Remembering 9/11
A change of perspective from 22 years ago
9/11 Reflections
I remember having carpool duty to drive my kids and our neighbors kids to school that morning in Southern California. The timing was about an hour following the events that were unfolding in New York City that morning. One of the neighbor kids remarked “We are under attack” and since I was not in the habit of watching news in the morning, I was not aware of what he was talking about. As soon as I returned home from school, I turned on the TV and saw what had been announced on the ride to school.
I saw a continuous replay of the events of Sept. 11, 2001, which left nearly 3,000 people dead in New York City, Washington, D.C., and Shanksville, Pennsylvania. I remember an announcement by the senior leadership of my company at the time to “report to the office” to set agenda for corporate response which was a high-rise building in the Los Angeles area near the LA airport. I refused that invitation based on what I had observed had happened in relationship to planes and tall buildings in large metropolitan areas. In the middle of a crisis, the quality of decision-making is put to the test and the majority of the nation was not prepared to process information that they had just seen and to make good decisions following these events.
I remember being swept-up in the events and contemplating what I should do in the coming months to help restore the nation to what it was prior to the events of 9/11. Like many in America that witnessed the events of that day, we expected the U.S. Government authorities to take actions to prevent future events such as this. The knee-jerk reaction was to defer to Government for solving what had been put forward as an “intelligence problem” in relation to “not knowing what was being plotted and planned.”
The USA Patriot Act
The Patriot Act, or USA PATRIOT Act, was passed shortly after the attacks and signed into law by President George W. Bush on Oct. 26, 2001. This new law gave enforcement agencies broader powers to investigate and indict and also led to increased penalties for committing and supporting what would be categorized as terrorist crimes.
The USA PATRIOT Act enhanced previous legislation from April 1996, entitled the “Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996,” enacted during the Clinton administration following the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. This new terrorist act increased budgets for homeland security and funded development of “tools” for law enforcement and federal agents such as:
Obtaining bank records and business financial records to prevent money laundering for terrorism financing.
Improved intelligence sharing between government agencies.
Tougher penalties for convicted terrorists and those who aid them.
Allowing for delayed search warrants.
Preventing aliens involved in terrorist activities to enter the United States.
It all seemed reasonable to most Americans that had witnessed the acts that unfolded on September 11, 2001. If the problem was “poor information” then enabling an expanded acquisition of information seemed reasonable to help insure such an event would not happen in the future.
Intelligence Failure?
In the aftermath of 9/11 everyone, from elected officials and national security experts to ordinary citizens seemed to be focused on one question:
How could this happen to a nation with such an enormous and expensive military and intelligence architecture?
The question was so ubiquitous that it eventually led to the creation of a high-level commission charged with seeking answers. Two and a half years after the attacks, in the summer of 2004, the Commission finished its work and released its report. The overriding conclusion was that the government’s principal failure in 9/11 was a failure to “connect the dots.” [1] What that meant was that pieces of the puzzle were to be found in many corners of the U.S. government but that no one connected the dots well enough or in a timely enough manner to predict with sufficient accuracy the attack that came.
“The overriding conclusion was that the government’s principal failure in 9/11 was a failure to ‘connect the dots.’”
The report listed in depth the many failures that prevented the government from seeing what was coming. They cut a swath across the vast United States government.
The State Department was in charge of visas but failed to catch the fact that several of the visas and passports of the hi-jackers were manipulated in a fraudulent manner.
The FBI had the responsibility of keeping track of bad guys inside the United States while the CIA had the responsibility of keeping track of bad guys outside the United States but they did not effectively exchange actionable information.
Two terrorists were tracked by the CIA as they moved internationally but tracking responsibility was not handed over to the FBI once they landed in the United States.
Within the FBI, knowledge of the terrorists taking flight lessons for the purpose of using an airplane for an attack —was not passed up the chain of command and not linked to the possibility of a broader plot.
The Navy had its own intelligence system. And information that linked the attacks on the Navy ship the Cole to one of the 9/11 hi-jackers and to Al-Queda was missed.
The FAA was in charge of airline security as well as security at airports. And yet no-fly lists were not updated with the names of terrorists, passengers identified by the airlines’ own system were not checked and aircraft cockpit doors were not hardened.
In the lead up to 9/11, the government was collecting vast amounts of data but failing to make sense out of it. Every day the U.S. government was collecting vast amounts of information via its satellites. And yet there were years of conversations waiting to be translated and years of photographs waiting to be looked at. Eight years after 9/11 the problem persisted—including huge backlogs and a shortage of translators.
The entire intelligence community (IC) was designed to follow the Soviet monolith and it was moving at a glacial speed to try and adapt to the new threats posed by asymmetric warfare. It would become obvious that the IC was laden with Russian speakers and disastrously short of Arabic speakers.
And for America, the 9/11 attacks signaled a change in the very nature of global terrorism. Instead of being linked to concrete political goals, this new version welcomed mass casualties and did not shy away from killing non-combatants. This observation was a catalyst for growing more government capabilities to “address the threat.”
“In the aftermath of 9/11 pressure built for change and policy makers started creating new organizations.”
In the aftermath of 9/11 pressure built for change and policy makers started creating new organizations:
In November 2001, Congress created the Transportation Security Agency (TSA) which federalized airport security which had been largely in the hands of private contractors to the airlines.
In late 2002, Congress passed the Homeland Security Act which combined 22 organizations into the first new Cabinet Department since 1989.
A combination of factors—the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, criticisms raised during the 2004 presidential campaign and intense pro-reform lobbying by the families of victims of 9/11—resulted in passage of the Intelligence and Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004. The legislation created a new office, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) which was to “coordinate” the FBI, the CIA and the 14 other agencies that made up the U.S. intelligence community.
And it established the National Counterterrorism Center to analyze and integrate all intelligence and threats to Americans at home and abroad. The law was an attempt to make the boundaries between domestic and international intelligence that had contributed to the nation’s inability to disrupt the 9/11 attacks more porous.
But it also raised concerns about privacy and civil liberties. Thus, the law also created the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board.
Focus Turns Internal
Over the years, as wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were underway to “address the threat of foreign terrorist activity”, attention also became directed at threats that could originate within the homeland. For generations within the USA had fought in foreign wars to protect freedom and liberty that the United States had created for its own citizens through the nation’s founding in the 18th century.
The very idea that a significant fraction of the population within the USA could be plotting harm to the internal population of the nation at a large scale was unthinkable. Yet this conclusion and a “blindness” to the emerging threat based on a steady transformation of the USA population based on immigration rules could be reasonably made by a generation that only understood classical and traditional patriotism within the nation.
The greatest generation only understood the sacrifice made by previous generations to protect the United States for more than two hundred years. Yet evidence would point to increasing populations within the USA that did not hold the same patriotic ideals of citizens from prior decades. And the new generation of native-born Americans were becoming increasingly self-focused and ignorant of national history, civics, and world history. This mixture of self-serving focus and a transformation of U.S. education that dated decades earlier has created a condition of rot and decay within the nation that is more foundational to correct than the large-scale efforts on information gathering, monitoring, investigation, and indictment machinery that was rapidly expanded following 9/11.
We have become a nation that is vilifying all that was previously good and honorable, and beautiful and courageous in this nation. To quote a biblical passage from the Old Testament:
[20] Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; Who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness; Who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter! [21] Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes And clever in their own sight! —Isaiah 5:20-21
This re-characterization of major topics, ideas, law enforcement, legal jurisprudence, government controls, and expanding influence of nation-ending ideologies is far more dangerous than the events of 9/11 and yet these changes and the pace and span of what would appear to be a coordinated destruction of the nation is underway.
Destruction of cheap and plentiful national energy production
Destruction of cheap and plentiful national transportation capability
Destruction of a national border with no vetting of immigration
Destruction of election integrity by unsecured voting/tabulation
Destruction of legislative integrity by massive personal corruption
Destruction of executive integrity by selling of government influence
Destruction of military readiness by promoting DEI protocols
Destruction of corporate profitability by promoting ESG protocols
Destruction of family by promoting transgender ideologies
Destruction of morality by promoting humanism over biblical worldview
The nation will not survive this coordinated destruction and while the 9/11 events are being remembered today, we cannot be distracted by the active war that is underway which is driven and coordinated within the spiritual realm as described in God’s word. When Paul was authoring this passage, he is doing so with knowledge that the real battles and dangers we face are not against flesh and blood. The enemies we see are real enough, but they are animated by spiritual forces of darkness that stay strategically hidden from view. These powers often reveal themselves in institutional evils— genocide, terror, tyranny, and oppression— but the weapons needed to combat them are not earthly weapons at all. What is needed, Paul advises, is to stand firm in God’s power and to suit up in the full armor of God. Although the devil and his demon armies are destined for destruction, they are serious threats now and must be resisted and beaten back. For Paul, the best offensive weapons we have are the word of God and prayer as proclaimed in Ephesians 6.
[10] Finally, brothers and sisters, draw your strength and might from God. [11] Put on the full armor of God to protect yourselves from the devil and his evil schemes.
[12] We're not waging war against enemies of flesh and blood alone. No, this fight is against tyrants, against authorities, against supernatural powers and demon princes that slither in the darkness of this world, and against wicked spiritual armies that lurk about in heavenly places.
[13] And this is why you need to be head-to-toe in the full armor of God: so you can resist during these evil days and be fully prepared to hold your ground. [14] Yes, stand-truth banded around your waist, righteousness as your chest plate, [15] and feet protected in preparation to proclaim the good news of peace. [16] Don't forget to raise the shield of faith above all else, so you will be able to extinguish flaming spears hurled at you from the wicked one. [17] Take also the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. —Ephesians 6:10-17 Voice
Be in daily prayer to the Lord God. Who is sovereign and in full control of all things. May our prayers align with His will and purpose as we go forward this day.
[1] The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, New York, Norton, 2004, p. 408.
[2] Bergen, Peter, The Rise and Fall of Osama bin Laden, New York, Simon and Schuster, 2021, p. 103.