As someone who survived September 11, 2001, I have spent nearly twenty-five years meeting the families who buried loved ones, the first responders still battling illnesses, the veterans who carried America’s response to distant battlefields, and the children who grew up without parents because terrorists believed mass murder could advance a political cause.
That is why I cannot remain silent when political leaders minimize, rationalize, or contextualize the worst terrorist attack in American history.
New York State Senate Democratic nominee Aber Kawas recently came under scrutiny after resurfaced comments from a 2017 podcast in which she described the attacks as a “manifestation” of capitalism, racism, white supremacy, and Islamophobia. She also criticized what she viewed as the expectation that Muslims should apologize for the actions of terrorists while America has not sufficiently accounted for historical injustices. Critics have argued that these remarks effectively shift moral responsibility away from the terrorists and toward the United States.
Whether one agrees with her broader critique of American history is beside the point.
September 11 was not the inevitable consequence of American policy.
It was not an understandable reaction to capitalism.
It was not the unavoidable product of history.
It was an act of evil.
Nineteen al-Qaeda terrorists boarded four commercial airliners and intentionally murdered 2,977 innocent people from more than 90 nations. Office workers. Firefighters. Police officers. Military personnel. Flight attendants. Pilots. Restaurant workers. Parents. Children. They did not die because they were participants in geopolitical debates. They died because they happened to be Americans, or happened to be standing beside Americans.
History can be studied. Foreign policy can be debated. Governments can and should be criticized when they make mistakes.
But there is a bright moral line that should never be crossed.
Explaining terrorism must never become excusing terrorism.
The danger of rhetoric that places September 11 within a framework of American culpability is not simply that it offends survivors. It is that it erodes one of the few moral truths upon which civilized societies should agree: deliberately murdering innocent civilians is always wrong.
Always.
Imagine applying the same reasoning elsewhere.
Would we describe the October 7 Hamas massacre primarily as a manifestation of historical grievances?
Would we explain the bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building as merely the product of political frustration?
Would we characterize the Charleston church murders or the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre primarily through the lens of social systems rather than individual evil?
Most Americans instinctively reject those arguments because they understand that context cannot replace accountability.
September 11 deserves the same clarity.
As the founder of The 9/11 Legacy Foundation, I have devoted much of my life to ensuring that future generations remember not only what happened that day but why remembering matters.
Memory is not about vengeance.
Memory is about truth.
The truth is that thousands of ordinary Americans demonstrated extraordinary courage. Firefighters climbed upward while everyone else fled downward. Police officers rushed into collapsing buildings. Strangers carried one another to safety. Flight 93 passengers chose sacrifice over surrender.
Those are the stories America should tell.
Not narratives that subtly relocate blame from murderers to the society they attacked.
The timing makes this conversation even more important.
As we approach the twenty-fifth anniversary of September 11, fewer young Americans have personal memories of that Tuesday morning. For millions, history is increasingly learned through social media clips, political commentary, and classroom discussions rather than lived experience.
That makes precision essential.
Words matter.
Political leaders have every right to criticize American policies, debate military interventions, condemn racism, or advocate for justice. Those conversations are healthy in a democracy.
But they must begin with an unwavering acknowledgment that al-Qaeda, and al-Qaeda alone, bears responsibility for the atrocities committed on September 11.
There should be no ideological qualifier attached to that truth.
No “but.”
No “however.”
No attempt to transform mass murder into an understandable historical consequence.
America has never claimed perfection.
Our nation has wrestled with slavery, discrimination, injustice, and mistakes both at home and abroad. Honest patriotism does not deny those chapters; it confronts them.
Yet acknowledging our imperfections does not require accepting narratives that diminish the moral clarity of September 11.
In fact, one of America’s greatest strengths has always been our willingness to confront our own shortcomings while still defending the universal principle that innocent human life is sacred.
That principle transcends politics.
It transcends party.
It transcends ideology.
Twenty-five years after terrorists sought to break our spirit, the greatest tribute we can pay to those we lost is to refuse any narrative that clouds the distinction between victim and perpetrator.
We owe that to the families still carrying unimaginable grief.
We owe it to the first responders still fighting illnesses caused by their service.
We owe it to the veterans who answered our nation’s call.
And we owe it to every young American who deserves to inherit history without revision.
September 11 was not America’s fault.
It was America’s tragedy.
And we must never allow moral clarity to become another casualty.
Dr. Chris Meek is the founder and chairman of the Organizing Committee of The 9/11 Legacy Foundation.
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