9/11 at 21: We still must remember and still must beware

At some point, annual remembrances of tragic events can get old. The 21st anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks might seem like a good time to let the anniversary go unremarked — never even close to forgotten, of course, but no longer treated as a front-burner topic.

A back-burner treatment, though, would be a mistake.

In addition to wanting to remember those who died and those who acted heroically, there is a very practical reason we should keep the terrorism on 9/11 fresh in our minds. We should do so in order that we remain vigilant. We must remain vigilant because we once again are vulnerable.

In early 2021, the distinguished, bipartisan Afghanistan Study Group predicted that a withdrawal of allied forces from that nation, under the existing circumstances, would make a terrorist attack on the United States “likely” within 18-36 months of a Taliban takeover. And that assessment did not take into account just how disastrous the bug-out would be, leaving the Taliban not merely in a well-monitored control, but instead utterly dominant again with brutality levels near those of the pre-2001 era.