The Meaning of 9/11 from a Security Perspective

On Sunday, almost every adult American will at some point stop a moment to remember the horrific scenes of 9/11 and to reflect on the decade that has followed.  For many, these have not been good years.

And, yet, not all is doom and gloom. The mastermind of “al-Qa’ida“, Usama bin Ladin, is
dead, after a decade long search, as the result of a finely tuned military operation which seemed drawn from a Hollywood cinematic 3D blockbuster. No other country — not even highly touted Israel — could have pulled off this feat.

Moreover, the terrorist organization responsible for 9/11 is on the ropes, having been consistently and persistently worn down and diminished by the non-stop effort of U.S. Armed Forces and civilian departments and agencies, often working in concert with governments as diverse as the UK, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Kenya, and Pakistan.

Revisionist historians are currently having a field day picking apart the ten year hunt for bin Ladin and the various operations — failed and successful — which have characterized the “war on terror” over the past ten years. Some of their conclusions make useful contributions to our understanding of both personalities and events; others seem to be simplistic and self-serving.

Baroness Eliza Manningham-Buller, who headed Britain’s domestic spy office, MI5, between 2002 and 2007 now characterizes 9/11 as a dastardly ‘crime’ rather than as a ’cause for war’. Few Americans would agree with her — although the conduct and execution of the subsequent, multiple conflicts are topics worthy of debate and honorable disagreement.

From a security perspective, we offer the following seven points on the significance of the past decade:

FIRST, some good news: “al-Qa’ida” has lost its war on America. Bin Ladin and most of the organization’s core leadership have either been killed or imprisoned. The remaining key fugitives are either in hiding or trying to run. This includes, most notably, Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri, the Egyptian number two and the designated successor to bin Ladin as the ‘de jure’ “al-Qa’ida” leader.

SECOND, some bad news: While “al-Qa’ida” may be imploding, its off-shoots and like-minded wannabes have taken root on every continent and pose threats of varying degrees to the health and well-being of countless societies and governments.

These groups pose a particular problem in parts of Europe, Africa and Asia, and homegrown groups of “jihadist” terrorists have found their way into the North American landscape, as well. For this reason, we will have to keep our guard up.

THIRD, the high cost of funds spent to secure our country has been worth the expenditure: The American public has been well-served by the investments in governmental capabilities at all levels to track and deter plots against the continental
U.S. and its interests aboard.

Flying is undoubtedly safer than prior to September 2001, despite the indignities and time needed to pass through mandatory security barriers. Without these investments, there is little doubt that we would have suffered one or more attacks on our homeland following
9/11.

Plots were uncovered and schemes smashed before any innocent lives were taken. In the more publicized incidents, such as the Christmas Day ‘underwear’ episode above Detroit and the Times Square would-be ‘car bomber’ in New York City, luck and poor technology, rather than good intelligence, thwarted the plotters.

But there are countless other “spectacular” and merely criminal episodes which have been foiled solely because of the good, hard work of the men and women of the Departments
of Defense and Homeland Security (DHS), the FBI, CIA, NSA, NYPD and countless
other intelligence and security agencies and authorities who have maintained our nation’s security and freedom with an adroitness which is as impressive as it is too often unheralded. For this we can all be thankful at money well spent.

FOURTH, another tangible benefit of our reaction to 9/11 is that we are prepared now far better than before to address a wide-scale disaster, whether it is a bio-chemical attack, a pandemic, or a weather-borne crisis (although serious missteps following Hurricane Katrina contributed to our preparations for the latter). New protocols are in place, and hospitals, police and fire departments, and other first responders have all planned and practiced together on a host of disaster scenarios.

Security companies such as Apollo and most of our corporate clients have also rewritten the book on disaster preparedness, actions which have served our company well in responding to extreme weather events this winter, destructive tornados in June and a nasty hurricane in August of this year. All of us are far better prepared to work with federal, state, and local authorities in the event of a terrorist emergency, as well.

FIFTH, it should be recognized that the next terrorist “spectacular” directed against
the United States or U.S. interests abroad is unlikely to occur at an airport or aboard an aircraft.

This point probably has less to do with the effectiveness of the TSA than it does to the development of new technologies and increased ambitions. We always find a way to protect ourselves against the last war — a kind of modern day Maginot Line.

Our adversaries are intelligent and know our vulnerabilities.  A future attack is likely to attempt something that is both daring and unexpected, either focusing on a unique target, an unusual weapon or a combination of both.

For example, it might take the form of a concerted cyber attack against a power grid or some other key aspect of our economic infrastructure.  New suicide bomber techniques utilizing bombs planted or sewn into body cavities is one especially despicable kind of weapon which has been used in the Middle East but not yet in the U.S. or aboard an aircraft.

Another scenario could involve an effort to detonate a modest ‘dirty bomb” of radioactive material into the heart of a major U.S. (or European) metropolitan area. One can imagine the disruptive effect that such an event could have. Depending on the amount, type and spread of such material, a multiple block area could conceivably remain out of bounds for months or much longer.

Similarly, imagine the environmental and social impact of coordinated arson attacks in the parched hinterland of America or coordinated attacks on a prestigious sporting event or schools where the targets would be the most innocent of victims?  Both kinds of attacks would tear into our soul, and our adversaries recognize this vulnerability.

Such plots are not science fiction. They are topics of regular interest on several radical chat rooms. Fortunately, the FBI and other law enforcement agencies carefully monitor most of these.

SIXTH, the political convulsions arising from the Arab Spring will draw the energy of most Muslim radical Islamists for the next few years at least. Fighters principally from Iraq and Afghanistan are returning to their countries of origin to try to affect change there. These include Tunisia and Egypt but also Libya, Syria, Yemen and Somalia, to name a
few of the countries effected.  And,

SEVENTH, the diversion of so many hardened radicals to their respective home fronts, tied with the downward spiral of “al-Qa’ida”, gives us a brief respite from most internationally-sponsored terror incidents.

At the moment, the U.S. and American policy in the region are of little interest to the new crop of revolutionaries. This will change if or when we fail to find a way out of the Israeli/Palestinian imbroglio. Or, if we continue to maintain the large military footprint we have established throughout the Gulf and South Asia.

While useful and welcomed in the past, this presence is reviled by a large majority of the inhabitants of most regional countries (with Iraqi Kurdistan and Kuwait being notable exceptions). In this sense, such a significant profile might be viewed as increasingly counterproductive to overall U.S. security interests, and a new network of support needs to be developed.

Even a small training force of 3000 personnel (the latest proposal for Iraq) will remain a target for both indigenous Iraqi elements (such as supporters of Muqtada al-Sadr and Baathist insurgents) and the remnants of the “al-Qa’ida in Mesopotamia” organization.  Our slowly decreasing numbers in Afghanistan will also be targeted by the potent insurgency as personified by the Taliban which view us as the invader and who will not be satisfied until the last American and NATO soldier has left his country either on official orders or in a box.

This Sunday, then, really serves as a commemoration, not only of a day of remembrance for the nearly 3000 victims of horrific events in New York, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania, but also as one marking the day when the U.S. public lost its sense of ‘invulnerability’.  Not since Pearl Harbor in 1941 had our country been attacked with such ferocity by foreign elements.

We should have expected this assault perhaps — the World Trade Center had been attacked by like-minded Muslim extremists eight years earlier in 1993, after all, and Usama bin Laden had essentially declared war on the United States in a February 1998 “fatwa“.  The basis for this declaration was his condemnation of our knee-jerk support for Israel and for Israeli actions; for the “billeting of ‘infidel’ armed forces in the holy lands of Arabia; and because of our role in imposing sanctions on Iraq whose net effect — according
to Bin Ladin — had been to cause the death of ‘hundreds of thousands’ of Iraqi children.

Up until that time, our worst examples of extremist violence were home-grown in nature — from the murderous antics over nearly twenty years by the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski, to the religious and anti-government incidents in Waco in 1993, in and Oklahoma City in 1995 respectively.

The events of 9/11 added a new dimension to our security vulnerabilities, the repercussions of which each of us encounters at airports, sporting and entertainment events, or when entering all government and many commercial offices today.

Or, it can be experienced first-hand when trying to visit Canada, Mexico, or the Caribbean where expensive passports are now necessary, when before 9/11, a driver’s license or a good American accent used to suffice.

We can still get onto American trains unimpeded, but one wonders how long this luxury will last.  And with the new DHS slogan of “See Something; Say Something”, a little more of our heretofore private space is whittled away, despite the obviously good security point it makes.

For most of the world, September 11th will merely signify the day before the 12th
and the Sunday before the Monday.  Only in America will 9/11 ring out as an iconic day — one of solemn remembrance and reflection.  There will be a few ceremonies in those friendly capitals, such as London, where pieces of the WTC have been incorporated into touching memorials in memory of their own nationals who also lost their lives in the carnage of that day (67 in this case).

As a nation, we will not forget.  9/11 has become one of those ‘watershed moments’ from which we measure — and increasingly mourn — our losses, not only those from our personal circumstances but also those of our great country.

As some of the foregoing points suggest, not all is ‘dark and gloomy’. There are some grounds for a little optimism, at least from the security perspective.  Our past, if anything, shows a resilience uncommon in the world at large, and we can only hope that our current circumstances will propel us once more to face up to the challenges that confront us.  One could argue, therefore, that there are still grounds to view the glass as ‘half full’, rather than ‘half empty’.

But for everyone of us who strives to adopt this attitude, there remain those for whom, when listening to Brian Williams say, “Good Evening” on the nightly NBC news, the only thing they find good about it is in the salutation.