Nine years on: Are we safer?
Has the U.S. neutralized al Qaida as a significant threat or has the global terrorist network survived and adapted?
“Are we safer now than we were on 9/11?” asked Fareed Zakaria in The Washington Post. Most Americans don’t seem to know it, but the answer is clearly yes. Despite some huge policy mistakes and overreactions, the U.S. military under two presidents has effectively neutralized al Qaida as a significant threat to the U.S. mainland, removing safe havens and training camps in Afghanistan, and eliminating and arresting key leaders. Our intelligence services, bloated and inefficient though they are, have managed to disrupt the “communications, travel, and—most important—money that fuels terrorism” in all its forms around the world. Airport security and locked cockpit doors make it nearly impossible for terrorists to turn airplanes into missiles.
That view is dangerously complacent, said Bruce Riedel in TheDailyBeast.com. “Despite the largest manhunt in human history,” Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahri are alive and well in the badlands of Pakistan or Afghanistan. Their global terrorist network has survived, adapted, and even thrived in the past nine years. An attack on the scale of 9/11 would be hard to pull off, but the new threat is from countless “self-starting jihadists,” like the Muslim U.S. Army major who killed 13 fellow soldiers at Fort Hood in Texas, or the Pakistani immigrant who tried to set off a car bomb in Manhattan’s Times Square, or the New York street vendor who was plotting to bomb the city’s subways. A new report by the Bipartisan Policy Center warns that jihadists continue to plot murderous attacks against Americans, and that most of these threats now come from within. Overseas, the jihadist threat is as real as ever, said Clifford May in National Review Online. Only a small minority of the world’s Muslims share bin Laden’s violent worldview—a mere 7 percent, by some estimates. But that amounts to “more than 80 million people—a formidable force backed by enormous Middle Eastern oil wealth.”
Then “let’s stop playing into bin Laden’s hands,” said Ted Koppel in The Washington Post. Al Qaida’s strategic goal on 9/11 was not just to kill Americans or destroy the twin towers. Bin Laden hoped the attacks would provoke America into an “excessive response” that would set off the proverbial Clash of Civilizations between Islam and the West, and rally the world’s Muslims behind al Qaida. He calculated right. “With one overreaction after another,” from the invasion of Iraq to the abuses at Abu Ghraib to Guantánamo Bay and the use of torture, America has handed a propaganda bonanza to Islamic extremists. That helps them recruit both here and abroad, and has made us less safe.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
![https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516-320-80.jpg)
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
The truth, said Brian Dickerson in the Detroit Free Press, is that we were never as safe as we thought we were. The collapse of the twin towers was a shocking wake-up call for Americans largely insulated from the chaos and anger outside our comfortable borders. Over the past nine years, that “profound sense of vulnerability” has only deepened, amid a cascade of disasters that our leaders were impotent to stop. We’ve watched a hurricane destroy a major U.S. city; a broken oil well spew nearly 5 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico; and our savings and our prosperity destroyed by a global economic meltdown that no one seemed able to understand, let alone control. Are we safer than we were on Sept. 10, 2001? From terrorism, perhaps. But the reality is that we may never feel that safe again.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Create an account with the same email registered to your subscription to unlock access.
-
Today's political cartoons - July 24, 2024
Cartoons Wednesday's cartoons - refunds, big funds, and more
By The Week US Published
-
The manosphere: the shady online network of masculinists
The Explainer A new police report said a rise in radicalised young men is contributing to an increase in violence against women and girls
By Richard Windsor, The Week UK Published
-
How can we fix tourism?
Today's Big Question Local protests over negative impact of ever-rising visitor numbers could change how we travel forever
By The Week UK Published
-
How could J.D. Vance impact the special relationship?
Today's Big Question Trump's hawkish pick for VP said UK is the first 'truly Islamist country' with a nuclear weapon
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published
-
Biden, Trump urge calm after assassination attempt
Speed Reads A 20-year-old gunman grazed Trump's ear and fatally shot a rally attendee on Saturday
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
Supreme Court rejects challenge to CFPB
Speed Read The court rejected a conservative-backed challenge to the way the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is funded
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
Arizona court reinstates 1864 abortion ban
Speed Read The law makes all abortions illegal in the state except to save the mother's life
By Rafi Schwartz, The Week US Published
-
Trump, billions richer, is selling Bibles
Speed Read The former president is hawking a $60 "God Bless the USA Bible"
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
The debate about Biden's age and mental fitness
In Depth Some critics argue Biden is too old to run again. Does the argument have merit?
By Grayson Quay Published
-
How would a second Trump presidency affect Britain?
Today's Big Question Re-election of Republican frontrunner could threaten UK security, warns former head of secret service
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published
-
'Rwanda plan is less a deterrent and more a bluff'
Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
By The Week UK Published