OPINION | BRENDA BLAGG: After 20 years, terrorism threat still requires diligence

After 20 years, terrorism remains a global threat

The upcoming 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on America is as unsettling as ever. Or worse.

The events of that day forever changed the country, claiming nearly 3,000 lives as the hijackers flew passenger planes into the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Arlington, Va. The third plane, Flight 93, crashed in a field in Shanksville, Pa., as its heroic passengers tried to wrest control from its hijackers. That plane was headed toward a D.C. target, authorities have said.

These are the attacks that also spawned the war in Afghanistan as the U.S. sought to retaliate against the al-Qaida terrorists based there, ultimately killing Osama bin Laden, who masterminded the attacks.

President Joe Biden recently pulled the last American service members from the country, ending this nation's longest war.

Continuing controversy over the chaotic pullout has centered on the impact on Americans and on the friendly Afghans left behind, despite the U.S. airlift that extracted more than 120,000 civilians from the country.

Questions remain about why the U.S. stayed so long and how the continuing war on terror will be impacted with the U.S. gone from there.

Few, however, question the reason for America's military response 20 years ago.

This week, as we see again the images from the attacks, we'll be reminded of why this war on terror will never end.

The fear, the shock, the anger we felt as we watched that airliner crash into the World Trade Center come flooding back on each anniversary.

We remember the images of desperate people leaping to their deaths from the burning tower, the firemen rushing into the building to save those they could, the eventual collapse of the twin towers and the crowds of people fleeing the cloud of dust and debris rolling through the streets from the rubble of the World Trade Center.

Then came the long cleanup, the continued risk-taking at Ground Zero as workers exposed themselves to the dangerous chemical footprint left by the attack and the buildings' collapse.

Now there's a memorial at the site and a generation of Americans who only know what they've been taught about this dark day in the nation's history.

Some of them -- American service members who were toddlers or infants in 2001 -- were among the last casualties of the war in Afghanistan, victims of a suicide bomber at the Kabul airport. They are among 2,460 American service members dead in the long war.

This weekend, as is the case on every anniversary, family members of those killed in the 9/11 attacks will read their names, remembering those lost on that fateful day.

President Biden and other dignitaries will be at Ground Zero and at memorials at the Pentagon and in Shanksville during the course of the day -- all of which will be shrouded in heavy security.

None of these anniversaries, nor any major holiday or other significant gathering in this country, can happen without concern about another attack.

Federal, state and local law enforcement agencies are always on alert, not just at the memorial sites but throughout the country.

Unfortunately, such diligence is needed every day, not just on this 20th anniversary of the attacks.

While the worry has centered on potential international terrorism in years past, it now extends, too, to domestic concerns.

The Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol this year made that fact painfully clear. It is a time for vigilance, when all of us need to remember: See something, say something.

Trouble can come from lone actors planting bombs on city streets, from a motivated mob storming a public building or from some fiendish plot by foreign terrorists.

That's just reality in these post-9/11 United States.

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