25th Anniversary of 9/11 Prompts Debate Over the Attack's Legacy

Outlets across the spectrum weigh in with perspectives on the 25th anniversary of the September 11 terror attacks.

"Look Away": Opinion writer Liz Peek (Lean Right bias) for LizPeek.com (Lean Right) said "there are many in our country who want us to pretend that the greatest attack on the United States since Pearl Harbor never happened." According to Peek, "They want us to look away from the Muslim terrorists who flew planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and who drove another plane full of innocents to their deaths in a grassy Pennsylvania field. They want us to forget that on that day in 2001, Americans came under attack for reasons that few understood, from a far away people who loathe our culture, our freedoms and our country." Peek added that "When Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., dismissively says, 'Some people did something,' she is trying to erase the truth. She wants us to forget who it was who purposefully killed 2,977 people." Peek urged that "Americans must not tolerate this rewriting of recent history," saying that "Twenty-five years later, we still mourn the friends we lost, the brave first responders who made the ultimate sacrifice, and thousands of others who died at Ground Zero."

"Bigoted Glass Ceiling": Dr. Jalal Baig, writing opinion for MS Now (Left), said that since the morning of September 11, 2001, "Islam became synonymous with terrorism in much of the American public's collective imagination," adding that "the effects of widespread Islamophobia have touched my life intimately." Even 25 years later, "Islamophobia remains a mainstream feature in American politics" according to Baig, who said "disgusting Islamophobic statements have been routinely uttered at the highest levels of government." She highlighted the "political rise of both Zohran Mamdani and Abdul El-Sayed," saying they have "challenged a bigoted glass ceiling," and that many of the "attacks against them remind us of the continued chasm between the nation's ideals and its sobering reality."

"Lost Sight": Opinion writer Jay Rogers (Lean Right) for The Hill (Center) worked in the World Trade Center for just over a year. He still thinks about "how ordinary that building felt to me once, and how it became the opening scene of a war most Americans didn't know they were already losing." Rogers said, "Osama bin Laden was a known, growing threat before 2001, and the government had chances to remove him it didn't take." According to Rogers, the cause "was a legally cautious, capture-first policy, shaped by an assassination ban dating back to Gerald Ford," adding that it "was a mindset left over from treating terrorism as a criminal justice and law enforcement question." 25 years later, the same complacency, Rogers said, "shows up closer to home now," explaining that "four years of open borders brought gangsters and traffickers into our neighborhoods. Socialism is on the rise nationwide—gaining ground where it would have been laughed out a generation ago—because too many have lost sight of what makes this country worth defending." Rogers laments, saying "My old office tower is gone. My neighbor is gone. The only tribute worth giving either of them is to keep the country's defenses—physical and cultural—current, not nostalgic."

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