9/11 - We will never forget

September Terrorist Strike America

The September 11 attacks, commonly called September 11,were a series of four coordinated acts of terrorism perpetrated against the United States of America on the morning of Tuesday, September 11, 2001, by al-Qaida, a militant Islamist terrorist organization, . On September 11, 2001, 19 gunmen affiliated with al-Qaeda, an Islamist extremist group, hijacked four planes and carried out suicide attacks on targets inside the United States. The attacks, a series of airline hijackings and suicide attacks carried out by 19 militants associated with al Qaeda in 2001 on targets inside the United States, were the deadliest acts of terrorism carried out on American soil in United States history. A total of 2,996 people were killed in the September 11 attacks, including the 19 hijackers who carried out the attacks aboard four planes. Of the 2,996 that died on 9/11 415 were first responders. Many of them were running up the stairs in the Twin Towers as people were running down the stairs to escape.  [Sources: 3, 7, 9]

 The Pentagon lost 184 civilians and military personnel, while the fourth hijacked airplane killed 40. The September 11 attacks killed 224 people, including 12 Americans, and injured thousands of others. Nearly 3,000 people were killed in the September 11 attacks, which set off significant American initiatives against terrorism and defined the presidency of George W. Bush. Americans watched in horror as terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, killed almost 3,000 people in New York, Washington, D.C., and Shanksville, Pennsylvania. [Sources: 4, 6, 8, 9]

 On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, 19 terrorists from the Islamic extremist group Al-Qaeda hijacked four commercial airplanes and crashed two of them into the north and south towers of New Yorks World Trade Center complex. Two of the four aircraft were flown into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City The World Trade Center in New York City, the third aircraft struck the Pentagon, outside of Washington, D.C., and the fourth aircraft crashed in a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Two airplanes, hijacked by Islamic jihadists who promised to kill all Americans. Islamic jihadists who promised to kill all Americans, ploughed into the two towers of the World Trade Center in New York City New York. On 9/11/01, plotters with the Islamic terrorist organization Al-Qaida took over planes and used them as passenger-filled rockets, hitting both twin towers at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. [Sources: 1, 4, 5, 9]

 Since the time of the first World Trade Center attacks in 1993, the leadership of the FBI and Department of Justice in Washington and New York had grown increasingly concerned about the threat posed by Islamist extremists to American interests, both domestically and overseas. By September 2001, our nations executive branch, Congress, the news media, and the American public had received a clear warning that Islamist terrorists intended to murder Americans in large numbers. In January 2002, only months after the attacks in 2001, 83% of Americans said Defending the country against future terrorist attacks is the number one priority of the President and the Congress, by far the highest percentage on any issue. In late September 2001, almost half of the public (49%) said that their greatest fear was that Barack Obamas administration would not act fast enough to target the perpetrators of the attacks; only 34% said they worried the Bush administration would move too fast. [Sources: 6, 8]

 After a war that has claimed thousands of lives -- including more than 2,000 American troops -- and trillions of dollars in military expenditures, a new Pew Research Center poll finds 69 percent of American adults say the country has largely failed to meet its goals in Afghanistan. This examination of how the United States has changed in the two decades since 9/11 draws on analysis of past public opinion polling data from the Pew Research Center, news reports, and other sources. This collection, co-curated by The New-York Historical Society and The September 11th Digital Archive, contains more than 500 videos that document personal responses to the September 11 attacks, recorded in New York, Washington, D.C., and Shanksville, Pa. Since September 11, our Nation and our allies have killed or captured the majority of the al-Qaeda leadership; overthrown the Taliban, which gave sanctuary to al-Qaeda in faraway Afghanistan; and significantly damaged al-Qaeda. [Sources: 2, 6, 8]

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed conceived of the tactical innovation of using hijacked airplanes to launch attacks on countries, al Qaeda provided the men, money, and logistical support to carry out the operations, and the al Qaeda leader, Osama bin Laden, weaved the attacks on Washington, D.C., into a larger strategic scheme of attacking a far-away foe--the United States--to effect regime change throughout the Middle East. The attacks were instigated largely by Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Ladens naive beliefs about the country leading up to the attacks. About a month after the 9/11 attacks, the U.S. led a large coalition of international forces in ousting the Taliban regime in Afghanistan for harboring Al-Qaeda. We now know that 9/11 was perpetrated by a variety of Islamist extremist groups. [Sources: 3, 6, 7]

The hijackers were Islamist terrorists from Saudi Arabia and a number of other Arab countries. The attacks on September 11 were the deadliest on American soil since the shocking bombings of Pearl Harbor sixty years earlier, and a feeling of resentment is reminiscent of that moment. The names of those killed in the attack in New York, and those killed in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, were inscribed in bronze on the pool rim. [Sources: 0, 5, 9]

What has America accomplish4ed since the 9/11 terrorist attacks? Some say “nothing.” Some say it “delayed the inevitable. My son SSG Darrell Griffin, Jr was killed by a sniper in the sands of Iraq on March 21, 2007. There have been 7,057 American and allied service members, including my son, die in the Iraqi war.

A couple of quick thoughts come to my mind on this day Sept 11, 2022

War, what is it good for? Absolutely nothing!

Old men make war, young men fight and die in wars.

We will never forget.

 ##### Sources #####

 [0]: https://www.911memorial.org/911-faqs

 [1]: https://www.politico.com/news/2022/09/11/911-terror-attacks-anniversary-00056034

 [2]: https://www.georgewbushlibrary.gov/research/topic-guides/september-11-2001-terrorist-attacks

 [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11_attacks

 [4]: https://www.history.navy.mil/browse-by-topic/wars-conflicts-and-operations/sept-11-attack.html

 [5]: https://millercenter.org/remembering-september-11/september-11-terrorist-attacks

 [6]: https://govinfo.library.unt.edu/911/report/911Report_Exec.htm

 [7]: https://www.britannica.com/event/September-11-attacks

 [8]: https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2021/09/02/two-decades-later-the-enduring-legacy-of-9-11/

 [9]: https://www.history.com/topics/21st-century/9-11-attacks