The World and Everything in It - September 9, 2021

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning!

9/11 was among the greatest intelligence failures in U.S. history. Are we better prepared now to stop the next big terror attack?

NICK EICHER, HOST: Also today life in Afghanistan with American forces out of the country.

Plus highlights from notable speeches following the 9/11 attacks.

And a new WORLD product to tell you about!

REICHARD: It’s Thursday, September 9th. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

EICHER: And I’m Nick Eicher. Good morning!

REICHARD: Now the news. Here’s Kent Covington.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Blinken: Taliban blocking charter flights out of Afghanistan » Secretary of State Tony Blinken confirmed on Wednesday that the Taliban is blocking Americans and others from leaving Afghanistan.

BLINKEN: As of now, the Taliban are not allowing the charter flights to depart.

Blinken said Taliban officials claim that some of the passengers don’t have the proper documents.

BLINKEN: While there are limits to what we can do without a presence on the ground, without an airport without normal security procedures in place, we are working to do everything in our power.

After leaving Americans behind, the Biden administration is now heavily dependent on the Taliban’s cooperation for the safe return of U.S. citizens and allies.

At a joint press conference with Germany’s foreign minister on Wednesday, Blinken added that if the Taliban wants legitimacy or international support, it will have to earn it. And in the eyes of the West, it’s not off to a good start.

The new Afghan government is stacked with veterans of the Taliban's hard-line rule from the 1990s. The announcement of a new government came hours after Taliban fired their guns into the air to disperse protesters in Kabul and arrested several journalists.

Another record for US job openings; 10.9 million in July » U.S. employers hung up more help wanted signs than ever before in the month of July. That according to a new Labor Dept report. WORLD’s Anna Johansen Brown has more.

ANNA JOHANSEN BROWN, REPORTER: Job openings set a new record for the second straight month, rising to about 10.9 million in July. That was up from the previous record of 10.2 million.

But layoffs actually rose slightly to 1.3 million. And nearly 4 million people quit their jobs, just shy of a record set in April. That suggests many Americans are confident enough in their job prospects to quit and seek something new.

Employers continue to struggle finding enough workers. Some are hopeful that the expiration of the enhanced unemployment benefits program, which ended nationwide this week, may push more people back into the workforce.

But the COVID-19 delta variant is also putting a dent in America’s economic rebound. The Labor Department reported Friday that the economy generated a disappointing 235,000 jobs last month — about a third what economists had expected.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Anna Johansen Brown.

Confederate statue comes down in Richmond, Va. » Crowds cheered, sang, and chanted in Richmond, Va. Wednesday as workers hoisted a 21-foot-tall Confederate statue off of its granite pedestal.

The monument depicting Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee on horseback has stood on Richmond’s Monument Avenue since 1890.

Workers lowered the statue to the ground and cut it into sections before hauling it away on a flatbed truck. For now, it will sit in storage.

Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam …

NORTHAM: Remnant like this that glorifies the lost cause of the Civil War, it needs to come down. And this is hopefully part of a new day, a new era.

Northam ordered its removal last summer during anti-racism and anti-police protests across the nation. Residents opposed to the removal filed lawsuits citing 1887 and 1890 agreements to preserve the statue. But earlier this month, the Virginia Supreme Court ruled that those obligations no longer applied.

Hong Kong police arrest pro-democracy activists » The Chinese government dealt another blow to democracy in Hong Kong Wednesday, arresting organizers of a Tiananmen Square vigil.

For the past two years, the government has banned the annual gatherings to commemorate the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.

Police arrested four people with one of the last pro-democracy groups in Hong Kong, claiming they refused to cooperate in a national security probe. They’re being investigated for allegedly colluding with foreign governments.

One of the four arrested, Chow Hang-tung, told reporters earlier this week…

TUNG: There’s no single reason or evidence saying why they can accuse us of being a foreign agent.

But under the government’s new so-called national security law, which China’s communist government imposed on Hong Kong last year, they don’t need a reason.

The government has used that law to crack down on liberties in what used to be a semi-independent territory.

Mexican Supreme Court decriminalizes abortion » Mexico’s Supreme Court ruled this week that it is unconstitutional to punish abortion. WORLD’s Kristen Flavin has that story.

KRISTEN FLAVIN, REPORTER: The decision will immediately affect only the northern border state Coahuila, which had made abortion a criminal act.

But it will also establish legal precedent and—quote—“obligatory criteria for all of the country’s judges.” That according to court President Arturo Zaldívar.

Mexico is a heavily Roman Catholic country, and the topic remains highly controversial.

Only four Mexican states now allow abortion in most circumstances. The other 28 states have at least some protections for the unborn.

There are currently no women imprisoned for abortions in Mexico.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Kristen Flavin.

I’m Kent Covington. Up next: Are we better prepared today to guard against another 9/11-style attack?

Plus, memorable speeches from 9/11.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s Thursday, the 9th of September, 2021.

Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. First up: national intelligence.

In the days and months after 9/11, the question on everyone’s mind: How could this attack have happened to a nation with top military and global intelligence?

A commission to study the matter found a major problem with our national intelligence agencies.

REICHARD: And that was they didn’t share information that could have connected the dots.

That realization led to changes in the way agencies work together. Twenty years later, what difference have those reforms made? WORLD’s Sarah Schweinsberg reports.

SOT: Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?

SARAH SCHWEINSBERG, REPORTER: In 2003 and 2004, the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States held a dozen public hearings.

Lawmakers questioned members from every area of government, probing to find out what systemic failures led to 9/11.

SOT: These public hearings are part of our search for truth.

In April 2004, then CIA Director George Tenet told the commission his agency knew Al-Qaeda wanted to attack the United States.

TENET: The warning was well-understood, even if the timing and method of attacks were not.

But he said the CIA didn’t have the ability to act on its intelligence.

TENET: Warning is not good enough without the structure to put it into action...We never translated this knowledge into an effective defense of the country.

At another April 2004 hearing, then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said bureaucracy made sharing information between intelligence agencies too difficult.

RICE: In hindsight, if anything might have helped stop 9-11 it would have been better information about threats inside of the United States. Something made very difficult by structural and legal impediments that prevented the collection and sharing of information by our law enforcement and intelligence agencies.

The 9/11 Commission report, released later that summer, agreed. It found the FBI, which tracked suspicious people inside the United States, failed to coordinate with the CIA following terrorists outside the country.

And, at the time, the Federal Aviation Administration operated airport security. But the FAA didn’t update its no-fly lists with the names of CIA-identified terrorists.

PATEL: And then after that, Congress passed legislation and basically did an overhaul of the intelligence community and across the government.

Kristen Patel is an intelligence professor at Syracuse University. She says that overhaul came in the form of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004.

The legislation created the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. It oversees and coordinates information flow between the country’s 18 intelligence agencies. The law also created the National Counterterrorism Center.

PATEL: So different agencies that had a counterterrorism mission were housed under one roof and they were able to coordinate.

Patel says the bill also changed what intelligence lawmakers get. Instead of one agency's limited perspective, they now get briefs incorporating multiple viewpoints.

PATEL: It wasn't just the CIA's perspective, or like CIA and NSA’s perspective. It was a whole of government perspective.

David Shedd is the former acting director of the Defense Intelligence Agency. He says after 9/11, intelligence agencies realized they had to shift from dealing with a large, static power like the Soviet Union to dealing with nimble terrorists, who lived anywhere and could strike anytime.

SHEDD: You were trying to find the next plot, that next plot could be carried out by a few individuals...it could be hidden somewhere in a place that would be very hard to find.

Shedd says over the last two decades, the reforms have largely worked. We haven’t had another large scale act of terrorism on American soil.

But the changes aren’t perfect. Kristen Patel at Syracuse University says bureaucracy remains a problem. And when every agency has a seat at the table, it creates confusion about who’s in charge.

PATEL: It's kind of a decision by committee as opposed to a more streamlined approach, the process is more painful.

Intelligence experts say the threats to the United States have also changed in the last decade. And American agencies have to continue to evolve to meet new challenges.

Brad Bowman studies U.S. defense strategy at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. He says terrorists and international crime organizations now have access to technology that makes it difficult to intercept their communications. 

BOWMAN: And so if you have terrorist leaders who can communicate with cells around the world and we can't detect those conversations, or understand what's being said, that's really kind of a horrible nightmare.

And we have new weapons to guard against. Cyberattacks, the proliferation of nuclear ballistic missiles, as well as potential biological weapons.

BOWMAN: One could imagine a terrorist group gaining access to a biological weapon that could be employed against us and our forces.

There’s also new power centers. Particularly China. Heritage’s David Shedd says China’s espionage around the world is making it tougher for American intelligence agencies to work with their traditional allies.

SHEDD: Increasingly, countries are deciding to place collection capabilities off limits inside their country. Why is that? Because there is a fundamental distrust and there is a fundamental long reach of China.

Compounding all of those challenges, U.S. intelligence has taken a hit in Afghanistan. David Bowman at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies says the United States’ withdrawal will make intelligence-gathering in the Middle East much more difficult.

BOWMAN: Anyone who thinks that we can do counterterrorism as effectively in Afghanistan, Pakistan region, without a military base in Afghanistan, that's just not the way it works.

And with the Taliban back in power, the stakes are just as high as they were in 2001.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Sarah Schweinsberg.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: An early look at Afghanistan without a U.S. presence.

It has now been 10 days since the last U.S. troops departed.

Some Taliban officials have suggested publicly that they will be less extreme than they were the last time they ruled most of the country 20 years ago. But do we have any early indications that they will be?

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Joining us now to provide those answers is Luke Coffey. He is a former captain in the U.S. Army and an Afghanistan War veteran. He’s now a policy analyst at The Heritage Foundation. 

Luke, good morning!

LUKE COFFEY, GUEST: Good morning. Thanks for having me on.

REICHARD: Glad to have you. Well, when were you deployed to Afghanistan, what did you learn about the Taliban during your time there?

COFFEY: Well, this was back in 2005, which admittedly, at this point, seems like ancient Afghan history. But the situation with the Taliban then and now the Taliban today, and then, of course, the Taliban in the 1990s hasn't changed all that much. And in fact, if the world needs proof of this one only has to look at the list of the members of the Taliban who formed the new so-called “caretaker government” in Kabul, in Afghanistan. All of these names that are on this list are from the old guard of the Taliban—those who were around in the 1990s, were senior Taliban officials during the insurgency years after 9/11. And in fact, the new acting interior minister of Afghanistan—and I should point out—the interior minister has a very powerful position where you roll in the law enforcement, the intelligence services, the border controls, and border security all into one ministry. So the new acting minister of interior is actually wanted by the FBI for $5 million. So most of these new members of the government are considered by the international community to be declared terrorists. So I'm afraid that the new Taliban is the same as the old Taliban.

REICHARD: Let’s talk about the plight of women, then. The Taliban has also talked about making more allowance for women than it did 20 years ago. Any sign of that being true?

COFFEY: It depends on what your definition of more allowances is. For example, it's been reported that a woman now leaving their home for less than three days at a time—so not going on any trip, for example—doesn't even need a male relative as an escort. However, if the woman is traveling or going out of her home for more than three days, then she does. So—this is my opinion, I'm sure most of the listeners would agree—this isn't, you know, a moderating sign of the new Taliban. Universities and schools have been open, reopened to allow women but they are segregated in different classrooms if there’s space. The Taliban says if there is not space then they have to be partitioned off with a temporary wall or curtain. And then, preferably, women teachers will teach women students, and if there are no women teachers available, then they have to find the oldest male teacher available to teach and then they can teach the women on a temporary basis. But we've already seen mass protests erupting throughout many of Afghanistan's major cities in the past few days. And these protests have been led by women. And Afghanistan has changed over the past two decades—whether the Taliban want to admit it or not. Afghanistan is a very young country. I would say that about 70 percent or so of the population is under the age of 30. So many young women—and men for that matter—will not remember exactly what it was like under the Taliban in the mid 1990s. They've only known their relative freedoms since 9/11, the past two decades. And you cannot just change this overnight. Even the Taliban cannot change this overnight. So this is why I think the Taliban are going to have a problem at least in the short term when it comes to how they handle this issue of women's rights.

REICHARD: Luke, let’s talk about the Americans left behind. The Taliban also said it would allow Americans to leave the country after U.S. forces departed, but we’re seeing reports now suggesting that is not happening. Why is the Taliban blocking people from boarding planes?

COFFEY: Well, there's nothing in the past 20 or so years that has proven that the Taliban can be a credible or trustworthy partner for the United States. And it's shocking that the Biden administration seems to take everything the Taliban says at their word. There are Americans that are stranded behind in Afghanistan, even though the President himself said on numerous occasions—most recently, I think August 20th, during an interview—that the U.S. presence, the U.S. troops will stay at Kabul International Airport until the last American who wants to leave is able to leave. This was not the case, as we now know. The estimates range widely from about 200 Americans to more than 1,000 who want to get out. And the Taliban have not been letting them get out in any systematic way. Now, there's been a lot of talk about the Taliban holding these Americans hostage. This could very well be the case, but what hasn't been discussed much is other groups that could see the presence of Americans stranded in Afghanistan as an opportunity for hostage taking. So it's not just that the Taliban we have to worry about there are many other nefarious actors that could hold Americans hostage in Afghanistan.

REICHARD: Luke Coffey with the Heritage Foundation has been our guest. Luke, thanks so much!

COFFEY: My pleasure. Thank you.

AUDIO: [STREET SOUNDS AND THEN CHATTER INSIDE]

NICK EICHER, HOST: “Girl with Balloon” is – or was – or sort of still is a painting by the internationally infamous and, anonymous, artist known as “Banksy.”

He’s made a name for himself by spray painting images in public places. His original “Girl with Balloon” graces the walls of an East London building.

AUDIO: Item starting at 150, 200 thousand…

In 2018 Banksy sold a smaller, framed painting of “Girl with Balloon” at Sotheby’s in London.

AUDIO: Can I sell it now for £860,000. And sold for $860,000 [SOUND OF GAVEL]

That’s $1.4 million US dollars.

No sooner had the gavel struck the deal than the painting began beeping and lowering itself through the bottom of the frame where Banksy had secretly installed a shredder.

Witnesses could only watch as the device turned half the painting to ribbons.

The buyer decided to keep the piece of performance art until now.

The half-trashed piece of work—renamed “Love in the Bin”—goes back on the Sotheby’s auction block October 14th. It’s expected to fetch as much as $8.3 million.

Turning treasure to trash and back again. Now that’s recycling that pays off!

It’s The World and Everything in It.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Thursday, September 9th. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard.

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: notable speeches past and present.

Throughout this week, we’ve commemorated the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. Today, we return to the hours and days afterward to hear reactions from world leaders of the time.

EICHER: Leaders like UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, Mexican President Vicente Fox, and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

We’ll end with President George W. Bush’s final remarks from the 9/11 National Day of Prayer and Remembrance service. We now present portions of those addresses without further comment.

KOFI ANNAN, UN SECRETARY GENERAL: ​​We are all traumatized by this terrible tragedy. We do not yet know how many people have been killed or injured. But inevitably, the number will be high. Our first thoughts and prayers must be for them and for their families. I wish to express my profound condolences to them, and to the people and government of the United States. There can be no doubt that these attacks are deliberate acts of terrorism, carefully planned and coordinated. And as such I condemned them utterly. Terrorism must be fought resolutely, wherever it appears. In such moments, cool and reasoned judgment are more essential than ever. We do not know yet. Who is behind these acts, or what objective they hope to achieve. What we do know is that no just cause can be advanced by terror.

TONY BLAIR, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: It is hard even to contemplate the utter carnage and terror which has engulfed so many innocent people. We've offered President Bush and the American people our solidarity, our profound sympathy, and our prayers. As for those that carried out these attacks, there are no adequate words of condemnation. This mass terrorism is the new evil in our world. The people who perpetrate it have no regard whatsoever for the sanctity or value of human life. And we, the democracies of the world, must come together, to defeat it and eradicate it. This is not a battle between the United States of America and terrorism, but between the free and democratic world and terrorism. We therefore here in Britain, stand shoulder to shoulder with our American friends in this hour of tragedy, and we, like them, will not rest until this evil is driven from our world.

VICENTE FOX, MEXICAN PRESIDENT: Esta mañana nos enteramos de la terrible noticia sobre la serie de atentados terroristas en los Estados Unidos, que han dejado una estela de gran destrucción. México expresa al pueblo y al gobierno de los Estados Unidos su solidaridad y sus más profundas condolencias por las irreparables pérdidas humanas. Expresamos también nuestra más enérgica condena a estos ataques. He hecho saber al presidente George Bush nuestros sentimientos de pesar y nuestra solidaridad en momentos tan difíciles.

[TRANSLATION] This morning we heard the terrible news about the series of terrorist attacks in the United States, which have left a trail of great destruction. Mexico expresses to the people and government of the United States its solidarity and deepest condolences for the irreparable human losses. We also express our strongest condemnation of these attacks. I have conveyed to President George Bush our feelings of sorrow and our solidarity at such a difficult time.

ARIEL SHARON, ISRAEL PRIME MINISTER: The fight against terror is an international struggle of the free world, against the forces of darkness, who seek to destroy our liberty and our way of life. I believe that together we can defeat these forces of evil. In this most difficult hour all Israelis stand as one with the American people. Our hearts are with you. And we are ready to provide any assistance at any time. The Government of Israel has declared a Day of Mourning tomorrow as we bow our heads in share in the soul of the American people.

GEORGE W. BUSH, US PRESIDENT: They have attacked America because we are freedom’s home and defender. And the commitment of our fathers is now the calling of our time. On this National Day of Prayer and Remembrance we ask Almighty God To watch over our nation, and grant his patience and resolve, and all that is to come. We pray that he will comfort and console those who now walk in sorrow. We thank him for each life, we now must mourn and the promise of a life to come. As we've been assured, neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height nor depth, can separate us from God's love. May He bless the souls of the departed. May He comfort our own and may He always guide our country. God bless America.

EICHER: In order of appearance, that was UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Mexican President Vicente Fox, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, and U.S. President George W. Bush.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Thursday, September 9th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.

Awesome new product announcement to tell you about here at WORLD: Introducing WORLD Opinions—daily opinion columns from respected Christian voices—talking about the ideas and events that are attempting to redefine our world today.

I’m honored to tell you that leading this effort for us is Albert Mohler—you know him from the Briefing podcast—you may know him from his books or from his leadership of Southern Seminary. He’s adding WORLD Opinions to his portfolio and we’re thrilled to have him.

So I’ll say welcome to WORLD Opinions editor Al Mohler. Good morning to you!

AL MOHLER: Nick and Mary, it's great to be with you and to all the listeners of the world and everything in it. Glad to be with you this morning.

EICHER: Tell me, why WORLD Opinions and why now?

MOHLER: Well, Nick, you know, the reality is that we are living in a great battle of ideas. We're living in a war of ideologies. And this is as practical as the decisions that Christians have to make every single day and how we engage with the headlines around us. And what we need—and the need for this has been made so clear among conservative evangelicals—what we need is one place with authoritative, respectful, thoughtful, unequivocally Christian and conservative opinion, from a range of voices who share that commitment.

And that range of voices, by the way, is going to bring some of the most important conservative Christian commentators alive today, into this project of WORLD Opinions.

I'm very excited about it. Now is the time and WORLD has the reputation, deservedly, to be the place where evangelical Christians would turn for just this kind of opinion—even as for so many decades, they've turned to WORLD for news and analysis. This is going to be adding to the WORLD universe with what is straightforwardly WORLD Opinions.

And those opinions are going to be as relevant as the daily headlines and as permanent, as what T.S. Eliot referred to as “the permanent things.” We're going to speak without hesitation in defense of objective truth, in defense of right. And in defense of conservative principles, the permanent things, enduring eternal truths. We're going to be helping Christians to join in the defense of those principles. In the midst of a tumultuous age. It's a high calling. And I think now is exactly the time when something like WORLD Opinions is so desperately needed.

EICHER: WORLD Opinions will come bundled with your subscription to WORLD Magazine. If you’re a subscriber, a WORLD member, then you already have an online login and you have full access to WORLD Opinions to be delivered each weekday morning beginning October First. Of course you’ll be working with our WORLD Digital team—led by Tim Lamer—but tell us about the young man you’ve tapped as managing editor of WORLD Opinions and what he brings to this.

MOHLER: I'm very, very thankful that Dr. Andrew Walker is going to be serving as the managing editor for WORLD Opinions. He's one of the most important, most incisive, and most faithful, young Christian thinkers in the world today. And furthermore, he is already tested and tried and true.

He is a well-known writer. He is a very, very important public intellectual among Christians in the United States, and it's going to be a great, great pleasure to work with him. He's already my colleague on the faculty at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Now he's going to be my colleague in this great task as well. And we are eager to get started.

EICHER: That’s Albert Mohler, editor of WORLD Opinions, coming to us—coming to you, at WNG.org October First. More to come. Lots of work to do between now and then and I’m thrilled to be working with you. Thanks so much!

MOHLER: Thanks, Nick. You know, this is a grand adventure, it's going to demand our very best and that's absolutely what we're determined to bring to it. Thank you.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Tomorrow: Culture Friday—we’ll talk about that tech CEO who got the boot for praising the Texas abortion law.

And, a musical tribute to Canadian hospitality.

That and more tomorrow.

I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard.

The World and Everything in It comes to you from WORLD Radio.

WORLD’s mission is biblically objective journalism that informs, educates, and inspires.

The Bible says the heart of the discerning acquires knowledge; the ears of the wise seek it out.

Go now in grace and peace.

WORLD Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of WORLD Radio programming is the audio record.