Australian politicians and prominent figures have marked the 25th anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks which claimed nearly 3000 lives.
Two hijacked passenger jets slammed into the World Trade Center, drowning downtown New York in ash and debris from the wreckage of the falling Twin Towers.
Another plane was flown into the Pentagon in Washington DC, while a fourth crashed into a field in Pennsylvania after it had been diverted by heroic passengers.
In a video tribute to those lost in the attacks, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said it “was a day that changed the world”.
“Twenty-five years after the September 11 attacks in the United States, we pause to reflect on that darkest of days,,” he said.
“We think of the nearly 3000 whose lives were stolen, including the 10 Australians.
“We think of all those whose lives were changed forever, amid scenes so confronting that they remain seared into our collective memory.
“It was a day that changed the world. Yet amid its horror, it showed us the greater side of humanity.
“From New York to Washington to Pennsylvania, so many people responded to terror with extraordinary courage, compassion, and defiance, and together they defined the spirit of a nation.
“We hold on to that, and we remember everyone who never came home from what should have been just an ordinary day in September.”
Opposition leader Angus Taylor also reflected on the attacks, using the milestone to reiterate his commitment to national security and counter-terrorism.
“We remember the almost 3,000 people killed including the 10 Australians, we think of their families, and we face the fact that Islamist extremism remains a significant threat,” he said.
“My commitment to Australians is to keep out, and root out Islamist extremism. We will protect our way of life.”
His shadow foreign minister Ted O’Brien said it had been a “quarter of a century since the world changed forever”.
“On this solemn milestone, Australia pauses to remember every soul lost. We hold in our hearts the families left bereaved, who have carried the compounding weight of that grief for twenty-five years.
“Being in Washington D.C. on that fateful day, former Prime Minister John Howard immediately pledged Australia’s resolute solidarity with the American people.
“In the days that followed, for the first and only time in history, Australia formally invoked the ANZUS Treaty. We did so not just out of legal obligation, but out of a deep, emotional bond of abiding mateship.
“The Coalition reaffirms our sacred pledge to stand unyieldingly against evil, terrorism, and violent extremism in all its forms.
“This commitment renews a promise to work hand-in-hand with the United States and other international partners to protect the open, democratic way of life that defines us.”
Defence Minister Richard Marles reflected on the terror attack as a day that shocked the world and remembered the lives lost on what should have been an ordinary September day.
“What it heralded was obviously a huge change in terms of wars in Iraq and in Afghanistan,” he said.
“More than 40,000 Australians served in those over the coming years, more than 40 lost their lives.
“So, we very much remember all of them.”
Former Labor Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who had been an opponent to Australia’s following the US in Iraq after the terror attacks, weighed in on his 2007 promise to withdraw troops during a National Press Club address on Thursday.
Dr Rudd said there had been seriously flawed intelligence and labelled the decision to decapitate pro-Sunni leadership, which allowed for a “greater Iranian satrapy”, as a “failed geopolitical decision” with a “profound and enduring geopolitical cost”.
“So, politics, like international policy decisions, are always capable of being flawed.
“I still can’t see how we could have taken an alternative decision. If you look at where Iraq is today and its contribution to Middle East security, I think we’d have to say this has been a retrograde step.”
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