Another year -- and we still have terrorism: 9-11-17
September 11, 2017
On this, the 16th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, I will use the space here today to give you some resources that will help to update you on the terrorist threat to the U.S. -- both external and internal -- and to the world, though the U.S. is more my focus.
Is it different today than in 2001? If so, how?
The first resource is this report from a think tank called New America. It provides some perspective on the international pattern of terrorism and the U.S.
From Wikipedia, comes this always-changing list of Islamist terrorist attacks starting in the 1970s.
This June 2017 story reports on an Islamist lone-wolf attack in Michigan, and it says it's the 96th on U.S. soil since 9/11.
This Politifact story from mid-August, however, says the number of domestic terrorism attacks is 85 through last December, though I suppose that depends on whose counting and what criteria is being used to define "domestic terrorism."
This CNN story notes that terrorism against the U.S. -- especially by Islamists -- didn't start in 2001 but, rather, in the 1990s.
And this Los Angeles Times story says Islamists have attacked on U.S. soil 10 times since 9/11.
In view of President Trump's attempt at a Muslim ban, The Atlantic did this piece talking about where the terrorists who strike on U.S. soil actually come from.
Finally, as for terrorism perpetrated by Americans in America, I don't know anyone who has covered that subject as well as Judy Thomas of The Kansas City Star. You can read some of her reports here.
In the end, what we know about terrorism today is what we knew on 9/11, which is that it grows from bad, often false, ideas that frequently are rooted in distorted religion. Even when the terrorists have legitimate political grievances, misguided religion often leads them to act in violent ways that hurt their cause.
Whether it's al-Qaida, ISIS or the Ku Klux Klan, if you dig deeply enough you discover a false certitude about ideas, particularly ideas about who God is and how God wants us to live. Back in the early Protestant Reformation era (we're marking year 500 of the beginning of the Reformation next month), Christians who disagreed with other Christians about matters of theology often just went to war to prove their point. Today Islamists, white supremacists and others adopt terrorism as their weapon of choice. (By the way, I prefer the term "Islamist" and not "Islamic" to refer to violent extremists who claim to do their deeds in the name of Islam because Islam is a religion while Islamism is a cancerous growth on that religion. Lots of "isms" turn out to be malignant growths that initially feed on something healthy.)
Until we can figure out how to unplug people from radical religious ideas that feed their hatred, this kind of violence will continue.
To read my 9/11-related column that The Kansas City Star published Sunday, click here. The photo here today is the stone at the burial site of my nephew, Karleton D.B. Ffyfe, a passenger on the first plane to strike the World Trade Center. The one fragment of Karleton's remains to be recovered from Ground Zero is buried in a box under that stone in North Carolina.)
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A GROUND ZERO CHURCH NEARS ITS RETURN
A small Greek Orthodox Church next to Ground Zero in New York was destroyed in the 9/11 terrorist attacks, but a larger replacement is under construction and set to open next year, the Associated Press reports. It's hard to imagine any city, even the most densely populated and developed, without pockets of sacred space. I'm glad this one will return to service.
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P.S.: My latest National Catholic Reporter column now is online here.
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