Blog Posts tagged with "9/11"

As everyone knows, this September eleventh marks the ten year anniversary of the attacks against the United States by Al Qaida, the so-called 9/11 attacks, carried out on 11 September 2001.

It was a hard day for everyone.

On the morning of the attacks I was in the Pentagon, in my office which is on the side of the building which the aircraft actually struck. Luckily for me, I was a few hundred feet away from the point of impact, and I was also up on the fourth floor. The airplane hit the second floor of the Pentagon and went down, otherwise I wouldn’t be here today typing up this blog post.

I don’t want to dwell on the pain of 9/11, because there are two aspects of it that I think are truly worth remembering, and are part of what indeed we should feel very proud of, that resulted from the 9/11 attacks.

The first one is the way that essentially the entire world stood united in revulsion to the attacks and in support to the United States. We saw striking images around the world flooding the television, internet and newspapers of people in tears, disbelief and outrage while holding the American flag as a sign of support; images of vigils held outside of American embassies around the world.

One that sticks in my memory was in the United Kingdom – a nation which has stood with the United States for so much of our history and continues to do so today; spontaneous rallies like the one in Canada in which 100,000 of our Canadian brothers and sisters gathered in their nation’s capital the afternoon of the attacks as the full extent of the horror and its aftermath unfolded. But these responses were not in any sense limited to traditional allies of the United States. We saw flags from nations around the globe lowered at half-mast to show solidarity.

We saw world leaders offer their country’s condolences and support and more importantly denouncing terrorism and the cowardly attacks. It would take pages and pages for me to list of all the key leaders who went to American embassies around the world and who attended memorial services held in honour of those we lost.

We also saw military responses of support. One image in particular that I remember is one of a German ship which, in the immediate aftermath of the attacks, came alongside an American ship and in a very important gesture between sailors at sea (I’m an admiral and I think I understand this), we saw the German crew line the rail of their ship and put their hands and their hats over their hearts as they went by the American ship and they were flying the American flag. What an extraordinary gesture.

I think it’s important to remember as we reflect that it was not just Americans in any sense who died in the 9/11 attacks. In fact, citizens of 90 nations perished on that fateful day. The outpouring of support and global response was natural and it was human around the world, and I think the United States took enormous comfort in a moment of real need for our nation.

The second thing I want to talk about, in addition to the support that the United States felt in the aftermath of 9/11, was the response and the resolution that the world showed together.

The response from NATO was immediate and important. As it says in the NATO Treaty, an attack on one shall be considered an attack on all and we witnessed the immediate response of NATO as an Alliance in the aftermath of 9/11. The AWACS flew. We saw our NATO ships go to sea and begin to undertake active patrols against terrorists around the world, not only in the immediate area of the United States where we saw airplane responses, but also at sea around the world and operations that continue to this day, most notably of course the ISAF operation in Afghanistan where not only NATO and 28 nations stand together, but a total of 50 nations together continue to pursue terrorism to ensure that another 9/11 level attack is deterred.

Finally, I would close by saying that NATO responded, was resolute and stood with the United States, and that the support of the many, many nations around the world has been so important to the United States of America.

Today, we say thank you to our NATO partners and to our many other international partners, and we also know that we will continue together to stand against terrorism in the world today.

On this the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, I’ll close by saying thank you for the support shown the United States, for the solidarity, and above all for the resolution as we stand shoulder to shoulder and go forward in this dangerous and turbulent world where NATO, I deeply believe, is a powerful force for good in ensuring stability around the globe.

Best,

James Stavridis
Admiral, USN
Supreme Allied Commander, Europe
Commander, US European Command
"Stronger Together"