Critics Say America Losing War on Islamic Terror 25 Years Later
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What happened
Ahead of the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, Fairfax County Public Schools in Virginia issued a six-page guidance letter advising teachers to design instruction around students’ needs, refrain from associating the attacks with Islam or Muslims, and not to “center the extremists or the acts of the extremists,” according to reporting by 7News. In Canada, CBC Senior Director of Journalistic Standards and Public Trust Basem Boshra circulated a memo telling staff not to call the Sept. 11 attacks terrorist attacks and to write instead that hijackings led to passenger-jet crashes in Washington, D.C., Pennsylvania, and Manhattan; after public criticism, CBC issued follow-up guidance reversing that stance. U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-Wis.), a candidate for governor, called for Wisconsin’s taxpayer-funded schools to require lessons on 9/11 that include the terrorists who carried out the attacks; Associated Press reporting has noted that about one-third of Americans were born after Sept. 11, 2001, and that Wisconsin is not among the majority of states that require or expect such instruction.
BLINDSPOT.
Only right-leaning outlets are covering this story
— the other side's media is silent.
Omitted — what each side leaves out
Unpacked
Left-leaning coverage is silent on the story. Right-leaning coverage reports that Fairfax County Public Schools told teachers not to "associate the 9/11 attacks with Islam or Muslims." It also reports that a CBC director instructed staff not to call the attacks terrorist attacks, a line reversed after outcry. A reader of the silent side never encounters those instructions or the count of 2,977 killed.
Right-leaning outlets do not contradict the school letter or the CBC memo. The documents appear in The Federalist, not in National Review, which says sharia supremacism is "on the march." Coverage in The Federalist stays on the documents rather than claiming the terror is past yet the war is being lost.
What, if anything, did the Fairfax letter tell teachers to teach about 9/11 besides what to avoid?
Bottom line
National Review’s claim that America is losing the war sits beside The Federalist’s Fairfax and CBC examples, and left-leaning coverage has reported none of it.
The receipts — 5 facts one side's coverage lacks
- Fairfax County Public Schools issued a six-page guidance letter advising teachers to refrain from associating the 9/11 attacks with Islam or Muslims.
- About one-third of Americans were born after Sept. 11, 2001.
- Wisconsin is not among the states that require or expect public-school instruction on the 9/11 attacks.
- Rep. Tom Tiffany called on Wisconsin to require lessons on 9/11 and the terrorists who caused it.
- After reversing its memo, the CBC did not fire senior director Basem Boshra.
The Right View
National Review and The Federalist frame the 25th anniversary as evidence that the United States is still losing a war against militant Islam while schools and corporate media strip Islamic terrorism out of the 9/11 story. National Review argues that “sharia supremacism is on the march” and that the Western establishment continues to deny or downplay militant Islam’s religious war. The Federalist, citing 7News, reports the Fairfax County guidance in detail, compares it to the 1619 Project, and quotes parent Stephanie Lundquist Arora saying the approach adds “insult to injury” for families affected by the attacks. It also reports Tiffany’s curriculum demand, Gordon Felt’s warning (via AP) that omitting the story is the biggest fear of 9/11 families, the CBC memo and its reversal, and Conservative MP Rachael Thomas’s unsuccessful call for Boshra to be fired. The outlets treat concern in the Fairfax guidance for Muslim students facing harassment as misplaced relative to the 2,977 killed on 9/11.
Our Take (balanced)
The core institutional claims are substantive and checkable: named actors (Fairfax County Public Schools, Basem Boshra, CBC, Rep. Tom Tiffany), a reported six-page district letter, a CBC standards memo that was later reversed, AP figures on post-9/11 birth cohorts and state curricula, and on-the-record quotes. What is established is that Fairfax issued 9/11 teaching guidance that, as reported, tells staff not to associate the attacks with Islam or Muslims; that CBC briefly directed staff not to use “terrorist attacks” for 9/11 and then reversed; and that Tiffany is pressing Wisconsin to mandate 9/11 instruction. What remains alleged or interpretive is the broader thesis that America is “losing the war” on Islamic terror, that public schools will recast bin Laden as a “freedom fighter,” and that the Fairfax letter is equivalent to erasing Nazis from WWII—those are framing, not independently documented new facts in the coverage provided. No left-leaning outlet has reported this. Watch for the full Fairfax guidance text, the original and revised CBC memos, official responses from the district and CBC, and whether other districts have issued similar instructions.
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