'We were naive': Ex-CIA, military and diplomatic veterans on lessons learned, 20 years after 9/11
U.S. Army soldiers from the 101st Airborne division off load during a combat mission from a Chinook 47 helicopter March 5, 2002 in Eastern Afghanistan.Saturday marks the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks that took 2,977 lives and changed the world forever. It permanently altered the security landscape in the United States and elsewhere, forcing governments to completely overhaul their defense strategies, policies and counterterrorism tactics.
In the last two decades of the war against terrorism, millions of lives have been lost and trillions of dollars spent. CNBC spoke to CIA, military and diplomatic veterans of the ongoing War on Terror, asking what they feel America has learned — and failed to learn — since Sept. 11, 2001."Honestly, I don't think we've learned that much; I think we're probably destined to be making some of those mistakes again.
The One World Trade Center is reflected on a nearby building ahead of the 20th anniversary of the September 11 attacks in Manhattan, New York City, U.S., September 10, 2021."Here's the scary thing though: I don't think the general public has learned anything. They haven't been invested in the GWOT [Global War on Terrorism] on a large scale. If they had been, they would be demanding accountability for the entire thing, with the debacle in Kabul as the catalyst.
"We continue to have things like war on terrorism, war on drugs. These are wars that fail. These are ongoing societal and ideological questions that need complex, difficult policies that are not easily dealt with by something as simple as war.""I think the intention that the U.S. had was a good intention, because the 9/11 attack was a horror to all. I believe that the overall war against terrorism is a justified cause.
"In the past twenty years, we've re-learned that the U.S. military cannot be defeated at the tactical or, with rare exceptions, the operational level of warfare. But the United States can be defeated at the strategic one. "I do think in some ways we are safer, I think in other ways our actions have created obviously a lot more chaos and harm and — ISIS. I mean, let's be realistic, we would not have ISIS had we not invaded Iraq. We wouldn't have al-Qaeda in Iraq.
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