Frederic J. Fransen is president of Amerion College in Huntington, West Virginia. He here gives us a lightning history of terrorism in the context of 9/11 without once mentioning or even coming close to mentioning the actual ideology of the 9/11 terrorists themselves. He says they wanted to destroy American values, yet gives no hint of who they were or why they targeted the U.S. Why not? Fear, of course. He is afraid of being called “Islamophobic,” or possibly of the jihadis targeting him. But we will never be able to defend American values from this attack if we’re afraid to name the enemy and study his motives and goals.
“The real target of 9/11-style terrorism is American values,” by Frederic J. Fransen, Daily Independent, September 7, 2026:
OPINION — Virtually everyone in their mid-30s or older remembers where they were when they heard that an airplane struck the World Trade Center in New York on Sept. 11, 2001. I was in a hotel gym in Slovakia; it took two weeks to get home.
That was the goal of the terrorists: to destroy the ability of the American people to live their lives normally.
The concept of terrorism as a useful strategy emerged during the French Revolution. On Sept. 5, 1793, France’s National Convention declared that “Terror is the order of the day!” The government would henceforth use violence and intimidation to advance the revolution.
Until then, terror was universally understood to be wrong — a tool of despots. Republics’ driving force, by contrast, was “virtue.”
By calling for terror, the French revolutionaries transformed the shameful tool of despots into a badge of honor for themselves. And they did so with a vengeance.
During the French Revolution’s Reign of Terror (1793-94), Maximilien Robespierre and the “Committee of Public Safety” oversaw the killing of 30,000 to 40,000 people, about half by guillotine, historian Donald Greer reported in his authoritative 1935 monograph, “The Incidence of Terror During the French Revolution.” For almost a century thereafter, terror was primarily a tool of governments.
That changed suddenly in 1878, when Vera Zasulich, a Russian revolutionary, shot and wounded (but didn’t kill) the governor general of St. Petersburg, Dmitri Trepov. When asked at her trial why she didn’t finish him off, Zasulich replied, “I am a terrorist, not a murderer.”
Suddenly, “terrorism” meant not state-operated violence to intimidate the people, but individual actions to destabilize the state. Helped enormously by the invention of dynamite, anarchists, labor activists and communists adopted a new tactic….
Taffy says
I never heard of Frederic J. Fransen or Amerion College before, and his comments have little weight. Also, I’m sure that he spoke in sound bites, rather than presenting a scholarly dissertation on the causes of 9/11 and Islamic jihad.
If someone were defending his PhD thesis or “somebody did something” Omar or Mamdani omitted this key information, then fire all criticism at them, guns broadside. But why bother criticizing an unknown president of a nondescript college?
ploome says
you write
“………. individual actions to destabilize the state. Helped enormously by the invention of dynamite, anarchists, labor activists and communists adopted a new tactic….”
and helped enormously by the media
Walter Sieruk says
Those murderous jihad affronts, which occurred on September 11, .2001 was an outright abomination and a sin unto God. Those horrendous Islamic terrorist attacks were the result of jihadist Muslims obeying the instructions found in Islam’s ‘holy book” the Qur ‘an for the use of violence and killing for the advancement of Islam. As found in, for example, 2:191. 5:33. 9:5, 111.123. 47:4. Therefore Islam is a false, dangerous, demonic and deadly religion.
Walter Sieruk says
All those murderous actions that those Muslim terrorists of a Qaeda committed on September 11th 2001 did those horrendously evil mass murderers not because they were following a “hijacked” or “warped” form of Islam, They engaging in straight from the Qur’ an , non – watered down Islam.
For example, in Surah 47:4. the Qur’ an instructs “Whenever you encounter the disbelievers strike off their heads until you make a great slaughter among them…”
The terrible reality is that using jet passenger planes, as missiles will make a greater “slaughter among them” than a sword can.
Walter Sieruk says
When speaking or writing it’s best to be clear and specific. This is something that this President of the West Virginia college has ,so terribly fa8led to do , regarding those murderous jihad terror attacks that occurred on September 1th 2001. Shame on him.
Dr. Sabastian Gorka , made himself clear , in contrasts to that West Virginia college president, because Dr .Gorka well, understands that the root cause of the ideology of Islamic terrorism which is based on Islam. For in his book which is entitled DEFEATING JIHAD explained about the jihadist –Muslims on page 132 which reads “The enemy’s center of gravity is ideology of holy war against the infidel…”
This is, of course, the ideology of Islam’s jihad [Islamic terrorism] is based on the Quran,5:33 4:89 9:111,123.47:4 ,in which the jihadists are in this war against us for the victory of Islam over us.