For most Americans 9/11 was political Islam's 'official' declaration of war against the U.S. although in truth it was nothing of the sort. 9/11 was preceded by a failed attack on the WTC, and successful strikes on the USS Cole, the Khobar Towers, and the marine barracks in Beiruit.
9/11 has been followed by attacks on an Orlando nightclub, a Christmas party in San Bernardino, a bombing at the Boston Marathon, and other violence here in the States and various shootings, knifings, and vehicle rammings in Europe as well as untold beheadings and barbarities in Syria, Yemen, Libya, and beyond.
While no declaration of war, 9/11 was a major event in the Long War, a generational slow, grinding conflict between, as Samuel Huntington observed, "civilizations." Frankly, Huntington was being pedantic for politiical Islam is the antithesis of "civilized," and richly deserves extermination.
Instapundit Glenn Reynolds writes of 9/11:
One thing I guess I didn’t believe 16 years ago is that America would elect such a feckless President in 2008, and stand idly by while he flushed our global position, and security, down a left-wing toilet. But we did, and we’ll be paying the price for a long time. God bless America. We need it.Amen, brother.
