9/11 attack

Rachel Marsden: US still hasn’t punished everyone responsible for 9/11

It was 18 years ago that the massive terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, took place on American soil, with passenger jets striking the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. That day, then-U.S. President George W. Bush declared: “The search is underway for those who are behind these evil acts. I have directed the full resources of our intelligence and law-enforcement communities to find those responsible and to bring them to justice.”

Well, the identities of the 19 hijackers were indeed discovered. It turned out that 15 of them were citizens of Saudi Arabia. Al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden, identified as the mastermind of the attacks, was also a Saudi citizen. If that many of the terrorists were from any other nation, wouldn’t the U.S. military have turned that country into a parking lot soon after the attacks?

Instead, U.S. leadership ignored Saudi Arabia and bombed Afghanistan — the country where the al-Qaeda perpetrators had been hanging out, chatting and plotting as if they were in a bar. Perhaps if drones had been more widely used back then, the military could have just sent a few into Afghanistan and obliterated al-Qaeda hideouts, rather than treating Afghanistan like a house that had to be burned to the ground because a wasp nest was found under the eaves of the roof.

Oh, well. In any case, mission accomplished, right?

Not quite. Al-Qaeda is now back in business. This is largely because the U.S. government has never properly attributed responsibility for the 9/11 attacks.

Innovations & technologies

Carter Meets with Google CEO During Los Alamos Visit

In July, Carter described the group’s job as “keeping DoD imbued with a culture of innovation in people, organizations, operations, and technology, to support people who innovate, those creative figures in our department who are willing to try new things, fail fast, and iterate; and also to ensure that we’re always doing everything we can to stay ahead of potential adversaries.” 

The board previously announced that it would meet in October to develop suggestions for Carter, and the Pentagon official said Schmidt took time out of his schedule to spend the two days learning about the department to help direct those conversations. 

Los Alamos is home to Plutonium Facility 4, the US government’s science, technology and manufacturing center for plutonium. Press were not invited to visit the lab, but a Los Alamos press release said Carter visited the pit casting area, “where molten plutonium is shaped into a pit, the plutonium core of a nuclear weapon.” 

Middle East

Turkish Military Clashes With Syrian Opposition Groups

The United States has directly spoken to Turkish officials urging them to avoid military engagement with US-allied Kurdish forces in Syria, US Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter said in a press conference on Monday. "We have called upon Turkey to… stay focused on the fight against ISIL [Daesh] and not to engage Syrian Defense Forces," Carter stated. US officials have called on both sides "not to engage one another," following the joint US-Turkish recapture of the Syrian border town of Jarabulus, Carter added.

9/11 attack

Senate OKs bill to let 9/11 families sue Saudi Arabia

In a rebuke to the White House, the Senate approved a bill Tuesday to allow victims and families of the 9/11 attacks to sue Saudi Arabia for its alleged involvement in the terrorist strikes.

The bill, which the White House opposes, House Speaker Paul Ryan expressed concerns about, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was slow to embrace, had stalled for months. It now heads to the House.

But in the end, the bill's authors -- John Cornyn of Texas, the second ranking Senate Republican, and Chuck Schumer of New York, the third-ranking Senate Democrat -- were able to pass the bill on a voice vote, a rare feat in the divided chamber, especially for a controversial issue.