By Marcos A. Tejeda
Publisher & Editor-in-Chief
The Sun Post News
Twenty-five years after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, America is confronting an anniversary that represents far more than a moment of national remembrance. The attacks changed the United States, reshaped international politics and security, triggered wars, transformed intelligence agencies and created a counterterrorism system whose influence can still be felt today.
Nearly a generation has passed since 19 al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked four commercial airplanes and carried out the deadliest terrorist attack in U.S. history.
Two aircraft struck the World Trade Center towers in New York City. A third hit the Pentagon. The fourth, United Airlines Flight 93, crashed in Pennsylvania after passengers and crew members fought back against the hijackers.
By the end of that morning, 2,977 victims had been killed, not including the 19 hijackers.
But the consequences of 9/11 were only beginning.
A threat America failed to fully understand
The September 11 attacks did not emerge without warning.
Years earlier, terrorist organizations had already targeted American interests. The World Trade Center was bombed in 1993. U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were attacked in 1998, and the USS Cole was bombed in Yemen in 2000.
Al-Qaeda had demonstrated both intent and capability.
Yet the United States failed to connect critical pieces of intelligence before the attacks.
The bipartisan 9/11 Commission later identified failures involving imagination, policy, capabilities and management. Different agencies possessed pieces of information, but the government lacked the coordination necessary to assemble them into a clear picture of the emerging plot.
That failure became one of the most important lessons of September 11: having intelligence is not enough if institutions cannot connect it in time.
The security system was rebuilt
The response transformed the federal government.
Counterterrorism became a central national-security mission. Intelligence sharing increased dramatically. Airport security was overhauled. Federal, state and local agencies developed new mechanisms for exchanging information and identifying potential threats.
The FBI itself underwent a historic transformation, placing prevention of terrorist attacks alongside its traditional law-enforcement responsibilities.
The Department of Homeland Security was created, and new security systems became part of everyday American life.
Travel changed.
Border security changed.
Surveillance changed.
Immigration enforcement changed.
The relationship between intelligence agencies changed.
And with those changes came one of the most difficult debates of the post-9/11 era: How far should a democratic government go in restricting privacy or expanding surveillance in the name of security?
That question remains unresolved.
The wars after September 11
Within weeks of the attacks, the United States went to war in Afghanistan.
The objective was to dismantle al-Qaeda and remove the Taliban government that had provided the terrorist organization with sanctuary.
Osama bin Laden escaped capture and remained one of the world’s most wanted men for almost a decade. U.S. forces eventually located and killed him in Abbottabad, Pakistan, in May 2011.
But bin Laden’s death did not end terrorism.
The Afghanistan conflict became America’s longest war. The subsequent invasion of Iraq dramatically altered the political balance of the Middle East and helped create conditions from which new extremist movements would eventually emerge.
The Islamic State, or ISIS, later demonstrated that jihadist terrorism could evolve even after al-Qaeda’s leadership had been severely weakened.
This remains one of the most complicated legacies of the post-9/11 period.
The United States destroyed terrorist networks and prevented attacks, but some military interventions also produced instability that extremist organizations were able to exploit.
Terrorism did not disappear. It evolved.
The terrorist threat of 2026 does not look exactly like the threat of 2001.
The September 11 plot required international travel, flight training, financing, physical meetings and extensive coordination.
Today’s extremist networks can operate differently.
Digital communications and online propaganda allow organizations to reach potential sympathizers thousands of miles away without meeting them physically.
A person can encounter extremist propaganda online, become radicalized and potentially attempt violence without ever traveling to a traditional terrorist training camp.
That creates a different intelligence challenge.
Large organizations can leave detectable financial, communications and travel patterns.
A radicalized individual acting largely alone may leave far fewer.
The battlefield against terrorism has therefore expanded from airports, borders and foreign training camps to phones, encrypted communications and online communities.
The geography of terrorism has changed
Another major transformation has occurred largely outside American public attention.
In the years immediately following September 11, the global counterterrorism focus centered heavily on Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and the Arabian Peninsula.
Today, jihadist organizations and their affiliates have established significant operations in parts of Africa, the Middle East and South Asia.
Weak governments, civil conflicts and territories where state institutions have limited control provide extremist organizations with opportunities to recruit, organize and expand.
The lesson is significant.
Terrorism adapts.
When pressure increases in one region, organizations often search for another environment where government authority is weaker.
The threat has become increasingly decentralized.
The victims of 9/11 are still growing in number
The official death toll tells only part of the human story.
Thousands of firefighters, police officers, emergency personnel, construction workers, volunteers, residents and survivors were exposed to dust and toxic substances following the collapse of the World Trade Center.
Many subsequently developed cancers, respiratory illnesses and other conditions associated with their exposure.
The World Trade Center Health Program continues monitoring and treating eligible responders and survivors.
For those families, September 11 is not simply history.
Its consequences continue through medical appointments, treatments, disability and deaths occurring decades after the attacks.
The health legacy of Ground Zero reminds America that the human cost of terrorism can continue long after the television cameras disappear.
A generation that does not remember 9/11
The 25th anniversary also creates a new challenge.
Millions of Americans alive today have no personal memory of September 11.
For those who watched the attacks unfold live, images of smoke pouring from the towers, people running through Manhattan and first responders moving toward the destruction remain unforgettable.
For younger Americans, however, 9/11 increasingly belongs to history books, documentaries and classrooms.
That makes the phrase “Never Forget” more complicated.
Memory can no longer depend solely upon personal experience. It must increasingly depend upon education.
The stories of the victims, survivors, firefighters, police officers, emergency workers and ordinary passengers who resisted the hijackers aboard Flight 93 must be passed to a generation that never witnessed that morning.
America is safer — but the threat is different
Could terrorists execute another attack identical to September 11?
It would be significantly more difficult.
Cockpit security has changed. Passenger screening is dramatically different. Intelligence sharing has improved. Counterterrorism units operate across federal, state and local governments, while international intelligence cooperation is considerably stronger.
But preventing the last attack is not the same as predicting the next one.
The lesson of September 11 was precisely that security institutions can become focused on familiar threats while overlooking an adversary’s ability to innovate.
Today’s national-security environment also extends far beyond traditional terrorism.
Cyberattacks, drones, artificial intelligence, attacks against critical infrastructure, disinformation campaigns and hostile state actors have complicated the threat landscape.
The question facing America in 2026 is therefore not simply whether another 9/11 can happen.
The more important question is whether the United States can recognize the next unconventional threat before it becomes the next national tragedy.
The danger of allowing terrorism to change democracy
There is another lesson that cannot be ignored.
Terrorism is designed not merely to kill. It is designed to provoke fear and political reaction.
An extremist organization does not need to defeat a superpower militarily if it can make that society distrust its institutions, abandon its principles, turn against communities within its own population or become trapped in endless conflict.
After September 11, Muslim Americans and people perceived to be Arab or Middle Eastern experienced suspicion, discrimination and hostility despite having nothing to do with terrorism.
Distinguishing violent extremist ideology from an entire religion or ethnic community is therefore more than a moral responsibility.
It is strategically important.
A democracy ultimately defeats terrorism not only by preventing attacks, but by refusing to allow terrorists to determine what kind of society it becomes.
Twenty-five years later
The images remain almost impossible to comprehend.
The burning towers.
The Pentagon in flames.
The wreckage of Flight 93.
Firefighters climbing stairways while thousands attempted to escape.
Families waiting for telephone calls that never came.
But perhaps the most important symbol of September 11 is not the destruction.
It is the names.
Every year, relatives gather in New York to read aloud the names of those who died.
That ritual matters because terrorism reduces human beings to statistics. Memory restores their identities.
Twenty-five years after September 11, the United States has more sophisticated intelligence, stronger airport security and an enormous counterterrorism infrastructure.
It also carries the scars of two decades of war, political arguments over surveillance and civil liberties, and a terrorist threat that has evolved rather than disappeared.
The meaning of September 11 therefore cannot be limited to remembering what happened.
It must include understanding why it happened, what America did afterward, what worked, what failed and what must never be repeated.
The terrorists who attacked America sought to make September 11 a symbol of fear.
A quarter-century later, the responsibility belongs to a new generation to make it something else: a lesson in vigilance, resilience, sacrifice and the enormous responsibility of protecting both national security and democratic freedom.
Twenty-five years later, America remembers. History demands that it also continue learning.
