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>> in on the 17th anniversary of the september 11, 2001 terror attacks to more gently carries them expert brian michael jenkins of the rand corporation. 17 years on, where are we and the war on terror? >> well, it would be a balance sheet of classes and some frustrations. certainly we have succeeded integrating the operational capabilities of the jihadists. al qaeda, most of the territory that was taken by isis has been recovered. we have truly degraded their operational capabilities, particularly their ability to carry out large-scale, ambitious attacks in the united states. they have been largely reduced

to exhortation to inspire homegrown terrorists to carry out attacks here. and in that regard they've had some measure of success, but not a great deal. there has been about two dozen jihadist attacks against the period. these have resulted unfortunately and a few over 100 deaths and average of 60 year. we've also seen, i mean, in the immediate shadow of 9/11, we were concerned about further 9/11 gail attacks. and yet, in the most recent communication held by god he, the leader of isis, he called on his followers here to carry out attacks with knives, with guns, with automobiles, still a

threat, still potentially lethal, but far down the register. so in that sense, we've had a measure of success. we have had less success in encountering the narrative. we are just not very good at doing this. we're a lot better on the battlefield than we are and ideological warfare. and we haven't dented the determination of our jihadist folks to continue the struggle. they will carry this on. this conflict will continue for the foreseeable future. >> to that point as we sit here in 2018, do we have any better ability to say when this ends or what victory in the war on terror actually looks like? >> well, i don't think we can say when exactly it will end. if you look historically, those

who are in the middle of the 30 year war with a 100 year war in the history know that they were in the middle of a 30 year war, 100 year war. i think he was safe to say and certainly many of the analysts such as myself did say early on that this is going to be a very, very long struggle. in terms of victory, we are not going to get the kind of conventional victory we saw in world war ii. i'll bet daddy, the leader of isis are not going to come out on the american battleship and sign a surrender. what we really face is a continuing conflict of varying intensity for the foreseeable future. on the other hand, we can say every day that we hold onto our

values that these terrorists pose are not able to cause this country to collapse in fear and alarm. that in fact is a continuing victory. >> we are talking about terror threats in the war and terror today 17 years after september 11, 2001. brian michael jenkins joins us from the rand corporation. senior advisor. if you want to join the conversation, democrats can join in. republicans at (202)748-8001. independent that (202)748-8002. we will take viewers live to the ceremony in shanksville, pennsylvania when that is expected around 9:30 this morning. we may also see some live images from the ceremony at the pentagon and the sour as we are

talking with brian michael jenkins. feel free to call in now with your questions and comments. mr. jenkins, since 9/11 as you noted, we have another attack on the scale of 9/11. would you have believed that was possible back on september 12, 2001? >> i think it was possible, but there is extraordinary concern. clearly, intelligence had failed to identify the 9/11 attacks. we had at that time no idea how many more attacks were what specific scenarios might need. in the pipeline. it was certainly a desperate time. we simply could not run the risk of doing nothing, if not ron dayne immediately with every measure we possibly could to prevent a repetition of that

attack. as it turned out, we were able to very quickly dispersed al qaeda, to scatter them come to reduce their capabilities. we were able to very, very quickly mount a major intelligence effort worldwide that has continued since then. that is one of the developments that people are not entirely aware of. the u.s. intelligence effort and the creation of alliances across the planet has made the terrorist operational environment a lot more hostile for them. so the kinds of movement of people, movement of money, movement of operatives that we saw in the run-up to 9/11.

i'm not saying it cannot take place today, but it is a lot more difficult for them. bad intelligence cooperation has extended beyond our usual like-minded allies been broadened some participants that would perhaps have preferred to stay on the sidelines but al qaeda bombings come indonesia, tunisia, egypt, and saudi arabia convinced a lot of nations that this wasn't simply a battle between al qaeda and america. this is really a global campaign. >> host: richard is up first from verona, missouri. democrat, good morning. >> good morning. yes, this 9/11, i remember it well. i was at work when we got word of it. it's a real tragedy, but looking back and thinking about it, the tragedy we've had since then,

gold star mothers, they got to us bad and we turned around and made it worse for ourselves declaring these wars and having all these refugees out of iraq everywhere. i guess in a way they won because we really spent a lot of money and time. we just tried to get even. i don't know. it's been a disaster ever since. >> mr. jenkins, your thoughts on the accounts of what happened since. >> i don't think we were simply trying to get even. there is real concern about time we faced the most horrendous attack. it was an unprecedented attack on american soil and therefore

required a response. certainly the subsequent invasion of iraq complicated things. that is still highly controversial. but whatever the wisdom of the decision to invade iraq, we know that the jihadist were able to quickly take advantage of the chaos that followed. he gave them new list. one of the things that comes with the very, very long struggle is there are going to be invented, some of them of her own making. others like the political turbulence that accompanied the so-called arab spring, that is going to change circumstances and give space to our jihadist foes. in dealing with those jihadist

foes, we have to make sure that we are not going to do things that are going to fuel the animosity of others in the world and in fact complicate our mission. >> we still have all qaeda, taliban in isis. is there a organization that most concerns you today? >> you know, look. we shouldn't become too wrapped around the identities of the organizations. i mean, up until 2013 or so, it was al qaeda. we saw a division within the jihadist movement between al qaeda and isis. we continued to see something that is far more fluid organizationally than most people imagine. their doctrinal differences within isis.

in fact, i'll bet daddy himself is an apostate. and so this is a complicated movement. looking ahead, it is possible to envision both continuing divisions between al qaeda and isis and yet in some parts of the world they are cooperating and it's not inconceivable to see some type of merger at least at the local level of these two current wings of the jihadist movement. the movement will continue. the particular organizational form will morph with the circumstances. >> lawrence, kansas is next. jeremy is independent. good morning. >> caller: good morning. for real american patriots out there like to put some facts and services for people interested in the real nature of international terrorism

september 11th to which very much had to do with what the previous caller identified that these wars have not been good for the united states on september 11th in terms of the constitution, which is what our military oath sworn to defend how to do with article iii, section three. so some facts to put on the table are the only people who are actually arrested on september 11th or operatives that israeli intelligence. people want information on that committee should go look at veteran today. gordon does, marine veteran that the 9/11, the mystery that is debunking the 28 pages top-secret 9/11 doc revealed written by high-level u.s. intelligence. and then come that people might also want to look at the lawyers committee for 9/11 they just submitted a document to the

seventh district of new york earlier this year about what actually happened in the trade towers. >> host: gotcher point, jeremy. mr. jenkins, do you want to respond? >> guest: quite frankly i don't have a lot of time for these conspiracy theories. they're people who contend the planes did crash into the towers, that these were staged operations. and i think the weight of the evidence points to exactly what we saw, that this was audacious and vicious and unfortunately successful planned by a terrorist enterprise and we have gone after that terrorist enterprise to dismantle it and make sure it cannot do that for things like that in the future. quite frankly, as i say, there is always a swirl of these

theories and contentions and so on. >> good morning, john and your desk in my comment has nothing to do with party affiliation. united airlines flight 93. i do not understand why it's not that flight was not a mystery flight. the people on board that flight were not mystery people. they were not aliens. they were americans and other people as well. i flew with them from new york to san francisco and he was the real captain and one of the best. i am very unhappy they referred to as 93. it is united flight 93 and i would prefer in the future, especially today that you would do us a favor and call at united

airlines flight 93. thank you and have a nice day. >> host: the commemoration ceremony for united airlines flight 93 taking place getting started in about 15 minutes will take her viewers their lives and that starts. don, democrat. good morning. i think as a person -- [inaudible] most of the dems are countries that the majority are muslims. right now -- [inaudible] we need to find a way to fight terrorism because it looks like the terrorists to train young people that have no future where they live. and we have no accountability. when you look at what is happening right now, the saudi

government destroying this country. guess what, most of us, people expect the united states will do something about it when something goes wrong. if we spend money from them, they don't bear responsibility, this issue will never stop. it becomes a symptom that keeps coming back. >> mr. jenkins. >> you know, look, first of all, the united states is blamed for the world problems, blamed for not solving the world problems in blamed when we try to solve the world problems. the united states cannot take this on and has not taken this on as an exclusive burden. increasingly, realizing that this is a long struggle, the

united states efforts are determined now to increase local capacity to deal with these issues. now in some cases that may be to improve governance and in some cases it means really just simply improve their abilities to legitimately suppress these terrorist organizations. so this is not a fight simply to be waged by the united states alone. >> you then act this a long time studying terrorism issues with the rand corporation. nearly 50 years. can you talk about the nature of terrorism than when you started this work compared to today? >> well, some differences. certainly the major developments over the past half-century have been, first of,