The 9/11 lessons we should have learned (but didn’t)
The 20th anniversary of 9/11 is an opportunity to assess the United States’ reactions to the attacks and draw lessons from them.
Having emerged, a decade earlier, as the sole superpower following the collapse of the Soviet Union, an overconfident and unprepared United States was attacked on its own soil on Sept. 11, 2001, by a group of resourceful terrorists.
Even though most of the terrorists
originated from a friendly country, Saudi Arabia, they acted independently. They were radicalized by Islamic fanatics, al-Qaida, an organization led by Osama bin Laden, a Saudi national based in Afghanistan. These terrorists had acquired extensive lethal and combat expertise in their fight against the Soviets in Afghanistan.
The 9/11 attacks were unusual as they were devastating:
The terrorists fearlessly targeted, with great precision, the superpower of the world — the United States.
They selected strategic and highly recognized symbols of American power as their targets — the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. These targets projected the economic, financial and military prowess of the United States and the West.
They used passenger planes full of people and fuel – not cars, buses or missiles – as their stealth weapon of choice to attack their targets.’
They inflicted the highest number ever of American civilian and military casualties in one day and on U.S. soil — more than even the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
If those terrorists wanted attention to their sick cause, they got it.
The 9/11 attacks shocked and traumatized Americans. They scarred many in a nation that viewed itself invincible from the turmoil around the world.
Many Americans began viewing others, especially Muslims and Arabs, with great suspicion.
I was impacted by the events of 9/11. Prior to the tragedy, I spent three weeks, from 7 a.m. until 5:30 p.m. daily, at the World Trade Center participating in an educational program. I left New York City back to Phoenix on Sept.10.
Since then, I have often wondered what would have happened to me had my schedule been extended another week or another day.
To this day, I cannot make myself visit the site of the twin towers, nor can I watch a movie or a documentary about the attacks.
As a result of the calamity, U.S. security measures spiked to protect Americans inside the U.S. and to confront potential foreign threats. Domestically, the United States created the Transportation Security Administration, an agency of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security established in the wake of 9/11.
Americans reacted differently following 9/11. Given that those involved in the attacks were Muslims and mostly Arabs, it came as no surprise that U.S. Muslims and Arab-Americans became the target of hate and harassment.
In the immediate aftermath, security measures for my children at their schools had to be elevated following out-loud threats from some students that they would “kill” any Arab or Muslim they see. School administrations took those threats seriously. They were proactive and responsive.
As an Arab American – even though I am not Muslim – I was investigated by the FBI and was taken aside and questioned by Homeland Security agents upon my return from every single overseas trip during the George W. Bush years (through 2008). And, finally, the IRS chimed in with a two-year politically motivated audit of my taxes.
Harassing an entire ethnic community because of the actions of a few is misguided and vindictive. What was scarier was the talk of building internment camps — like the ones that forcibly housed Japanese Americans during World War II.
On the national level, many politicians began talking about revenge against the perpetrators of the attacks and those behind them. In its haste for vengeance, the United States embarked on massive wars targeting not only Iraq and Afghanistan but activities in some 80 countries.
A recent study by The Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University estimated that the cost of the U.S. global war on terror post-9/11 stands at about $8 trillion on top of 900,000 deaths on all sides.
Since the attacks were organized and executed by al-Qaida, which is based in Afghanistan, there was no reason to send nearly 250,000 U.S. troops to invade Iraq. Yes, Saddam Hussein was a dictator, but he had nothing to do with planning the 9/11 attacks.
Iraq was Israel’s problem, yet Israeli intelligence, like virtually all other foreign intelligence bureaus, fed the U.S. intelligence community with erroneous information that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction and was ready to use them. Iraq became an enemy of zealous policymakers in the United States.
The Israeli objectives were to destroy Saddam Hussein and render Iraq powerless.
Israel got its wish at the expense of the Americans and Iraqis. Saddam Hussein was hanged. The U.S. dismantled the Iraqi army – a significant strategic error. A reorganized Iraqi army could have prevented the utter security chaos that confronted the U.S. military.
Twenty years later, with the loss of thousands of U.S. lives battling Iraqi opponents and a well-entrenched radical Islamic insurgency, ISIS, Iraq has emerged as a country in shambles. Johns Hopkins researchers estimate 650,000 Iraqis have been killed, not to mention hundreds of thousands of others wounded and millions more who were displaced or fled their homes.
Politically, Iraq is now in the clasps of Iranian influence.
Afghanistan, which housed and protected al-Qaida, the terrorist group behind the 9/11 attacks, was justifiably invaded by the United States and its allies. However, an invasion without an exit strategy is a strategic calamity.
President Joe Biden’s self-imposed deadline to leave Afghanistan at the end of August, was a catastrophe. U.S. forces withdrew only to be replaced immediately by al-Qaida forces. The U.S. left behind billions of dollars of military equipment and weaponry which will end up in Chinese, Russian or terrorist arsenals.
In short, the most important lessons that the U.S. should have learned from its post-9/11 policies are:
The U.S. is not invincible. It will continue to be vulnerable to sporadic terrorist attacks.
No invasion of another country can last indefinitely. Without an exit strategy, invading another country can be messy and costly.
Terrorist organizations – fueled by ideologies or religion – can reemerge from the ashes of defeat.
Finally, infiltration and intelligence work followed by targeted attacks are likely the most effective tools in combating terrorist threats.
Can we say with certainty that U.S. policymakers have indeed learned them? Sadly, I don’t think so.