After the United States was struck by terror 9/11/01, Americans feared that it was just a first attack and that we’d see more in subsequent years. In 7 years, no other successful large scale terror attack has succeeded on American soil. Why not?

In a prescient article “Terrorism on Trial” about the trials which convicted some of the plotters of the terror attacks on American embassies in east Africa, published on May 30, 2001, Daniel Pipes and Steven Emerson wrote:

Perhaps the most disconcerting revelations from the trial concern Al-Qaeda’s entrenchment in the West. For example, its procurement network for such materiel as night vision goggles, construction equipment, cell phones, and satellite telephones was based mostly in the U.S., Britain, France, Germany, Denmark, Bosnia and Croatia. The chemicals purchased for use in the manufacture of chemical weapons came from the Czech Republic.

In the often long waits between terrorist attacks, Al-Qaeda’s member organizations maintained operational readiness by acting under the cover of front-company businesses and nonprofit, tax-deductible religious charities. These nongovernmental groups, many of them still operating, are based mainly in the U.S. and Britain, as well as in the Middle East. The Qatar Charitable Society, for example, has served as one of bin Laden’s de facto banks for raising and transferring funds.

Osama bin Laden also set up a tightly organized system of cells in an array of American cities, including Brooklyn, N.Y.; Orlando, Fla.; Dallas; Santa Clara, Calif.; Columbia, Mo., and Herndon, Va.

I don’t now if any of the cells listed had a hand in providing logistical support for 9/11, but it’s certainly possible. So why hasn’t Al Qaeda - which is a loose network of terror groups - succeeded in attacking the American homeland in the past seven years?

An article yesterday in the LA Times observes:

Al Qaeda remains determined to strike on American soil, anti-terrorism officials say. But it has run up against aggressive surveillance, tough border security and a lack of extremist communities in which to operate. Instead, officials say, it appears to have focused on using Europe to hit targets such as the flights bound for the United States from Britain.

Or more generally:

The shift in the terrorist threat is largely attributable to U.S. and international efforts after 9/11 to crack down on al-Qaida. With tighter border security, document control and financial tracking, al-Qaida recognized that it would be more effective if it used local groups to conduct its attacks. While the al-Qaida core is somewhat resurgent, it is still a far more decentralized model than the al-Qaida of 9/11.

Quinn Hillyer fleshes out the details:

HE DID IT by fashioning, with the help of Colin Powell (before Powell went off the reservation), an incredibly impressive coalition that went into Afghanistan — even then, liberal pundits predicted, yes, a “quagmire” in Afghanistan, too — and in incredibly short order kicked out the rogue regime, killed numerous members of Al-Qaeda, and chased the remaining ones high into the hills where they presumably live in caves perfectly suited to their troglodyte mentality.

Bush did it by directing his government to use all the tools at its disposal to identify and freeze Al-Qaeda assets, improve intelligence-gathering (and intelligence-sharing, back and forth, with anti-terrorist nations), disrupt Al-Qaeda communications, and track down and kill Al-Qaeda leaders. He did it by getting tough on other terrorists, too, even ones not directly affiliated with Al-Qaeda. And he did it by encouraging democratic movements throughout the Middle East and central Asia, while providing material support where necessary.

And yes, Bush warded off terrorists by toppling Saddam Hussein’s dangerous outlaw regime in Iraq. It was a regime that had repeatedly shot at American aircraft. It was a regime that demonstrably owned weapons of mass murder and then refused to account for their removal or their destruction. It was a regime that had invaded its neighbors, and that had gassed and slaughtered its own people. And it was most certainly a regime that harbored terrorists, trained terrorists, and that maintained friendly communications and at least some operational ties with Al-Qaeda.

Or as Hillyer puts it simply:

This wasn’t a dog that didn’t bark merely because it felt like being mute; this was a dog that didn’t bark because it was forcefully muzzled. And Bush was the one who applied the muzzle.

Something’s managed to keep America safe despite the creation of the bureaucratic monstrosity known as DHS and despite adding another layer in intelligence bureaucracy. So maybe just maybe President Bush did other things correctly that made terrorism prevention successful.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

One thing that reporters in the Middle East enjoy is irony. So that’s the angle Ethan Bronner takes about Jenin in A West Bank Ruin, Reborn as a Peace Beacon.

But a quiet revolution is stirring here in this city, once a byword for the extremes of violence between Israelis and Palestinians. In 2002, in response to a wave of suicide bombers from Jenin, Israeli tanks leveled entire neighborhoods.

From that rubble, now newly trained and equipped Palestinian security officials have restored order. Israeli soldiers have pulled back from bases and are in close touch with their Palestinian colleagues. Civilians are planning economic cooperation — an industrial zone to provide thousands of jobs, mostly to Palestinians, and another involving organic produce grown by Palestinians and marketed in Europe by Israelis. Ministers from both governments have been visiting regularly, often joined by top international officials. Israeli Arabs are playing a key role.

The aim is to stand conventional wisdom on its head. Instead of a shaky negotiated peace treaty imposing coexistence from the top down, a bottom-up set of relationships that lock the two societies together should, proponents argue, lead to a real two-state solution.

There are some positive aspects to this report and some negative ones. On the negative side, Bronner writes “Israeli tanks leveled entire neighborhoods.” Well did that really happen?

A JCPA issue brief gives the actual scope:

Still, the level of destruction was limited. Out of 1,896 buildings in the Jenin refugee camp, 130 buildings were destroyed — or less than 10 percent (Israel Defense Forces — Central Command). According to Fatah activist Mousa Kadoura, the area affected was the size of a large football field (Washington Times, May 1, 2002). Moreover, because of the large amounts of Palestinian explosives in the camp, it is difficult to discern what component of this destruction was caused by Israeli forces and what part was a result of Palestinian detonation.

But remember unlike Bronner’s language that suggests the destruction haphazard or disproportionate, Israel was fighting an armed enemy. Less than 10% shows restraint; “whole neighborhood” suggests a massive scale.

It’s good to know that there’s a place where there’s some level of cooperation going on and the Palestinians are taking control of their lives someplace. And Bronner hits on an important reason for that limited success may be due to the bottom approach being taken here. Unfortunately, the rest of his reporting shows that he doesn’t understand the reason why. When Bronner tries to explain why cooperation is occurring in the Jenin area, he gives these reasons:

Jenin, officials on all sides say, offers many advantages for a pilot project, an idea arrived at by American and European officials in February when they sought ways to build peace on the ground.

First, they said, Hamas, the main Palestinian militant opposition in the West Bank, is relatively weak in Jenin. Second, after the evacuation of four Israeli settlements in the region in 2005, the area is essentially free of settlers, a major source of friction elsewhere. Third, the barrier that Israel has been building causes little friction in this area because it is right on the boundary between Israel and the West Bank, not over it so there is little territorial dispute.

There is also a fourth reason. Gilboa, the Israeli region that abuts Jenin, is an unusual and unusually well-suited neighbor. Small and rural with 30,000 people, it is 40 percent Arab and 60 percent Jewish and the inhabitants have worked assiduously to create their own kind of model — of Arab-Jewish coexistence in Israel.

Do you notice what’s missing? Well how about Operation Defensive Shield that destroyed most of the terrorist infrastructure that existed in Jenin? Somehow acknowledging that killing terrorists helps bring peace seems to be beyond his understanding. But of course it’s important to mention that there are no more “settlers” there.

Then there’s this:

There are other concerns. The Palestinians have asked to base their newly trained battalion for Jenin in an abandoned Israeli settlement, a good spot in terms of location and infrastructure. But Israeli officials are worried about how it will play in Israel and have so far said no.

Israeli security officials say their Palestinian colleagues are good at law and order but not at stopping terrorist groups. They say that Islamic Jihad used to be strong here and is no longer because Israel spent years destroying its infrastructure and killing its militants, setting the stage for the Palestinian security takeover. But if they relax their vigilance, the Israelis say, the situation will deteriorate. Early on Wednesday morning, for example, Israeli soldiers and security men raided a home in Jenin and detonated a 30-pound pipe bomb.

The Palestinians complain that they are often urged to arrest someone just because he wears a beard. They add that as long as they are seen as puppets of the Israelis, the project is doomed. The key is for Palestinian security officials to be seen as agents of state building. Then the population will cooperate. This requires the kind of discretion that the Israeli Army has not been known for.

Notice how the Israeli claim that decimating Islamic Jihad played a role in the improvements is qualified by “they say.” The claims about settlers and the security fence are not qualified.

Also problematic is the idea that the Palestinians ought not to be seen as “puppets.” Well maybe that’s important in terms of their constituents, but if they don’t take responsibility to fight terror they’ll have no credibility among the Israelis. Why Israel’s concerns are given a short shrift here is a puzzle.

And the dig at the IDF is uncalled for. Again, if the IDF hadn’t unsubtly destroyed the terrorist infrastructure in Jenin, this experiment could not be taking place.

Finally we have Tony Blair:

“The intifada turned them into enemies in one day,” Mr. Blair said in an interview. “Now we are trying to recreate a sense of mutual confidence after seven years. It is a very slow process. But what is happening in Gilboa and Jenin is exactly the direction we would like to go.”

Blair here, presents the intifada as an independent force that just turned Jews and Arabs into enemies; the intifada, to Blair, just spontaneously generated causing destructive enmity between the two parties seeking peace.

Blair (and Bronner by quoting him uncritically) shows the same cluelessness that the late Scott Shuger described in a different context seven years ago at the start of the intifada:

The headline the Washington Post put over its lead Ramallah story was similarly misguided: “Grief, Anger Spurred Frenzied Crowd to Kill.” With its emphasis on external, even understandable, forces, this is classic responsibility-avoiding language. Note that there are no individuals in either the Times sentence or the Post headline. Even when presented with irrefutable evidence of personal culpability, all too often the papers still try to fuzz it over. Take that unbelievable picture of the guy with the bloody hands. The Los Angeles Times supplied a caption to the photo that managed not to refer to the blood at all. And in fact, neither the Los Angeles Times’ nor the New York Times’ lead story even mentioned the guy with the bloody hands.

The lynching of the soldiers didn’t just happen. It was the result of an orchestrated campaign of violence unleashed by Yasser Arafat a month earlier. The intifada didnt just happen, it was planned and executed by Yasser Arafat. The problem with the top down approach wasn’t in the details; it was in the fundamentally bad faith of the top of the Palestinians leadership. If the project in Jenin works, it will be because, at least in part it has circumvented the Palestinian leadership.

So while the idea of this little piece of peace working out is mildly encouraging, Bronner’s failures to acknowledge the success of the IDF and the perfidy of Arafat and the Palestinan leadership detract from the story.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

(Manhattan skyline Sept 11, 2008, photo courtesy of Elder of Ziyon. Click on picture to see full size. For contrast see the Elder’s Hole in the Sky.)

There were some excellent 9/11 roundups. For one thing the New York Times, for all my griping, sometimes still does serious journalism. It’s combined some fine reporting and analysis in its section on Sept 11, 2001. The section includes images of its front pages over the next 10 days as well as the reporting at that time. What was at once informative and tragic is its recreation of what happened to the people trapped in the upper sections of the towers. The information is put together from phone calls by the doomed people and the recreations are narrated by NY Times reporters. This is an incredibly powerful piece of work.

Both the Army and the DoD have 9/11 sites.

At the dedication of the Pentagon 9/11 memorial, Secretary of Defense Gates had some kind words for his predecessor.

Good morning, and thank you all for coming today. It is an honor to be part of this solemn occasion, and I would like to recognize Secretary Rumsfeld for the indispensable role he played in helping to bring the memorial project to fruition. Mr. Secretary, the valor you showed here, seven years ago, was an inspiration to all in the Pentagon and to all of America.

In all the Iraq vilifications, I think it’s been largely forgotten that on 9/11/01 Secretary Rumsfeld didn’t just sit around:

Mr. Rumsfeld was in his office on the third floor of the outer ring when he heard and felt the crash on the other side of the building. The 69-year-old former Navy pilot was jolted and rushed to the scene. ”He went outside the building and was helpful in getting several people that were injured onto stretchers,” said a Pentagon spokesman, Rear Adm. Craig Quigley. ”He was out there 15 minutes or so helping the injured.”

Yid with Lid dissects Keith Olbermann’s 9/11 rant, demonstrating why MSNBC was right to demote him.

Meryl reflects on her change in geography since 9/11 in 7 years later, 20 miles west.

Charles asks “Where were you on September 11?”

The answer I’d love to say is that it was beautiful day so I came home early from work to spend the day with my wife and one week old daughter. When I got home they were sitting out on the sunny lawn.

But however idyllic the scene was, the sunniness of the day did not dispel our worries. About an hour earlier I had gotten a call from my wife that the World Trade Center was on fire. I tried to find out what was going on, but most news sites wouldn’t load. The Windows on the World website, I think, was down. Since my wife hadn’t heard from her brother, she wanted me to come home.

My brother in law worked for Trade Web, which was located on 51st floor of the north tower. With phone circuits overloaded we remained uncertain about his whereabouts for a few hours, until he was on the ferry back to New Jersey. (He did contact my mother in law about 9:30 or shortly before the towers fell, and then we couldn’t get back in touch with him.)

Trade Web didn’t lose any employees. And it had an interesting story:

Similarly moving is the display on 9/11 that immediately greets visitors upon entry. Accompanying a promotional baseball found at Ground Zero by New York City firefighter Vin Mavaro is Mavaro’s letter to the CEO of Trade Web, the company that manufactured the baseball: “Being a baseball fan, coach and player, this item has become a symbol of hope for me.” For me, this pairing is even more poignant than Curt Schilling’s cap from the 2001 World Series, adorned with a New York Police Department shield. A lesser exhibit might have included only the professional baseball connection to 9/11 and missed how powerful the average person’s relationship to baseball can be.

And finally a Watcher’s Council rememberance.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.