753 victims who died
in the World Trade Center. So far, 60 percent of those killed have been
identified.
"It's been
one of the most complex identification efforts that I think anybody has ever
really experienced," Soler said.
25
YEARS LATER, DNA MATCHES ARE STILL BEING MADE
Efforts to
identify victims have been complicated by a number of factors.
Human remains
were damaged in the plane crashes and fires caused by jet fuel, meaning the
office had only portions of victims for DNA samples, Soler said.
Scauso
added that because of the timing of the attacks, many firefighters were
changing shifts, but some stayed to help, grabbing whatever extra gear they
could find. This meant some first responders recovered were wearing uniforms
with others' names, complicating identification.
The World Trade
Center site also had many more victims than the other 9/11 terrorist attack
sites.
The remains of
five of the 184 people killed when American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the
Pentagon were never identified because of similar conditions. According to the
National Park Service, enough remains were recovered to use DNA, dental records
and fingerprints to identify all 40 victims aboard United Airlines flight 93,
which crashed into a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
Remains from
the World Trade Center have been packaged and sealed to help preserve DNA for
testing in the years to come. Soon after the attacks, individuals were
identified using fingerprints or dental records, but as time went on, when
neither was available, the office turned to DNA. Officials were able to use new
technology to extract DNA and retest the same remains.
"That's
why all these years down the road, we're still getting new identifications,
because we're just continuing to retest and retry with every new technology
that becomes available," Soler said.
DNA technology
has helped the office identify 1,495 victims since 9/11 - some solely with DNA
and others with multiple methods - according to the medical examiner's office.
Last year, the
city announced that with the help of DNA, 24 years later, it had identified
three new victims - Ryan Fitzgerald, a 26-year-old currency trader, Babara Keating, a 72-year-old who was aboard American
Airlines Flight 11 from Boston to Los Angeles, and a woman whose family kept
her identity private.
Soler said the
new FIGG technology uses whole genome sequencing - which provides a way to read
someone's entire genetic code. It means investigators can make more potential
matches to family members who are more distant relatives of the victim. Once
those matches are made, the New York Police Department helps find relatives who
are closer to the victims.
REOPENING
OLD WOUNDS
The medical
examiner's office in New York still gets weekly calls from loved ones asking
about someone whose remains were never recovered.
Many have never
been able to bury a loved one, but some families choose to leave the remains -
once found - at a repository at the 9/11 memorial site in New York. The
repository was built into the bedrock of the World Trade Center site and can
only be accessed by medical examiner staff. A nearby private space, known as
the reflection room, is available for families to mourn.
"That's
where their loved one was in their last moments, and that's where they want
them to stay", Soler said.
Some don't want
to be notified, perhaps because the confirmation is too painful, said Soler,
who helps inform families.
Scauso
is one of those people. She knows people who, in recent years, got a call that
a relative finally has been identified. The thought of being next on the list
is scary for her family, who has worked hard to keep the memory of her father -
a jack of all trades and a lover of jazz - alive.
"At this
point, an identification wouldn't change the reality of his death. It wouldn't
give me back my father, and I don't necessarily want to reopen something that
has become part of the way I've learned to live and grieve," she said.
"Especially 25 years later, it's going to open up the wounds again."
Scauso
says that her father Dennis's helmet was the only item recovered, with his FDNY
badge, where he worked for 12 years
But, Scauso said, the technology is important.
Soler has seen
the news provide a mix of both relief and sadness. "It's confirmation of
something that they always knew to be true - they knew their loved one died on
9/11, but I think for many families, there's still that question in the back of
their mind until the remains are formally identified," Soler said.
"Maybe
they're reliving it a little bit more now, having this new identification. But
at the same time, it closes one chapter of their journey after 9/11," she
added.
To Soler - and
some of her current colleagues who also were on the ground during 9/11 - the
work is deeply personal. Workers from their office arrived at Ground Zero after
the planes hit the towers, and were there when the buildings collapsed.
They are aware
it is unlikely they will identify every victim of the New York attacks. In some
instances, there may be no remains of a victim at all. Still, they have no
plans to stop.
"As long
as there's families looking for answers, we'll continue searching for
them," she said.
ATTACHMENT
TWENTY – FROM 911 MEMORIAL.ORG
ILLNESS AND
ADVOCACY AFTER 9/11
Nearly
a quarter century after 9/11, its ongoing physical and mental health impact still
deeply affects tens of thousands of individuals across the country who were in
lower Manhattan and the surrounding area following the attacks, as well as
those from around the world who participated in the rescue, recovery, and
relief efforts.
"Dust:
Illness and Advocacy After 9/11" is an installation exploring the impacts
of the toxic dust that blanketed city streets and coated the insides of homes,
businesses, and schools in the area. Every breath that survivors, first
responders, and lower Manhattan residents took put them at risk for toxic
exposure, underpinning the larger public health impact of the day that changed
our world forever.
Central
to the 9/11 narrative at the core of our mission is what happened after the towers fell: the bravery and
selflessness we saw; the diversity and sheer number of people who have died
from or are currently living with illness and trauma because of that; and the
advocacy efforts to secure congressional funding for immediate and long-term
medical monitoring, research, and treatment programs.
As
lived memory turns to history, the Memorial & Museum continues to expand
the breadth of its storytelling and create new opportunities to recognize the
sacrifice of all survivors, health care advocates, and later victims
of the 9/11 catastrophe.
WTC HEALTH PROGRAM
The World Trade Center
(WTC) Health Program is a limited federal health program
administered by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health,
part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the U.S. Department
of Health and Human Services and is authorized through 2090. The Program
provides no-cost medical monitoring and treatment for certified WTC-related
health conditions to those directly affected by the 9/11 attacks in New York,
the Pentagon, and in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
The
WTC Health Program was established by the James Zadroga
9/11 Health and Compensation Act of 2010. In 2015, the Program was reauthorized
until 2090. Tens of thousands are sick and, according to officials, over
8,000 people enrolled in the program have died (from all causes, not only World
Trade Center-related conditions). But the program is now providing
assistance and support to roughly 140,000 members across all 50 states.
YOUNG
ADULT OUTREACH
As part of its efforts to raise awareness about the availability of program benefits
to those who were 21 or under in the aftermath of the attacks, the WTC Health
Program offers videos featuring firsthand accounts from young survivors who are
now facing related conditions like asthma, cancer, and PTSD. Watch these videos.
Additionally,
"The Health Effects of 9/11: An Online Exhibition" was developed by
the WTC Health Program in partnership with the David J. Sencer
CDC Museum. The exhibition examines the ongoing health effects linked to 9/11
exposures and the emergence of WTC-related health conditions. It also explores
the events and advocacy that established the WTC Health Program and research
achievements that have led to improvements in medical treatment and
knowledge. Explore this online exhibition.
Learn more about the WTC
Health Program, including how to apply and what they cover.
Additional resources can be found here.
ATTACHMENT TWENTY ONE – FROM NY
DAILY NEWS
9/11 WTC HEALTH PROGRAM WORKFORCE DROPS
25% UNDER SEC. KENNEDY AS PATIENT COUNT RISES: ADVOCATES
By Thomas Tracy New York Daily
News PUBLISHED: January 19, 2026
at 4:15 PM EST | UPDATED: January 19, 2026 at 8:48 PM EST
The
staff running the federal
World Trade Center Health Program has dropped by 25% as the number
of sick 9/11 survivors the group treats is expected to increase by 10,000 this
year, the Daily News has learned.
Survivor
advocates are demanding U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. lift
the agency’s hiring freeze and fully staff the program before the personnel
shortfall adversely affects first responders and survivors seeking help.
“Over
the last 11 months, since you took over as secretary of Health and Human
Services, you have ignored the program staffing needs, resulting in disrupting
key WTC Health Program operations,” Benjamin Chevat,
executive director of 9/11
Health Watch, wrote in a letter to Kennedy earlier this week that
was acquired by The News.
“Today
the [program] is at risk because staffing and policy approvals have not kept up
with the increased demand for services — necessary, often lifesaving services
that exposed, ill members rely on.”
Since taking over HHS and the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention, Kennedy has authorized drastic cuts to the WTC
Health Program personnel, as well as the firing
of program head Dr. John Howard, which was reversed
last year after lawmakers from both sides of the aisle sounded
the alarm.
The
rare reversal from the Trump administration saw Kennedy restore two research
grants and the jobs of 16 employees. When Kennedy testified before
Congress last year and was questioned about his decisions
he admitted the firings were “a mistake.”
Yet
while the WTC Health Program is budgeted for 120 staffers, it currently has
only 84, Chevat said.
“After
the dust cleared from your waves of firings and rehirings,
the program now has fewer staff members than when you took over in February,” Chevat says in his letter. “That means there are 36
vacancies, more than 25% of the 120 staff, the required minimum needed to
ensure medical monitoring and treatment for the responders and survivors
enrolled in the program.”
Enrollment
in the program over the last two years has grown by 20,000, Chevat
said. An additional 10,000 people are expected to enroll in the program this
year.
“You
have created a 25% staff shortfall in the face of a 25% increase in members,” Chevat wrote, adding that the reduced staff has caused
slower treatment approvals, backlogged research grant authorizations, and
inadequate supervision over cases.
In
his letter, Chevat notes that Jan. 2 marked the
15-year anniversary of when the Zadroga Act, which
created the WTC Health Program, was signed into law.
“You
cannot run a program with more responders and survivors needing services with
less staff and expect care not to suffer — especially a program that depends on
so many vendors and contractors who need supervision. But that is what is
happening,” Chevat wrote. “But despite the growing
numbers of responders and survivors needing services, the program cannot hire
the staff to meet that need because of the ongoing CDC-wide hiring freeze.”
More
than 140,000 first responders and survivors rely on the WTC
Health Program to get treatment and medication and monitor
injuries and illnesses caused by the toxins kicked up into the air on 9/11 and
the weeks that followed.
Since
Kennedy took over HHS, 9/11 advocate groups haven’t been able to officially
speak with anyone to learn if the WTC
Health Program has verified any of the new medical conditions
linked to the toxins
that swirled above Ground Zero following the terror attacks or
if any studies are being conducted on new maladies 9/11 sufferers are facing.
A
steering committee had met nearly every month for 24 years to discuss health
issues facing 9/11 responders and survivors until Kennedy took over, Chevat said. Invitations to WTC Health Program members to
attend the meetings have been met with a curt response, indicating that the HHS
has “issued a pause on mass communications and public appearances that are not
directly related to emergencies or critical to preserving health.”
The
9/11 Health Watch is asking Kennedy to remove the hiring freeze so more staffers
can be hired, lift communications restrictions between the program and the 9/11
survivor community and to finally decide on petitions that have been pending
for more than three years that would add several cardiac, autoimmune and
cognitive issues to the list of the program’s covered conditions.
An
email to the HHS regarding Chevat’s letter was not
immediately returned.
Local
elected officials have voiced their displeasure on how the WTC Health Program
is currently run.
In
a letter that New York Democratic Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand and Chuck Schumer
wrote jointly last summer, they noted that the program’s support contracts for
doctors and pharmacists “will soon be up for renewal.”
“As
far as we know, there is no staff available to work on updating requirements
and requests for proposals and there is insufficient staff to do the ongoing
contract approvals the current contracts require,” the senators wrote. “Unless
this contract work can occur in a timely fashion, clinical care will be further
impacted because providers will not be paid and medications will not be
filled.”
ATTACHMENT TWENTY ONE.A – FROM
THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
By
Thomas Tracy PUBLISHED: March 14, 2026 at 11:00 AM EDT |
UPDATED: March 18, 2026 at 1:35 PM EDT
Staffers at the
federal World Trade Center Health Program — which has
already seen more than a 25% drop in personnel — have been
reassigned to work with Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Indian
Health Service, advocates for the 9/11 community said.
They are
demanding a hearing with U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy to
discuss concerns about delays ...
ATTACHMENT TWENTY TWO – FROM MOTHER JONES
MORE PEOPLE HAVE DIED FROM 9/11 THAN ON 9/11
A Long Island
doctor once treated 9/11 responders who were dying. Now she’s a reporter and
trying to figure out why the illnesses haven’t stopped.
When Mia Farina got seriously
ill in 2014, she thought she had a bad case of pneumonia. But it turned out to
be far worse: It was the start of chronic lung disease related to the months
she spent working in and around ground zero after 9/11.
Back then, Farina was a
rookie cop, present when the second Twin Tower came down. She and her Brooklyn
squad ran to escape the burning debris. “At one point, you couldn’t run because
the stuff that was collapsing was so deep,” she said. “So
it would go up to my thigh, and you would feel people’s hands and feet
because…they’re all under the rubble.”
Farina lives on Long Island,
surrounded by other responders who also are sick and dying from their work at
ground zero 25 years ago. She and tens of thousands of other 9/11 responders
and survivors were promised care through the World Trade Center Health Program,
a federally funded lifeline meant to treat the long-term medical consequences
of that day. But funding has never kept up with the number of people who
continue to get sick.
This week on Reveal,
reporter Lynn Hallarman, a Long Island doctor turned
journalist who once treated 9/11 responders, explores the community of
responders around her, their reliance on a program that’s been unstable for
decades, and the science behind why people are still getting sick.
ATTACHMENT TWENTY THREE – FROM CBS NY
FDNY UNIONS ADDRESS 9/11 HEALTH
CONCERNS AFTER NYC RELEASES NEW AIR QUALITY DOCUMENTS
By Elijah Westbrook
Updated on: September 9, 2026
/ 10:33 AM EDT / CBS New York
Newly released documents are
raising tough questions about what first responders were told about the air
they were breathing after the 9/11 attacks.
Leaders of the FDNY's
firefighter and fire officer unions stood alongside first responders Wednesday
to address what they call a continuing health emergency.
Fire officials say 343 FDNY
members were killed on 9/11, and since then, 453 members have died from
9/11-related illnesses. More than 12,000 members have also been diagnosed with
at least one World Trade Center-related illness, according to the World Trade
Center Health Program.
The union presidents who
spoke were also Ground Zero responders.
The response comes after the
release of more than 170,000 pages of records related to the air quality following the attacks. The documents include
reports showing evidence of asbestos months after 9/11 and internal discussions
about the city's potential liability from toxic exposure.
The documents were stored
in 68 boxes at City Hall that officials say were only
discovered last year. The release came as part of a settlement with advocates
who sued to make them public.
"People got sick because
the leaders they trusted lied and told them they were safe to breathe in toxic
air," said Mayor Zohran Mamdani.
For one Lower Manhattan
resident, the announcement didn't come as a surprise.
"Anyone would know it
was bad. You could smell it and see it," said Marty Lipowitz.
"Am I angry? Yeah, but again, tell me something I don't know."
As part of the settlement,
the city will appoint staff to help eligible New Yorkers use these records to
prove they were in the exposure zone, which could help them access victim
compensation.
ATTACHMENT TWENTY FOUR – FROM THE NEW YORK POST
PROSECUTORS
TO HEAD TO 9/11 TRIAL WITHOUT MASTERMIND KHALID SHAIKH MOHAMMED’S KEY CONFESSION
By Ben Kochman Published Sep.
7, 2026, 4:12 p.m. ET
Military
prosecutors are willing to go without a key confession by
the self-described mastermind of the 9/11 attacks — in order to avoid
further delaying the
long-awaited trial now set for summer 2028.
The
US government decided not to appeal the
recent bombshell ruling by a military judge that barred Khalid
Shaikh Mohammed’s 2007 statements to the FBI from being used at trial.
“An
appeal could jeopardize the hard-earned June 5, 2028, trial date,” the feds
wrote to victims’ families in a letter Friday — exactly a week before the 25th
anniversary of the world-altering attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people,
sources familiar with the matter told The Post.
Appeals
of similar rulings have taken years to work their way through various courts,
part of the series of delays that
have left relatives of victims dismayed as year after year goes
by without a conviction.
The
cases of Mohammed and alleged partners-in-crime Walid bin Attash, Mustafa al-Hawsawi
and Ammar al-Baluchi have notoriously dragged on for
decades amid a series of legal squabbles, including over whether
confessions obtained via torture are admissible in court.
Prosecutors
eventually agreed to not use evidence from torture interrogations of Mohammed
and the other men at secret CIA prisons after the accused plotters were
apprehended in 2003.
But
they had planned to use Mohammed’s confession taken at Guantánamo Bay — where
he’s been held since 2006 — as a crucial piece of evidence to be presented to a
jury panel of military members, court papers show.
Military
judge Lt. Col. Michael Schrama set the June 2028
trial date in the case last month — before issuing his ruling axing Mohammed’s
statements from the case days later.
The
military did not make the decision public — citing a “security review” — but
sources familiar with its contents said the judge ruled that the admitted
terrorist was subject to “severe coercion” from his years of CIA torture at
secret “black site” jails. Schrama also noted that
Mohammed was not offered a chance to speak with an attorney, according to the
sources.
The
military has argued that it has other evidence of Mohammed’s guilt, including
phone logs and financial records tying him to the al Qaeda terrorists that carried
out the hijacking plots.
Mohammed
had been set to admit his role orchestrating the heinous attacks in 2024 when
he and two of his alleged al Qaeda cronies agreed to a stunning plea deal with
the Biden administration that would have spared them the
death penalty.
Amid
the public outcry from some victims’ families over abandoning the death penalty
in favor of life sentences, Biden officials abruptly changed course and
attempted to cancel the deal, leading to years more of litigation without a
trial.
Another alleged
terrorist, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed,
was apprehended on March 1, 2003, in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, in a joint CIA-Pakistani
intelligence operation. He has been held since then and has not yet been tried
— though a trial date of June 2028 has been set — because much of the evidence
obtained against him was obtained through waterboarding and other forms of
coercion. (It is not a coincidence that both bin Laden and Mohammed were caught
or killed in Pakistan.)
A great number
of other al Qaeda members
have been captured or killed in what Mr. Bush called a “global war on terror.”
ATTACHMENT
TWENTY FIVE – FROM
AL JAZEERA
9/11 WAS AVENGED ON US. ON ITS ANNIVERSARY, I REFUSE
TO FORGIVE
As America mourns its dead,
it forgets the millions brutalised in its wars of
revenge.
By Mansoor Adayfi Writer, artist, activist, and former
Guantánamo prisoner.
Published On 11 Sep 2025
9/11 was avenged on us. On
its anniversary, I refuse to forgive on social media
For many years, I have been
asked whether I could forgive those who imprisoned, tortured, and dehumanised me. It is a loaded question; it is never just
about personal forgiveness, but also an invitation to speak on behalf of all
Guantanamo Bay prisoners. I usually reply that forgiveness is never simple,
especially when justice has yet to be served.
I was held in Guantanamo for
nearly 15 years without charge, subjected to treatment no human being should
ever endure. I was one of countless innocent people kidnapped during the global
campaign of the United States of revenge and terror after September 11, 2001, which
justified the illegal invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, unleashed and legalised torture programmes in
CIA black sites and at Abu Ghraib, and turned Guantanamo into a laboratory of dehumanisation.
In my cell, I once opened a
boxed meal to find the words “We Will Never Forget, We Will Never Forgive”
scrawled on the inside of the box. I wrote back: “We Will Never Forget, We Will
Never Forgive, We Will Fight For Our Justice.” For
this, the camp administration penalised me with “food
punishment” and solitary confinement, claiming that my message was a death
threat.
Today, on the 24th
anniversary of the September 11 attacks, “Never Forget, Never Forgive” echoes
once again. These words are presented as grief and as a desire to honour the memory of those lost, but they also carry darker
implications. As someone directly affected by the aftermath of 9/11, I believe
it is crucial to consider what those words really mean, especially when they
are used as a rallying cry for revenge, retaliation, retribution, or vengeance,
rather than as a thoughtful appeal for justice, accountability, and meaningful
reflection. Once again, the question of revenge and forgiveness circulates in
public discourse, yet rarely do commentators pause to ask what forgiveness
truly entails.
In cases such as CIA black
sites, Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, and the many other atrocities committed in the
name of fighting “terror”, forgiveness cannot be reduced to an individual act.
The harm was inflicted on a global scale, touching tens of millions: those tortured,
those killed in drone attacks, the families left behind, and entire communities
in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, and Somalia, to name only some. I remain unwilling
to step forward and say “I forgive”, because forgiveness is not mine alone to
give. For it to carry weight, it must be offered collectively, by victims,
survivors, and even the dead. And the dead, of course, cannot forgive.
Despite the scale of harm in question,
some voices have emerged claiming to forgive the atrocities they endured at
Guantanamo. While this may appear noble, it is crucial to understand that
treating forgiveness as a purely personal choice ignores the vast harm
inflicted on tens of millions in the so-called war on terror. In other words,
when individuals extend forgiveness for personal gain — whether for fame,
recognition, or profit — it becomes an act of betrayal.
To those offering such forgiveness,
I ask: Who exactly are you forgiving? Torturers who never apologised?
Governments that deny their crimes? Has anyone even asked for your forgiveness,
or are you offering it freely to those who insist they have done nothing wrong?
Have you thought about the families wiped out in US drone strikes, erased in an
instant and forgotten? Have you thought about those who never left CIA black
sites — whose names remain unknown, whose deaths were never recorded, whose
bodies were never returned? When the machinery of violence remains untouched,
what does forgiveness mean if not to comfort the guilty and erase the suffering
of the victimised?
These questions point to a
deeper problem: why is it always the wronged who are asked to forgive? Why must
the abused carry the moral burden of healing a world that continues to brutalise them? Long before any investigation,
accountability, or even acknowledgement of harm takes place, the wronged are
urged to move on for the sake of peace and others’ comfort. This pattern is
clear in the behaviour of the US, which marches
forward proudly, cloaked in the language of democracy and human rights, while
the victims of its brutality are told to wait, to be patient, and to forgive.
This moral double standard
reveals everything about who is recognised as human
and who is not. When the US kills, tortures, or disappears people, such actions
are framed as necessary, strategic, or even heroic. But when survivors speak
out, demand accountability, or refuse forgiveness, they are portrayed as
bitter, vengeful, and ungrateful. This hypocrisy is no accident; it is built
into the very architecture of oppression.
We cannot begin a
conversation about forgiveness before justice or reparations. To discuss
forgiveness in such a context is nothing more than an attempt to whitewash and
justify crimes committed. Forgiveness is not a one-sided act, a gift from the
wronged to the wrongdoer without any expectation of accountability. True
forgiveness is inseparable from justice. Insisting on forgiveness before
justice is not a path to healing; it is a strategy to erase the truth. It
demands silence instead of memory, submission instead of resistance. It turns
the conversation about forgiveness into yet another instrument of control,
designed to absolve the guilty and shame the survivor.
True forgiveness cannot be
granted while the systems of oppression in question remain intact. The US has
not officially ended the so-called war on terror. Guantanamo remains open, and
the machinery of detention, torture, and extrajudicial killing continues in
various forms. The government has neither taken responsibility for the harm it
caused nor acknowledged victims and survivors. There has been no meaningful
compensation, no effort to make amends.
How can we speak of forgiveness
when the same imperial power that claimed to be defending the innocent after
September 11 now enables and partners in genocide, in the killing of tens of
thousands in Gaza? The ethical failures that allowed Guantanamo to exist are
mirrored today in the support for policies that subject Palestinians to
starvation and mass slaughter. Forgiveness is not a blanket absolution for
injustices committed. Some crimes may never be capable of earning forgiveness.
Perhaps the only principled response to such atrocities is to refuse to forgive
and to refuse to forget. Never forgive. Never forget.
The views expressed in this
article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s
editorial stance.
Mansoor
Adayfi is a writer, artist, activist, and former
Guantánamo prisoner held for over 14 years without charges. Adayfi
was released to Serbia in 2016, where he struggles to make a new life for
himself and to shed the designation of suspected terrorist. In 2019, Adayfi won the Richard J. Margolis Award for nonfiction
writers of social justice journalism. His memoir, Don’t Forget Us Here, Lost
and Found at Guantánamo was released in August 2021. He Works as Cage's Guatanamo Project Coordinator.
ATTACHMENT TWENTY SIX – FROM THE PALESTINE
CHRONICLE
‘9/11-TYPE ATTACK’ — LARIJANI WARNS
EPSTEIN NETWORK PLOTTING TO BLAME IRAN
Ali Larijani:
‘The remnants of Epstein’s network have devised a conspiracy to create an
incident similar to 9/11 and blame Iran for it.’
By
the Palestine Chronicle March 15, 2026
Tehran says Israel and the US
are escalating false-flag operations to widen the war and frame Iran across the
region.
Key Developments
§ Larijani
warned of a possible “9/11-type” attack designed to blame Iran.
§ Iran
says a series of regional incidents are part of a false-flag campaign.
§ Tehran
argues copied Shahed-style drones are being used to frame it.
‘9/11-Type Attack’
Ali
Larijani, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, issued one of
Tehran’s starkest warnings yet on Sunday, saying he had received information
about a plan to stage a “9/11-style” attack and blame it on Iran.
Posting
on the social media platform X on March 15, Larijani wrote that he had heard
that “the remaining members of Epstein’s network have devised a conspiracy to
create an incident similar to 9/11 and blame Iran for it.”
He
added that “Iran fundamentally opposes such terrorist schemes and has no war
with the American people,” stressing that Tehran is acting in self-defense
against what it describes as the US-Israeli aggression on Iran.
The
statement immediately elevated what had already become a central Iranian
argument in recent days: that the US-Israeli war on Iran is being accompanied
by attempts to stage attacks or incidents across the region and attribute them
to Tehran.
Larijani’s
remarks came amid nearly two weeks of escalating Iranian warnings that Israel,
backed by the United States, was seeking to widen the battlefield by striking
sites in neighboring and Arab countries and then attributing those attacks to
Iran or forces aligned with it.
Iranian
officials increasingly describe this as a coordinated false-flag campaign aimed
at isolating Tehran politically and pulling additional regional actors into the
war.
EARLY WARNINGS
The
theme had already appeared in official Iranian statements earlier in March.
On
March 3, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei warned that those attacking Iran could attempt to
engineer incidents designed to expand the conflict.
According
to Iranian state media reports published that day, Baghaei
said Iran believed its adversaries might attempt “false flag operations”
targeting diplomatic premises or sensitive infrastructure in neighboring
countries.
Baghaei emphasized
that Tehran’s military operations were directed against what it described as
bases used to attack Iran and not against neighboring states themselves.
The
issue gained wider attention the same day when American commentator Tucker
Carlson said that Saudi Arabia and Qatar had “arrested Israeli Mossad agents
planning bombings in those countries.”
Carlson
then asked, “Why would the Israelis be committing bombings in Gulf countries,
which are also being attacked by Iran?” before adding another question: “Aren’t
they on the same side?” TRT World reported on March 3.
Carlson
continued by arguing that Israel was seeking to widen the confrontation across
the region, saying: “Israel wants to hurt Iran, and Qatar, and the UAE, and
Saudi Arabia, and Bahrain, and Oman and Kuwait.”
By
the following day, the issue had been framed even more directly in regional
reporting. TRT World reported on March 4 that Iranian officials were accusing
Israel of carrying out several drone strikes on energy
and civilian sites in the Gulf in order to provoke regional anger and drag Arab
states into the confrontation.
In
that context, one Iranian official told TRT World: “I can categorically say
that some of the attacks were not carried out by us.”
For
Iranian officials, the reported arrests of Mossad operatives and the pattern of
regional attacks reinforced the broader claim that some incidents occurring
across the Gulf and neighboring countries were being used to shape perceptions
and escalate pressure on Tehran.
GULF INCIDENTS
Those
accusations emerged against the backdrop of real attacks across the Gulf.
On
March 3, Reuters reported that a fuel tank at Oman’s Duqm commercial port had
been struck by an unmanned aerial vehicle after the port had already been
targeted the previous day.
The
same wave of incidents included reported strikes on energy infrastructure in
Saudi Arabia and damage to facilities in the United Arab Emirates.
In
other words, Iranian claims about false-flag operations appeared alongside a
genuine series of attacks on ports, refineries, and strategic infrastructure
across the region.
Iranian
and various independent media outlets began linking those incidents into a
broader narrative.
Palestine
Chronicle reported on March 12 that an Iranian source said Israel had used an
Arab “contractor” in what Tehran described as a false-flag operation in Oman
designed to damage relations between Iran and Muscat.
Iranian
officials have continued to repeat a consistent distinction in their
statements. They say Tehran publicly claims the operations it carries out and
targets only military or strategic sites linked to the war.
DRONE DISPUTE
The
most detailed Iranian accusation now centers on drones.
On
March 15, Press TV reported that the spokesman for Iran’s Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters accused the United States and
Israel of conducting what he described as a false-flag campaign using drones
modeled on Iran’s Shahed-136.
According
to the report, the drones were identified as a rebranded system known as LUCAS,
which Tehran says resembles the Iranian-designed Shahed drone.
The
spokesman said these drones were being used against civilian infrastructure
across the region in order to deliberately frame Iran.
He
said the objective was to “create doubt and accuse the Islamic Republic of
Iran” while damaging its relations with neighboring states.
Iranian
officials argue that such operations allow Washington and Tel Aviv to attribute
attacks to Tehran even when Iranian forces were not involved.
The
claim has gained attention partly because Western reporting has acknowledged
the development of US loitering munitions that resemble Iranian designs,
including drones similar in configuration to the Shahed-136.
Tehran
has incorporated those reports into its own narrative, arguing that reverse-engineered
systems could be used to simulate Iranian attacks.
ERBIL AND BEYOND
The
most recent incident feeding this narrative was the March 14 drone strike on
the Lanaz refinery in Erbil, northern Iraq.
International
media reported that the attack caused a fire at the refinery, though no group
immediately claimed responsibility.
Iranian
media said the strike had “nothing to do with Iran and the axis of resistance,”
placing the incident among what it described as a series of suspicious attacks
across neighboring states.
Another
incident in Iraq also intensified the debate over attribution.
Reuters
reported on March 12 that one French soldier was killed and six wounded in northern
Iraq after what French officials described as an Iran-made Shahed drone attack.
That
episode sharply intensified Western claims about Iranian responsibility for
regional strikes.
At
the same time, Iranian officials and media continued to argue that some attacks
attributed to Tehran could be part of a broader campaign to politically isolate
Iran during the war.
ATTACHMENT TWENTY SEVEN – FROM AI OVERVIEW
IRANIAN SECURITY
OFFICIAL ALI LARIJANI CLAIMED IN MARCH 2026 THAT MEMBERS OF AN EPSTEIN-LINKED
NETWORK WERE PLOTTING A 9/11-STYLE FALSE-FLAG ATTACK TO FRAME TEHRAN.
·
Ali Larijani served as the
secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council.
·
He posted on the platform X that remaining
members of Jeffrey Epstein's network planned a major terrorist event.
·
He claimed the plot aimed to blame Iran.
·
Larijani died in an Israeli airstrike shortly
after making the statement. [1, 2]
Epstein Documents and 9/11
Connections
·
Newly released batches of Epstein-related
documents reference post-9/11 security topics.
·
One file shows an invitation for Ghislaine
Maxwell to join a secret "shadow 9/11 commission".
·
Ghislaine Maxwell's sister, Christine
Maxwell, co-founded Chiliad. This software company provided intelligence tools
used during the 9/11 investigations. [1, 2]
Online Community Discussions
·
Most users on Reddit
agree that the Maxwell family had direct proximity to early Department of
Homeland Security and post-9/11 intelligence software development. [1]
·
On Reddit, opinions are mixed regarding
whether specific document serial number gaps prove files from the 9/11 period
were intentionally hidden, or if sufficient records remain available. [1]
ATTACHMENT
TWENTY EIGHT – FROM TRT WORLD (TURKEY)
AFTER
9/11, GHISLAINE MAXWELL MAILED 42 PEOPLE, IMAGINING ERADICATION OF ALL 'THE
ARABS' BY 2032
Ghislaine
Maxwell, disgraced British socialite and accomplice of convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, emailed dozens of contacts,
wishing eradication of Arabs worldwide, according to newly unveiled files
published by US.
February 9, 2026
Jeffrey Epstein associate
Ghislaine Maxwell, who was found guilty in 2021 for her role in helping Epstein
sexually abuse teenage girls and is currently serving a 20-year prison
sentence, circulated an email to approximately 42 contacts after the September
11, 2001 attacks in New York, imagining destruction of Arabs worldwide.
The content of the email was
a fictional narrative set in the year 2032, depicting a world where
"the Arabs" had been eradicated globally.
In this imagined future, a
father tells his son about a historical event called "9/11..
The son asks what "Arabs" were, implying they no longer exist. The
father explains that Arabs were a people who carried out the 9/11 attacks,
after which the world united to eliminate them entirely.
In a newly released email,
with no context attached to the document, Maxwell wrote to a contact, 'The
Invisible Man', writing:
"It is the year 2032,
and a father and his son walk the streets of lower Manhattan."
"Approaching the site
where the (World Trade Centre) used to be in the end of the 20th century, the
father sighs and comments, ‘to think that right here used to be the Twin
Towers…'
"The son, not
understanding, asks his father: 'What are the Twin Towers?'
"The father smiles and
looks at the son, and explains, 'The Twin Towers were two huge buildings that
used to be here until 2001, when the Arabs destroyed them'.
"The son looks up to his
father, and asks, 'And what are the Arabs?'"
Reports suggest Maxwell sent
the email to dozens of her contacts, including billionaire Thomas Pritzker
among other elites in Epstein/Maxwell network.
Maxwell was convicted in
December 2021 following a trial in the US District Court for the Southern
District of New York on five federal felony counts related to her role in
recruiting, grooming, and facilitating the sexual abuse of minors in connection
with Jewish American financier Epstein between 1994 and 2004.
She was acquitted on one
count, enticement of a minor to travel to engage in illegal sex acts.
Maxwell received a 20-year
sentence in June 2022, upheld on appeal in 2024 by the Second Circuit Court of
Appeals.
Thus far, her appeals and
motions to challenge the conviction have been unsuccessful.
MAXWELL READY TO TESTIFY IF
GIVEN CLEMENCY
On Monday, Maxwell refused to
answer questions at a deposition before the US House's Committee on Oversight
and Government Reform, according to lawmakers.
"This is obviously very
disappointing. We had many questions to ask about the crimes she and Epstein
committed, as well as questions about potential co-conspirators," the
committee's chairman, Republican Representative James Comer, told reporters.
Maxwell, however, signalled she would testify if granted clemency by US
President Donald Trump, claiming she could say both Trump and former President
Bill Clinton did nothing wrong in their ties to Epstein.
During the closed-door
deposition, Maxwell's attorney, David Oscar Markus, said in a statement to the
committee that "Maxwell is prepared to speak fully and honestly if granted
clemency by President Trump."
He added that both Trump and
Clinton "are innocent of any wrongdoing," but that "Ms. Maxwell
alone can explain why, and the public is entitled to that explanation."
Democrats on the committee,
however, accused Maxwell of using the deposition to campaign for clemency from
Trump and called on the Republican president to rule out such a move.
"What we did not get
were any substantive answers to the questions that were asked that would
advance our investigation," said Representative James Walkinshaw, a
Virginia Democrat.
"What we did get was
another episode in her long-running campaign for clemency from President Trump.
And President Trump could end that today — he could rule out clemency for
Ghislaine Maxwell, the monster."
"NO CLEMENCY. You comply
or face punishment," Republican Representative Anna Paulina Luna, wrote on
social media.
"You deserve JUSTICE for
what you did you monster."
ATTACHMENT TWENTY NINE – FROM THE ATLANTIC
NEW 9/11 EVIDENCE POINTS TO DEEP SAUDI COMPLICITY
Two decades of U.S. policy
appear to be rooted in a mistaken understanding of what happened that day.
By Daniel Benjamin and Steven
Simon May 20, 2024
For more than two decades, through two
wars and domestic upheaval, the idea that al-Qaeda acted alone on 9/11 has been
the basis of U.S. policy. A blue-ribbon commission concluded that Osama bin
Laden had pioneered a new kind of terrorist group—combining superior
technological know-how, extensive resources, and a worldwide network so well
coordinated that it could carry out operations of unprecedented magnitude. This
vanguard of jihad, it seemed, was the first nonstate actor that rivaled
nation-states in the damage it could wreak.
That assessment now appears
wrong. And if our understanding of what transpired on 9/11 turns out to have
been flawed, then the costly policies that the United States has pursued for
the past quarter century have been rooted in a false premise.
The global War on Terror was
based on a mistake.
Anew filing in a lawsuit brought by the families of 9/11 victims against the government of Saudi
Arabia alleges that al-Qaeda had significant, indeed decisive, state support
for its attacks. Officials of the Saudi government, the plaintiffs’ attorneys
contend, formed and operated a network inside the United States that provided
crucial assistance to the first cohort of 9/11 hijackers to enter the country.
The 71-page document,
released in redacted form earlier this month, summarizes what the plaintiffs
say they’ve learned through the evidence obtained in discovery and recently
declassified materials. They allege that Saudi officials—most notably Fahad al-Thumairy, an imam at a Los Angeles mosque and an accredited
diplomat at Saudi Arabia’s consulate in that city, and Omar al-Bayoumi, who masqueraded as a graduate student but was identified by the FBI
as an intelligence operative—were not rogue operators but rather the front end
of a conspiracy that included the Saudi embassy in Washington and senior
government officials in Riyadh.
Paywalled
ATTACHMENT THIRTY – FROM NBC (WASH DC)
MUSLIM COMMUNITY REFLECTS ON THE AFTERMATH OF 9/11
The cofounder of CAIR said through the hostility and
suspicion, Muslims in the U.S. have found ways forward and ways to fight back
against bias.
By Jackie Bensen • Published September 9,
2026 • Updated on September
9, 2026 at 12:34 am
News4’s
Jackie Bensen spoke with a man who became a voice of
the nation’s Muslim community in the 9/11 aftermath.
An
entire generation has grown up under the shadow of the 9/11 attacks, and many
American Muslims have faced hostility, and even doubts about their
Americanness.
Nihad Awad,
cofounder of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) can be seen on
the right side of a photo standing next to President George W. Bush when he
visited the Islamic Center of Washington in Northwest D.C. That visit occurred
just six days after the 9/11 attacks.
In
his speech, the president condemned Islamophobia, saying American Muslims loved
this country as much as he did.
“America
counts millions of Muslims amongst our citizens, and Muslims make an incredibly
valuable contribution to our country, and they need to be treated with respect.
And our anger and emotion, our fellow Americans must treat each other with
respect,” Bush said on Sept. 17, 2001.
“I
stood shoulder by shoulder with the president of the United States denouncing
what happened and calling for unity,” Awad said.
A
2021 Associated Press poll found that more than half of those polled have
unfavorable views toward Islam — an assessment, Awad
said, that has likely not improved in recent years under a president who speaks
of Muslims in a very different manner than Bush did in his 2001 speech.
“Today
we are living under an administration that has been thriving on division and
pitting Americans against each other,” Awad said.
But
he noted through the hostility and suspicion, Muslims in the U.S. have found
ways forward and ways to fight back against bias.
More
than 255 American Muslims currently hold state, local, and national elected
office.
“But
today, I can also say that American Muslims are deeply civically engaged.
American Muslims refuse to be defined by guilt by association,” Awad said. “We love America. This is our home, and it's
going to be our home for hundreds of years for our children and grandchildren.”
More
than 60 Muslims died as a result of the 9/11 attacks, including office workers,
restaurant employees and first responders who worked in and around the World
Trade Center.
ATTACHMENT THIRTY ONE – FROM NEWSWEEK
RNC
CONVENTION ATTENDEE HEARD SAYING MAMDANI, EL-SAYED ‘SHOULD BE SHOT’
by
anna commander 9/10 at 10:46 PM
A person in the crowd was heard shouting “he
should be shot” during Senator Ted Cruz’s speech at the Republican National
Committee’s midterm convention in Dallas on Thursday, as Cruz took swipes at
Democrats Zohran Mamdani, Abdul El-Sayed of Michigan
and James Talarico of Texas.
Cruz used his speech Wednesday to criticize
what he described as a growing alliance between communists and Islamists within
the Democratic Party, saying in part, "We are witnessing a new and
dangerous red-green alliance. Communists and Islamists coming together and
sweeping over the Democratic Party.
"Hear me now, Sharia law has no place in
America. Sharia law is fundamentally inconsistent with the Constitution, and we
need to stand together and stop it now. A simple truth: when people tell you
who they are, believe them," Cruz said in his speech Thursday night.
"When Hasan Piker says, 'America deserved
9/11,' believe him. When Mamdani says he wants to 'seize the means of
production,' he means it. When Abdul El-Sayed says he has a
'obligation' to comply with Sharia law, he means it. And when James Talarico says he wants to 'dismantle capitalism,' he means
it," Cruz said in his speech.
El-Sayed has disavowed controversial comments
made by streamer Piker about the September 11 attacks. When asked by Fox News
about Piker's remarks, El-Sayed said he did not agree with them.
Cruz's remarks were interrupted by a member of
the crowd shouting, "HE SHOULD BE SHOT!" It is immediately unclear
to Newsweek at the time of publication whether Cruz heard the
shouts as he was delivering his speech.
Democratic Congresswoman Debbie Dingell of
Michigan reacted
to the moment on X on Thursday, saying, "There aren’t even words
for how chilling and disturbing this is. Threats of political violence are
dangerous, unacceptable, and have no place in our democracy. I pray for the
safety of all my colleagues on both sides of the aisle. This is clear hate, and
we must stand up to it wherever and whenever we see it."
Craig Agranoff,
political professor at Florida Atlantic University, told Newsweek on
Thursday, "it is concerning." Agranoff
added, "One person yelling that after Cruz named Mamdani, El-Sayed and Talarico does not mean the whole room agreed with it, and
Cruz does not appear to have engaged it. Still, the fact that it was audible
and repeated is a problem.
"Political violence talk has become too casual on both sides, and moments
like this feed the sense that opponents are enemies rather than rivals. It is a
sign of the temperature in the country. It is not proof that a party has
adopted assassination as a message," he said.
Newsweek reached out to Mamdani, Talarico,
El-Sayed, Cruz and the Democratic National Committee's campaigns or offices via
email Thursday night for comment.
WHAT TO KNOW
The moment came as Republican speakers at the
convention repeatedly focused their messages on progressive Democratic
candidates.
President Donald Trump and other Republicans
have similarly targeted El-Sayed and Talarico, while
Cruz has made the two candidates frequent subjects of his political commentary
in the run-up to November's midterm elections.
The remarks also come amid a heightened focus
on political violence at the convention, which included tributes to
conservative activist Charlie Kirk, whose death was marked by Trump
administration officials and other Republicans on the one-year date since his
killing.
Cruz mentioned Kirk's
name during his remarks on Thursday, saying, "One year ago today,
our friend Charlie Kirk was murdered. Twenty-five years ago tomorrow, Jihadist
terrorists murdered nearly 3,000 Americans in the worst act of domestic
terrorism in U.S. history. In 2001, it would have been hard to imagine where we
are today."
Later, Cruz added, "And on 9/11, could
anyone have imagined that Comrade Mamdani would be the
mayor of New York? The hate that killed Charlie Kirk, that knocked down the
Twin Towers, that led to two assassination attempts on President Trump, it just
keeps getting worse and worse."
POLITICAL VIOLENCE IN
AMERICA
The moment comes amid heightened concerns
about political violence in the United States, following a series of attacks
and threats involving political figures and public officials. Trump faced two
assassination attempts during the 2024 presidential campaign, including a July
2024 shooting at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, and an apparent attempt
at his Florida golf club two months later.
In 2025, Minnesota state
Representative Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark,
were killed in a targeted shooting, while state Senator John Hoffman and his
wife, Yvette, were also wounded in the same series of attacks. The
gunman pleaded guilty in June 2026 and was later sentenced to
consecutive life terms.
Political violence has also extended beyond
attacks directly involving elected officials. The 2024 killing of
UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson by
Luigi Mangione sparked intense public debate, with some people online
portraying Mangione as a symbol of anger toward the U.S. health care system
despite the fatal shooting. Mangione pleaded guilty in August 2026 to federal
stalking charges connected to Thompson's death.
More recently, the assassination of
conservative activist Kirk has further intensified discussions about political
violence and rhetoric in the U.S.
ATTACHMENT THIRTY TWO – FROM THE COUNCIL on FOREIGN RELATIONS
EXPERTS’ TAKE ON TERRORISM AND COUNTERTERRORISM
Twenty-Five Years
After 9/11, the United States Is Unprepared for Terrorism’s Next Wave
Twenty-five years
after al-Qaeda terrorists killed nearly three thousand civilians, technology is
driving new terrorism threats to the U.S. homeland. Policymakers have been slow
to recognize the danger.
By Bruce Hoffman CFR
Expert, Shelby Cullom and Kathryn W. Davis Senior
Fellow for Counterterrorism and Homeland Security and Farah Pandith CFR
Expert Published: September 8, 2026
8:00 a.m.
The United States
marks the anniversary of the worst terrorist
attack on U.S. soil with a stunning lack of preparedness to handle
mounting new threats and resurgent old ones. Rapidly evolving technologies such
as drones make the U.S. homeland vulnerable to attack by terror groups.
Combined with the weaponization of social media by digitally savvy terrorists,
the country faces the phenomenon of increasingly lethal autonomous weapons and
emerging populations of radicalized youth. An eruption of violence in the
Middle East triggered by the October 7, 2023, Hamas
terrorist attacks on Israel and the U.S.-Israel war with Iran has further fed
extremist sentiment that could be directed at the United States.
To mark the
twenty-fifth anniversary, CFR Senior Fellows Bruce Hoffman and Farah Pandith
have convened a special year-long comprehensive discussion series with leading
experts and national security practitioners assessing the profound societal and
policy effects of the 9/11 attacks. They offer their analysis on the United
States’ current challenges and their recommendations on how to act.
THE NEW THREAT FROM
ABOVE
The most pressing
threat posed by terrorists and hostile actors today, and arguably across the
past quarter century, comes from unmanned aerial systems (UAS): drones.
Throughout the four years of the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war, the October 7
Hamas attacks, subsequent fighting across the Middle East, and the Iran war,
drones have played a larger role in the conduct of both state-to-state warfare
and terrorism.
Despite that demonstrated
threat, the United States’ ability to defend its homeland—its cities and
population centers, critical infrastructure, and military installations—remains inadequate. The
Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) documented more than four hundred illegal drone flights over
U.S. airports in the first quarter of 2025 alone. The U.S. military recorded
three hundred fifty incursions at more than a hundred bases. And a senior U.S.
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) official told the Senate Judiciary
Committee in 2025 that roughly one hundred fifty drones per
day were detected crossing the U.S.-Mexico border during the first half of
2025.
The gap between the
drone threat and the response is significant and, lamentably, remains
unaddressed. Bipartisan congressional legislation that would reform and enhance current legal
authorities for both DHS and the Department of Justice to
counter that threat, as well as improve the FAA’s ability to thwart drones, has
yet to be passed.
More broadly, one of
the greatest U.S. counterterrorism weaknesses is authorities’ inability to put
together pieces of the threat landscape and to respond to actions from a
variety of sources. Yet the United States is in a moment of complex violent
extremism that will require a shift in thinking about how terrorists are being
recruited and shaped by current events.
AN ARRAY OF BAD ACTORS
The risk of terrorism
has indisputably increased in the last quarter century. On September 11, 2001,
the United States faced one enemy: al-Qaeda. The wave of domestic terrorism
that had washed over the United States from left- and right-wing extremists,
militant opponents of legalized abortion, and various ethnonationalists and
separatists had largely abated.
Today, the United
States faces myriad foreign and domestic terrorist threats.
Al-Qaeda and its many
franchises are still active in Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia. Its even more extreme offshoot, the self-declared Islamic
State, and that group’s global network of branches are active in those same
regions. The Iranian threat network, composed of long-standing terrorist
proxies such as Hezbollah and Hamas, is now reportedly joined by pay-for-hire
criminals, including “Russian mobsters, Mexican cartel hit
men and a Canadian Hells Angel.” The Trump administration has also
designated Latin American narcotics traffickers as foreign terrorist
organizations.
Domestically, the
United States in recent years has seen terrorist acts committed by Islamist
terrorists; by far-left and far-right extremists; and by a new category of
adversaries that the FBI terms nihilistic violent extremists [PDF]. That is
certainly a more expansive array of terrorist threats than the United States
had to address in 2001.
In addition to formal
terrorist organizations, the terrorism risk comes from those who act in the
name of an ideology because they are inspired by a group, an individual, or a
cause.
SOCIAL MEDIA AND THE
WEAPONIZATION OF EMOTIONS
Terrorists have been
effective manipulators of media. In the quarter century since 9/11, by far the
most notable change in this space has been the advent of social media, and the
self-declared Islamic State’s effective exploitation of it for recruiting and
fundraising. It became the first truly international terrorist group by
having recruited fifty-three
thousand foreign fighters from eighty countries.
The digital-native generations
born after 9/11 are unique in the way they ingest social media content. The
sophisticated algorithms—designed to bring each group and subset along with
speed and ease—mean that, over the last twenty-five years, radicalization and
recruitment have dramatically increased, especially through the campaigns of
the Islamic State. Its dynamic peer-to-peer efforts and understanding of
culture and geopolitics have in effect weaponized emotions. The success of the
Islamic State and other violent extremist groups in creating appealing content,
designing narrative campaigns, destroying the status quo through misinformation
and disinformation, and mobilizing online actors is unprecedented. The danger
is that, as their skills and malleability increase, youth will be even more
emotionally engaged and interested in what those bad actors believe.
Among the lessons of
the post-9/11 period is that global audiences have long memories about reported
abuses by U.S. forces or their allies, from the 2003 scandal at Abu Ghraib
prison in Iraq to the Israeli military’s destruction of hospitals in Gaza while
pursuing Hamas fighters after the group’s terror attack on Israel.
IRAN’S MENACE
The 2026 U.S.-led war
on Iran could add further appeal to the terrorists’ narratives. Iran has a long
history of covert operations on U.S. soil targeting dissidents and foreign
enemies. In 1980, the exiled former Iranian embassy official Ali Akbar Tabatabai, a critic of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, leader
of the Islamic revolution who overthrew the shah in 1979, was murdered in
suburban Washington, DC. Thirty years later, Iran was implicated in a plot to
assassinate Saudi Arabia’s U.S. ambassador at a Washington, DC, restaurant. But
Iran more recently has turned to criminals, drug gangs, thugs, and others to
mount attacks. That has resulted in a
string of failures in the United States by arguably less motivated—that is,
driven by money and not ideology—and less capable adversaries.
Nonetheless, Iran
has repeatedly threatened President
Donald Trump and the senior U.S. government officials responsible for the 2020
targeted assassination of Qasem Soleimani, the
commander of Iran’s Quds Force. Those include the former secretaries of state
and defense, as well as the national security advisor, chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, a U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, and a 2020
presidential contender. The threat to Trump has been taken seriously, as
evidenced in July, when he covertly changed aircraft to
fly back to the United States from the NATO Summit in Turkey.
The U.S. and Israeli
war against Iran should not be looked at independently. For terrorist groups
that have long used the narrative that the West is at war with Islam, any war
in the Middle East bolsters their argument. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq
have allowed that messaging to grow and take shape in the culture, mindset, and
experience of people in the region and beyond.
It would be folly to
believe the Iran war will not produce new, ideologically driven recruits intent on reprisals, including terrorism, against
U.S. and Israeli targets for their governments’ 2026 campaign against Iran.
Significantly, Muslim populations in every part of the world have staged
protests and expressed alarm at U.S. and Israeli forces’ seemingly purposeful
decimation of ancient Iranian heritage sites and civilian infrastructure and
at the U.S. bombing that destroyed an Iranian girls’ school in Minab,
killing one hundred twenty students.
AI ENTERS THE ARENA
Terrorists will
increasingly exploit artificial intelligence (AI) to
enhance their operations. Of particular concern is AI’s ability to identify
cultural trends and even nuanced subcultures that extremists can engage with in
specific ways. For instance, Islamic State affiliates are using AI to
make fabricated news content seem
real, with fake anchors such as those on the News Harvest show.
If it has not already happened, AI will soon enable terrorists to sharpen communications
and propaganda, generate deepfakes and disinformation, recruit fighters, and
conduct surveillance and target selection.
At the same time,
governments will leverage AI’s
greater resources more effectively than terrorists can to anticipate and
predict terrorist activity, identify vulnerabilities, and develop defenses
against emerging tactics. What is clear is that AI will intensify the
technological competition between terrorists and the governments attempting to
counter that emerging threat.
A DANGEROUS
PREPAREDNESS GAP
Today, the United
States is at risk of the same diminution of terrorism and counterterrorism as a
leading national security priority that occurred in the years preceding the
9/11 attacks.
Countering terrorism was
ranked as the seventh sub-bullet in a list of global priorities articulated by
the Biden administration’s National Security Strategy in
October 2022. It did not even make it onto the list of the eight national security priority
sub-bullets [PDF] delineated in the Trump administration’s 2025
iteration. That document, in fact, cites terrorism only once in passing, within
the context of one of many transborder threats facing the United States.
The most recent U.S. National Counterterrorism
Strategy released in May 2026, cites “Narcoterrorists
and Transnational Gangs, Legacy Islamist Terrorists, [and] Violent Left-Wing
Extremists, including Anarchists and Anti-Fascists” as the main terrorist
threats facing the United States, but makes only passing references to
state-sponsored terrorism and cyberterrorism and omits violent, far-right
extremists—each of which poses serious challenges to the United States’
security and safety.
U.S. policymakers have
neither prioritized nor invested in the current and future threat landscape.
They have not deployed creative ideas that have been tested over the last
twenty-five years to reduce the appeal of extremist ideology. Funding for
programs has dried up, and the lack of government interest in managing global
coalitions to build more resilience online and offline is a serious error in
judgment and a missed opportunity.
A bright spot in the
work that has been done over the last twenty-five years concerns the knowledge
and understanding about why humans are attracted to terrorist groups and what
can be done to prevent bad actors from expanding their forces. U.S. policymakers
could leverage experts’ understanding of algorithmic threat, create laws to
build guardrails as the European Union has done with its Digital Services Act,
and dramatically scale local real-life community programs that pull people away
from dangerous ideologies.
Overall, U.S.
policymakers need to more thoroughly assess the threat environment and what
could be around the corner. This is the time to reboot their thinking about
what to do right now to take easily accessible weapons away from bad actors. They
should begin by launching robust efforts to deal with the seductive ideologies
of hate and extremism.
This work represents
the views solely of the author(s). The Council on Foreign Relations is an
independent, nonpartisan membership organization, think tank, and publisher,
and takes no institutional positions on matters of policy.
ATTACHMENT THIRTY THREE – FROM COUNCIL on FOREIGN RELATIONS
(Takeaways)
The War on Terrorism:
Global Experts Reflect on Lessons Learned Twenty-Five Years After 9/11
Twenty-five years ago,
the September 11 attacks prompted the invention of new security architectures
that shaped the war on terrorism. Sixteen think tank experts from fifteen
countries reflect on the successes, failures, and missed opportunities in the
fight against terrorism—a fight that is still ongoing.
By experts and
staff Published September 8, 2026 12:44 p.m.
Twenty-five years ago,
the United States suffered a catastrophic terror attack on September 11, 2001,
that claimed nearly three thousand lives. Council of Councils experts in fifteen countries provide
insight on the legacy of the attacks around the world and the
state of global counterterrorism and security today.
OTTILIA ANNA
MAUNGANIDZE
Head of Special
Projects, Institute for Security Studies (South Africa)
Localize and Specialize:
Action to Address Terrorism Must Evolve
For most of the past
twenty-five years, violent extremism has
been understood as a security threat requiring hard security measures. Spurred
on by the U.S.-led “war on terror,” this knee-jerk response to the
devastation of the 9/11 attacks and the lapses in crime intelligence that
contributed to them created a hyperfocus on al-Qaeda
and its affiliates globally. This focus led to military action in Afghanistan,
Iraq, and the wider West Asian neighborhood. In 2001, international
terrorism was understood to have al-Qaeda at its epicenter with
clearly defined core groups.
“Homegrown” terrorist
cells were plugged into this relatively monolithic structure, where
rooting out terrorism meant attacking it at the source. This method, the
bedrock of what later became the UN Global Counterterrorism Strategy, was
initially effective, but has done little in the long term to definitively
reduce the threat of terrorism and violent extremism.
Instead, heavy
military action has often inadvertently played into the hands of recruiters in
groups such as the self-proclaimed Islamic State (Da’esh), Ansar Dine, Boko
Haram, al-Shabaab, and the Allied Democratic Forces, who rail against the
state’s excessive use of force while using it themselves as a tactic of
control. In Africa, terrorist groups are now found across all regions, with an
especially heavy presence in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Lake
Chad Basin, Mozambique, the Sahel region, and Somalia. These groups
are decentralized with
looser structures and greater agility. They have developed new command
structures and evolved their strategic recruitment to incorporate
narratives of community, safety, and security, which are dispersed through
digital platforms and in-person social networks.
Preventing and
countering terrorism in 2026 requires an evolved understanding of
this new character of terrorism and the methods of recruitment. This shift is
already occurring in communities and states that have moved from a top-down,
boots-on-the-ground approach to investing in local partnerships and
digital monitoring.
In the Lake Chad
Basin, for example, the establishment of a governors’ forum resulted from an
appreciation of the role of devolved state authority in addressing community
grievances. Still, most action today continues to rely on heavy-handed military
force that does not always reflect local grievances, and sometimes
instrumentalizes counterterror laws to silence dissent. There is still greater
investment in responding militarily to terrorism rather than stopping early-stage radicalization.
If the past two
decades of action, research, and analysis prove anything, it is that prevention
through addressing the conditions conducive to violent extremism yields better
results than military force. That approach requires investing in communities
of peace-builders, enhancing good governance, and supporting sustainable
development, and must be coupled with effective responses that include global
cooperation, enhanced cross-border intelligence networks, targeting funding
sources, and intelligence-driven counterterrorism that avoids costly
large-scale military interventions.
LESSONS ON
COUNTERTERRORISM FROM THE TURKISH PERSPECTIVE
The terrorist attacks
of 9/11 catapulted the fight against terrorism to center stage internationally.
Much has been learned and accomplished since then and terrorists
are seemingly on the run, their ideologies mostly diminished and
their methods widely abhorred. However, complacency would be
unwise.
An aging world order
is receding, paving the way for a more unpredictable, fractured, and
conflict-ridden interim. Revanchism, nationalism, xenophobia, authoritarianism,
polarization, and gross economic inequalities are all on the
rise, alongside an impending climate crisis. The fault lines on which
radicalism festers are active as technology evolves and proliferates at
breakneck speed.
There will be no quick
fixes or tailor-made solutions, but some thoughts based on the Turkish
experience may prove helpful.
First, international
solidarity and cohesion must be bolstered. A renewed multilateral drive to
coalesce around a legally binding international definition of terrorism is a
good place to start. Reinvigorating diplomacy on this point would be key. If a
broadly representative group of nations still cannot agree on what constitutes
terrorism and how to collectively combat it, cooperation in this fight
will remain piecemeal, transactional, and inefficient—and, in most cases, lack
a legal and moral basis.
Second, double
standards must be eliminated. There can be no effective effort to face this scourge
so long as some countries are allowed to commit the highest of crimes under the
guise of fighting terrorism or to ally with terror groups in coalitions to
target other terrorists. Though there will always be gray areas, they can be
minimized and managed. But until states stop blatantly using the fight against
terrorism as a cover to pursue ulterior motives, the mutual trust needed to
undergird any collective effort will fail.
Third, the limits of
hard power, however high tech, need to be recognized. Military and intelligence
capabilities may eliminate terrorists, but they do not end terrorism.
The use of force can only bring about sustainable results when coupled with a
holistic strategy that addresses multifaceted root causes—be they political, ethnic,
religious, ideological, socioeconomic, or a combination of those
five.
This approach would
not mean acquiescing to terms dictated by terrorists. As many real-world cases
have shown, there are tried and tested methods of addressing the challenges of
ending terror campaigns and removing core grievances that are systematically
used to radicalize and recruit potential terrorists, including mediation; truth
and reconciliation processes; disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration
programs; and more.
Fourth, global
democratic backsliding needs to be reversed. Many fundamental freedoms have
been trampled in the name of order. More security and less freedom will not
guarantee long-term stability. Balance has to be restored, and the slide
away from open societies needs to stop.
Fifth, effectively
countering terrorism in the years ahead will require adapting to new methods
fueled by evolving technologies. Here, vigilant awareness of emerging
risks and lasting partnerships with the private sector will be crucial.
Finally, not repeating
past errors will also be vital. The many inexcusable and costly actions taken
in the aftermath of 9/11 all under the banner of a so-called global war on
terror are instructive. Attempts at regime change, never-ending wars, enhanced
interrogation tactics, dehumanization of the other, and black sites will
only complicate the challenge.
German philosopher
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel allegedly claimed that the only thing that we
learn from history is that we learn nothing from history. It is up to the next
generation of leaders to prove him wrong.
HÉCTOR CÁRDENAS President, Mexican Council on Foreign
Relations (Mexico)
The Security Failure
After 9/11 Was a Failure of Imagination
Twenty-five years
after 9/11, the most important lesson may be that security shocks narrow
policymakers’ imagination precisely when they should expand it.
The attacks shattered
the American certainty that mass-casualty political violence of this kind could
only happen elsewhere. They forced the United States to confront a genuinely
new threat environment and produced important advances in intelligence,
homeland security, and international counterterrorism cooperation. But they
also reordered U.S. foreign policy around terrorism to an excessive degree,
contributing to costly overreach in Iraq and diverting attention from other
threats taking shape closer to home.
For Mexico, the
consequences were profound. Only six days before 9/11, Presidents George W.
Bush and Vicente Fox were discussing migration, organized crime, and a much
more ambitious bilateral relationship; earlier that year they had spoken of
building a North American economic community.
After the attacks, the
attention of the United States shifted abruptly toward terrorism and border protection.
Yet Mexico also bears substantial responsibility for this shift in priorities.
The Fox government’s hesitant display of solidarity squandered goodwill, and
long-standing Mexican suspicions of security cooperation survived the
democratic transition, making fluid cooperation with the United States politically delicate. Since 2018,
those instincts have again constrained bilateral cooperation.
The primary missed
opportunity was to make 9/11 a formative moment for North America, comparable
in ambition, if not circumstance, to those that produced Europe’s postwar
security institutions.
The United States,
Canada, and Mexico could have built an integrated security community—perhaps
eventually establishing a structured partnership between Mexico and
NATO—capable of confronting terrorism, organized crime, illicit finance, cyber
threats, and border vulnerabilities as interconnected challenges. A 2005 CFR-COMEXI-Canadian task force was
already pointing in that direction.
Today’s fentanyl
crisis illustrates the cost of thinking in categories rather than systems. The
Trump administration’s designation of six Mexican criminal organizations as
terrorist organizations provides additional legal and financial
tools, but it also risks confusing diagnosis with strategy. Cartels may
employ terror, but unlike terrorist organizations their
overriding objective is profit, not political transformation. That distinction
matters. Mexico, the United States, and Canada can learn from past mistakes;
the countries could develop a joint security strategy that addresses such novel
security problems through appropriate strategies and tools.
The enduring mistake
after 9/11 was not taking terrorism too seriously—it was defining security too
narrowly. North America should not make that mistake again.
GUIDO STEINBERG Senior Associate, German Institute for
International and Security Affairs (Germany)
Germany Is a New Epicenter
of Jihadist Terrorism in Europe
Since the 9/11 attacks
in the United States in 2001, the threat of jihadi terrorism in Germany has
evolved. The number of jihadi terrorists from and in Germany has risen
substantially, from a few dozen in 2001 to a peak of more than a thousand
in the early 2010s, though those numbers have declined slightly in the 2020s.
In parallel, Germany witnessed a growing number of terrorist plots
that were mostly foiled, such as the Sauerland plot of 2007. It was only in
2016 that the country experienced a terrorist wave culminating in a devastating
attack on a Berlin Christmas market in December of that year. One of
the reasons for this burgeoning radicalism was the emergence of new recruitment
pools, which historically follow the start of wars in the Muslim world, such as
the conflicts in Chechnya in 1999, Afghanistan in 2001, Iraq in 2003, and
Somalia in 2006. The civil war in Syria, which broke out in 2012, convinced
more than a thousand young Muslims from Germany to join jihadi organizations
fighting the Assad regime—among them the self-proclaimed Islamic
State.
Through the late
aughts, Germany was a backwater of jihadi mobilization far behind its European
neighbors; after 2014, it was second only to France. One of the repercussions
was the wave of attacks in 2016. Although many specialists were convinced that
returnees from Syria and Iraq posed the biggest threat, the attacks
were mainly perpetrated by refugees who had recently arrived from the
Middle East and North Africa. In the mid-2010s, Germany opened its borders to
more than two million refugees from war-torn countries such as
Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria; this influx has strengthened the jihadi scene in
Germany.
In 2017 and 2018, the
situation improved substantially because the Islamic State came under intense
pressure in Iraq and Syria, and because European security authorities gained
control of the threat. This could explain why subsequent German
governments continued to ignore the correlation between conflicts in the Muslim
world, jihadi organizations, and jihadi radicalization and mobilization in
Europe. Since 2016, most jihadi attacks in Germany have been executed by
refugees from Middle Eastern conflict zones, especially Syria. That trend has
become especially obvious since a new wave of attacks started in 2020 and
intensified in 2022 and 2023. Only a minority of attackers and plotters were
born in Germany or spent most of their lives there.
The government of
Chancellor Friedrich Merz has cracked down on jihadi refugees, but the threat
will remain for the foreseeable future, if only because the refugee flow
from Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria continued in the early 2020s. This group
included hundreds of former Islamic State fighters from Iraq who arrived in
2022 and 2023. Without a far more forceful domestic security campaign, Germany
will not be able to re-establish control of the jihadi terrorist
milieu.
LYDIA KHALIL Program
Director, Lowy Institute (Australia)
The Legacy of the 9/11
Counterterrorism Response Cannot Meet Current Challenges
Twenty-five years ago,
most Americans had never heard of Osama bin Laden or al-Qaeda. They had little
understanding of the broader jihadi movement that harbored an unlikely
but ultimately consequential ambition of unseating the world’s
remaining superpower and reconstituting a borderless Islamic caliphate.
Twenty-five years later, the world is right back to where it started.
Al-Qaeda and the
jihadi movement have largely faded from the global public
consciousness. Young people have no living memory of the 9/11 attacks, yet they
live in a world that has been utterly transformed by its consequences. It is in this
transformation that the current violent extremist threat lies and where
world leaders continue to underestimate and misdiagnose how to address
it.
The global standing of
the United States was undermined less by the attacks themselves but by the U.S.
and allied response. Despite a twenty-year campaign, Operation Enduring Freedom
brought neither promised democratic freedoms nor relief from Taliban rule to
the Middle East. The broader global, U.S.-led military and intelligence
effort that spanned several conflicts and campaigns dented the jihadi
movement’s operational capabilities but revealed the limitation of American
military power. It exposed a lack of strategic vision, eroded the United
States’ hegemony, and fractured the foundations of the postwar rules-based
order it created.
The failure to
eradicate terrorist groups generated public skepticism and an isolationist
streak in the U.S. citizenry that spanned party lines and is a direct
antecedent of the America First foreign policy approach of the Trump
administration. Domestic security mechanisms put in place by the United
States and other countries to prevent another mass casualty attack by jihadi
actors came at the cost of civil liberties and trust in
government, all of which coincided with a broader trend of democratic decline
in the United States and many other democracies.
This era of
democratic backsliding has many causes—growing polarization,
disinformation, lack of trust, and technological transformation—and some
of them now contribute to the current increase in political
violence and violent extremism. Although foreign terrorist organisations still pose a limited threat, this time the violence
is coming from inside the house.
Violent extremism
today is less an external assault on the state than a symptom of something
happening within it. Polarization and disillusionment with democracy drive
current extremist threats and create internal conditions that extremist actors
can exploit. There is also a growing confluence between extremist movements,
the justification of violence, and mainstream political and social dynamics.
Extremist narratives are moving more quickly from the fringes and becoming
institutionalized within established political, media, and social
structures—what is now called the mainstreaming of extremism.
Nation states,
particularly advanced democracies, are struggling to address those intersecting
challenges of extremism, polarization, fractured social cohesion, and
democratic erosion. These are complex, multifaceted societal challenges of
which terrorism and political violence are only one type of harm
they create.
Though the threat of
foreign jihadist movements has receded from public memory as an acute national
security threat, the conditions it exposed—a hollowed-out rules-based order,
disillusionment with government, and democracies straining under polarization
and distrust—have not receded with it. They have metastasized and produced new
strains of violent extremism and political violence. While al-Qaeda has
faded from public consciousness, the counterterrorism framework set up to
defeat it is still alive and well. The problem is that governments cannot
rely on a counterterrorism architecture built to fight an enemy outside the
state to address the complex violent extremism threats now generated
from within.
OLUFEMI OTUBANJO Nigerian
Institute of International Affairs (Nigeria)
The Fight Against
Terrorism Continues in West Africa
The relative success
of post-9/11 counterterrorism strategies in Europe and the Americas has created
the perception that terrorism is no longer a primary concern in the
West.
However, that
complacency among the major powers bolsters the proliferation and unrelenting
activities of jihadi groups in the West African subregion. The post-9/11
counterterrorism architecture shrunk the operational space for terrorist groups
in Europe, the Americas, and even the Middle East, making West
Africa, with its abundance of ungoverned spaces, a haven for fleeing
jihadis and their local affiliates.
Five major jihadi
groups are ravaging the West African sub-region—Jama’al Nusrat
al-Islam wal-Muslimin, Islamic State-Sahel,
Islamic State of West Africa Province, Boko Haram (now an affiliate of the
Islamic State of West Africa), and Lakurawa. Unfortunately,
the countries that are most beleaguered by those terrorist organizations are
some of the poorest in the world, with the least capacity
to contain them, so local counterterrorism efforts have been
ineffective.
After initial individual
national efforts to fight terrorism failed, the affected countries adopted a
multilateral approach. Benin, Cameroon, Chad, Niger, and Nigeria were the first
to adopt this method when they reactivated the Multi-National Joint Task Force
and relocated its command headquarters to Ndjamena, Chad, following the 2015
debacle when its initial headquarters in Baga,
Nigeria, was overrun by Boko Haram terrorists.
The core Sahel
states—Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, and Niger, or the Group of Five
for the Sahel (G5 Sahel)—initially put their faith in France and other Western
powers to halt the advance of terrorism in their territories. Although external
interventions were helpful in stabilizing security, particularly in saving the
capital of Mali from being overrun by jihadis in 2013, they failed to
stem the tide of terrorist operations in the subregion; in response, the
G5 Sahel set up a joint counterinsurgency force, the Sahel G5
Joint Force, in 2027.
However, that force
has not made significant contributions to the regional war against terrorism,
largely because security forces in the G5 Sahel countries are poorly equipped
and lack operational capacity, at times depending on logistic support from
France and other EU countries.
Almost
every Western power at one time or another has had a presence in the
Sahel. France had Operation Barkhane and,
more recently, Operation Sabre; the EU had Operation Takuba; the
United States had an air base in Niger until 2024; and Russia, with the Wagner
Group (now the Africa Corps), also played a role in the counterinsurgency
efforts in the countries of the Alliance of Sahel States.
None of the major
powers’ efforts have stemmed the tide of violent extremism in the
region. Indeed, many of the efforts have been half-hearted and more geared
toward protecting Western national interests in the mineral resources of West
Africa than counterterror.
But as long
as terrorism can exist unchecked in the most vulnerable part of the world,
it can exist anywhere. The major powers must not yield to the temptation of
deprioritizing terrorism in their security structures. They must develop a
master plan for helping the weak and impoverished countries of West Africa
to vanquish terrorism and eliminate a scourge that is significantly
undermining their development and survival.
ATTACHMENT THIRTY FOUR – FROM COMBATTING TERRORISM CENTER (CTC) AT
WEST POINT
THE MYSTERIOUS RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN AL-QA`IDA AND IRAN
Author:
Bruce Riedel July
2010
The relationship between al-Qa`ida and Iran is shrouded in mystery. Before and after
the September 11 attacks on the United States, al-Qa`ida
operatives transited Iran, and some found sanctuary in the country after
fleeing Afghanistan in late 2001. Yet the hints of occasional operational
cooperation between al-Qa`ida and Iran are outweighed
by the considerable and public evidence of the deep animosity between Sunni
extremist al-Qa`ida and Shi`a
extremist Iran. Antipathy for each other is at the root of their ideologies and
narratives, and it has been most visible in their competition for influence in
Iraq and Afghanistan.
This dynamic may change, however,
if the United States and Iran move toward confrontation or even conflict over
the Iranian government’s nuclear weapons ambitions. As tensions between
Washington and Tehran increase, Shi`a antipathy for
Sunni jihadists such as al-Qa`ida and its Taliban
allies may be outweighed by a desire to find ways to spoil U.S. interests in
the region. Similarly, as Washington ratchets up the pressure on al-Qa`ida in Pakistan, Usama bin Ladin and al-Qa`ida may find Iran a more attractive partner. Thus, what
has been a hostile relationship could become a more collaborative one.
This article reviews the
historical relationship between al-Qa`ida and Iran
before examining the factors that could cause the two entities to work together
against the United States and its allies.
BACKGROUND
The evidence for a secret
relationship between al-Qa`ida and Iran is
significant, but largely limited and the facts quite murky. The 9/11
Commission’s report concluded that there is evidence of contacts among al-Qa`ida, the Iranian government and Iran’s Lebanese Hizb Allah ally dating back to Usama bin Ladin’s years in
Khartoum in the mid-1990s.1 During
this time, it is possible that Hizb Allah provided
some training to future al-Qa`ida operatives, as
Sudan was a watering hole for virtually every terrorist and extremist group in
the Middle East. As a result, it would not be surprising for the nascent al-Qa`ida group to have encountered the Iranian Revolutionary
Guard Corps (IRGC) and the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence (MOIS).
Some sources, including the
9/11 Commission, have suggested more than mere contact, alleging that the two
may have collaborated in the attack on the U.S. Air Force barracks in Khobar,
Saudi Arabia in 1996. In the CTC Sentinel, however, Thomas Hegghammer
made clear that the evidence for such collaboration is unconvincing.2 Moreover,
evidence that emerged in the decade after the attack, reviewed by the author,
also suggests that al-Qa`ida did not have involvement
in the Khobar attacks.3 Bin
Ladin has said the same.4
The 9/11 Commission’s report
also found that a senior Hizb Allah official visited
Saudi Arabia in October 2000 to assist Saudis traveling to Afghanistan.5 Three
of the 9/11 hijackers reportedly traveled from Saudi Arabia to Beirut, then to
Iran and into Afghanistan on a flight with an associate of a senior Hizb Allah official.6 Khalid
Shaykh Muhammad and Ramzi bin al-Shibh, two captured
al-Qa`ida operatives, confirmed that 8-10 of the 9/11
hijackers at some point between October 2000 and February 2001 transited Iran
on their way to or from Afghanistan “taking advantage of the Iranian practice
of not stamping Saudi passports.”7 What
is not clear in the report is whether Iran gave these travelers any treatment
different from that provided to other Saudis transiting Iran to Afghanistan in
2001.8
The bottom line of the 9/11
Commission’s report, however, is unequivocal. It states that both Khalid Shaykh
Muhammad and Ramzi bin al-Shibh categorically denied
any relationship between the hijackers and Hizb
Allah. On Iran, the commission concluded, “we have found no evidence that Iran
or Hizballah was aware of the planning for what later became the 9/11 attack.”9
AFTER 9/11: AL-QA`IDA
OPERATIVES IN IRAN
After September 2001, several
al-Qa`ida operatives, including one of Bin Ladin’s
sons and other relatives, fled to Iran to escape the debacle of the collapse of
the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. Some of these individuals have remained in
Iran ever since. Their status has never been clear; some reports suggest they are
under house arrest or even in prison. Other reports say they are free to
operate. It has been reported that these Iran-based al-Qa`ida
cells played a support role in the al-Qa`ida attacks
on foreigners living in Riyadh on May 12, 2003 that killed 35 people, including
eight Americans.10 It
has also been suggested that the Iranian government may be using its al-Qa`ida detainees as hostages to help dissuade the terrorist
group from attacking Iranian interests. Tehran may also have hoped to trade
them to the United States for Mujahidin-i-Khalq leaders captured in Iraq in 2003.11 Their
value to the Iranian government may change over time.
Bin Ladin’s son, Sa`ad, reportedly left Iran in 2008.12 The
circumstances are unclear about whether he was released by Iranian authorities
or if he escaped. One of Bin Ladin’s daughters left Iran for Saudi Arabia this
year via Syria.13 After
the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, it is clear that al-Qa`ida
messengers transited Iran to get from Pakistan to Iraq. The Iranian authorities
apparently at least tolerated such transit if not facilitated it; they likely
see such transfers as a relatively low risk method to keep the United States
bogged down in two wars and therefore less likely to focus its attention on
Iran.
HOSTILE ENEMIES?
On the other side of the
ledger, the animosity between Iran and al-Qa`ida is
public and abundantly clear. For al-Qa`ida and its
allies such as the Taliban, Shi`a are not true Muslims and should be treated as
outcasts at best, if not apostates. For Iran, the Taliban and al-Qa`ida are bigots who abuse Shi`a. The Taliban harshly
repressed Afghan Hazara Shi`a in the 1990s, murdering thousands when it took
over their towns and cities in 1998. The Taliban murdered several Iranian
diplomats as well in 1998, and the two almost went to war over the incident.14
Al-Qa`ida
was an enthusiastic and public supporter of the Taliban in its conflict with
Tehran, a lonely voice of support at the time that probably helped cement Bin
Ladin’s relationship with Taliban leader Mullah Omar. Al-Qa`ida
provided troops and money for the fight against Iran’s Northern Alliance
allies. The IRGC and MOIS were consistent supporters of al-Qa`ida’s
Afghan enemy, the Northern Alliance, and had operatives in Afghanistan before
and after 9/11. When the first Central Intelligence Agency team arrived in the Pansjhir Valley in late 2001 to overthrow the Taliban and
al-Qa`ida, they found that the Iranians were already
active in the area.15
Since 2003, al-Qa`ida’s franchise in Iraq has killed thousands of Iraqi
Shi`a and scores of senior Shi`a leaders. Al-Qa`ida
argues that the Shi`a are pawns of Iran seeking to restore “Safavid” control of
the country, a reference to the first Shi`a Persian dynasty that fought the
Ottoman Empire for control of Iraq in the 17th century. Al-Qa`ida’s
first leader in Iraq, Abu Mus`ab
al-Zarqawi, was notoriously vicious in his hatred for the Shi`a, even earning a
private reproach from Bin Ladin’s deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, for his
indiscriminate attacks on Shi`a leaders, mosques and processions.
Al-Zarqawi wrote to
al-Zawahiri to explain his view of the “heretic” Shi`a. It is worth looking at
this letter, intercepted by U.S. intelligence, for an understanding of how al-Qa`ida views Iran and the Shi`a. Al-Zarqawi began by saying
that the Shi`a are “an insurmountable obstacle, a lurking snake, a crafty and
malicious scorpion, a spying enemy and a mortal venom.” For al-Zarqawi, “Shiism
is a looming danger and a true challenge that has nothing in common with
Islam.”17 Iran’s
goal is to create a “heretical state from Iran through Iraq, Syria and Lebanon
to the cardboard kingdom of the Gulf.”18 He
even quoted a European specialist as saying that if the “Safavids had not
existed, we in Europe would be reading the Quran just as the Algerians do”
because the Shi`a empire “stabbed the Muslims in the back” when the Ottomans
were at the gates of Vienna in 1683. Memories are long
in al-Qa`ida.
During and since the 2006 war
between Hizb Allah and Israel, al-Qa`ida
leaders, including al-Zawahiri, have been critical of Hizb
Allah for accepting a cease-fire with Israel and allowing United Nations
peacekeepers to operate on Lebanese territory. Al-Qa`ida’s
rebuke to Hizb Allah and Iran for being “soft” on
Israel may strike many in the West as peculiar, but it is a visible
manifestation of the depth of divide between the Sunni and Shi`a jihads. Since
2009, al-Qa`ida media outlets have reproached the
Palestinian Sunni terrorist group Hamas for accepting aid from Iran in its
fight with Israel.
On balance, the evidence of a
hostile relationship is much more compelling than evidence for a collaborative
one. Nevertheless, that does not preclude the possibility of occasional
operational collusion; terrorists often seek help from criminals and drug
dealers, and therefore from other terrorists as well. Yet it does not suggest a
partnership or alliance.
POSSIBLE CHANGE OF DYNAMICS
This dynamic could change in
the near future. The United States and Iran are on a collision course over
Tehran’s determination to develop a nuclear weapons capability. As this
confrontation worsens, Iran will be looking for ways to damage U.S. interests
in the region, especially through means that bog the United States down further
in Iraq and Afghanistan. Since the United States is withdrawing forces from
Iraq, Afghanistan is probably the best venue to strike. Moreover, as the war in
Afghanistan is now “Obama’s war”—where he has tripled U.S. troop numbers—the
temptation to make the war harder may be impossible for Tehran to resist.
For several years, Iran has
had a low-level relationship with its old nemesis, the Afghan Taliban. Since
2007, American and British commanders in Afghanistan have reported evidence of
small quantities of Iranian arms provided to the Taliban and of the IRGC
training Taliban operatives.20 Iran
has kept its options open in Afghanistan and has positioned itself to be more
helpful to the Taliban should it decide to adopt this strategy. On the whole,
Iran has been an ally of the Karzai government in Kabul since 2001 and has
invested significantly in western Afghanistan to help stabilize the border
region. For example, the largest Afghan city in the west, Herat, is linked to
the Iranian electrical grid. Yet Iran could choose to “turn off the lights” if
it wanted to make the already difficult Afghan mission even harder for the
United States and NATO. The Italian military, which patrols Herat, is extremely
conscious of its vulnerability to Iranian mischief.
Increasing aid to the Taliban
while making life in western Afghanistan unpleasant for NATO would be a fairly
simple and relatively low risk way of signaling to Washington that Iran can
play hardball. Another path could be allowing al-Qa`ida
greater use of Iranian territory for travel transit or safe haven. Indeed, to
the extent that the United States puts pressure on al-Qa`ida’s
safe haven in Pakistan, the terrorists will likely look for an alternative
sanctuary. Iran is next door, and if allowed al-Qa`ida
might find the change of venue attractive at least for parts of its
infrastructure. While greater cooperation with the Taliban and al-Qa`ida could backfire and isolate Iran further, Tehran may
consider the price worth paying in the face of Western aggression against its
nuclear program.
Bruce Riedel is a Senior
Fellow in the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at
the Brookings Institution and a professor at Georgetown University. He has
advised four U.S. presidents on Afghanistan and was asked by President Barack
Obama in January 2009 to chair an interagency strategic review of American
policy toward Afghanistan and Pakistan, which was completed in March 2009. He
is the author of The Search for Al Qaeda: its Leadership, Ideology and Future.
Notes:
[1]
The 9/11 Commission Report (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2004).
[2] Thomas
Hegghammer, “Deconstructing the Myth about al-Qa`ida and Khobar,” CTC Sentinel 1:3 (2008).
[3]
The author was present at the Khobar Towers hours after the attack. During the
next decade, the author reviewed all the available evidence on the attack and
did not find an al-Qa`ida hand in the operation.
[4]
Bruce Lawrence ed., Messages to the World, The Statements of Osama Bin Laden
(London: Verso, 2005), p. 52.
[5]
The 9/11 Commission Report.
[6]
Ibid.
[7]
Ibid.
[8]
Ibid.
[9]
Ibid.
[10]
Douglas Jehl and Eric Schmitt, “US Suggests a Qaeda
Cell in Iran Directed Saudi Bombings,” New York Times, May 21, 2003.
[11]
The Mujahidin-i-Khalq is an
organization that advocates the overthrow of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
[12]
“Bin Laden Son Saad Left Iran, Now in Pakistan-US,”
Reuters, January 16, 2009.
[13]
“Bin Laden’s Daughter Set Free from Iran,” CBS/AP, March 23, 2010.
[14]
“Taliban Threatens Retaliation if Iran Strikes,” CNN, September 15, 1998.
[15]
Gary Schroen, First In: An Insider’s Account of How
the CIA Spearheaded the War on Terror in Afghanistan (New York: Ballantine,
2006), p. 89.
[16]
“Text from Abu Mus’ab al-Zarqawi Letter,”
GlobalSecurity.org, undated.
[17]
Ibid.
[18]
Ibid.
[19] “Letter
to Bin Laden and Zawahiri,” in Gilles Kepel and
Jean-Pierre Milelli eds., Al Qaeda in its Own Words
(Cambridge, NJ: Harvard University Press, 2008), pp. 251-267.
[20]
Damien McElroy, “Iran Helping the Taliban, US Ambassador Claims,” Telegraph,
December 17, 2009; Sajjan M. Gohel, “Iran’s Ambiguous
Role in Afghanistan,” CTC Sentinel 3:3 (2010).
ATTACHMENT THIRTY FIVE – FROM
CATO INSTITUTE (BEFORE IRAN WAR)
IRAN IS DANGEROUS, BUT SAUDI ARABIA
IS WORSE
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
is essentially a totalitarian state which acts as a tool of plunder for some
7000 princes and their families.
By Doug Bandow January 5, 2016
This article appeared
in Forbes on
January 5, 2016.
Saudi Arabia and Iran continue
to turn their national struggle into a religious conflict. The first is
dangerous. The second could be catastrophic. Yet Riyadh, America’s nominal
ally, has demonstrated that it is the more reckless of the two states,
executing an important Shia cleric and severing diplomatic relations with Iran.
There is much bad to say
about Tehran’s Islamic regime. It is authoritarian at home, dominated by
intolerant fundamentalism, politically repressive, and a persistent persecutor
of minority faiths. The Islamists are interventionists abroad, backing
Hezbollah and Syria’s Bashir al-Assad. Long antagonistic to the U.S., Iran has
displayed a disturbing interest in nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles.
Unfortunately, Washington
inadvertently set Iran on its present course. In 1953 the U.S. helped oust
Tehran’s democratic government and turn the Shah into a despised despot, who
antagonized political liberals and religious conservatives alike. After his
1979 overthrow the Reagan administration backed the even more loathsome Saddam
Hussein in Iraq’s invasion of Iran, which ended in stalemate after the death of
perhaps one million Iranians. Since then Washington
has supported sanctions on Iran for its nuclear research and threatened war if
Tehran tried to develop nuclear weapons. Today the U.S. backs efforts to
overthrow the Assad government, one of Tehran’s only three allies (along with
Iraq and Lebanon’s Shia movement) in the Middle East.
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
is essentially a totalitarian state which acts as a tool of plunder for some
7000 princes and their families.
Iran may be a threatening
actor, but American officials have unintentionally made it as threatening as
possible. Even worse, however, is Saudi Arabia, considered by Washington to be
a valued ally and partner.
For decades U.S. officials
have treated the Saudi royals, who conveniently sit atop vast oil reserves, as
dear friends. The monarchy’s relationship with the Bush clan, including both
Presidents H.W. and George, was particularly intimate. After vowing war against
Islamist terrorism in the aftermath of 9/11, George fils allowed
Saudi nationals to flee the country while Americans were grounded. After the
death of King Abdullah early last year, Obama administration officials offered
slavish praise of the departed, speaking of his moderation, courage, tolerance,
vision and asceticism. The Washington Post reported yesterday:
“the administration felt that, despite the occasional bumps, its relations with
the kingdom had reached a smooth cruising speed since King Salman took over
last January.”
Yet Republican Party
presidential candidates don’t believe that President Barack Obama has
genuflected low enough to the Saudi monarchy. For instance, Jeb Bush insisted
on the need to rebuild “our relationships with allies and key relationships in
the Middle East, including the Persian Gulf states.” The Saudis and others are
“important partners.” New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie complained that the Saudi
king did not attend the administration’s Gulf summit last fall and demanded
that America “stand with those who share our values and interests,” in this
case apparently theocracy and dictatorship. Similarly, the Wall Street
Journal, while allowing that “the Saudis of Saudi Arabia is essentially a
totalitarian state which acts as a tool of plunder for some 7000 princes and
their families. Riyadh’s execution of noted Shia cleric Nimr al-Nimr, who had
the temerity to advocate democracy, set off riots across the Shiite world.
Among al-Nimr’s alleged crimes: “disobeying and breaking allegiance to the
ruler.” Still awaiting death by beheading is Nimr’s 21
year-old nephew, Ali al-Nimr, arrested at age 17, and 19-year-old
Abdullah al-Zaher, who at age 15 also demonstrated for democracy. In 2014
liberal blogger Raif Badawi was sentenced to ten
years in prison and 1000 lashes for allegedly insulting Islam. Then the
latter’s lawyer, Waleed Abul-Khair, was sentenced to
15 years for “undermining the regime and officials” and “inciting public
opinion.”
Freedom House rates the
kingdom at the bottom in terms of both civil liberties and political rights.
Last year’s report noted that Riyadh had “tightened restrictions on dissent and
freedom of speech” and “intensified criminal penalties for religious beliefs
that veer too far from official state orthodoxy.” Purported “antiterrorism”
legislation allowed the “authorities to press terrorism charges against anyone
who demands reform, exposes corruption or otherwise engages in dissent.”
Last year Human Rights Watch
reported that Saudi Arabia continued “to try, convict, and imprison political
dissidents and human rights activists solely on account of their peaceful
activities. Systematic discrimination against women and religious minorities
continued.” The “antiterrorism” law “can be used to criminalize almost any form
of peaceful criticism and the authorities as terrorism.”
Amnesty International said
much the same: “The government severely restricted freedoms of expression,
association and assembly, and cracked down on dissent, arresting and imprisoning
critics, including human rights defenders. Many received unfair trials before
courts that failed to respect due process.”
The U.S. State Department
devoted 57 pages to the Saudi monarchy’s human rights
(mal)practices. Noted State: “The most important human rights problems reported
included citizens’ lack of the ability and legal means to change their
government; pervasive restrictions on universal rights such as freedom of
expression, including on the internet, and freedom of assembly, association, movement,
and religion; and a lack of equal rights for women, children, and noncitizen
workers.” There were other violations as well, though even with the U.S.
government’s help it’s hard to keep track of them.
The Saudi royals are, if
anything, even more repressive when it comes to matters of faith. The U.S.
Commission on International Religious Freedom named Saudi Arabia a “Country of
Particular Concern.” The regime “remains unique in the extent to which it
restricts the public expression of any religion other than Islam.” The monarchy
“privileges its own interpretation of Sunni Islam over all other
interpretations and prohibits any non-Muslim public places of worship.” The KSA
also “continues to prosecute and imprison individuals for dissent, apostasy, blasphemy,
and sorcery,” while the antiterrorism legislation “classifies blasphemy and
advocating atheism as terrorism.”
In its latest religious
liberty report State noted that citizens are required to be Muslims and that
apostasy may be punished by death. Non-Muslim foreigners and non-Sunni Saudis
“must practice their religion in private and are vulnerable to discrimination,
harassment, detention, and, for noncitizens, deportation.” The law criminalizes
“calling for atheist thought” and “calling into question the Islamic religion.”
Obviously, “freedom of religion is not protected under the law.” Essentially,
Saudi Arabia is an early version of the Islamic State which won social
acceptance in the West.
Unfortunately, Riyadh doesn’t
limit religious repression to home. The licentious royals long ago made a deal
with fundamentalist Wahhabis to enforce repressive Islamic theology at home and
fund its propagation abroad in return for clerical support. Pre-9/11 the KSA
backed the Taliban regime, which shared Riyadh’s enthusiasm for brutal
implementation of 7th century Islam. Some wealthy Saudis went further,
backing al-Qaeda before the attack on America, yet the Bush administration
classified the section of the 9/11 report detailing these activities. According
to Wikileaks, no less an authority than Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
later confirmed that money continues to flow from well-heeled Saudis to
terrorists. And the monarchy has generously supported, with money and weapons,
Syrian rebels, mostly those who range from jihadist to more extreme.
By turning the American
military into the Saudi royals’ bodyguard, Presidents Bush, Clinton, Bush and
Obama spurred terrorism and attacks on Americans. The first Gulf War was
directed more to safeguard Saudi Arabia than liberate Kuwait; the U.S. garrison
left in Saudi Arabia stoked Osama bin-Laden’s anger and was later targeted by
terrorists in the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing. (Deputy Defense Secretary Paul
Wolfowitz cited the withdrawal of these troops as an important benefit of the
Iraq invasion.) Subsequent sanctions and bombing supported the meme of a U.S.
war on Islam. Finally, attacking Iraq created the murderous al-Qaeda in Iraq,
which became a prolific employer of suicide bombers and morphed into the
Islamic State.
At least as an energy
producer Saudi Arabia is supposed to be friendly to the West. However, the royals market their oil because they need the money, not
because they like Americans (or Europeans or any of their other customers). Any
successor regime also would sell the oil, since drinking it isn’t an option and
the revenues would be necessary in order to stay in power. Moreover, with the
transformation of the international energy marketplace and America’s move
toward becoming an oil exporter, Washington need not worry about reduced Saudi
oil exports. One of the most positive geopolitical impacts of the fall in
prices is weakening malign energy autocracies and kleptocracies, including the
kingdom.
As for foreign policy, Riyadh
is proving to be as problematic as Iran. The execution of al-Nimr for opposing
the al-Saud dictatorship sparked protests in Beirut (Lebanon), Baghdad (Iraq),
and Manama (Bahrain), as well as Tehran. Killing a Shiite cleric for standing
up to the oppressive Sunni monarchy moves the region closer to multinational
sectarian conflict, which is far more dangerous than a bilateral struggle
between nation states. Other governments began to take sides, as Sunni-ruled
Bahrain also broke diplomatic relations while Sunni-majority Kuwait and United
Arab Emirates downgraded bilateral ties. (Majority-Sunni Sudan also severed
official ties, but it plays a minor role in Middle East affairs.) Nouri
al-Maliki, former prime minister of Shia-majority Iraq, predicted that the
execution “will topple the Saudi regime.”
Intensifying the Saudi-Iran
conflict will undermine Washington’s battle against the Islamic State, an
extremist Sunni group. In practice, the U.S. must rely mostly on Shiite and
other non-Sunni forces—the Baghdad government, Assad forces, various Kurdish
fighters. America’s other supposed allies, notably Saudi Arabia, along with the
smaller Gulf States and Turkey, have done far more to back ISIL and other
radical groups in Syria. By taking a step Riyadh surely knew would discourage
any improvement in relations with Tehran, the royals have made a diplomatic
settlement far harder, if not impossible. Yet Washington’s only hope of
squaring the circle—defanging if not destroying the Islamic State,
marginalizing if not ousting Assad, moderating if not converting Assad
supporters Iran and Russia—requires a political solution.
Saudi Arabia also is as
ruthless as the Soviet Union in crushing democracy and human rights in friendly
regimes. For instance, Riyadh intervened militarily to back Bahrain’s Sunni
monarchy in suppressing the majority Shia population, which sought a share of
power. The royals lavished money on Egypt’s al-Sisi dictatorship, which has
proved to be more brutal than Hosni Mubarak’s rule.
Even worse has been the KSA’s
brutal intervention in Yemen’s long-running civil war. Giving new meaning to
hypocrisy, the Saudi monarchy engages in deadly meddling even as it complains
about Iran’s troublemaking. Riyadh intends to reinstate President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, overthrown by
a combination of Houthi insurgents, who have been in rebellion for decades, and
Hadi’s predecessor, Ali Abdullah Saleh, who once
battled the same Houthis. The conflict long was tribal more than sectarian, as
the Houthis do not fit with either Sunnis or Shiites. But by treating the civil
war as yet another proxy fight between Shia and Sunnis, Saudi Arabia encouraged
Tehran to join. And Washington foolishly backed its “ally.”
As of the end of October at
least 2400 civilians, and as many as 3000, had been killed, a large
majority—including three-fourths of children, by United Nations count—from
misdirected Saudi airstrikes. Reported journalist Bryan Schatz: “The Saudi
coalition has repeatedly targeted schools, hospitals, and religious buildings.
Civilian infrastructure, including a camp for displaced people, water supplies,
and power stations, have been destroyed. Civilian hospitals—overloaded with
patients injured by airstrikes yet painfully under-supplied because of
coalition blockades—are nearing collapse.”
At least 1.5 million people
have been displaced. Much of the population has been reduced to poverty and
hunger; the World Food Programme warned that a
quarter of Yemenis are approaching starvation. Peter Maurer, head of the
International Committee of the Red Cross, said “Yemen after five months looks
like Syria after five years.” Amnesty International concluded that “All the
parties involved in the conflict raging across the country have committed
widespread human rights abuses, including war crimes.”
Yet the U.S. acts as if it
needs a repressive, unprincipled, myopic, and meddlesome ally more than the
latter needs the U.S. In fact, the royals cannot be sure that their combination
of bribes and brutality will forever preserve today’s ostentatious kleptocracy.
Indeed, the regime’s vulnerabilities are only likely to grow. Which is why the
Saudis look to Washington for support. President Obama lauded the late King
Abdullah’s “steadfast and passionate belief in the importance of the U.S.-Saudi
relationship as a force for stability and security in the Middle East.” Of
course, every Saudi king believes that. It’s cheaper for the royals to borrow
U.S. troops than to hire bodyguards. While Washington requires Riyadh to pay
for its weapons, so far logistical support for the Yemen war has been free.
Instead of being treated as
an ally, Saudi Arabia “should be a pariah,” argued Freedom House President Mark
Lagon. At the very least, U.S. officials should drop
the faux intimacy and treat Riyadh as Washington once treated Moscow. An
important power to be engaged, not supported, endorsed, praised, subsidized,
and reassured. Ultimately regime change in Riyadh is as necessary, indeed,
perhaps even more so, than regime change in Tehran.
ATTACHMENT
THIRTY SIX – FROM
POLITICO
THE DEPARTMENT CREATED TO STOP
ANOTHER 9/11 MAY NO LONGER BE EQUIPPED FOR COUNTERTERRORISM WORK
Nearly a quarter
century after the Sept. 11 attacks, some former officials and lawmakers are
warning the U.S. is less able to prevent future terror attacks.
For
the first time in history, personnel from nondeportation
sections of DHS, including its intelligence arm and the arm of Immigration and
Customs Enforcement that focuses on criminal investigations, are now assisting
with the apprehension, detention and removal of unauthorized immigrants in the
United States. | Jim Watson/Pool/Getty Images
By Eric Bazail-Eimil 09/10/2026 01:33 PM EDT
The Trump
administration has fundamentally reshaped the Department of Homeland Security
since taking office 19 months ago, so much so that the agency created to
prevent the next 9/11 is doing little counterterrorism work.
DHS is now
almost entirely focused on apprehending unauthorized immigrants, having cut
many staffers that worked on issues ranging from protecting against hackers to
intelligence analysis, and reassigned counterterrorism investigators and others
to work on deportations.
As a result,
DHS is less equipped to respond to threats against the United States than just
a few years ago, according to people familiar with its operations and former
officials still in touch with those inside the agency.
“Are we safer now
than we were pre-9/11 from the kind of attack that 9/11 was? I would say yes,”
said Janet Napolitano, who served as former President Barack Obama’s Homeland
Security secretary. “Are we as safe and secure as we could be if DHS were
properly led and was really putting its resources where risks really were and
where risks are evolving? No.”
Napolitano
pointed in particular to DHS’s remit to identify a range of threats and to help
Americans recover if disaster strikes.
“Those elements
of DHS have been under incredible stress in the last two years as resources
have been poured into immigration enforcement,” she said.
POLITICO spoke
with 10 lawmakers and former and current U.S. officials familiar with the
Department of Homeland Security. Many voiced concerns about DHS’s readiness
given the changes made since Trump took office in January 2025. And while those
individual moves have been publicly reported, some argued that it has only
recently become clear the extent to which the department has abandoned traditional
counterterrorism efforts.
Republicans
largely defended the department, but some still had critiques of DHS cuts at a
number of agencies tasked with preventing or responding to attacks against the
homeland.
“The answer is not
to essentially slash their personnel and budgets and then have them do nothing.
Because they do have a mission,” said Chad Wolf, who served as acting Homeland
Security secretary during the first Trump administration. “You’ve got to have
good leadership there that keeps them on mission and is fulfilling the
direction that the president and the administration wants to go.”
DHS defended
its approach to counterterrorism in a statement, arguing that “counterterrorism
and immigration enforcement go hand in hand.”
“Child
exploitation, trafficking, terrorism, scams, and smuggling all have a nexus to
illegal immigration,” DHS said. “Despite multiple Democrat shutdowns of DHS,
the Department is more than equipped to keep Americans safe in an ever-changing
threat landscape. DHS has been recruiting, reforming and modernizing at a
record pace — including in areas of counterterrorism.”
White House
spokesperson Lauren Bis claimed that the Trump administration has detained
thousands of known or suspected terrorists and also accused former President
Joe Biden of allowing the entry of potential terrorists in the United States.
“President
Trump unleashed ICE and federal law enforcement to target the worst of the
worst including national security threats, terrorists, and violent criminals,”
Bis said.
Threats against
the U.S. have shifted in the two decades since al-Qaida militants hijacked four
commercial airliners and crashed them into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon
and a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, killing 2,977 people. While
al-Qaida and other Islamist groups continue to inspire isolated attacks against
the U.S., cyberattacks, drone strikes and the operations of transnational
criminal organizations are now often seen as more critical and imminent threats
to national security.
While there are
many in Washington that argue that DHS hasn’t adapted quickly enough, some of
the efforts it had been making in that direction have now been curtailed.
FEWER
PEOPLE GUARDING AGAINST HACKS AND AI INTRUSIONS
That’s clearest
with the cuts to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which
was created in 2018 to combat digital threats from hacking groups and foreign
adversaries. At least 1,000 CISA staffers
have left the agency since Trump took office.
While Homeland Security
Markwayne Mullin is working to reverse some of the sweeping cuts, CISA may have
difficulty staffing up quickly, at a time when both Republicans and Democrats
have flagged the need for it to help the U.S. respond to the threats posed by
advanced artificial intelligence models.
Republicans,
among them moderates like House Homeland Security Chair Andrew Garbarino (R-N.Y.) and Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), are leading a push to
resuscitate CISA, but the damage may be long lasting, per one
current CISA official.
Stephen A. Smith on Trump, Democrats
and the politics of chaos
“When
experienced personnel leave, the agency also loses institutional knowledge,
technical expertise and trusted relationships with federal agencies, private
sector partners and international counterparts that often take years to build,”
said the official, granted anonymity to speak about sensitive readiness
concerns. “It inevitably increases the likelihood that the government will be
slower to identify, coordinate around and respond to significant cyber threats,
and that leaves the country more exposed.”
For its part,
DHS insisted that CISA under Mullin “is focused squarely on executing its
statutory mission: serving as the national coordinator for securing and
protecting the nation’s critical infrastructure.”
“We are
committed to delivering timely, actionable cyber threat intelligence,
supporting federal, state and local partners, and defending against both
nation-state and criminal cyber threats,” the department said.
INVESTIGATORS
BECOME IMMIGRATION OFFICERS
At the same
time, the Trump administration has shifted the responsibilities of many DHS
staffers across the department to immigration enforcement. For the first time
in history, personnel from nondeportation sections of
DHS, including its intelligence arm and the arm of Immigration and Customs
Enforcement that focuses on criminal investigations are now assisting with the
apprehension, detention and removal of unauthorized immigrants in the United
States.
Hundreds of
agents at Homeland Security Investigations, which is part of ICE but handles
complex criminal investigations including counterfeiting, cybercrime and
terrorism, have been detailed to the Enforcement and Removal Operations arm of ICE
to help apprehend unauthorized immigrants.
While HSI only
accounts for a small percentage of total federal personnel working on
counterterrorism, it has an outsize impact on federal counterterrorism efforts.
In the most recent ICE annual report, released in December 2024 — before Trump
took office, ICE said that HSI initiated more than 400 counterterrorism
investigations between October 2023 and September 2024 and contributed to 93
percent of the U.S. Joint Terrorism Task Force’s “efforts” against terrorist
activity in the same time period.
ICE has not
published an annual report accounting for investigative work that occurred
between October 2024 and September 2025, making it difficult to exactly measure
the impact of Trump’s redirection of HSI agents. But the risk of gaps is high.
“You take your
eye off the ball, certain things are going to be
missed. Certain things are going to escape our attention,” said Jeh Johnson,
who served as Homeland Security secretary from 2015 to 2017 under the Obama
administration, referring to the changes at HSI.
That said, the
expanded immigration enforcement push has its defenders. Mark Krikorian, who
leads the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington think tank that favors
restrictions on legal immigration as well as more immigration enforcement,
argued that deploying HSI to these investigations is more important than some
of the agency’s other tasks — namely customs enforcement.
“If terrorists
can’t get in, they can’t embed themselves and they can’t stay here and plan,”
Krikorian said. “In the real world you’ve got to choose and make decisions.
It’s OK if some counterfeit Gucci bags get into people’s hands because HSI is
investigating human smuggling rings.”
FEMA
IN THE CROSSHAIRS
While DHS’s
FEMA agency is less clearly a counterterrorism tool, cuts there have throttled
the dispersal of counterterrorism grants to states, cities and Native American
tribes (most DHS grants are distributed via FEMA’s contracting authority). FEMA
also coordinates the responses to any terror attack. It supported
search-and-rescue operations and the clean up of
Ground Zero in the days after the 9/11 attacks.
Some 6,000 FEMA staffers
were cut since Trump took office, leaving the agency critically understaffed as
it responds to the more typical emergencies it addresses, including natural
disasters. A terrorist attack would likely only strain resources further at the
still-embattled agency.
DHS said that
FEMA has added 1,275 staffers back over the past few months and that FEMA is
prepared to address any “future events.”
“To ensure
seamless continuity of operations, the agency maintains a roster of highly
accomplished career and acting personnel across all headquarters and regional
offices — ensuring no position is left without experienced leadership,” DHS
said.
AGENCIES
STILL HURTING FROM EARLY CUTS
Former
Secretary Kristi Noem also gutted the Office of
Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction in 2025, halving the office’s
staff. That is the office that prevents attacks against the U.S.
using chemical, biological or nuclear weapons and trains local, state and
tribal officials on how to respond to potential threats.
It has not
re-hired any staff, unlike some other agencies, and neither Mullin nor other
administration officials have said they have any plans to reinvest in it. DHS
did not address the cuts to that office when asked for comment.
The Transportation
Security Administration has similarly struggled with its staffing levels,
though not by the administration’s design.
Few officials
believe an attack similar in nature to the events of Sept. 11, 2001, could ever
happen again given the dramatic changes to air travel, immigration vetting and
collaboration between federal, state and local law enforcement agencies that
were initiated in the years that followed.
But two government
shutdowns in 2025 and 2026 — the latter over partisan disputes over ICE reforms
— dealt a blow to TSA. More than 1,500 TSA officers left the department after
going months without pay, increasing the difficulties associated with screening
air travelers.
The agency is
working to rehire staff, but new recruits need to clear government screening
and receive training to adequately perform their work at the nation’s airports.
That means that even a hiring blitz may not offer the agency immediate relief
as it deals with the continued strains on its staffing nationwide.
LARGER
INTEL EFFORTS UNDER THREAT
DHS is far from
the only section of the executive branch working to counter threats from
terrorist groups or foreign adversaries. But the FBI and other intelligence
community agencies have also been retasked.
As part of the
Trump administration’s efforts to fine-tune government agencies that it claims
strayed from their original missions under Biden’s leadership, it has refocused
these agencies on clamping down on alleged left-wing extremist groups,
including the ill-defined Antifa, and cartels — all in the name of combating
foreign terrorist organizations.
The
administration has shifted the National Counterterrorism Center away from its
typical focus on traditional terrorist groups toward primarily fighting
cartels, in line with the Trump administration’s efforts to designate cartels
Foreign Terrorist Organizations. These changes have happened in tandem with
staffing cuts at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
Like DHS, ODNI
and NCTC were created after the Sept. 11 attacks to address some of the
bureaucratic problems that contributed to the inability of the U.S. government
to detect the al-Qaida plot. Specifically, these organizations were created to
improve intelligence-sharing and coordination between intelligence agencies.
ODNI, the FBI
and others have also refocused some of their counterterrorism resources on
immigration. Thousands of staffers and agents from the Justice Department,
Pentagon and intelligence community are now working on deportations and border
security. FBI agents, including those that specialize in counterterrorism, are
helping apprehend unauthorized immigrants.
Democrats on
the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee catalogued
some of these problems in a July report, arguing that traditional
counterterrorism capabilities were “basically eviscerated” as a result of these
reallocations.
The FBI
disagrees. It argued in a statement that its “counterterrorism work is as
successful as it ever has been.” Per the FBI, it has “disrupted” more than
1,000 terrorists and 55 foreign terrorist organizations and conducted more than
4,000 arrests related to “foreign terrorist organizations.”
The Office of
the Director of National Intelligence did not respond to a request for comment.
SCRUTINY
COULD BE COMING
The Trump
administration’s sweeping changes to DHS and these other agencies could come
under scrutiny if Democrats retake control of Congress
in November’s midterm elections.
Democratic
lawmakers have signaled that investigating this reallocation of resources will
be a priority.
Sen. Gary
Peters (D-Mich.), the top Democrat on the Homeland Security and Governmental
Affairs Committee, sent
letters to the Justice Department, DHS, ODNI, the State Department and the
White House this week reminding them of their obligation to retain
records associated with these staffing redirections — a sign Democrats may wish
to hold hearings about these decisions in the next Congress.
“At a time when
domestic and foreign terrorist threats remain elevated, we should be making
sure our national security professionals have the tools and resources they need
to identify and disrupt threats before they become attacks,” Peters said.
“Instead, the administration is hollowing out our counterterrorism capabilities
and undermining our ability to keep Americans safe.”
Maggie Miller contributed to
this report.
ATTACHMENT THIRTY SEVEN – FROM THE MARSHALL PROJECT
HOW 9/11 SUPERCHARGED IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT
After the attacks, the lens
of immigration shifted from civilian law enforcement to one of anti-terrorism
and national security.
By Wilbert
L. Cooper
It’s been 25 years
since suicide attackers hijacked commercial airplanes and crashed them into key
sites around the U.S., killing nearly 3,000 people. While the September 11,
2001 attacks reshaped countless aspects of life in this country, one of the
most consequential changes has been in how the nation thinks about and polices
immigration.
President
Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign, which led to the arrest of more than 40,000 people in June and July,
is unprecedented. But experts told me that it represents the outgrowth of a
transformation that first began in the aftermath of 9/11, when the lens of
immigration shifted from civilian law enforcement to one of anti-terrorism and
national security.
Before the
attacks, neither the Department of Homeland Security nor its Immigration and
Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency even existed. Instead, the Immigration and
Naturalization Service (INS), then part of the Justice Department, was
responsible for enforcing immigration laws, patrolling the border, and
processing applications for legal status and citizenship.
Doris Meissner was the
commissioner of INS from 1993 to 2000. Despite high-profile acts of terror
during her tenure, including the 1993 World Trade Center bombing in
New York, she said national security was never the primary mission of INS.
“I’ve always wondered where this term ‘homeland security’ even came from
because we never even used that term in INS in the 1990s,” she said. “It just
does not roll off your tongue.”
While INS did
participate in some task forces with other federal law enforcement agencies,
Meissner remembers a lack of trust and communication between intelligence
agencies like the FBI and the CIA and agencies like INS. She says that this was
by design: “Prior to Sept. 11th, those silos were explicitly considered a plus.
If information was shared across government agencies, that represented ‘Big
Brother.’ Protections for the American people revolved around information not
being shared.”
Those barriers
reflected real concerns about government surveillance and the concentration of
federal power. But the 9/11 attacks also exposed the costs of keeping
information compartmentalized, and failures of coordination quickly became a
central focus of the government’s response.
Journalist
Garrett M. Graff wrote the first comprehensive oral history on 9/11.
For him, the change in the framing of immigration to a focus on national
security was especially triggered by the fact that the perpetrators of the
attacks had obtained legal visas from INS. “INS okayed paperwork [for] two of
the hijackers and notified a Florida flight school six months after the attacks
that they were approved for flight training. That was INS’s death knell,” Graff
said.
In the wake of
Sept. 11, instead of the silos Meissner was familiar with, there was a call
to centralize intelligence and planning. Congress
passed the Homeland Security Act in 2002, which split INS into three separate
agencies: ICE, Customs and Border Protection, and the U.S. Citizenship and
Immigration Services. They were placed under the control of the newly created
Department of Homeland Security (DHS), embedding immigration enforcement more
firmly within the national security apparatus, where it commanded a much larger
budget.
In
2000, the year before the attack, INS had a budget of $4.3 billion. By 2006,
immigration enforcement agencies within DHS totalled
a budget of $12.5 billion. This increase in funds and focus on national
security changed the nature of immigration enforcement.
“Border Patrol
was so small before Sept. 11th, that it was only really able to have very
modest enforcement efforts in very specifically targeted places,” Graff said.
The agency was also less militarized. "It’s not that they didn’t have
weapons, but it was not an agency where agents routinely carried long guns on
routine patrols,” Graff added.
The new money
and the reimagined mission coincided with a rise in deportations. In the decade
before Sept. 11th, the U.S. deported 1.6 million people. In the decade after,
deportations rose to 2.3 million.
But not
everyone was happy with the change. Soon after Sept. 11th, critics worried that
“homeland security” and the new federal institutions created to enforce it were
“amorphous.” Chris Edwards, a writer at the libertarian-leaning Cato
Institute, called for the termination of DHS in 2014,
writing that it “was born out of a fear of terrorism, but policymakers and DHS
have used that fear to build a vastly bloated budget and to extend federal
police power into many areas where it does not belong.”
That broad
concern over the scope of federal policing power has renewed relevance as ICE
has become the highest-funded federal law enforcement agency during
the second Trump administration and taken on a central role in the president’s
mass-deportation campaign. And the post-9/11 shift to treating immigration as a
homeland security issue has remained strong: Trump has repeatedly invoked terrorism and other
national security threats in making the case for his immigration policies.
To Jorge Loweree, the managing director of programs and strategy at
the American Immigration Council, the significance of the post 9/11 framework
today lies not just in the power of immigration agencies themselves. He said
those entities can also draw resources from other parts of the federal
law-enforcement apparatus and from local policing agencies too.
“It's an enormous dragnet,” Loweree said, “and the ultimate goal is to try to rope as
many people into it as possible.”
ATTACHMENT THIRTY EIGHT – FROM NY POST
25 YEARS
AFTER 9/11, OUR CHILDREN NEED US TO REMEMBER WITH THEM
By Shirin
Yadegar
Published Sep. 5, 2026, 3:30 p.m. ET
Twenty-five
years ago this week, I was a young journalism student sitting in class when
America changed in a single morning.
I
remember the shock, the confusion and then the clarity that followed. We
watched our country come under attack, and we watched Americans come together
in response.
Today,
I am the mother of four daughters, and what strikes me most as we approach the
25th anniversary of Sept. 11 is how much our country has changed since that
day, and how many of our children have no memory of the America that existed
before it.
On
Sept. 11, 2001, 19 al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked four airplanes and murdered
nearly 3,000 innocent people. They attacked the World Trade Center and the
Pentagon. The passengers and crew of Flight 93 fought back, and their plane
crashed into a field in Pennsylvania before it could reach its intended target.
There
was no TikTok algorithm to reinterpret what we had
just witnessed. Americans watched it happen. And then something remarkable
happened. We came together.
American
flags appeared on homes, businesses and freeway overpasses. Democrats and
Republicans stood together. Strangers hugged. First responders ran toward burning buildings while
everyone else was running out. We understood that America was imperfect, but
fundamentally worth defending. We understood that deliberately flying airplanes
filled with innocent people into buildings filled with innocent people was
evil. We knew who had attacked us. Al-Qaida, led by Osama bin Laden, had
declared war on the United States. There was moral clarity about that fact.
I miss that clarity. Not
because America was perfect on Sept. 10, 2001. It wasn’t. And not because every
decision our government made after Sept. 11 was correct. It wasn’t.
But we shared something that
seems increasingly difficult to say today: America, for all its flaws, is a
force for good, and loving your country should not belong to one political
party.
You don’t have to be Republican
to be patriotic. You don’t have to be Democrat to care about injustice.
Twenty-five years ago, those ideas weren’t mutually exclusive.
Oct.
7, 2023, made me realize just how much had changed. When Hamas terrorists
murdered, kidnapped and brutalized civilians in Israel, I expected to see the
same moral clarity I remembered after Sept. 11. Instead, I watched people rationalize terrorism.
That became intensely personal when
protests and an encampment consumed Columbia University, where my daughter was a student. She
would later testify before Congress about what Jewish students experienced. As
a mother, I kept asking myself: How did we get here?
How
did we go from a country that could recognize terrorism for what it was to one
where young Americans can encounter arguments that romanticize or excuse
political violence?
And
then I realized I was asking the wrong question. The better question is: What
are we, as parents, going to do about it?
This
Sept. 11, sit down with your children. Tell them what happened. If they are old
enough, show them the footage. Tell them about the firefighters climbing the
stairs of the World Trade Center, knowing they might never come back down. Tell
them about the passengers of Flight 93.
And
then listen to what your children are being taught. California actually recognizes
Sept. 11 as a Day of Remembrance and Service, and our Department of Education
provides schools with resources for teaching about the attacks. Parents should
know those resources exist and ask how their own schools are teaching this
history. Don’t assume someone else will do it for you. Don’t let a 30-second TikTok become your child’s history teacher.
And
vote. Not because patriotism requires allegiance to a particular party. It
doesn’t. Vote for leaders whose values reflect your own and hold them
accountable. Most importantly, bring these conversations back to the dinner
table. Our children should understand that loving America does not require
pretending America has never made mistakes. Patriotism means believing this
country is worth improving, protecting and preserving for generations to come.
Twenty-five
years ago, Americans promised each other that we would never forget. But
remembering isn’t just reading the names of the dead once a year. It is
teaching the generation that wasn’t there what happened, why it happened and
what we learned from it.
Twenty-five
years later, as a mother of four, I worry that my children are inheriting an
America that has forgotten that we are the greatest nation on earth. It is up
to us to remind them, and that starts at home.
Shirin
Yadegar is the founder of LA Mom Magazine and
a political commentator.
ATTACHMENT THIRTY NINE – FROM ABC NEWS (AMERICA)
EU WARNS OF NEW MENACE 25 YEARS
AFTER 9/11 AS ONLINE YOUTHS SEEK VIOLENT THRILLS
Jihadist groups still pose a
major threat to Europe, but 25 years after the 9/11 attacks a new menace driven
by young people online is emerging
By LORNE COOK Associated Press September 8,
2026, 1:08 AM
BRUSSELS -- A quarter of
a century after the Al-Qaeda attacks
on the United States, jihadist groups still pose a major threat to security in
Europe, but a new menace has surfaced that is driven mostly by young people
online and the authorities are worried.
The exact size of the network
behind what is being called nihilistic violent extremism is unclear. But police
investigators from nine European countries found about 4,340 URL web addresses
linked to “The COM,” as the online community has become known, during a
campaign to disrupt it in June and July.
“It’s
violence for the sake of violence,” European Union Counter-Terrorism
Coordinator Bartjan Wegter
told The Associated Press in an interview, ahead of the 25th anniversary of
the Sept. 11 attacks on
New York and Washington in 2001.
Overall last year, 45
terrorist attacks were reported across 10 of the 27 EU countries, although none
of them were major, mass-casualty incidents. About half were foiled or failed,
but six people were killed. A total of 486 people suspected of terror links
were arrested in 21 member countries, according to the EU police agency
Europol.
Jihadist groups — often
guided or inspired by networks outside Europe — were behind 24 of the attacks
and accounted for more than 70% of the arrests.
Of all those taken into
custody, around one third were aged under 18, mostly boys.
Europol does not keep
statistics on nihilistic violent extremism because definitions of it differ and
acts can fall into the category of ordinary criminality as well as terrorism.
But in Finland in 2025, a
16-year-old boy stabbed three female student colleagues. He allegedly shared a
“manifesto” in WhatsApp groups, recorded the attack on Snapchat, and asked on
social media for someone to save and give him the video after his release.
“It’s
very much a fascination with violence. It’s violence as a means of asserting
oneself, as a means of gaining status in those online communities,” Wegter told AP. “There’s not a direct link with ideology.”
In Italy last year, a
15-year-old boy planned a murder to gain notoriety online, authorities there
said. He kept images and videos of assaults, murders, school shootings and
child pornography on his smartphone.
Wegter
said these kinds of incidents, which have been on the rise for two to three
years, are not
isolated but organized by online networks that are “often
driven by young people, for young people often involving young boys.”
He said that they “lead to
offline violence. We’ve seen stabbings, a young individual stabbing an elderly
person for no reason whatsoever.”
Such attacks are tough to
prevent or track. They often involve “young individuals who will not have a
criminal record, usually, who don’t leave any footprints other than online
perhaps, but then it’s often behind encrypted walls and communities,” Wegter said.
High on the list of groups
authorities’ radar is 764, which was founded by an American high school
dropout, Bradley Cadenhead. He’s serving an 80-year prison sentence for child
pornography and sex offenses, but the group still functions.
In Germany last year, a
20-year-old man believed to be a leading
764 member faced 123 charges over acts of “an unimaginable
level of brutality and inhumanity,” including murder, rape and the sexual abuse
of children, the EU document said.
Unlike 25 years ago — when
extremists, mostly from Saudi Arabia, entered the United States and trained to
become deadly pilots — the terror threat facing Europe today is mostly
organized online.
“The online environment, for
all the good things it brings, it is still too permissive,” Wegter
said. He described it as “a petri dish for the connection between different
threats.”
Privacy advocates insist that
people have a fundamental right to communicate without unjustified intrusion.
They accuse the authorities and some companies of undermining protections
through spyware and other methods.
But Wegter
said that “our law enforcement must be equipped with the instruments and tools
to deal with the threat as it exists today.” He noted that 85% of
investigations take place in the digital environment. “It means that we have to
adjust ourselves to that.”
For the Dutch diplomat
himself, it means talking more to authorities and organizations in other
countries, notably those that such groups use as a
rear base. “Because what happens outside our borders impacts on our
security,” including what’s being amplified online, he said.
Europol said criminals are
exploiting images and audio to create and edit propaganda, including through
deepfakes, memes and GIFs. AI-powered bots were also used to boost recruitment
and promote terrorist ideologies, while AI-driven app were
used for research to prepare attacks.
“The kind of violent content,
violence inciting content, propaganda, manuals, tactics, everything that is
available, is very much amplified by AI,” Wegter
said.
ATTACHMENT FORTY – FROM ABC (AUSTRALIAN BROADCASTING
CORPORATION)
THE LEGACY OF 9/11
After 25 years, the legacy of
the September 11 terror attacks continues to shape America’s politics and its
place in the world.
By Nick
Bryant for ABC's Long Read
A quarter-century on, what
lingers in the mind from that world-upending day?
September 11, 2001. Or 9/11,
as it quickly came to be labelled, a term previously known as the primary
emergency number in North America but now forever associated with an Islamist
terrorist attack that killed 2,977 people from more than 100 countries, not
including the 19 hijackers.
Perhaps, initially, it was
sheer confusion, as news channels interrupted regular programming to switch to
images from Lower Manhattan. The North Tower of the World Trade Center was
aflame. A billowing plume of charcoal grey smoke darkened what had been on that
autumn morning almost cloudless blue skies.
Maybe it was the shock of
seeing the second plane spearing into the South Tower, when it instantly became
clear that terrorism, not pilot or mechanical error, was to blame.
Some will recall president
George W Bush reading a book, The Pet Goat, to a group of schoolchildren in
Sarasota, Florida, and the sight of his ashen-faced White House chief of staff,
Andrew Card, whispering in his ear.
“A
second plane hit the second tower,” Card said. “America is under attack.”
Not just America, but our
world had changed with manic suddenness. The first plane hit the north face of
the North Tower at 8:46am. The second plane crashed into the south face of the
South Tower at 9:03am. Little more than 30 minutes later at 9:37am Washington
DC was also under assault. American Airlines Flight 77 slammed into the
Pentagon, like New York’s Twin Towers, a symbol of US hegemony.
Shortly after 10am, a plane
crashed in a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Passengers aboard United
Airlines Flight 93, we found out later, had fought back against the al-Qaeda
terrorists who had hijacked the plane with the intention of flying it into a
government building in Washington DC, probably the United States Capitol
building or the White House.
All these years on, it is traumatising to recall the towers collapsing in on
themselves, those sturdy, seemingly indomitable skyscrapers disintegrating into
columns of plunging ash. By 10:30am, the World Trade Center had ceased to
exist.
So, too, the complacency of
the post-Cold War world when America seemed so unassailable.
From a day of such momentous
history, it is the smaller, personal details that evoke powerful memories. The
recordings of workers trapped inside the burning towers telephoning loved ones,
knowing they were uttering final farewells. The snapshots of people trapped on
the upper floors of the Twin Towers, leaping through shattered windows to
certain death. The “Missing” posters affixed to lampposts across Manhattan, a
story behind each face.
Coming at the dawning of a
new millennium, September 11 was the first major global event of the globalised age. Coming in the early years of our new online
world, where the information flow was instantaneous, 9/11 became more of a
shared, intimate and immediate experience. How did it change America and the
watching world? What is its meaning in September 2026?
‘GOD
BLESS AMERICA’
In the immediate aftermath of
the attacks the United States of America was genuinely united. A nation already
showing signs of its present-day polarity demonstrated shoulder-to-shoulder
solidarity. Only the previous year, a disputed presidential election ultimately
decided by a Supreme Court voting along ideological lines, had shown America to
be a 50/50 nation. After the US television networks decided in 2000 to adopt
the same colour scheme for their election night
graphics, it became more common to split the country into Republican red and
Democratic blue.
In the hours, days and weeks
after 9/11, though, Americans came together at vigils, in long queues that
formed outside blood donation centres and in singing
of the national anthem ahead of baseball and gridiron matches.
That evening, about 150
Republican and Democrat members of Congress gathered on the East Steps of the
US Capitol building, where they broke spontaneously into a rendition of God
Bless America.
A few weeks later, a poll
conducted in early October indicated 79 per cent of Americans had displayed the
Stars and Stripes, a burst of red, white and blue patriotism. Journalists from
many of the US networks affixed flag pins to their
lapels. As a young Washington correspondent at the time of the 9/11 attacks, I
saw all of this with my own eyes.
UNITED
IN WAR
Since the end of the Cold
War, America had lacked a common enemy. As the Russian intellectual Georgy Arbatov warned US diplomats as tensions abated between
Moscow and Washington: “We are going to do a terrible thing to you. We are
going to deprive you of an enemy.”
Now, in Osama Bin Laden — the
mastermind of 9/11 — and the al-Qaeda terror network he founded, America once
again had a shared demon and as a result, a renewed sense of patriotic
bipartisanship.
George W Bush, a Republican
president who had reached the White House
in such contested circumstances, saw his approval ratings soar to 90
per cent. After addressing a joint session of Congress on September 20 — a
speech in which he announced the start of a “war on terror”
— Bush was hugged by then-Senate Democratic leader, Tom Daschle, a gesture that
signalled a partisan ceasefire.
Another poll, from the
Washington Post and ABC News, found 93 per cent backed military action
against those responsible for
the 9/11 attacks. If that meant going to war then more than nine out
of 10 Americans agreed. There was strong public support and near-unanimous
bipartisan backing for the first stage of the Bush administration’s war on
terror. Operation Enduring
Freedom commenced in Afghanistan on October 7.
Less than two months later,
with the Afghan capital Kabul already having fallen, the Taliban surrendered
Kandahar, their final major stronghold. Osama Bin Laden was thought to be
trapped in the Tora Bora cave complex close to the Pakistan border. US forces,
however, made the mistake of entrusting his capture, or killing, to an Afghan
militia. The al-Qaeda leader escaped on horseback with the help of local tribal
networks and the former mujahedin he fought beside during the Soviet occupation
of Afghanistan the 1980s.
The ongoing hunt for Bin
Laden — along with the need to prevent Afghanistan from becoming once again a
safe haven for terrorists — turned Operation Enduring Freedom into a “forever
war”. Only in 2021, five years ago last month, did that war finally come to an
end, as US forces withdrew and the Taliban swept back into power.
National unity had shown
early signs of fraying in January 2002, when the first group of detainees from
the Afghan war were flown to the US base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. As these
“unlawful enemy combatants” were brought off a US military cargo plane, many
Americans were shocked to see them wearing fluorescent orange jumpsuits and
turquoise blue face masks. The images looked dystopian.
Before a proper prison could
be built, they were held in chain-link enclosures at a makeshift detention centre, Camp X-Ray, where the US flag on the wooden
watchtower became a symbol of America’s new war.
“Gitmo”,
as Guantanamo Bay was nicknamed, was described by one government official as
“the legal equivalent of outer space”. That is precisely why it was chosen.
Detainees had only limited protections under US law. Over time this Cuban
outpost would be seen by critics, domestic and international, as an American
gulag. The US Supreme Court, in a 2006 ruling, determined that the military
commissions set up to try detainees violated the Geneva Conventions.
On a visit to Guantanamo Bay,
I was told detainees were given Happy Meals from the McDonald’s on the base in
return for actionable intelligence. That, apparently, was true. But many of the
780 men and boys held there were also subjected to what were euphemistically
called “enhanced interrogation techniques” such as sleep deprivation, sexual
humiliation and waterboarding, the simulation of drowning.
Waterboarding became part of
the new 9/11 vocabulary, alongside other phrases like “Ground Zero”, “weapons
of mass destruction” and “the Axis of Evil”, George W Bush’s controversial
descriptor lumping together Iraq, Iran and North Korea.
Back in America, the passage
of the Patriot USA Act, just 45 days after 9/11, sparked debate over how to
balance national security with constitutional protections, and whether the
legislative process had been rushed. Sweeping surveillance powers, which
included the tapping of domestic and international phones, and greatly expanded
detention powers, infringed civil liberties.
More controversial still was
the decision of the Bush administration to target the Iraqi president Saddam Hussein.
The move was first discussed by the US president’s inner circle over the
weekend after 9/11, despite no evidence linking Hussein to the attacks.
The war in Iraq began in
March 2003 with the “shock and awe” bombardment of Baghdad. Ahead of the attacks
the Bush administration justified military action using what turned out to be
false and misleading claims about Iraq’s supposed arsenal of weapons of mass of
destruction.
The case for war, made most
famously at the horseshoe table of the United Nations Security Council in New
York by then-US secretary of state Colin Powell, failed to convince much of the
country. Whereas three-quarters of Americans backed military action in
Afghanistan, only half supported Operation Iraqi Freedom, the invasion of Iraq.
UNRAVELLING
The Pentagon expected the war
to be over quickly.
“Five
days or five weeks or five months,” predicted then-defence
secretary Donald Rumsfeld, “but it certainly isn’t going to last any longer
than that.”
Instead, it lasted eight
years, nine months and 26 days, from March 2003 to December 2011. The war
claimed the lives of at least 110,000 Iraqis and more than 4,000 Americans. A
further 31,952 Americans were wounded in action. As well as the human cost of
the war, there was a financial price tag, estimated to be between $US1.5
trillion ($2 trillion) and $US3 trillion ($4.2 trillion).
Diplomatically, the
collateral damage was immense. The attacks of 9/11 had presented the United
States with an opportunity to reaffirm its global leadership of the post-Cold
War world. George W Bush became the recipient of enormous global goodwill.
“Nous sommes tous Americains,” said a headline published by the French newspaper
Le Monde, two days after the attacks: “We are all Americans.”
NATO allies, for the first
time, triggered the Article 5 collective defence
clause, meaning that an armed attack against one member is an attack against
all.
In the lead-up to the Iraq
war, however, the Bush administration squandered the unity of the West. It
rejected multilateralism in favour of unilateralism
and derided longtime allies, most notably the French who opposed the Iraq war.
On Air Force One, French fries were banished from the menu, and replaced by
“Freedom Fries”.
The overthrow of thuggish
Saddam Hussein and the collapse of his Ba’athist regime led to chaos throughout
Iraq, and sparked a sectarian civil war in which Shiite Muslim, Sunni Muslim
and Kurdish separatists struggled for control and fought for self-governance.
The eventual withdrawal of US forces in 2011 created a security vacuum in which
jihadist groups prospered. The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS as it
was better known, started as an affiliate of al-Qaeda. In 2013 it went out on
its own.
By 2014, capitalising
on the weakness of the Iraqi state and the civil war being waged in Syria, ISIS
succeeded in setting up a caliphate in the east of Iraq, which included Mosul,
Iraq’s second-largest city.
ISIS inspired the Paris
terrorist attacks in 2015, in which 130 people were killed, a bombing in the
heart of Istanbul, the Brussels bombing in 2016, which killed 32, the Nice truck attack that killed 86.
In Sydney, in December 2014,
the Lindt cafe siege was carried out by a gunman who
told hostages he was an operative of Islamic State.
CHINA’S
RISE
The aftermath of September 11
resulted in power shifts that are still being felt today. Iran benefited
enormously from the war in Iraq, because it led to the ouster of its chief
enemy, Saddam Hussein, who was also the architect and wartime commander of the
Iran-Iraq war that raged throughout the 1980s.
The Iraqi dictator had
protected the Sunni elite. The new government in Iraq was Shia-dominated and more
favourably disposed towards Tehran. Now the most
powerful Muslim country in the Middle East, Iran looked to expand its proxy
network in Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen, Syria and Gaza. Thereafter, containing Iran,
and preventing it from becoming a nuclear-armed power, became a key foreign
policy objective of successive US presidents, from Barack Obama through to
Donald Trump. Much of the opposition domestically to Donald Trump’s Iran war
stems from memories of the Iraq war, and the fear of another lengthy foreign
entanglement.
As the United States got
bogged down in two lengthy wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, China became a more
assertive power in the Indo-Pacific. Beijing simultaneously expanded its sphere
of influence in Africa, South America, Central and South Asia and Europe.
The 20th century had been the
American century. By 2008, when Beijing hosted the summer Olympics, it looked
like the 21st century could become the Chinese century. No longer did we live
in a unipolar world, where American pre-eminence was a given.
THE
IMPACT ON US POLITICS
By the end of his presidency,
George W Bush was frequently compared with Roman emperors and accused of being the
author of America’s imperial decline. The failure to find weapons of mass
destruction in Iraq blasted American credibility.
Images from Abu Ghraib, a
prison complex inside Iraq, showing US military personnel subjecting Iraqi
detainees to physical, psychological, and sexual abuse made a mockery of
America’s claim to moral leadership. So, too, CIA “black sites” situated in
friendly nations and rendition programs that human rights groups complained
violated the UN Convention Against Torture.
After Afghanistan and Iraq,
the United States became more wary of projecting its military power. Obama’s
strategy during the 2011 Libyan war, as a senior advisor explained to New
Yorker magazine, was “leading from behind”, with France and the United Kingdom
taking the military lead.
In 2013, Obama decided
against launching an attack on Syria, even though its then dictator Bashar
al-Assad had crossed the US president’s “red line” by murdering his own people
with chemical weapons. Perhaps sensing Obama’s disinclination towards US
military interventionism, Vladimir Putin’s Russia heightened its involvement in
the Syria war. Critics of Obama also argue Putin was emboldened to invade
Crimea in 2014, the true start of the Ukraine war. Obama, it should be noted,
was proud of not attacking Assad, because afterwards he claimed 99 per cent of
Syria’s huge chemical weapons stockpile was removed through diplomatic
negotiations without America having to fire a shot.
During his first term as
president Donald Trump did not start any major new conventional wars.
Understandably, Americans became more squeamish about sending their troops
abroad and Washington became more isolationist as a result.
For years afterward, 9/11
continued to impact American politics.
In the 2002 congressional
mid-terms, the Bush administration turned the battle for control of the House
of Representatives and Senate into a “khaki election” dominated by national
security. In doing so George W Bush became only the second president since
World War II to see mid-term gains for his own party.
Four days before the 2004
presidential election, a 15-minute video released by Osama Bin Laden mocked
Bush for continuing to read The Pet Goat. It helped to produce a late surge in favour of the president, which supported his defeat of the
Democrat contender, Senator John Kerry.
In 2008, Obama profited from
his opposition to the unpopular war in Iraq, partly because it offered a clear
point of differentiation from his rival for the Democratic presidential
nomination, Senator Hillary Clinton, who voted in favour
of the war.
FROM
9/11 TO J6
September 11 affected the
American psyche. On the first anniversary of 9/11, more than half of adults
said they felt more afraid, distrustful and vulnerable as a result of the
attacks. Shattered in an instant was the longhand American belief that two
great oceans, the Atlantic and Pacific, protected its mainland from attack.
Understandably, city dwellers were most anxious, especially those living in New
York and Washington DC.
What is striking about the
polling from that time, however, is how comparatively few Americans thought
their lives had been significantly impacted.
“A
quarter of people who lived in large cities nationwide said their lives had
changed in a major way,” the Pew Research Center has since reported, “twice the
rate found in small towns and rural areas.”
In their day-to-day lives,
Americans were forced to put up with new inconveniences such as stricter
screening at airports and a ban on carrying pocket knives and box cutters onto
planes. Bank accounts, emails and phone calls could be more easily surveilled
by government agencies. For the most part, however, Americans were not asked to
make many sacrifices.
Rather than raising taxes to
pay for the war, the Bush administration pushed through a series of tax cuts.
Conscription was never seriously considered by either the Bush administration
or lawmakers on Capitol Hill.
Less than one half of 1 per
cent of Americans experienced active military duty in the decades after the
attacks. At the height of the Cold War, John F Kennedy had famously asked
during his 1961 inaugural address: “Ask not what your country can do for you —
ask what you can do for your country.” Yet throughout his “war on terror”,
George W Bush never made that kind of appeal to his compatriots.
Despite dire predictions
after September 11 that mass casualty terror strikes, possibly involving
weapons of mass destruction, could become the new American normal, there has
not been an attack in any way comparable. There have been intermittent Jihadist
terror strikes, notably the 2009 Fort Hood shooting, the 2013 Boston Marathon
bombing, the 2015 San Bernardino shooting, the 2016 Orlando nightclub massacre,
and the 2019 Pensacola Naval Air Station shooting, which was the only attack
with a direct link to al-Qaeda.
In 2020, the Department of
Homeland Security warned the “most persistent and lethal threat in the
homeland” came from white supremacist groups.
Far-right, anti-government,
white supremacist and other homegrown extremist groups have carried out more
domestic terror attacks on US soil since 9/11 than have Islamist Jihadists.
Tellingly, the only other
event described by the shorthand of its time stamp is January 6, 2021, or “J6”,
as Donald Trump often reverentially calls the storming of the US Capitol
building and the attempt to overturn Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020
presidential election.
WAS
THE AMERICAN DREAM DEAD?
From the distance of a
quarter century, how epic does 9/11 seem now?
Certainly, the imagery from
that day has a visual power. To watch the footage again is to be shocked anew.
All these years on, I look on the attacks of 9/11 as the event that cleaved my
career in two. It is a sentiment shared by most journalists of my vintage. Yet
was it really the turning point it felt like at the time?
Given the extent to which
China is now rivalling the United States for dominance, one could plausibly argue
that 9/11 was not even the most significant geopolitical event of the second
half of 2001.
That, arguably, happened on
December 11, 2001, with the admission of China into the World Trade
Organization, a move that supercharged the country’s economy and created a
trading imbalance with the United States that fuelled
the rise of Donald Trump. Prior to joining the WTO, China had a 4.8 per cent
share of global manufacturing. By 2014, the year before Donald Trump came down
that golden escalator, it was 18.3 per cent.
Likewise, the collapse of the
investment bank Lehman Brothers on September 15, 2008 proved more consequential
for a greater number of Americans than the destruction of the Twin Towers. The
financial crash and Great Recession that followed created a crisis of economic
confidence that made the American Dream feel more like a chimera.
Millions of parents, whether
in the countryside or the cities, no longer believed their children would lead
more abundant lives than they did. Trump declared in 2016 that the American
Dream was dead; it resonated especially loudly in the hollowed-out
post-industrial communities of the Rust Belt, home to the muscly blue-collar
states where his presidency was won.
That said, it is always worth
remembering how the mammoth cost of the 9/11 wars contributed to the financial
crash. Because of the sharp fall in Iraqi production, the price of oil soared
from $25 a barrel at the start of the conflict to $140 a barrel in 2008.
A financial chain reaction
was ignited. With oil prices soaring, the Federal Reserve cut interest rates to
guard against an “oil shock” recession. Awash with cheap money, the housing
bubble became dangerously over-inflated, a cause of the sub-prime crisis that
contributed to the Great Recession.
THE
RIPPLE EFFECT
Pre-9/11,
immigration was primarily an economic issue, with policy geared towards
supplying American businesses with an ample stream of cheap labour.
In the very week before September 11, the Bush administration had been
negotiating the liberalisation of immigration
controls with the Mexican government led by president Vincente Fox. It would
have set up a temporary worker visa program.
After
9/11 immigration became a national security issue. It remains so to this day.
Nativism and Islamophobia became more commonplace and less welcoming for new
arrivals. America became more inclined to countenance Trump as president, a
nativist firebrand who called during the 2016 campaign for a ban on immigrants
from mainly Islamic countries. Fed up with the 9/11 forever wars, the country
warmed to a candidate promising to put “America First”.
The United States began this
century in a confident mood. As it ushered in the new millennium, I was on the
National Mall where fireworks illuminated the Washington Monument and made that
towering obelisk look like a giant number one. Then-president Bill Clinton had
boasted of building a bridge to the 21st century.
Just 21 months later,
however, America had become a different land: fretful rather than optimistic
about the future.
ATTACHMENT FORTY ONE – FROM FOX
TWENTY-FIVE YEARS LATER, HOLLYWOOD
IS GIVING 9/11 THE SILENT TREATMENT, AND IT’S MAKING US LESS SAFE
An
historian argues that the absence of serious 9/11 films created a cultural
vacuum filled by conspiracy theorists
By Asaf Romirowsky Fox News
Published September 8, 2026 7:00am EDT
I
am a historian, but you don’t need a PhD to realize that Americans and Brits learn most of what we know about the world from
the movies.
When
most people think about World War II, for example, we think about the first few
minutes of Stephen Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan, or this summer, we are
discovering the critical role of the chief Allied meteorologist, Captain James
Stagg, through the new film, Pressure. We learned all about Vietnam from
Apocalypse Now, Full Metal Jacket and Platoon. And Glory did more to make the
Civil War feel accessible and immediate than even the best histories on that
seminal conflict.
Which
is why it’s not only dispiriting but, frankly, deeply concerning that even now,
a quarter of a century later, we’ve had so few movies about the attacks of
September 11, 2001.
9/11 IS BECOMING HISTORY. MY GENERATION MUST MAKE SURE AMERICA NEVER
FORGETS
Why?
It’s a fascinating question,
one that’s likely to keep future historians busy.
You can blame
it on progressive sensibilities, a DEI mindset, and not
wanting to risk being accused of Islamophobia by producing movies that make
Muslims look like the bad guys.
DEAN CAIN SAYS HOLLYWOOD'S WOKE ERA IS ENDING: 'WE'LL LOOK BACK AND SAY
THAT WAS STUPID'
Olga
Colon, 65, blows a kiss as she finds the name of her brother, Carlos Rey Lillo,
a paramedic killed when the South Tower collapsed, at the south reflecting pool
during the annual 9/11 Commemoration Ceremony at the National 9/11 Memorial and
Museum on Sept. 11, 2025, in New York City. Government officials joined family,
friends and first responders at Ground Zero on the 24th anniversary of the
Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks at the World Trade Center.
You can blame it on post-modernism, which
favors irony and metaphor over direct engagement with difficult topics. When
asked why he’d never made a movie about 9/11, for example, Spielberg replied
that he had: 2005’s War of the Worlds, which features many scenes of urban
devastation, but which does very little to help us think seriously about one of
the most challenging moments in American history.
You
can blame it on the way movies are financed these days, with money coming in
from investors all over the world, including from countries that aren’t really
interested in heralding the values of the West.
But
whatever the reason, the bottom line remains the same: By failing to make
movies that grapple with the reasons for and the responses to 9/11, Hollywood
has made America and its allies weaker, more vulnerable and less safe.
How
so? Let us count the ways.
First,
look at the rates of enlistment to the U.S. armed forces. In 1986, for
example, Navy recruiters saw a whopping 500% spike in young people eager to
enlist — they had all watched Top Gun and left the theater thinking that naval
service was not just worthy but desirable. Enlistment numbers remained solid
throughout the 1990s and immediately after 9/11, but the early 2000s showed a
drastic decline with the recruiting crisis reaching its peak in 2022-23.
Hollywood’s
failures, however, run even deeper.
No
serious person, patriotic as they may be, could argue that Hollywood has any
obligation to reflect this ideology or that. But most serious people should
argue that filmmakers are artists, and as such are at their finest when they
grapple with the most pressing eras of their time. We consider Casablancaa classic, for example, in large part because it
was filmed and released in the middle of World War II, giving us unforgettable
characters that resonated with us precisely because they were forced to ask
themselves who we were fighting and why.
And
when artists stop asking these questions seriously, moral confusion ensues.
AS AMERICAN PRIDE HITS A 25-YEAR LOW, A NEW 9/11 EDUCATION PLATFORM URGES
THE NATION TO NEVER FORGET
When Hollywood went silent
and stopped making thoughtful movies about our wars, it created a huge cultural
vacuum. And because nature abhors a vacuum — life, as a famous Hollywood movie
once put it, always finds a way — that vacuum was filled by conspiracy theories. Crackpots like Alex Jones
and Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson can only thrive because people need
stories to help them make sense of the world, and if serious filmmakers won’t
tell them, then the lunatics sure will.
If
that wasn’t bad enough, the same filmmakers who had so shamefully failed to
wrestle with our recent history added insult to injury by showing up en masse, in the aftermath of Oct. 7, 2023, to advocate not
for America and its challenges but for Gaza, currently governed by a terror
group that shares an ideology with the Jihadis who attacked us 25 years ago
this month.
This
is all very depressing. But if you’ve watched even a handful of good,
old-fashioned Hollywood movies, you know that a setback in act II almost always
becomes an opportunity in act III. The same technology that gave us AI slop can also be used to tell more ambitious stories
more cheaply.
All
we need now is a hero, some enterprising young director who could look back to
that grim day in September and deliver an informative and inspiring film. And
if Hollywood had taught us anything, it’s that heroes
are never in short supply in America.
ATTACHMENT FORTY TWO – FROM CFR 57 AND VARIOUS
(TAKEAWAYS)
UNIFY, DIVERSIFY, DEFINE: LESSONS FROM THE WAR IN
AFGHANISTAN
Y LI HONGMEI Research
Fellow, Shanghai Institutes for International Studies (China)
Twenty-five years ago,
the United States was the victim of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and responded by
launching a protracted twenty-year antiterrorism crusade in Afghanistan. That
expensive war cost many lives, did not eradicate the Taliban or al-Qaeda, and
should be viewed as a strategic and tactical failure. The current wars in the
Middle East, including U.S.-Israeli military strikes against Iran, echo
these previous actions and could weaken regional governance and breed
new anti-American and anti-Israeli hatred—a catalyst to new extremism
and terrorism.
The long and costly
Afghanistan War offered profound lessons for the world in the fight against
terrorism. The first lesson is that, as terrorism is transnational and can
spill over any border, countering terrorism requires collective action.
Multilateral cooperation is necessary, and the United Nations should play the
leading role.
Second, military
tools alone cannot effectively eradicate the violent extremism that often fuels
extreme nationalist sentiment. States should use economic, cultural, political,
and diplomatic means together. For example, China advances security through
domestic development as part of its antiterrorism practice. This
practice has yielded positive results, with China having no terrorist attacks
for several consecutive years. World leaders cannot end terrorism without
addressing development imbalances, social inequality, and weak
governance.
Third, a well-defined,
limited strategic objective is key to successfully combating terrorism. In
the Afghanistan War, the United States changed its goals from antiterrorism to
reshaping the Afghan political regime; this loss of focus prolonged the
war.
Last, there are
no good terrorists or bad terrorists—all terrorists are the common enemy of
humanity and threats to peace. As a result, pursuing double standards in
counterterrorism or using terrorism as a tool of geopolitical competition is
dangerous. Global terrorism is rising again, and in some regions, especially
South Asia, the security situation is deteriorating. At the same time, global
governance institutions have become dysfunctional and fragmented due to the
Trump administration’s aversion to burden sharing or engaging in global
counterterrorism cooperation.
In this new era of
counterterrorism, states should take stock of these lessons and seek to bolster
the international cooperative order, curb the unilateralism and power politics
that bring instability, clearly define terrorism, tackle the societal and
ideological drivers of extremism through development, and be wary of using
force in a way that breeds new resentment and extremist ideology.
Global powers should shoulder that burden and provide that security
for this increasingly interconnected world.
JUAN BATTALEME Board Member, Argentine Council for
International Relations (Argentina)
Fighting Violent
Extremism in Latin America: Operational Progress and Strategic
Self-Deception
In Latin America,
violent extremism manifests more subtly than what Europe and the United States
have historically confronted. The primary threat is not ideological in nature;
it stems from organized crime networks engaged in drug, human, and other
material trafficking. What the region inherited from 9/11 was not the
threat itself but the framework used to read it. The George
W. Bush administration folded counternarcotics into the counterterrorism
architecture extending to drug-financed armed groups authorities and resources
originally designed for a different adversary. That conceptual fusion still
shapes how the threat is defined today.
These networks
are arguably among the most profitable criminal enterprises in the
world. Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Haiti, and Mexico are the most severely
affected countries, and the violence these organizations generate is
instrumental: it serves to protect and advance business interests, not to
propagate religious or political doctrine.
The central lesson
that Latin American governments have learned is to accept realistic
limitations. Despite sustained policy efforts and police and military
operations, Latin American countries have not been able to permanently
dismantle the operational capacity of those organizations. The most they have
been able to achieve is to disrupt or temporarily degrade their abilities, as
criminal networks have proven remarkably resilient and have rapidly
reconstituted. This result is not a failure of will—it reflects the structural
depth of organized crime in the region.
What has improved
significantly is our response architecture. Regional cooperation now allows
Latin America to identify and close the blind spots that criminal
organizations exploit as they move across borders. Interagency policy
coordination, both within countries and between them, is considerably
more fluid than it was twenty-five years ago. This has enabled more
effective and timely dismantling of key operational nodes and made it
harder and more expensive for illegal groups to operate.
Latin American
governments have also grown more sophisticated in our understanding of domain
awareness. The geographical realities of Latin America’s vast jungles, remote
coastlines, and soft borders create plenty of challenges
to establish control. Acknowledging that difficulty has led to a more
honest assessment of what is operationally feasible.
The United States has
been a meaningful partner in this process. The 2025 U.S. National Security
Strategy elevated the Western Hemisphere as a priority, opening pathways to a
clearer understanding of operational conditions and constraints in the region.
The Shield of the Americas initiative
and the U.S. Southern Command cooperation integrate officers from most
Latin American countries and enable cooperation between surveillance and
intelligence systems with U.S. networks, improving collective capacity to
respond to asymmetric threats. Complementary frameworks developed around U.S.
Department of Homeland Security priorities
have provided both technology transfer and institutional guidance and
have established a more coherent and sustainable containment
posture against several forms of violent extremism.
However, the mistake
we continue to make is a conceptual one: framing organized crime as a threat
that we can defeat. But it cannot be defeated in any conventional sense,
because these organizations do not exist in a vacuum.
Organized crime
networks exist because different kinds of illicit markets and demands
exist. If societies generate the conditions that make their services
attractive—whether through inequality, institutional weakness, or the simple
persistence of human vice—criminal networks will endure. Law and security
forces are a containment mechanism that hold the line, but they do
not eliminate the underlying conditions that drive organized crime.
Until we are honest about this distinction, our strategies will continue to
promise outcomes they cannot deliver.
ATTACHMENT
FORTY THREE – FROM VARIOUS in
IRAN/SAUDIS/ISRAEL
CONFRONTING TERRORISM: LESSONS FOR LIBERAL
DEMOCRACIES
By Tamir Hayman Executive
Director, Institute For National Security Studies (Israel)
Since the turn of the twenty-first
century, Western liberal democracies have suffered several shocks that exposed
the difficulties of protecting their citizens. The 9/11 terror attacks and the
rise of “global jihad” shattered the assumption that granting civil rights
guarantees loyalty to a state and proved a pivotal turning point in how
liberal democracies contend with terrorist organizations.
The response to 9/11
unfolded in two waves. The first included the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, led
by U.S. forces, alongside an overhaul of homeland security, border control, and
intelligence worldwide. The second wave followed the Arab Spring and the rise
of the self-proclaimed Islamic State, when there were expanded military
campaigns in the Middle East and mass immigration from the Middle East and
Africa to the United States and Europe. During this time, many European
countries held tolerant immigration policies—most notably Germany under then
Chancellor Angela Merkel. The political backlash in the United States and
Europe, rife with xenophobia, immigration restrictions, and rising populism, is
the aftershock of that second wave.
To build a doctrine
that defeats radical terrorism while preserving liberal democratic values, one
needs to assess what has worked and what has not.
WHAT WORKED
First, concentrating
operational efforts at the source of the threat has proven successful.
Terrorism cannot be contained through border defense alone, so the large
military campaigns fighting the Islamic State in the Middle
East, where the group was founded, were necessary.
Second, intelligence
needs to be adapted when confronting a decentralized enemy that hides among
civilian populations. Israel has led in building cyber-based intelligence
capabilities, encouraging cooperation between states, and including the private
sector to strengthen global counterterrorism efforts.
Third, rapid biometric
identification has revolutionized control over the movement of people, curbing
identity theft and impersonation, and improving screening at borders and
sensitive sites.
WHAT HAS NOT
WORKED
First, Western
strategic planners continue to disregard ideology as a core driver of terrorist
threats. Israel’s failure to prevent the October 7, 2023, Hamas
attack stemmed partly from treating Gaza as a rational, state-like actor rather
than confronting Hamas’s genocidal ideology. The group’s aims were
repeatedly stated, yet dismissed as populist rhetoric. Western
strategic thinking tends to discount theological and ideological factors—a
blind spot that should be corrected in future threat assessments.
Second, military
victories are not followed by stable political arrangements. Both the United
States and Israel won tactically while losing strategically: Afghanistan and
Iraq were “won” only to fall to the Islamic State and the Taliban; in Gaza,
Israel has militarily defeated Hamas without a political process that could
produce lasting peace. Unlike conventional wars, counterterrorism campaigns end
with negotiations between the victorious state and a separate, often weak,
governing authority responsible for the territory and not the terrorist group
itself. Victory over terrorist organizations should therefore be paired with
establishing or rehabilitating a credible political address for “the day
after,” which is needed in Gaza, Lebanon, and Syria.
Third, liberal
democracies tend to ignore internal threats, fearing that confronting them will
erode civil liberties. But neglecting this legal
front—whether regarding terrorism or the erosion of truth through
social media and disinformation driven by artificial
intelligence (AI)—risks greater harm, including vigilantism, unlawful
security-force conduct, or institutional paralysis.
CONCLUSION
Defeating terrorism
while preserving democratic values requires treating ideology as central to
strategic assessment, pairing military action with credible political
follow-through, and updating legal frameworks to meet evolving threats.
Ignoring those lessons strengthens authoritarian rivals and fuels the rise of
radical populism that threatens democracies from within
GUSTAVO DE
CARVALHO Programme
Head (Acting), South African Institute of International Affairs (South Africa)
The Cost of a
Terrorism Designation in Africa
In 2013, al-Shabaab
killed sixty-seven people at Nairobi’s Westgate Mall. It was a terrorist attack
by any definition. Kenya’s response to the attacks that followed in 2014
was Operation Usalama Watch, during which four thousand people were swept out
of Eastleigh, the city’s Somali commercial district, and detained inside a
stadium for screening—some for several weeks. Few were ever charged. That
incident shows the cost of calling something terrorism: the word imbues
authorities with extraordinary powers, but the infrastructure of
counterterrorism rarely says when those powers should stop.
Africa’s experience
with terrorism predates September 11, 2001. Al-Qaeda’s 1998 bombings of the
U.S. embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam killed more than two hundred
people; almost all the victims were Kenyan and Tanzanian nationals.
What 9/11 changed was the machinery of combating terrorism, not the threat. UN
Security Council Resolution 1373, passed in 2001, made counterterrorism
measures binding and dictated new laws to pass, lists to keep, and rules
criminalizing aid or money moved to territories held by listed terrorist groups.
Twenty-five years on,
the Sahel accounts for more than half of all terrorism
deaths worldwide, compared with under 1 percent in 2007. The
designation of terrorist groups is not wrong: the region’s al-Qaeda and Islamic
State affiliates are powerful organizations with real reach. The challenge is
that applying the designation has also become the surest route to resources and
attention, encouraging governments to use it generously.
The designation is
broadened in two directions: by outside powers, and by African
governments.
At a global level, the
word “terrorism” outlasts the money; two decades of counterterrorism
interventions and $3.3 billion of U.S. security
assistance did not contain the Sahel insurgencies,
and the 2026 United States National
Counterterrorism Strategy now expects partners to carry “a
greater portion of the [counterterrorism] burden.” Russia, Turkey, and the
Gulf states have filled the gap on easier terms, supplying training, equipment,
and drones without the human rights conditions attached to
Western assistance.
Within a country,
broadening the designation requires no new law. The powers created to pursue
insurgents can be easily deployed against civilians who criticize their
governments. In May 2026, Burkina Faso investigated its students’ union for
“apology for terrorism” after it questioned the state’s progress in the war
against terrorism; six journalists have been unlawfully conscripted into the army.
Similarly, Sahelian forces and their Russian partners are linked to more civilian deaths than the groups they fight.
Kenya ran Usalama Watch as part of a Western security
partnership, and Burkina Faso now runs its own version after expelling French
forces from the country. The practice of designating groups as terrorists
outlived the partnerships that introduced it, leaving the question of what, if
any, the limits are to such powers.
The African
Union’s counterterrorism plan for 2026 to 2030, adopted in July 2026,
is detailed on capability and thin on limits: it outlines a common arrest
warrant and a terrorist database, but barely discusses the protection of human
rights. The paragraph setting limits on the powers of the state that are
intertwined with counterterrorism is always the next document’s problem.
Bounding those powers need not wait for a new instrument. The African
Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights adopted Principles and Guidelines on
Human and Peoples’ Rights while Countering Terrorism in Africa in 2015,
and tying the plan’s arrest warrant and database to them would supply the
limits it omits.
ATTACHMENT FORTY FOUR –
FROM JERUSALEM
POST
DO NOT REFER TO 9/11 AS 'TERROR ATTACKS,' LEAKED CANADIAN
BROADCASTER MEMO INSTRUCTS REPORTERS
Ahead
of the 25th anniversary of 9/11, CBC journalists were reportedly told to avoid
describing the attacks as “terrorist attacks,” drawing criticism in Canada.
By
MATHILDA HELLER AUGUST 27, 2026
16:18 Updated: AUGUST 27, 2026 21:51
Ahead of the 25th anniversary
of the September 11 attacks, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) has
circulated a memo to reporters and editors instructing them not to refer to
them as “terrorist attacks.”
This was first reported on by
Canadian journalist Warren Kinsella, who received the memo. CBC then confirmed
the existence of the memo to The Jerusalem Post.
According to the screenshot
of the memo shared by Kinsella, the memo was authored by Basem
Boshra, senior director of journalistic standards and
public trust at CBC News, to reporters and editors.
In bold letters, Boshra states the attacks are not to be referred to as
terrorist attacks.
He then said that “the
hijackings led to passenger jet crashes in Washington, DC, Pennsylvania and
Manhattan. The World Trade Center was destroyed.”
CBC spokeswoman Kerry Kelly
told the Post that it is the practice of the CBC to “exercise extreme caution
before using the words terrorist and terrorism.”
“The memo was a reminder of
the longstanding practice that favors the use of these terms with attribution
in our reporting,” she said.
She also pointed the Post to
an October 2023 blog by Brodie Fenlon, CBC news editor-in-chief and general
manager, where he said “CBC News does not itself designate specific groups as
terrorists, or specific acts as terrorism, regardless of the region or the
events, because these words are so loaded with meaning, politics and emotion
that they can end up being impediments to our journalism.”
“While the language is not
seriously disputed in some cases, it’s less clear if not highly contested at
other times – which can lead to virtually endless questions about consistency
and impartiality in our coverage of various attacks around the world,” he
advised.
Fenlon said this rule applies
to the attacks against the United States in 2001, which CBC News prefers to
call “the Sept. 11 attacks,” as well as the deadly suicide bombing at an
airport in Moscow in January 2011, the London bombings in July 2005, and the
Madrid train bombings in March 2004.
Canadian MP Rachel Thomas
said the memo is “absolutely shameful.”
MEMO 'DOWNPLAYS THE ATROCITY
OF 9/11'
“The CBC is choosing to
redefine terrorism in a way that downplays the atrocity of 9/11. Refusing to
call it an act of terrorism dishonors the victims, their families, the
survivors, and the first responders who witnessed the horrors of that day. 9/11
was an act of terrorism. Full stop.”
The Canadian Broadcasting
Corporation is the public broadcaster for both radio and television. It
received over $1.5 billion in taxpayer funding in 2025-26.
ATTACHMENT
FORTY FIVE – FROM
DW.COM (GERMANY)
25 YEARS LATER: KEEPING THE MEMORY OF 9/11 ALIVE
The US marks the 25th
anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000
people. DW met one man determined to preserve the memory of that fateful day
for future generations.
By Benjamin Alvarez Gruber
Nearly 25 years after the September
11, 2001 attacks, survivors are concerned that memories of the
tragedy are fading.
Orthopaedic
surgeon Gordon Huie, who helped treat victims after
the twin towers collapsed and lost his sister Susan in the attacks, now speaks
publicly about his experience.
Suffering from cancer linked
to Ground Zero dust exposure, Huie says that younger
generations often know little about 9/11.
As the US
approaches the attacks' 25th anniversary, he hopes remembrance will focus on
the victims and survivors rather than political divisions.
ATTACHMENT FORTY SIX –
FROM DW.COM
GERMANY'S CONNECTION TO THE SEPTEMBER
11 ATTACKS
By Marcel Fürstenau 09/09/2026
September 9, 2026
The 9/11 attacks were partly
planned in Hamburg by the so-called Hamburg cell. A look back at a day that
reshaped Germany's approach to national security.
"This day has changed
the world," German President Johannes Rau said. He
had watched in shock as the burning twin towers of the World
Trade Center collapsed in New York.
Nearly 3,000 people were
killed on September 11, 2001, when Islamist terrorists hijacked four passenger
planes and turned them into deadly weapons.
ELEVEN
GERMANS AMONG THE 9/11 VICTIMS
Germany’s head of state
struggled to find the right words: "We do not know what political or
social consequences what happened today will have — what we have watched unfold
on our television screens in shock, barely able to comprehend or even reflect
on it."
It soon emerged that the
victims include people from 92 countries, among them 11 Germans.
The following day, a rapidly
spreading rumor was confirmed: Three of the four suspected hijackers
had recently lived in Hamburg. The Islamist terrorists were thought to
have been led by Egyptian-born Mohammed Atta, who had come to the northern
German city in the early 1990s to study.
MOHAMMED
ATTA AND THE HAMBURG CELL
At some point, the young man
became radicalized, particularly at Hamburg's Al-Quds Mosque, which was later closed
by German security authorities. He spent the final three years of his life in
an apartment shared with two other suspected attackers in the Harburg district.
The so-called Hamburg
terrorist cell was believed to have included six men, among them Moroccan
national Mounir al-Motassadeq. He was charged as an
accomplice in the world's first
trial related to the September 11, 2001, attacks. In 2003, the Hanseatic
Higher Regional Court sentenced him to the maximum 15-year prison term for
aiding and abetting thousands of murders and for membership in a terrorist
organization.
GERMAN-BORN
MURAT KURNAZ HELD AT GUANTANAMO
After serving his sentence,
al-Motassadeq was deported to his native Morocco.
Another suspected attacker from the circle around pilot Mohammed Atta was Ramzi
Binalshibh, who was born in Yemen and had been held without trial at the
US detention facility at Guantanamo
Bay since 2006.
The United
States detained hundreds of suspects at the prison, which human rights
groups and international bodies have described as contrary to international
law. Among them was Murat
Kurnaz, who was born in Bremen. He was released in August 2006 after
nearly five years without evidence establishing his involvement in the
terrorist attacks.
Kurnaz later recounted his
experience in a book that was adapted into a
film in 2013.
FRANK-WALTER
STEINMEIER BEFORE INVESTIGATIVE COMMITTEE
Meanwhile, investigative
committees in the German
Bundestag sought to determine why Kurnaz and other suspects had
wrongly come under the scrutiny of US and German intelligence agencies. Among
those called to testify was then-Foreign Minister and current German PresidentFrank-Walter
Steinmeier.
At the center of the inquiry
was the question of why German security authorities rejected the possible
return in 2002 of the German-born detainee, who held a
Turkish passport.
"No one doubts, and
neither do I, that Mr. Kurnaz suffered terribly in Guantanamo," Steinmeier
said. "That is why we also sought to ensure that he was treated in
accordance with the rule of law. But at the same time, please understand that
we were also obliged to ensure security in our own country."
GERHARD
SCHRÖDER VOICED 'UNCONDITIONAL SOLIDARITY'
The Kurnaz case illustrated
the pressure on German policymakers in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks
in the US. Chancellor Gerhard
Schröder addressed parliament
the following day.
"Yesterday,
September 11, 2001, will go down in history as a dark day for all of
us," the Social Democrat said.
He said he had expressed to
the American president the deeply felt condolences of the entire German people.
"I also assured him of
Germany's unconditional — I emphasize: unconditional — solidarity," Schröder said.
Germany, he added,
would offer the US any assistance they requested, "of course,
also by identifying and pursuing those responsible for and behind these despicable
attacks."
GERMANY'S
BUNDESTAG PASSES ANTI-TERROR LAWS
Schröder's
remarks set the tone and opened the door for a series of tougher laws.
Just weeks after the attacks, the governing coalition of Social Democrats and
Greens unveiled its first so-called security package, involving more funding,
more personnel as well as greater powers for police and intelligence
agencies.
Religious organizations that
had previously been granted special protection could now be banned like
other associations if their activities were directed against the Basic Law,
Germany's constitutional order based on freedom and democracy, or if they
pursued other criminal aims. Less than four months after the terrorist attacks
in the US, Germany's Anti-Terrorism Act took effect.
Intelligence agencies were
given access to personal data held by banks, airlines and telecommunications
companies. Immigration laws were tightened.
Through data-mining searches,
in which large amounts of data were cross-checked without any specific
suspicion, authorities sought to identify so-called sleeper agents — people
like Mohammed Atta from the Hamburg terrorist cell, who had not been identified
by security agencies in time.
The Federal
Constitutional Court brought an end to the legally
questionable practice. Such searches were permissible only when
there was a specific threat, the court said in a 2006 ruling. Seven years
later, Germany's highest court also ruled that parts of the country's
anti-terrorism database were unconstitutional.
GERMANY
JOINS THE WAR IN AFGHANISTAN
The Islamist terrorist
attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, also had far-reaching and lasting military
consequences. The US launched attacks on the Taliban in Afghanistan as early as
October 2001. The Taliban had refused to hand over Osama bin Laden, the head of
the al-Qaeda terrorist network
and suspected mastermind of the attacks.
Germany joined the US-led war
in December 2001. The conflict lasted 20 years and ended in August 2021 with
the Taliban's
return to power. Around 3,600 soldiers from the international forces
were killed, including 59 members of Germany's Bundeswehr. Three German police
officers also died.
The words spoken by German
President Johannes Rau on Sept. 11, 2001, in the aftermath of the Islamist
terrorist attacks in the US, still resonate today: "This day has changed
the world."
This article was originally
published in German.
ATTACHMENT FORTY SEVEN – FROM UN.ORG
‘AN ASSAULT ON HUMANITY ITSELF’:
GUTERRES PAYS TRIBUTE TO 9/11 VICTIMS, SURVIVORS AND FIRST RESPONDERS
10 September 2026
Twenty-five years
ago, the heinous terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 against the United
States claimed thousands of lives and represented “an assault on humanity
itself”, the UN chief said on Thursday.
In a statement
marking the anniversary, António Guterres paid tribute to victims,
survivors and first responders who rushed to ground zero – the World Trade
Center’s twin towers in New York – just a few miles south of UN Headquarters.
“As we mark this somber
occasion on 11 September, we remember the nearly 3,000 victims – from the
United States and more than 90 countries – and stand with their families and
loved ones,” said the UN chief.
The UN continues to stand in
solidarity with the people of New York City, the US,
and with all those whose lives were affected by the attacks, he added.
Mr. Guterres noted that 2026
also marks 20 years since Member States adopted the UN Global
Counter-Terrorism Strategy – reminding that the fight against
terrorism is a shared, unfinished task.
“As we pay tribute to the
victims, let us renew our shared commitment to build a future free from
terrorism.”
TOLL
ON HUMAN RIGHTS
Indeed, many countries made
that commitment, strengthening security measures in the wake of the deadly
attacks which upended geopolitics across the world.
But, too many nations adopted
unnecessary and disproportionate responses that have seriously undermined
rights, civil society, civic space, democracy and the rule of law, according to
a group of over 30 UN independent experts, who began their statement released
on Thursday by paying tribute to all victims of terrorism.
“‘Wars on terror’ have
stretched foundational rules of international law beyond their breaking point,”
said the UN Human Rights Council-appointed independent experts, who are
not UN staff and receive no salary for their work.
Worldwide monitoring over the
past quarter century has exposed the gravest violations of international law in
the name of countering terrorism, including wars of aggression, unlawful
occupations, “countless” war crimes and crimes against humanity as well as
plausible allegations of genocide, they said.
They also highlighted
assassinations dressed up as “targeted killings”, torture disguised as
“interrogation”, secret detention, enforced disappearances and unfair military
trials and special courts, including at the US-operated Guantanamo Bay
facilities.
To address these concerns,
the experts urged States to review their counter-terrorism laws and practices
to comply with international human rights, humanitarian and refugee law.
PEACE
BELL REMAINED SILENT
On 11 September 2001, UN
Headquarters had been set to host the Secretary-General’s annual ceremony to
ring the Peace Bell,
but as news of the severity of the attacks spread, UN staff reacted the same
way as tens of thousands of other New Yorkers heading to the office.
“I saw the smoke, but I still
went to the train station because I had to go to work,” said Victor
Evans-Harvey, who is now editor in chief of UN News.
‘NO,
YOU CAN’T GO TODAY’
“A UN security guard stopped me
and said, ‘where are you going?’” Mr. Evans-Harvey recalled. “I said, ‘I’m
going to work.’ He said, ‘No, you can’t go today.’”
On the 37th floor of the UN
Secretariat building, then Electoral Assistance Director Michelle Griffin had
seen the first World Trade Center tower catch fire before even reaching her
cubicle.
“As I was leaving for work, I
heard my neighbour screaming, ‘That’s my office!’”
she said. “I went outside and saw that huge gap in the first building.”
UNITY
AND SOLIDARITY
When the true severity of the
attacks began to emerge, UN staff began evacuating along the stairwells. There
was to be no ringing of the ceremonial bell that day – the International Day of
Peace.
“As we evacuated, we could
hear the news spreading down the stairs,” Ms. Griffin said. “I remember hearing
the Secretary-General’s Chief of Staff and the Secretary-General’s scheduler
discussing whether to proceed with the Secretary-General’s activities for the
day as planned, including ringing the Peace Bell.”
UN Spokesperson Stéphane
Dujarric also recalled “a sense of panic” in the building.
“There were credible reports
that another plane might be targeting the United Nations,” he said, adding that
decision was taken to keep then-Secretary-General Kofi Annan at his nearby
residence.
In the days following the
attacks, an unusual unity emerged within the United Nations, including the Security Council.
‘SHOCKWAVES
STILL FELT TODAY’
For Mr. Dujarric, the seismic
attacks triggered a long chain reaction, both inside and outside the UN.
“It was like an explosion,
and the shockwaves from it can still be felt today,” he said.
ATTACHMENT FORTY EIGHT – FROM ABCNEWS.COM
VIRTUAL TERRORISM: AL QAEDA VIDEO
CALLS FOR 'ELECTRONIC JIHAD'
Al Qaeda video threatens
cyber warfare on United States.
By Jack Cloherty
Al Qaeda may be turning its destructive
attention to cyber-warfare against the United States. In a chilling video, an
al Qaeda operative calls for "electronic jihad" against the United
States, and compares vulnerabilities in vital American computer networks to the
flaws in aviation security before the 9/11 attack.
The al Qaeda video calls upon
the "covert mujahidin" to launch cyber attacks
against the U.S. networks of both government and critical infrastructure,
including the electric grid. The video was obtained by the FBI last year, and
released today by the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental
Affairs.
"This is the clearest
evidence we've seen that al Qaeda and other terrorist groups want to attack the
cyber systems of our critical infrastructure," Homeland Security and
Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., said in a
statement.
"This video is troubling
as it urges al Qaeda adherents to launch a cyber attack
on America," said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, the ranking member on the
committee. "It's clear that al Qaeda is exploring all means to do us harm
and this is evidence that our critical infrastructure is a target."
The national security
community says the threat of cyber attack is real,
and the gap between terrorist aspirations and capability is closing. The senior
intelligence official at Cyber Command, Rear Adm. Samuel Cox, has said al Qaeda
operatives are seeking the capability to stage cyber attacks
against U.S. networks and terrorists could purchase the capabilities to do so
from expert criminal hackers.
Increasing evidence also
suggests that Iran is looking to commit cyber attacks
against the United States, according to testimony last month before the House
Committee on Homeland Security. Iran's sponsorship of terrorist groups takes on
a new dimension in cyberspace, where it could develop a powerful cyber weapon
and pass it on to a terrorist group.
Lieberman is using the al
Qaeda video to underline what he says is the need for new legislation..
"Congress needs to act
now to protect the American public from a possible devastating attack on our
electric grid, water delivery systems, or financial networks," he said.
"As numerous, bipartisan national security experts have said, minimum
cyber security standards for those networks are necessary to protect our
national and economic security. That is why the Senate needs to act on our
bipartisan Cyber Security Act that requires minimum security performance
requirements for key critical infrastructure cyber networks."
The Homeland Security Committee
says the Department of Homeland Security received more than 50,000 reports of
cyber intrusions or attempted intrusions since October, an increase of 10,000
reports over the same period the previous year.
ATTACHMENT
FORTY NINE – FROM NATIONAL CATHOLIC REGISTER
UNLEARNED LESSONS OF 9/11, A
QUARTER-CENTURY LATER
COMMENTARY: Sadly, the
tremendous national solidarity in the US expressed on the awful day itself and
in the weeks immediately following is virtually impossible to imagine today.
BY George Weigel September 9, 2026
Several weeks after Islamist
terrorists hijacked four planes, wreaking havoc in lower Manhattan and at the
Pentagon in the name of deranged religious convictions, I was at dinner in the
papal apartment with John Paul II and three of his closest associates.
The mood was somber, which
was unusual at that table. The Pope’s hope for a “new springtime of the human
spirit” in the wake of the bloody 20thth century, which he had proclaimed at
the United Nations in 1995, seemed to have been thwarted. And a country he had
come to love and appreciate, the United States, had been deeply wounded. So an hour’s conversation revolved around what this all
meant — a question John Paul put to me directly.
Here is what I replied, as
recounted in Lessons in Hope: My Unexpected Life with St. John Paul II:
I said I thought it was a
turning-point in world history; an example of the mystery of evil at work
through the corruption of an already defective monotheism; a possible moment of
moral sobering-up in the U.S.; and a very complex mess from a strategic and
international-political point of view. All of this, I continued, was a moral
challenge as well as a political challenge: and while the first duty of a
responsible government was the security of its citizens, President Bush’s
September 20 speech indicated that American military action against al-Qaeda
and its Taliban facilitators would be conducted according to just-war
principles and not as a matter of vendetta or revenge. It was essential for
everyone to understand that what was at stake here was not simply the security
of the United States but the very possibility of any world “order.” I also
pointed out that Osama bin Laden was a very rich man and that it didn’t help
clarify what we were all facing when it was said that terrorism was the product
of poverty — the line being taken at the U.N. by Archbishop Renato Martino, the
Holy See’s permanent representative.
How does that analysis stand
up, 25 years later?
My first suggestion seems to
have been borne out: 9/11 ushered in a new world disorder. What I did not
foresee was that the new disorder would be made even more disorderly by inept
American policy and the seeming retreat from global responsibility demanded by
a vocal segment of the American people. And the latter — the new isolationism,
exacerbated by social media and internet craziness — is going to make a serious
address to the former — the decline of strategic and moral reasoning in
American policy-making circles — even more difficult.
As for wrestling with the fact
that jihadism, a form of Islam detached from reason and determined to impose a
coercive Islamist regime on the world, was the primary cause of 9/11? Well,
that process of reflection never really got started, despite the efforts of
Pope Benedict XVI at Regensburg in 2006 to suggest a serious agenda for interreligious dialogue on the
question of Islam’s relationship to
“the rest.”
The low-comedy result of that
failure was evident recently in the Canadian Broadcasting Company’s diktat (later rescinded after comprehensive ridicule)
that its staff must not refer to 9/11 as “terrorist attacks” (to which the
indispensable Babylon Bee responded with a D-Day photo of soldiers from the U.S.
Army’s Fourth Division charging onto Utah Beach with the fake CBC headline,
“American Teens Visit France”).
The far more serious
expression of this failure is the continued refusal of most Western foreign
ministries, including the U.S. Department of State, to acknowledge that
religious conviction remains a potent force in world affairs, both for ill and
for good. One might have thought that 9/11 would have falsified, or at least
tempered, secularist biases in the analysis of world politics. That has not
happened.
As for the United States
getting sobered up by 9/11, that, too, seems to have been a false hope. The
tremendous national solidarity expressed on the awful day itself and in the
weeks immediately following is virtually impossible to imagine today, as our
public life has descended into a miasma of conspiracy theorizing, including a
virulent antisemitism that, like all such eruptions of Jew-hatred and
Jew-baiting, is always a sign of cultural decay.
Yet I cannot think about
9/11, 25 years later, without remembering something else: the passengers on United
93, who took counsel with each other and decided to risk dying as free men and
women rather than certainly dying as jihadist cannon fodder — and in doing so,
prevented the destruction of the U.S. Capitol. Their example ought to inspire
us to do better as a civil society and a political community than we are doing
at present.
George Weigel George Weigel is the distinguished senior
fellow and William E. Simon Chair in Catholic Studies at the Ethics and Public
Policy Center in Washington.