This morning marks the 17th anniversary of the attacks of September 11, 2001 which claimed the lives of nearly 3,000 people in New York City, Washington, D.C. and in a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
Every so often when the events leading up to 9/11 are discussed we hear about the missed opportunities to have assassinated al Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden particularly during the latter part of the Clinton Administration. In a recording revealed in August 2014, the day before the attacks former President Clinton told an audience in Australia there was an opportunity to kill bin Laden in Kandahar in December 1998, but opted not to because of the civilian casualties which would have been involved and that having done so would have made him no better than bin Laden. A debatable proposition, but it does reinforce the argument that killing bin Laden before 9/11 would have prevented 9/11.
I don't share this view. Killing bin Laden would have turned him into a martyr and would have increased al Qaeda's resolve to carry out the attack. The attack itself might not have occurred on September 11, 2001. It might have taken place before or after that date, but given the state of our preparedness at the time I believe that a large scale attack would have happened in this country whether bin Laden was dead or alive.
Let's put it this way. Did Islamic terrorism stop when bin Laden was finally assassinated in 2011? No, it adapted and mutated. Can you say ISIS?
The truth of the matter is that evil will always be among us. The individuals and organizations perpetuating that evil come and go, but the evil itself never does.
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