Awry

Then there was this from his arrival at Shanksville, Pennsylvania, for a 9/11 ceremony there:

The President cares not a hoot about 9/11 and its meaning for Americans.

That meaning has become grossly distorted in the 17 years since the Al Qaeda attacks. President Bush got it at least partly right in the immediate aftermath: Americans needed to unify and respond to the attacks but not go to war against Islam. He chose instead to attack the Taliban in Afghanistan, seeking to punish the Al Qaeda leadership holed up there.

But things then went awry. Osama bin Ladin and most of the Al Qaeda leadership escaped the American invasion. Bush turned his attention to Iraq, which had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks. Al Qaeda scattered to Yemen, Libya, Syria, and elsewhere, even as more extreme competitors, including the Islamic State, emerged there and elsewhere. The US has tried to kill as many of these extremists as possible, but there are now demonstrably more of them in more countries than in 2001. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have cost about 7000 American lives and several trillion dollars, but failed to reduce the numbers, the appeal, and the ferocity of Islamist extremism.

President Trump is determined to make things worse. He has barred immigration, including refugees (by definition people escaping a well-founded fear of persecution), from some Islamic countries. He has loosened restraints on the use of drones, raising the number of civilians killed, especially in Yemen. He is squeezing Palestinians mercilessly, denying them vital humanitarian assistance as well as political representation. He supports autocrats in the Muslim world and ignores human rights. He denounces Muslim extremists but not white Christian ones, who have killed many more Americans in terrorist acts since 9/11 than Muslims have. He even managed to hold an Iftar dinner to break the Ramadan fast with no American Muslims, only friendly Muslim diplomats. In both symbols and substance, this Administration is anti-Muslim.

No good can come of continuing in this direction. We need new ways forward that do not mistakenly declare war on a means, “terror,” rather than an enemy, which should be violent extremism. We need to recognize that Americans are not on most days in most places at risk. We need to stop doing things that multiply the numbers of extremists and the places where they find safe haven. We need to ensure that Muslims see the United States as friendly to their religion, even if hostile to extremism conducted in its name.

This president won’t be able or willing to change course. The only question is how much worse he will make things before a leadership change saves us from the tragic direction in which we are heading: towards still more extremists in more countries determined to attack America. 9/11 should not be an occasion for vaunting empty patriotism, but for assessing our situation soberly and looking for more effective means to ensure our national security.