The Lessons of Sept. 11 for America

The News & Advance
Published: September 10, 2008

Shark attacks. The soap-opera mystery tale of missing congressional intern Chandra Levy. Those were the “news” stories in the news gripping the nation in the summer of 2001, right up to Monday, Sept. 10.

Then, the unthinkable happened. America, naïve as a nation, grew up at a quarter to nine in the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, when Islamofascist terrorists turned passenger jets into guided missiles, trying to strike fear in the nation’s soul.

At the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., and the World Trade Center in New York City, more than 3,000 people perished as the terrorists flew hijacked jets into buildings. In an empty field in the Pennsylvania village of Shanksville, 40 passengers and crewmembers of United Flight 93 who thwarted the takeover of their jet, forcing the hijackers to fly it into the ground, are memorialized as American heroes.

Shock, horror and anger were what most Americans felt that morning, as they watched video of the jets plowing into the World Trade Center and of the raging inferno at the Pentagon. In the blink of an eye, how America saw itself in the world changed utterly.

Within a month, U.S. troops were on the ground in Afghanistan, home of the Taliban regime that had sheltered and worked hand-in-glove with Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida to plan the attacks. In another month, the Taliban were routed and the hunt was on for al-Qaida fighters hidden throughout the nation.

There are several lessons Americans should take away from the events of Sept. 11 and its aftermath:

w In this world, the United States truly has no permanent friends (other than Great Britain), only permanent national interests. Those permanent national interests must be protected with stony-eyed political ruthlessness in a world filled with governments and groups that would love to see this nation fall.

w The critics of America, both at home and abroad, who contend that Sept. 11 was, in one whacko’s words, “America’s chickens coming home to roost” are dead wrong. On the global stage, this nation has, on the whole, been a force for good, not a force for evil. Ask any of the citizens of countries in the former Soviet bloc, or HIV-positive residents of sub-Saharan Africa, or earthquake victims in Azerbaijan or tsunami victims around the nations of the Indian Ocean — they are free, receiving medical treatment or alive today because of the generosity of America and her people.

w Sept. 11, despite what bin Laden and his henchmen proclaim, had nothing to do with the support Washington gives to Israel, the Middle East’s only democracy. It has everything to do with an ongoing war of civilizations between the West and the East. In 480 B.C., a combined army of the Greek city-states led by Athens and Sparta held back the forces of the Persian Empire at the critical Battle of Thermopylae; suffering enormous casualties, the Persians abandoned their goal of westward expansion, allowing the seed of democracy to take root and flourish. Liberal Western democracy is similarly under attack today, on a variety of fronts, and we fail utterly if we don’t recognize that our very way of life is the target of these Islamofascists.

w There is no negotiating, no talking with terrorists. Unlike unfriendly governments, who have their own permanent interests, a terrorist’s only goal is his foe’s complete destruction. The only course of action is to track them down, one by one, and kill them, one by one. We don’t live in the global equivalent of Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood; leaders and would-be leaders ought to know that by now.

Realist foreign policy, or realpolitik, must guide how this nation pursues its goals on the global stage and how it pursues its enemies. If that means making a temporary pact with a little devil in order to take down The Great Satan, then so be it.