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.

(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.

I hurried back to the office. The news was all over campus by then. I found myself crowding around the small TV in one of the administrators’ offices, watching one of the towers burn and wondering why the picture looked so strange, and then suddenly realizing that there was only one tower standing. And I remember scouring the web for alternative media, as the main news sites were overloaded with people all over the world trying to find out what was happening. . I didn’t find Instapundit that morning—I spent more time at Dave Winer’s site, gleaning information from there, and trying various non-local media sites with some success. By noon, I had had enough and although the VP told us we didn’t have to go home, I went home. I couldn’t concentrate on anything else.

For some reason, I was convinced that was the end of life as we knew it, and I went to the supermarket and picked up some food items. When I tried to get home, I couldn’t. The police had blocked off the route between my supermarket and my home, because Eagle Rock park lay in between, and some 20,000 people had gone there to watch the towers burn. Eagle Rock park has a phenomenal view of the Manhattan skyline, and has a great restaurant where you can eat good food and watch the lights of Manhattan. An impromptu shrine sprang up along the wall people stand by to look at The City. That’s what NJ natives tend to call New York. “I went to a party in The City last night.” “I’m going to The City to do some shopping.” “I’ve got tickets to a show, I’ll be in the City tomorrow.”

The City was burning.

I went home by roundabout streets and convinced the officer at the last one that I lived where I said I lived. When I got home, all of my neighbors were outside, sitting on the porches of our apartment complex. My upstairs neighbor was an IT tech who worked in the World Trade Center. He didn’t die, because he was always late. He never, ever got to work on time. So that morning, his lateness saved his life. I expect a lot of his coworkers didn’t make it. They were working on the 103rd floor, I believe.

We sat outside in stunned conversation for some time. I had the TV on from the moment I got home, and switched from station to station to station. NBC, ABC, CNN, CBS, anything and everything. I was lucky enough that I didn’t have to worry about a relative, although I found out later my cousin’s husband drove into Manhattan to work that day, saw the towers on fire, and turned around and drove back out. One of my sister-in-law’s cousins died in the tower. Even though there are 20 million people in the New York Metro area, everyone knew someone or knew someone that knew someone who was in the World Trade Center that day.

Our lives changed that day. Don’t believe anyone who says it’s time to get over it. It’s over. It’s in the past. 9/11 may be in the past, but the events of that day were the proverbial ripples in the pond that are still heading towards the shore today. 9/11 changed me from a lifelong Democratic voter to a woman who voted for W. four years ago and who will vote for McCain in November. 9/11 destroyed the American airline industry, or at least, it was the first of the one-two punch (the second being the price of fuel). But the price of fuel is up in part because of 9/11. We went into Iraq and Afghanistan because of 9/11. 9/11 terrorists attacked Spain and England and threaten Europe today. 9/11 was the attack that woke America up to the fact that we are at war with Islamic fundamentalist terrorists. There are many who still don’t believe we are at war. They are mistaken. The terrorists have been very plain in both their intentions, and their thoughts. They tell us flat out that all we have to do to stop them is to convert to Islam, sacrifice Israel, give Spain back to the Muslims, and take a secondary role in the Islamic Caliphate.

Yeah, we have a three word answer for that: Not. Gonna. Happen.

It’s an overused expression: “The world changed.” But it’s a true one. Osama bin Laden’s mindless cruelty changed forever the way America and Europe moved forward into the twenty-first century. The fact that seven years later, there has not been another attack on American soil, is a sign that we’re winning the war. The fact that seven anniversaries have come and gone without an al Qaeda hit on us anywhere in the world on that date is a sign that we have weakened al Qaeda quite well. But they’re not gone yet. They are resurgent in Afghanistan. They still plot in Europe and South America. So we’re still in what some call The Long War, which will take quite some time before we can safely call it ended—but we’re winning.

Now I live 90 miles south of the Pentagon, but two days a week, when I work in my Job in NorVA, I’m ten miles north.

I never want to see the smoke rolling to the heavens again. I don’t think I’ll have to. But it is far from over.