Richard Haass Reflects on 9/11: Terrorists ‘Left No Legacy,’ They Lost

EXCERPT:

HAASS: "No, there's an important lesson there. What terrorists are good at is killing and destroying. But they’re not good at building. And in that sense, the terrorists lost. And if you look at the last 25 years, it’s not the history, if you will, of the aftermath of 9/11, because again, they left no legacy in a positive, creative sense. The fact that this country was united. Remember Le Monde, 'Nous sommes tous Américains,' 'We are all Americans now.' Not just the country came together. The world came together in extraordinary show. I think it was 5 or 6 days later, Joe, you remember, what did George W. Bush do after he found his voice in New York? He went to the mosque in Washington and he said, 'It is un-American for one American to turn on another because of their faith or the way they dress. We have got to come together now.' It was extraordinary moment. And I think the lesson is, and I think you’re doing exactly the right thing, for young people, this could be the Peloponnesian war. Roughly half of America was either not born, was too young to really experience this. So I think we owe it. I think we owe it to those who lost their lives. I think we owe it to ourselves. We have got to teach this because the lessons of this are too important to fade."