Remembering 9/11: National unity urged, war on terror questioned

Americans looked back Monday on 9/11 with moments of silence, tearful words and appeals to teach younger generations about the terror attacks 22 years ago.

Bells were rung and the names of nearly 3,000 people were read out in somber ceremonies in New York, Washington, D.C. and Pennsylvania where the hijacked planes struck.

‘National unity’ urged

“Let’s honor September 11 by renewing our faith in one another,” said U.S. President Joe Biden, speaking at a U.S. military base in Anchorage, Alaska as he traveled back from a trip to India and Vietnam. “We must never lose our sense of national unity, so let that be the common cause of our time.”

Speaking in front of a huge flag, Biden added that “terrorism, including political and ideological violence, is the opposite of all we stand for as a nation.”

His speech comes as the United States is increasingly polarized, with tensions likely to increase as Biden heads into a likely election rematch next year with Republican former President Donald Trump.

Trump has been indicted four times since April, including for efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, with the January 6, 2021 Capitol attack by his supporters still fresh in the public’s memory.

Over 1,000 victims remain unidentified

Days ahead of the anniversary, the identities of two victims – a man and a woman whose names are withheld at the request of their families – from the deadliest terror attack on U.S. soil were announced.

The two new identifications represented the 1,648th and 1,649th persons identified since 2001 using advanced testing by New York City’s DNA laboratory, according to a press release by the mayor’s office on Friday.

They were the first new identifications of World Trade Center victims since September 2021. However, 1,104 victims – 40 percent of those who died – remained unidentified, it said.

The number of 9/11 first responders who have died from Ground Zero-related health complications is nearly equal to the number of first responders who died during the attacks.

“When the towers fell on that terrible day, we lost 343 New York City firefighters. In the years that have followed, over 341 more members of Fire Department of New York have died from rare cancers and diseases caused by the toxic dust at Ground Zero,” the Uniformed Firefighters Association of Greater New York wrote in a Facebook post on Monday.

‘War on terror’ questioned

The terrorist attacks on September 11 directly led to the war in Afghanistan launched by the U.S. in the name of “counter-terrorism.”

“In the name of counter-terrorism and promoting peace and democracy, the United States brought about catastrophes to the Afghan people,” Afghan political analyst Sayed Qaribullah Sadat told China Media Group.

“The U.S. not only failed to achieve peace and development in Afghanistan, but instead resulted in a massive increase in civilian casualties and wrecked its economy.”

The 20-year-long Afghanistan war had taken the lives of more than 46,000 civilians and made at least 5.9 million Afghans flee the country or internally displaced, according to the Costs of War project of Brown University.

“Our agriculture is not improved, nor did our economy get stronger. Our banks failed to develop. And our streets – we did not even have means to build a decent street,” Sadat added. 

Danny Haiphong, an independent journalist and researcher in the United States, also noticed the disaster brought by the U.S. to other countries in the name of “war on terror.”

“The deaths of thousands of Americans is indeed tragic, but so too are the deaths of millions that led up to and followed the events of 9/11,” said Haiphong.

Speaking of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan (2001) and Iraq (2003) under the pretext of fighting terrorism, Haiphong said these wars had little to do with terrorism and served instead the larger aim of expanding U.S. hegemony around the world.

(With input from agencies)