On Sept. 11, 2001, members of international terrorist group al-Qaida hijacked four passenger jets and flew into the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. The attacks killed about 3,000 people.

The first court session for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the purported mastermind behind the attacks, and other suspects is scheduled for June 2028, meaning legal proceedings have not started even a quarter-century after the incident.

A prolonged legal battle developed over whether the confessions of the defendants were admissible because they were obtained through secret detention and torture, including waterboarding, conducted by U.S. intelligence agencies.

While the United States called for a war on terrorism, its trampling of the law prevented dispensing justice against suspected terrorists.

VEERING OFF RULE OF LAW

9/11, an unforgivable criminal act, crushed hopes for peace and stability that had spread after the end of the Cold War.

But Washington has damaged its prestige by tilting toward the use of military power to respond to terrorism.

The past 25 years have been a period in which a superpower injured by terrorism has shaken the rule of law and order through its own actions.

The cooperation and involvement of some nations, such as Britain, Italy and Poland, in the special transfer of terror suspects to other nations without going through normal legal procedures has also been pointed out.

Since 2002, about 800 individuals have been sent to the detention camp at the U.S. Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba, and 15 are still detained there.

Thoughts of deviating from the law across territorial borders have changed in form but continued to spread.

U.S. President Donald Trump ordered the abduction of the Venezuelan president and his wife. Washington also bombed boats suspected of smuggling under the rubric of fighting drug traffickers.

Battling terrorism should not be used as an excuse to violate the law and human rights.

Amnesty International has pointed out that anti-terrorism and state security laws in Egypt, India and Hong Kong have been used to clamp down on human rights activities and critical views of the government.

In Japan, the designated secrets protection law was enacted.

Now, surveillance cameras are prevalent in the streets of many nations, perhaps reflecting the growing sense that restricting freedom and convenience may be unavoidable if monitoring is meant for safety.

The proper balance between law and order and freedom must be reassessed.

REBUILD BRAKES ON WAR

In August five years ago, the United States pulled out of Afghanistan, ending 20 years of war there.

The sight of the last U.S. military plane fleeing late at night symbolized the defeat of a superpower and marked a return to power of the Islamic fundamentalist group Taliban.

The Taliban had been ousted from power for protecting al-Qaida.

All countries, with the exception of Russia, do not formally recognize the current Taliban government mainly because it has ignored the rights of women.

The United States expanded its war on terrorism from Afghanistan to Iraq, but that effort failed even after an enormous amount of money was poured in. That should have shown the limits of self-righteously using force.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine, Israel’s onslaught in Gaza and the U.S.-Israel attack on Iran all have no end in sight, even though many innocent civilians have been killed.

In early September, the U.S. military announced a missile attack against an Iranian military facility. But Iran responded that the airstrike killed five people and injured about 70 at a wedding reception.

That recalls the tragedy in 2002 when a U.S. military aircraft mistakenly took a gun salute at a wedding in Afghanistan as an attack and bombed the site, killing dozens of civilians.

The negative spiral of the use of force planting the seed for hatred and leading to terrorism must end.

World War II erupted even after the Treaty of Versailles, with a non-belligerence provision, was agreed to after World War I.

To rectify this, the U.N. Charter banned, in principle, the use of force, except for self-defense or based on a U.N. Security Council resolution.

But the war on terrorism has led to a failure to apply such brakes.

The shock of 9/11 should not be used to abandon the principle of avoiding war as a necessary option.

Now is the time to tighten the loosened reins.

SEEDS FOR TERRORISM

Al-Qaida has been weakened, and the Islamic State, which emerged from remnants of the terror group, has lost areas in Syria and Iraq it once controlled.

But that does not mean the threat of terrorism has disappeared.

An analysis by the Australian Institute for Economics and Peace shows the epicenter of global terrorism has shifted from the Middle East to western Africa.

Among the factors behind the trend are weak rule, poverty, conflicts over water and land brought about by climate change, and the inflow of weapons.

Upon reflection, al-Qaida was able to sink its roots in Afghanistan after extended fighting and international apathy weakened state functions and created a vacuum.

While force can hurt the terrorist organization and damage its bases, it cannot erase the foundation that led to the creation of the group.

Multilateral cooperation is needed on such issues as education, development, jobs, economic disparity and climate change to prevent the creation of another “forgotten” area.

Terrorism is not caused only by failed nations.

Those involved in the 9/11 attacks received high education, and some lived in the West.

The strengthening of anti-Islam sentiment and xenophobia in Europe could turn young people into ultra-rightists.

The lessons 25 years after 9/11 should be to rebuild international cooperation to protect the rule of law, place brakes on the use of force, and fill in any state vacuums and social division.

--The Asahi Shimbun, Sept. 11