{"id":2028341,"date":"2023-09-11T17:15:02","date_gmt":"2023-09-11T21:15:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/us-losing-its-post-9-11-unity-failing-to-confront-terrorism-says-veteran\/"},"modified":"2023-09-11T17:16:37","modified_gmt":"2023-09-11T21:16:37","slug":"us-losing-its-post-9-11-unity-failing-to-confront-terrorism-says-veteran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/us-losing-its-post-9-11-unity-failing-to-confront-terrorism-says-veteran\/","title":{"rendered":"US losing unity, failing to confront terrorism, says veteran."},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">18<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fus-losing-its-post-9-11-unity-failing-to-confront-terrorism-says-veteran%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2028341&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div data-post-content=\"true\" class=\"post_content\" id=\"post_content\">\n<p>Like many Americans, Thomas Speciale\u2064 remembers exactly where he was on Sept. 11, 2001, when members of the Al Qaeda terrorist \u2063group hijacked and deliberately crashed four commercial\u200c airliners. In fact, he \u2062recalls sitting only about half a mile \u200daway from the Pentagon when the building was hit in the coordinated attack. In the days after the 9\/11 \u2062attacks, Mr. Speciale traveled to Manhattan and witnessed the wreckage at the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, where <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/packed-stadium-proudly-sings-the-national-anthem\/\" title=\"Packed Stadium Proudly Sings the National Anthem\">hijackers crashed<\/a> two more airliners.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It had\u200d a\u2064 profound \u2064effect on my life,&#8221; he\u200d said in an interview with NTD News&#8217; &#8220;Capitol Report&#8221; on Monday.<\/p>\n<p>Devastating as the attacks were, Mr. Speciale also remembers\u2062 a unique sense of \u2062patriotism and national unity in the days and weeks that followed. He explained that he had been in the military but had been out for a couple of years by the time of the attacks. He said\u2064 he returned to military duty, joining a wave of like-minded men and \u200bwomen who joined in the aftermath.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<h2>Related Stories<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>\n        <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/us\/trump-says-void-from-9-11-victims-will-never-be-filled-praises-supreme-heroism-of-responders-5489627\">Trump Says Void From 9\/11 Victims &#8216;Will Never Be Filled,&#8217; Praises &#8216;Supreme Heroism&#8217; of Responders<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"text-comp-caption\">9\/11\/2023<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n        <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/us\/america-mourns-honors-lives-lost-on-22th-anniversary-of-9-11-attacks-5489572\">America Mourns, Honors \u2064Lives Lost \u2062on 22nd Anniversary of \u20629\/11 Attacks<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"text-comp-caption\">9\/11\/2023<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>&#8220;I can&#8217;t think of a time [when] we were more united,&#8221; he added.<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Speciale continues to serve in the Army Reserve. On the civilian side, he has also worked as\u2064 a national security\u200b contractor with the Defense Intelligence Agency and \u200bwith the Office of \u2064the Director of National Intelligence.<\/p>\n<p>While the Al Qaeda hijackers specifically hit U.S. targets on 9\/11, Mr. Speciale said terrorism primarily poses a threat to other countries around the world with fewer resources to confront radical Islamic terrorism and other such ideologies. In \u200dparticular, he noted both Al Qaeda and the ISIS <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/why-this-average-american-is-voting-for-donald-trump\/\" title=\"Why This Average American Is Voting for Donald Trump\">terrorist group<\/a> had taken root in\u200c the Middle East.<\/p>\n<div class=\"shortcode post-related-videos\">\n<div class=\"lazyload-wrapper\">\n<div class=\"lazyload-placeholder\"><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>ISIS initially formed as an offshoot\u2064 of Al Qaeda\u200c in Iraq, which itself formed after\u200c the U.S. invasion of Iraq and\u2064 the overthrow of Saddam\u2064 Hussein&#8217;s government. After President Barack Obama withdrew U.S. forces from Afghanistan in 2011, ISIS officially broke with Al Qaeda\u200b and\u200d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/us-losing-its-post-9-11-unity-failing-to-confront-terrorism-says-veteran\/\" title=\"US losing unity, failing to confront terrorism, says veteran.\">began asserting control<\/a> over vast swathes of territory across Iraq and Syria. Under President Obama, U.S. forces\u2063 returned to the region to help combat the terrorist group.<\/p>\n<div class=\"my-5\">\n<p>&#8220;Were it not for the U.S. intervention,\u200c to fight back ISIS, we would have had a \u2062Sunni Islamic caliphate\u2063 that would have stretched from Damascus all the way to Baghdad, Iraq, and that would\u2063 have been an even worse, you know, a worse tragedy,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<h2>Afghanistan Withdrawal and Political Division<\/h2>\n<p>In the\u2062 22 years since the terrorist attacks, Mr. Speciale believes the United \u2064States is safer now from the threat of terrorism, but\u200c he also\u200c feels that the United States has fallen short of its goals\u200c in the Global War on Terror and even \u200dlost ground as a result of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/susan-sarandon-issues-similar-warning-against-growing-political-divisions-as-gina-carano-faces-no-calls-for-cancellation\/\" title=\"Susan Sarandon Issues Similar Warning Against Growing Political Divisions as Gina Carano, Faces No Calls for Cancellation\">growing <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/ted-cruz-comes-out-swinging-for-fired-disney-star-gina-carano\/\" title=\"Ted Cruz Comes Out Swinging For Fired Disney Star Gina Carano\">political division<\/a><\/a>\u200b within\u2064 the county.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>&#8220;Right now our recruitment is way down because of the fact that the American \u2063people don&#8217;t feel like service in the military has the same\u2064 value that it did,&#8221; he said. &#8220;And ultimately, that\u200b stems from what I believe is a &#8216;Cultural\u200d Revolution&#8217; in the United States, and a lot of \u2064people&#8217;s dissatisfaction with the direction of the U.S. government. And so now we have the greatest, most patriotic Americans that are telling their children not to serve. And that&#8217;s \u200dthe\u2064 greatest tragedy to me.&#8221;<\/p>\n<div class=\"my-5\">\n<p>Last year, the U.S. \u200bArmy <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/us\/us-army-misses-recruiting-goal-secretary-confirms-4768306\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">missed its recruiting goal<\/a> by about 25 percent. \u2064In April, Army, Navy and Air Force\u200b leaders predicted they could miss their recruiting goals \u2064again this year, the Military Times \u200d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.militarytimes.com\/news\/your-military\/2023\/04\/19\/army-navy-and-air-force-predict-recruiting-shortfalls-this-year\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Mr. Speciale attributed \u2064the recruiting \u2063woes \u200cto a variety of factors, including a distrust in the \u200ccurrent direction of the \u2063U.S. government and the overall political division within the country.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We&#8217;re now more divided as a country than probably we have been since prior to\u200d the\u2062 Civil War. And it&#8217;s tragic, and mind-boggling to me that we&#8217;ve allowed the hyperbolic rhetoric of\u200c politicians, the divisive \u200dnature of social media to essentially erase\u200c our unity, and now \u200dwe&#8217;re more divided than ever,&#8221; said Mr.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Following the 9\/11 attacks, Thomas Speciale, like countless Americans, vividly recalls his proximity to the Pentagon as it was struck by a hijacked plane. The memory of that coordinated assault remains etched in his mind, forever reminding him of the tragic events that unfolded on that fateful day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1816,"featured_media":2028342,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[543],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2028341","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-epoch-times"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2028341","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1816"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2028341"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2028341\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2028342"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2028341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2028341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2028341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}