This weekend marks 25 years since the destruction of the World Trade Center and an attack on the Pentagon by members of Al Qaeda, a reactionary Islamic fundamentalist jihadist group. Nearly 3,000 people died in what was a terrible slaughter of innocent people. This attack also became the pretext for bloody American wars against Iraq and Afghanistan, and military aggression throughout the Middle East—which together took the lives of over a million people. 

To understand the scale and scope of the war crimes and devastation that the U.S. brought down on Iraq, Afghanistan and more check out: American Crime Case #70: "Operation Iraqi Freedom,"and “America’s Post-9/11 Wars: The “Gift” That Keeps on Killing.” After reading, reflect and pause on this statement from Bob Avakian: 

Without confronting the very real horror of what this country has been, and what it has done, here and all over the world, from its founding to the present—and without coming to deeply hate this, it is not possible, in the final analysis, to retain one’s own humanity and act in the highest interests of all humanity. (From “The Problem, the Solution, and the Challenges Before Us”)

The 9/11 attack was also used to justify a huge leap in the repressive apparatus aimed at anyone who dissented and, in particular, masses of Islamic immigrants. All this amounted to a tremendous leap toward fascist rule, and all this was supported by both major political parties. Today the U.S. is again locked in an unjust and dangerous war with Iran that is not only a living hell for the people of Iran, but threatens to break out of the bounds of the Mideast. And now the repressive moves of the Bush Regime in response to 9/11 are on steroids and being consolidated under the thoroughly fascist Trump/MAGA regime. Last month 50,000 immigrants were snatched off the streets, in court houses, airports, and their homes by masked ICE gestapo and sent to massive concentration detention camps. Protesters have been murdered by ICE, speech and dissent restricted, with the whole society moving towards consolidating a fascist America. 9/11 foreshadowed the leaps in war, repression, and fascism that have gone down since then. This is a history that underscores why only a real revolution for the emancipation of humanity can put an end to the devastation and horror that is U.S. imperialism. 

To get a sense of how the Revcoms understood and responded to 9/11 at the time—and to get a sense of the consistently revolutionary orientation and approach to this from revolutionary leader Bob Avakian (BA)—we are running a statement put out by the Revolutionary Communist Party three days after 9/11, and the answer to a question concerning 9/11 from BA in 2003.