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A Tragedy for All Americans: The 9/11 Terrorist Attack

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Insight on The Twin Towers Attack

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9/11 Attacks: Facts, Background and Impact

The events that led to the 9/11 crisis in the united states, different reactions on the 9/11 tragedy in america, the 9/11 terrorist attacks: the dark day in us history, analysis of the 9/11 attacs in terms of aristotelian courage, 9/11: discussion about freedom in the united states, analysis of 9/11 incident as a conspiracy theory, an analysis of the united states foreign policy in the post 9/11 period, a research of 9/11 conspiracy theory, the growth of islamophobia after 9/11 in the united states of america, terrorism on american soil, 11 of september 2001: analysis of the tragedy and its conspiracies, the patriot act should be abolished, depiction of 9/11 in extremely loud and incredibly close movie, the history and background of 9/11 memorial, ian mcewan’s saturday: criticism of the post-9/11 society, cia's torture of detainees after twin towers' tragedy, 9/11: a day never forgotten, parallels between pearl harbor and 9/11 attack, america’s darkest days: pearl harbor and 9/11.

September 11, 2001

New York City, New York, U.S.

The tragic events of September 11, 2001, commonly known as the 9/11 attacks, involved a series of coordinated hijackings and deliberate suicide attacks carried out by 19 militants affiliated with the extremist Islamic group al-Qaeda. These attacks, which remain the deadliest acts of terrorism on American soil, targeted several locations in the United States. The hijackers were successful in crashing two planes into the iconic North and South Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, causing their eventual collapse. Another plane struck the Pentagon, the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense, located in Arlington, Virginia. The fourth plane, intended for a federal government building in Washington, D.C., was heroically thwarted by passengers who revolted, resulting in its crash in a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. These heinous acts had a profound impact on global security, reshaping the course of international relations and forever altering the lives of countless individuals affected by the tragedy.

The 9/11 attacks were a culmination of various historical factors and events that set the stage for this tragic event. The primary cause behind the attacks can be traced to the rise of Islamic extremism, particularly the extremist group al-Qaeda, led by Osama bin Laden. It emerged as a response to perceived injustices faced by Muslims, including the presence of American military forces in the Middle East and U.S. foreign policies in the region. The prerequisites leading to the attacks involved a combination of factors, such as ideological radicalization, recruitment efforts, and meticulous planning by the terrorists. These efforts aimed to exploit existing vulnerabilities within the aviation security system and target symbolic landmarks in the United States. Additionally, geopolitical conflicts, such as the Soviet-Afghan War and the Gulf War, played a role in shaping the ideological landscape and providing a breeding ground for extremist ideologies. The attacks were also facilitated by intelligence failures and a lack of coordination between various agencies responsible for counterterrorism efforts.

The effects of the 9/11 attacks were far-reaching and had a profound impact on various aspects of society. Primarily, the attacks resulted in the loss of thousands of innocent lives and caused immense physical destruction, particularly with the collapse of the World Trade Center towers in New York City and the damage to the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia. The attacks had significant socio-political consequences. They led to a heightened sense of fear and insecurity within the United States and around the world. The incident prompted the implementation of stricter security measures, including enhanced airport screenings and increased surveillance efforts, to prevent future terrorist acts. Moreover, the attacks influenced U.S. foreign policy, leading to military interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq. The attacks also had economic repercussions. The destruction of the World Trade Center had a severe impact on global financial markets and the economy, leading to a decline in stock markets and increased job losses. Additionally, the attacks had a lasting psychological impact, causing trauma and grief among survivors, families of the victims, and communities affected by the events.

The 9/11 attacks have had a significant impact on media and literature, with numerous works exploring the events, their aftermath, and their implications. Various forms of media, including films, documentaries, books, and poems, have depicted the 9/11 attacks and their consequences. One notable example is the film "United 93" (2006), directed by Paul Greengrass. The movie reconstructs the events aboard United Airlines Flight 93, which crashed in Pennsylvania after passengers attempted to regain control from the hijackers. The film offers a gripping and emotional portrayal of the heroic actions taken by the passengers in the face of tragedy. Another prominent work is "Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close" (2005), a novel by Jonathan Safran Foer. The book follows a young boy named Oskar Schell, who lost his father in the World Trade Center collapse. Through Oskar's perspective, the novel explores themes of grief, trauma, and the search for meaning in the aftermath of the attacks.

The 9/11 attacks had a profound impact on public opinion, eliciting a range of responses and shaping perceptions worldwide. In the immediate aftermath, people expressed feelings of anger towards the perpetrators and a desire for justice to be served. The attacks also sparked debates and discussions on various topics, including national security, terrorism, and foreign policy. Public opinion regarding the government's response to the attacks and the subsequent military interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq varied, with some supporting the actions taken and others expressing concerns about civil liberties and the potential escalation of conflicts. Furthermore, the 9/11 attacks prompted increased awareness and scrutiny of issues related to religious tolerance, Islamophobia, and the treatment of Muslim communities. Public discourse on these topics became more prominent, reflecting a heightened focus on understanding and combating prejudice.

1. The collapse of the Twin Towers following the 9/11 attacks remains a striking fact. The South Tower (WTC 2) collapsed only 56 minutes after being hit by United Airlines Flight 175, while the North Tower (WTC 1) collapsed 102 minutes after being struck by American Airlines Flight 11. These unprecedented structural failures shocked the world and demonstrated the devastating impact of the attacks. 2. The 9/11 attacks resulted in a tragic loss of life. In total, 2,977 people from over 90 countries lost their lives in the attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and aboard United Airlines Flight 93. Among the casualties were not only office workers and first responders but also individuals from diverse backgrounds, including tourists, airline passengers, and individuals attending business meetings. 3. Economic consequences: The attacks had a profound impact on the economy, not only in terms of immediate destruction but also long-term effects. It is estimated that the attacks caused a loss of $123 billion in economic output during the first two to four weeks. Additionally, sectors such as tourism, aviation, and finance experienced significant disruptions and faced substantial financial losses, leading to a ripple effect on employment and global markets.

The topic of the 9/11 attacks holds significant importance as it marks a pivotal moment in contemporary history that changed the global landscape in numerous ways. Understanding and exploring this event through an essay allows for a comprehensive examination of its profound impact on society, politics, security, and international relations. Firstly, the 9/11 attacks shattered the sense of security and invulnerability that many nations had previously enjoyed. It exposed vulnerabilities in security systems, leading to significant changes in counterterrorism measures and policies worldwide. Secondly, the attacks prompted a reevaluation of international relations and the United States' role in global affairs. It fueled the war on terror, leading to military interventions, the establishment of new alliances, and shifts in foreign policies. Furthermore, the 9/11 attacks raised important questions about religious extremism, ideological motivations, and the delicate balance between security and civil liberties. Examining these aspects in an essay fosters critical thinking and provides an opportunity to delve into the complexities surrounding terrorism and its aftermath.

1. National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States. (2004). The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States. W. W. Norton & Company. 2. Summers, A., & Swan, R. (2011). The Eleventh Day: The Full Story of 9/11 and Osama bin Laden. Ballantine Books. 3. Jenkins, B. M. (2006). The 9/11 Wars. Hill and Wang. 4. Smith, M. L. (2011). Why War? The Cultural Logic of Iraq, the Gulf War, and Suez. University of Chicago Press. 5. Bowden, M. (2006). Guests of the Ayatollah: The Iran Hostage Crisis: The First Battle in America's War with Militant Islam. Grove Press. 6. Wright, L. (2006). The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11. Vintage. 7. Bamford, J. (2008). The Shadow Factory: The Ultra-Secret NSA from 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on America. Anchor Books. 8. Thompson, W., & Thompson, S. (2011). The Disappearance of the Social in American Social Psychology. Cambridge University Press. 9. Boyle, M. (2007). Media Mythmakers: How Journalists, Activists, and Advertisers Mislead Us. Potomac Books. 10. Zelikow, P., & Shenon, P. (2021). The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions. Interlink Publishing Group.

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9/11 Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

🏆 best 9/11 topic ideas & essay examples, 👍 good essay topics on 9/11, 📌 simple & easy 9/11 essay titles, ❓ research questions about 9/11.

• David Foster Wallace on 9/11, as Seen from the Midwest It is important to mention that the revised version of the work had a few changes to protect the privacy of the involved.”The View from Mrs.
• The Cold War and the Events of September 11 The anxieties arising from the issue of European immigrants echo the sentiments of securitization and Islamophobia following the events of September 11.
• Global Impact of 9-11 Events on Terrorism Prevention Many people resorted to religion and faith, and the majority reported that they were praying more frequently. Moreover, it stimulated the intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan to fight terrorist groups.
• September 11, 2001 Attacks: What We Have Learned About Terrorism Since 9,11 The world has remembered one of the most tragic attacks in the USA in 2001, and the consequences of this event stay one of the most discussed.
• 9/11: Impact on the American Society Also known as the ‘9/11,’ the long-brewing attack on the Twin Towers forced many Americans to reconsider their perception of the safety that the government can provide.
• Economic and Political Impacts of the 9-11 on the American Society The economic impacts of the 9/11 terrorist attack were immediately experienced in all spheres of the nation’s development. However, as the nation grappled with drastic changes after the event, Arab Americans were negatively affected as […]
• Post-9/11 Veterans in Business The objective of the study is to explore how the adoption of a military mindset might influence the company culture and identify the competitive advantages of the post-9/11 veterans in the business setting.
• 9/11 Reminder That History Is Always Incomplete Thus, history cannot be regarded in one common way as all events are interpreted by people individually on the basis of their knowledge, experience, and personal characteristics.
• 9/11 Unmasked: Investigation of Attacks Graeme MacQueen, who presents concrete evidence on the anthrax deception by the administration have attributed the administration as a conspiracy that has lied to its citizens.
• Securing Airports in the Aftermath of 9-11 This will enable the Federal government to link and associate different information and this system can easily find the connection between suspected terrorists and suspicious activities. This type of technology must be installed in every […]
• The Key 9-11 Conspiracy Theory The adherents of the 9/11 Truth movement believe in a conspiracy theory that the building of the World Trade Center began blowing up even before the impact of the airplane, which points to the possibility […]
• “13 Days”, “The Hunt for Red October”, and “Fahrenheit 9-11”: Analysis The political team with President Kennedy in the forefront composes a plan to solve the problem without violent involvement since the U.S.military attacks could cause military strikes on the part of the Soviet Union despite […]
• Rudy Giuliani’s Leadership During 9/11 Crisis He was able to recognize the urgency of addressing the crisis to salvage the city. Giuliani was able to raise the bar in order to confront new Yorkers to respond to the crisis.
• Comparing World War II to September 11th Both attacks were condemned on a global scale, and a huge fraction of the rest of the world rallied behind the US. Over 16 million soldiers were deployed to settle the score with the Japanese, […]
• The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 by Lawrence Wright The book of Lawrence Wright impressed the readers with an innovative, unusual approach to the narration of the story that occupied the minds of all people around the world for several years, being the only […]
• Rebuttal Assignment: The Untold Facts and Stories of 9-11 The investigations that were published by the National Institute of standards and Technology dismissed these allegations and the community engineers supported the move by stating that the building was brought down by the impact of […]
• Islamophobia: Bias to Muslims and War After the 9-11 Incident In view of the 9/11 incident it became a scope of the authorities and the media to defend the position of government in the context of security as it was formulated that a constant threat […]
• The Psychological Effect of 9/11 on Young Adults Many a people are being wrongly suspected of being terrorists, this has been one of the biggest changes in the psychology of the adults which has taken place since the 9/11 incident.”The majority of participants […]
• Israel-Palestine after 9/11: Relations and Policies Of concern is that the discussion comes out with facts that Israel has developed policies that favor them with the backing of the US.
• Effects of the September 11, 2001 Terror Attacks on Sino-American Relations Thesis: In the aftermath of the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, China and the USA have come together on a common platform to combat terrorism reshaping Sino-American relations and redefining Asia Pacific security concerns.
• Conspiracy Theories of 9/11 Another layer of theories states that the events of September 2001 were initiated by the US military and the government which tried to gain the confidence of the American people and inspires racial envy and […]
• Terrorism: 9/11 Conspiracy Theories While on the one hand, it signified the failure of a number of government agencies, lack of a coordinated approach amongst the world community in dealing with the menace of terrorism, but it showed to […]
• Post-9/11 Era and the Attitudes Toward Muslim Americans According to Flanagin’s account of the relationships between Muslim Americans and the rest of the U.S.population, the victimization of Muslim Americans is comparable to that one of German Americans after WWI, although it may not […]
• Post-9/11 Veterans Educational Assistance Improvements Act of 2010 The Post-9/11 Veterans Educational Assistance Improvements Act of 2010 is one of the primary laws governing the provision of financial assistance to veterans of the US armed forces to pursue higher educational and vocational training.
• Terrorism and Security Dilemma After 9/11 This is especially a terror threat and the twentieth-century struggles, such as the’ Cold War.’ The authors note that in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, the global perception of terrorism has been enhanced.
• September 11 Attacks in the US News Media The nature of US news media coverage of the political responsibility for the September 11, 2001 terror attack is the point of concern that is highlighted in both articles.
• US History Since 1877: “9/11 – Loose Change” The main argument of the documentary 9/11 – Loose Change is that the US secret services stood behind the perpetration of the worst terrorist act in the history of America the attacks of 9/11.
• Richard Drew’s Photography: Visualizing September 11 This would have ensured that I had accommodated the rights of media, clients, society, and other stakeholders while still adhering to media ethics.
• Homeland Security Regarding the 9/11 Report The intelligent agencies struggled throughout the years prior to 9/11 on the collection of intelligence data and the analysis of the transformations of transnational terrorist activities.
• September 11 Attacks as a Political Impression As a matter of fact, the aftermath of these attacks led to various political motivations that enabled me to know more about the political side of terrorism.
• Bill Clinton’s Impeachment From Post-9/11 Perspective Impeachment is the act of removing a public official from a public office due to misconduct in the office. His actions in the Watergate scandal clearly depicted the kind of person he was, something that […]
• September 11 and Pearl Harbour: A Comparison by William Dudley According to Dudley, both of these attacks led to the loss of the lives of many Americans. This is due to the nature of subjectivity that the writer has developed in his theme of discussion.
• “Feminist Geopolitics and September 11” by Jenifer Hyndman Feminist Geopolitics and September 11 is the article that presents the evaluation of the events on September 11 from the perspective inherent mostly to women; it is not about male criticism and their evident mistakes; […]
• Risk Management in Organizations After 9/11 If a company is able to have a recent backup of all the information critical to its operation, it should be able to minimize losses and recovery time.
• The 9/11 Tragedy: One of the Deadliest Disasters in the US History For instance, the government presented the right equipment and evacuation strategies to respond to the tragic event. The leaders and human service professionals provided the right resources, materials, and counseling in order to deal with […]
• Global Universities’ Reforms After the 9/11 Attack The members of the team use the above competencies to support different students whenever there is an attack. An agreement is also “established in order to outline the commitment and participation of different response organizations”.
• The 9/11 Attacks and Its Consequences on the Health The mounting menace of global terrorism has facilitated the need for scholars to research on the impacts of such traumatic incidences on the health of the victims.
• Pearl Harbor and 9/11: Intelligence Failure Based on the findings of the bodies and the ongoing discussion among Americans concerning the similarities, the ensuing discourse compares the events of 7 December and 11 September.
• Terrorism: Post-9/11 Maritime Security Initiatives in the USA The degree of fatality and devastation prompted the industry players and the state to look for new strategies of moderating the inherent risks in the whole maritime transport system.
• The Concept of the Homeland Security After the September 11 Incident The experts repeatedly identified the lack of cooperation and poor coordination as the eminent concern amongst the several bodies linked to the Homeland Security.
• American Foreign Policy after 9/11 The government is likely to incite members of the public to support its policies by claiming that the country’s values and ideas are in danger. President Wilson noticed that the world was in need of […]
• The controversy behind the 9/11 tragedy In fact, sources reveal that most people believe the contrary that is the allegation that the US government initiated the attacks as a strategy of gaining control of oil in the Middle East.
• The Biggest News; The 9/11 Attack Exposing the Plight The American media placed more emphasis on the emergency response and the plight of the people who were exposed to the tragedy; this was aimed at exposing to the world that America […]
• “The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11” by Lawrence Wright The second part of the book looks at the Al Qaeda’s activities in the rest of the world. The book covers some of the problems faced in the fight against terrorism, especially the lack of […]
• Lessons Learned From 9/11 It was suspected to have taken the form of Al-Qaeda terrorist attacks in the sense that the Al-Qaeda group had not always been in good terms with the Americans.
• Terrorism Before and After the September 11 Attacks In light of the change in our perception of terrorisms as a result of the events of September 11 and the raising impact of religious fanatics who are quoted many a times declaring death and […]
• “9/11 and New York City Firefighters” Post Hoc Unit Support and Control Climates The independent variables of intensity of critical incident involvement were based on a measurement scale of 0 or 1 for affirmative to the 15 modes of involvement while for the four involving self injury a […]
• Post September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attacks Despite the fact that there were several Muslims in America who were victims of the attacks, Muslims in America are still being discriminated as a result of that incidence.
• The Advancements of Airport Security Since September 11, 2001 The 19 hijackers who terrorized the US in the twin attacks were able to go through the normal security checks and even shut the alarms of the metal detectors.
• The History of the 9/11 Decade The U.S.economy, the military needs and strategies of the country, the oil crisis and the U.S.relations with other countries, China and the countries of the Middle East in particular, are the main themes which need […]
• U.S. Government Response to the 9/11 Attacks There was a powerful set of shared assumptions we had in the wake of 9/11, and one of the most powerful was the assumption that we would never be forgiven if we failed to do […]
• The Impact of 9/11 on Global Logistics Following the adverse effects of the September eleventh terrorist attack in the US, the security of citizens and businesses has become the main concern in both the public and the private sectors of the economy.
• Facts about September 11 Attacks One of the most spread theories was that the jet provided the terrorists with the necessary observational data in order to carry out the attacks properly.
• Pentagon 9/11, Actions and Durations The following are the objectives of my study: To find out the major loopholes that was exploited by the terrorists in the attack To find out the measures that can be put in place to […]
• Effects of the September 11th attack on the geopolitics of the US The budge in geopolitical relations that is mounting as the U.S.acts in response to the attacks on its people is already pressurizing oil trades and supplies relationships and also changing ways can be anticipated in […]
• Changes in Crisis Work Since 9/11 The attacks changed the style of appointment and training, and today they is excellent support of local emergency teams on roles that expounds on emergency management locally and at state levels.
• Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright: The Failure to Prevent 9/11 Lawrence Wright’s book The Looming Tower Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 is aimed at examining at the origins of Al-Qaeda, the development of this terrorist organization, and the main events that preceded the September […]
• What Attitudes, Beliefs, and Assumptions Correlate with Individual Support for Hate Crimes Directed at the Muslim Community Post September 11, 2001? Ample evidence shows that the increase in cases of hate crimes against Muslims has been due to negative stereotypes of Muslims in the media, especially among the communities of Muslims in the Middle East)..
• U.S. Border Security: 9/11 Aftermath In the immediate consequence of the 9/11 attacks, the US congress ruled to add the security agents deployed along the US-Canada border, and the US sent its National Guard troops to inspect, secure and patrol […]
• Domestic Terrorism in the Post 9/11 Era However, according to the FBI news, no act of terrorism can be compared to the terrorism attacks of 9/11, which cost thousands of lives and a negative impact on the United States economy.
• Benefits of Post 9/11 Security Measures Fails to Outway Harm on Personal Freedom and Privacy War on terror and the countermeasures on terror threats such as security appraisals have pushed citizens to a point of critically analyzing the benefits and outweighing them against the compromised privacy and personal freedom.
• Law Enforcement after 9/11 The response of the US government in the wake of September 11 was important and has proved to be effective in averting terror acts.
• Consequence Management After the 9/11 Terrorist Attacks On November 25, 2002, the United States Department of Homeland Security was formed with the aim of guarding the territory of the United States from terrorist attacks and take appropriate action in case there is […]
• Tourism, Travel and 9/11 Despite the fact that the U.S.economy was slowing in the months prior to this incident, the consequences of the terrorist act tipped the economy further into depression.
• September 11th 2001 Analysis That is from the rapid and complex growth of the Islam fundamentalism to the rise of the al-Qaeda and finally the failures of the intelligence services.
• September 11: Terror Attack and Huge Casualties As the police and the emergency staff trying to help those at the World Trade Center, the South tower, collapsed and tumbled down killing hundreds of the police and emergency personnel.
• Why Is 9/11 an Important Day to Remember?
• How Did Travel and Airport Security Change After 9/11?
• What Effect Did 9/11 Have on the Economy?
• How Did the World React to 9/11?
• What Are the Conspiracy Theories Around 9/11?
• How to Control Irrational Fears After 9/11?
• How Many Died on September 11th?
• What Was the Intention Behind the 9/11 Attacks?
• What Reorganization of the Government Took Place After 9/11?
• Who Survived 9/11 From the Highest Floor?
• What Islamic Reform Took Place After 9/11?
• How Many Firefighters Died on 9/11?
• How Many People Lost Their Jobs on 9/11?
• Who Was the Last Person Found on 9/11?
• Have There Been Any Personal Changes With You Since 9/11?
• What Is the Impact of President Bush´s Speech After 9/11?
• How Much Money Did 9/11 Survivors Receive?
• Are There Still People Missing From 9/11?
• How Did the Criminal Justice System Change After 9/11?
• How the Day of 9/11 Changed America Forever?
• What Are the Political, Social, and Economic Changes Following 9/11?
• What Are the Consequences of the Tragedy of 9/11?
• Was the U.S. Government Involved With 9/11?
• Why Was America Targeted on 9/11?
• Why Discrimination Against Arab-Americans Happened After 9/11?
• What Is the Essence of the 4th Amendment After 9/11?
• What Was the Reason Given for 9/11?
• Who Was in Charge of 9/11?
• How Long Did It Take To Find Out Who Was Responsible for 9/11?
• What Did the 9/11 Commission Find?
• Fire Safety Ideas
• Islam Topics
• Safety Essay Ideas
• First Aid Research Topics
• Afghanistan War Essay Topics
• Jihad Topics
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Understanding the Factors Behind the 9/11 Attacks

This essay about the 9/11 attacks examines the historical, political, ideological, and social factors leading to the tragedy. It explores the influence of Western involvement in the Middle East, the rise of al-Qaeda, and the motivations of the attackers. The essay also discusses the geopolitical landscape, the operational structure of al-Qaeda, and the implications for global politics and security following the attacks. It emphasizes the importance of understanding these factors to prevent future extremism and violence.

How it works

The 9/11 attacks, a series of coordinated terrorist attacks by the extremist group al-Qaeda on September 11, 2001, remain one of the most pivotal events in modern history. To understand the factors behind these attacks, it is essential to delve into the historical, political, ideological, and social contexts that led to this tragic event. This examination will provide insights into the motivations of the attackers, the geopolitical landscape of the time, and the broader implications for international relations and security.

The origins of the 9/11 attacks can be traced back to a complex interplay of historical grievances and ideological convictions.

One significant factor is the presence of Western powers in the Middle East, which has a long and contentious history. The United States, in particular, has been deeply involved in the region, both economically and militarily. The discovery of oil in the early 20th century and subsequent Western interests in securing access to these resources led to a series of political and military interventions. This created a legacy of resentment among many in the region who perceived these actions as imperialistic and exploitative.

The rise of al-Qaeda, the group responsible for the 9/11 attacks, was significantly influenced by these historical contexts. Founded by Osama bin Laden in the late 1980s, al-Qaeda emerged from the jihadist movement that fought against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The Afghan-Soviet War, which lasted from 1979 to 1989, saw extensive support from the United States and other Western nations for the mujahideen fighters. This support, however, was primarily motivated by Cold War dynamics rather than a genuine commitment to the region’s stability. Once the Soviets withdrew, Afghanistan was left in chaos, creating a fertile ground for extremist ideologies to take root.

Osama bin Laden and his associates were deeply influenced by the idea of a global jihad, a holy war against perceived enemies of Islam. They viewed the presence of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia, home to Islam’s two holiest sites, as a profound desecration. This sentiment was exacerbated by the perceived injustices against Muslims worldwide, including the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which bin Laden and his followers saw as a symbol of Western oppression.

The political and economic disparities within the Middle East also played a crucial role in fostering extremism. Many countries in the region suffered from authoritarian regimes, widespread corruption, and lack of economic opportunities. These conditions created a sense of disenfranchisement and hopelessness, particularly among the youth. Extremist groups like al-Qaeda exploited these sentiments, offering a narrative that framed jihad as a path to reclaim dignity and power.

The ideological underpinnings of the 9/11 attackers were rooted in a radical interpretation of Islam. It is important to note that this interpretation is a gross distortion of the religion’s teachings, which advocate for peace and tolerance. However, the jihadist ideology manipulated religious texts to justify violence against non-believers and those seen as apostates. This ideology was propagated through a network of radical clerics, online platforms, and training camps, creating a transnational terrorist movement.

Another critical factor behind the 9/11 attacks was the operational capabilities and organizational structure of al-Qaeda. The group was able to conduct such a sophisticated and coordinated attack due to its hierarchical yet flexible structure. Al-Qaeda’s leadership, often referred to as the “core,” provided strategic direction, while its affiliates and cells operated semi-independently, allowing for adaptability and resilience. This decentralized model made it difficult for intelligence agencies to track and dismantle the network.

The specific planning and execution of the 9/11 attacks involved meticulous preparation. The attackers underwent rigorous training in flight schools in the United States, highlighting the extensive planning and resource allocation involved. The hijackers blended into American society, taking advantage of the country’s open and democratic nature to plan their operations without raising suspicion. This demonstrated a chilling level of strategic thinking and patience.

The failure of U.S. intelligence and security agencies to prevent the attacks has been a subject of extensive scrutiny and analysis. Various factors contributed to this failure, including bureaucratic inefficiencies, lack of inter-agency communication, and underestimation of the threat posed by al-Qaeda. The intelligence community had received multiple warnings and indicators of a potential attack, but these were not effectively synthesized and acted upon. The 9/11 Commission Report, released in 2004, highlighted these shortcomings and recommended significant reforms to prevent future attacks.

The geopolitical landscape of the late 20th and early 21st centuries also influenced the conditions leading to the 9/11 attacks. The end of the Cold War left the United States as the world’s sole superpower, which created a perception of American hegemony. This unipolarity was seen by some as an opportunity to challenge U.S. dominance through asymmetric warfare. Al-Qaeda’s strategy aimed to provoke the United States into military overreach, thereby galvanizing more Muslims to join the jihadist cause and destabilizing the region further.

The aftermath of the 9/11 attacks had profound implications for global politics and security. The U.S. response, encapsulated in the War on Terror, involved military interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq, aimed at dismantling terrorist networks and promoting democratic governance. While these interventions succeeded in removing oppressive regimes, they also led to prolonged conflicts, significant civilian casualties, and regional instability. The power vacuums created by these wars contributed to the rise of other extremist groups, such as ISIS, perpetuating a cycle of violence and terrorism.

The 9/11 attacks also led to significant changes in domestic and international security policies. The United States implemented extensive measures to enhance homeland security, including the establishment of the Department of Homeland Security and the enactment of the USA PATRIOT Act. These measures aimed to improve intelligence gathering, enhance border security, and prevent future terrorist attacks. However, they also sparked debates over civil liberties and the balance between security and individual rights.

On a global scale, the attacks highlighted the need for international cooperation in combating terrorism. Countries around the world intensified their efforts to track and dismantle terrorist networks, sharing intelligence and coordinating operations. This collective approach has been essential in preventing further large-scale attacks, although the threat of terrorism remains ever-present.

In conclusion, the 9/11 attacks were the result of a confluence of historical, political, ideological, and operational factors. Understanding these factors requires a nuanced examination of the region’s history, the motivations of the attackers, and the broader geopolitical dynamics. While significant progress has been made in addressing some of the root causes of terrorism, the legacy of 9/11 continues to shape international relations and security policies. The ongoing challenge is to find effective ways to combat extremism while addressing the underlying issues that fuel it, striving for a world where such tragedies are averted.

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Teaching Ideas

10 Ways to Teach About 9/11 With The New York Times

Ideas for helping students think about how the Sept. 11 attacks have changed our nation and world.

By Nicole Daniels and Michael Gonchar

Sept. 11, 2001 , is one of those rare days that, if you ask most adults what they remember, they can tell you exactly where they were, whom they were with and what they were thinking. It is a day seared in memory. But for students who were born in a post- 9/11 world and have grown up in the aftermath, it is complex history that needs to be remembered, taught and analyzed like any other historical event.

Twenty years ago, four commercial planes were hijacked by operatives from the radical Islamist group Al Qaeda. One plane was flown into the Pentagon outside Washington, D.C., and two others were flown into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York. A fourth hijacked plane crashed in Shanksville, Pa. Almost 3,000 people died that day, including more than 400 emergency workers.

In the wake of those attacks, the United States initiated a global “war on terror” to destroy Al Qaeda — a campaign that expanded into decades-long wars in Afghanistan, Iraq (even though Iraq was not responsible for Sept. 11 ) and elsewhere. In the wake of Sept. 11, the United States changed in other fundamental ways as well, from increased police surveillance to a rise in Islamophobia .

Below, we provide a range of activities that use resources from The New York Times, including archival front pages and photographs, first-person accounts, and analysis pieces published for the 20th anniversary . But we also suggest ideas borrowed from other education organizations like the Choices Program , RetroReport , the 9/11 Memorial and Museum and the Newseum .

On Sept. 30, we are hosting a free event, featuring Times journalists, for students that will look at how Sept. 11 has shaped a generation of young people who grew up in its aftermath. Teachers and students can register here , and students can submit their own videos with questions, many of which we hope to feature during the live event.

1. Reflect on What 9/11 Means to You

In the essay “ What Does It Mean to ‘Never Forget’? ,” Dan Barry writes:

Inevitably, someday there will be no one alive with a personal narrative of Sept. 11. Inevitably, the emotional impact of the day will fade a little bit, and then a little bit more, as time transforms a visceral lived experience into a dry history lesson. This transformation has already begun; ask any high school history teacher.

Or, ask any student. They are at the center of the transition that Mr. Barry describes.

Invite students to respond to one or more of the following questions, and share their responses with other students from around the world by responding to our related Student Opinion question :

What does Sept. 11 mean to you? Is it mostly a “dry history lesson” or does it resonate for you in deeper ways?

What do you know about the events that took place on Sept. 11? Where and how did you learn about them?

What questions do you have about that day and what happened next?

Have the events of Sept. 11 and its aftermath affected you personally in any way? If so, how? How do you think they may have shaped your generation as a whole?

Note: To ensure your class has a shared understanding of what happened on Sept. 11, you might want to have students watch this two-minute video or scroll through this interactive timeline , both created by the 9/11 Memorial and Museum. Alternatively, students can watch this five-minute video from the History Channel which is focused on the attacks at the World Trade Center.

2. Interview Someone Who Remembers

Although teenagers today are too young to have their own personal memories of Sept. 11, people they know and love do. The Choices Program at Brown University has created a lesson plan that walks students through the process of conducting an interview about Sept. 11 with someone they know while also considering the importance of oral history.

The accompanying student handout suggests questions that students may want to ask, such as: What were you doing on Sept. 11, 2001? How did you find out about the attacks?

After conducting their interviews, students can share what they have learned in small groups and with the class. They might even create an oral history book or site that they can share with future classes.

For inspiration or as mentor texts, students can take a look at this “Revisiting the Families” collection of short follow-up interviews and articles that Times reporters did to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the attacks. It offers small glimpses of those who lost family members, and of their lives since.

3. Revisit History’s First Draft

Newspapers have been described as “history’s first draft.” Reporters and editors from around the world who published on the morning of Sept. 12 had less than a day to figure out how to make sense of what happened for their readers.

Invite students to look closely at the New York Times front page (or the full paper ) from that day. They can click on the individual articles as well. What do they notice? What questions does the front page bring up for them? What do they learn about coverage on that first day?

Then they can investigate front pages from other newspapers from around the world and across the country. The Newseum (you’ll need to create a free account) provides images of front pages of over 100 newspapers from dozens of cities — from Anchorage and Richmond, Va., to Turku, Finland, and Osaka, Japan. Business Insider compiled some of the images from the Newseum’s archival, to show what the front pages of newspapers from around the world looked like on Sept. 12 .

Students can choose three or four front pages and take note of the similarities and differences that they see in coverage; what choices might they have made had they been editors that day; and what additional questions these front pages raise for them.

4. Look Closely at Archival Photos

Photographs can be a powerful and accessible way for students to learn more about what happened on and after Sept. 11. Students can study the New York Times photo collection “ The Towers’ Rise and Fall ,” which was originally published on the 10th anniversary of the attacks, to see what stories these 72 images tell about the World Trade Center, the terrorist attacks and the aftermath.

Students can closely investigate two or three images using our What’s Going On in This Picture? protocol from Visual Thinking Strategies :

What is going on in this picture?

What do you see that makes you say that?

What more can you find?

Or, you can invite students to take on the role of curator in a museum who is creating an exhibit about Sept. 11 in New York. They can choose only six to eight photographs to tell the story. Which images would they select and why?

5. Listen to and Read First-Person Stories

Students can watch one or more of the three-minute videos from the “ Portraits Redrawn ” series that was created by The Times for the 10th anniversary of Sept. 11. The six videos are all interviews with people who had a family member die in the attacks.

They can watch this 10-minute video from VICE in which a civilian mariner talks about assisting with the world’s largest boat lift that rescued half a million people from Lower Manhattan.

They can also watch this 12-minute RetroReport video that features interviews with emergency workers who survived the attacks at the World Trade Center and do all or part of this related lesson plan (and student activity ).

Or, students can read this article about a survivor navigating life with post-traumatic stress disorder after the attack on the World Trade Center.

After watching or reading, they can consider: What have you learned about Sept. 11 by hearing stories of survivors, families and people who died in the attacks? And, how do first-person stories change, or deepen, your understanding of what happened?

6. Consider the Importance of Memory

Op-docs: where the towers stood, the world trade center wreckage once smoldered here. now visitors come from around the world to learn, remember and grieve the loss of 9/11..

[somber music playing] [airplane engine] See it? Yeah. Am I just seeing things? Oh, jeez. Oh, they’re people. Oh. Oh, jeez, they’re people. They’re people. They’re people. [quiet music playing] I’m going to take us right here to this tree where there in shade and there is sun, so you could have which ever you prefer. So we don’t get in everyone’s way, if we can stay over here on the left hand side, we’ll be in good shape. The memorial is designed for you to make physical contact with it, to actually touch the names. So do not feel that the appropriate behavior that shows respect is to be standoffish. It is not. The only thing that we do ask — and I really doubt that any of you would have the impulse to do this anyhow — do not put things on the name. Coats, elbows, cups, bags, anything like that. The other thing I want to say to you is this was truly — you’re an international group of people — this was the World Trade Center. People from over 90 countries died here that morning. They were Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, atheists. Some made their way in the world washing dishes, others ran powerful companies, but almost every single one of them dies that morning because they do something that all of us do with most of our lives — they woke up and they went to work. [somber music playing] Excuse me. Hello. Hello, hello, hello. There’s no smoking in the plaza. No smoking in the plaza. That’s quite all right. Thank you. So I want to talk to you about the pools. Directly in front of you is the south pool. The south pool stands in the footprint of the South Tower, World Trade Center number two. So that’s exactly where World Trade Center number two stood. Can everyone see that line of trees that goes around the pool? That line of trees represents the outer wall of the building. So that means in a few minutes when we go up to see the falls and you go past those trees, you will be standing in what was once the lobby of World Trade Center number two. You’re going to see the falls. The falls come out in individual rivulets, one for each person killed on 9/11. Goes down about 20 feet or so into a huge pool. In the center of the pool, another opening goes on another 10 feet or so. No matter how hard you try, you can’t see the bottom of that opening because it’s a void, and the void is a symbol of the emptiness that we feel here over the loss of life. I’m sure all of you can see the water under the names. That water comes directly from the pool. What someone will do, visiting a loved one — and please feel free to do the very, very same — take their hand, put it in the water, rub their hand over a name. Water, of course, a symbol of life. And notice how the names are on the wall. They are not arranged in alphabetical order. For example, people who worked in the same office in this building, they’re together. Firefighters out on the same firehouse, together. Police officers out of the same police precinct, together. We call that meaningful adjacencies. People together in death just the way they were together in life. I have a stupid question. The names of the killers. Are they — Absolutely not. Not. Absolutely not. Yeah. The only place you’ll find them is if you should go into the museum, there’s a special part that deals with Al Qaeda. [somber music playing] [water cascading] [somber music playing]

To learn more about the 9/11 Memorial in New York City, students can watch the above 18-minute video from our Film Club series. Then, they can respond to the questions below in writing or discussion.

What moments in this film stood out for you? Why?

Were there any surprises? Anything that challenged what you know — or thought you knew?

What messages, emotions or ideas will you take away from this film? Why?

What connections can you make between this film and your own life or experience? Why? Does this film remind you of anything else you’ve read or seen? If so, how and why?

Then, students can read a 2019 article about the opening of the 9/11 Memorial Glade in Lower Manhattan — a memorial for people, largely rescue and recovery workers, whose illnesses and deaths came years after Sept. 11, 2001.

After watching the video and reading the article, students can reflect on the following questions in a class discussion:

Why do we memorialize people or events? What purpose should a memorial serve?

What purpose does memorializing Sept. 11 serve? How do you think Sept. 11 can be most effectively or meaningfully memorialized?

What concerns or challenges should societies or organizations be mindful of when they create memorials? Why?

If you’re interested in furthering the conversation about the memorial in your class, the 9/11 Memorial and Museum has a collection of resources for teachers and students.

7. Evaluate International Repercussions

How the u.s. military response to the 9/11 attacks led to decades of war., officials who drove the decades-long war in afghanistan look back on the strategic mistakes and misjudgments that led to a 20-year quagmire..

Two decades after invading Afghanistan, the United States is withdrawing, leaving chaos in its wake and the country much as it found it 20 years ago. “The Taliban don’t just control Kabul, but the whole country.” How did a war that began in response to the 9/11 attacks become the longest in American history? “If somebody had told me in 2001 that we were going to be there for another 20 years, I would not have believed them.” And what lessons can be learned for the future? “We were doing the same thing year after year after year, expecting a different result.” “Nearly 2,400 Americans have died in Afghanistan.” “More than 43,000 Afghan civilians lost their lives.” “You can’t remake a country on the American image. You can’t win if you’re fighting people who are fighting for their own villages and their own territory. Those were lessons we thought we learned in Vietnam. And yet, 30, 40 years later, we end up in Afghanistan, repeating the same mistakes.” On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, President George W. Bush was visiting an elementary school in Sarasota, Fla., when he received word of an attack on the World Trade Center in New York City. “We’re looking at a live picture of the, of the building right now. And, uh, what would you say? That would be about the 90th floor or so?” The president joined his staff in an empty classroom, where his C.I.A. intelligence briefer, Michael Morell, had been watching the attack unfold. “There was a TV there and the second plane hit.” “Oh my goodness.” “Oh God.” “There’s another one.” “Oh.” “Oh my goodness, there’s another one.” “God.” “And when that happened, I knew that this was an act of terrorism.” At the Capitol in Washington, Representative Barbara Lee’s meeting was interrupted. “I heard a lot of noise saying, ‘Evacuate. Leave. Get out of here. Run fast.’ So, I ran up Independence Avenue. As I turned around, I was able to see a heck of a lot of smoke.” “Another aircraft, unbelievably, has crashed into the Pentagon.” “What you have to understand is this is the largest attack ever in the entire history of the country.” At 9:59 a.m., the second World Trade Center tower to be struck collapsed. Twenty-nine minutes later, the other tower followed. “The president, he asked to see me in his office on Air Force One. The president looked me in the eye and he said, ‘Michael, who did this?’ I told the president that I would bet my children’s future that Al Qaeda was responsible for this attack.” Within hours, evidence surfaced that Al Qaeda, a multinational terrorist organization headed by the Islamic fundamentalist Osama Bin Laden, had committed the attacks. The group was being given safe haven in Afghanistan by the Taliban regime. “The president’s inclination was to hit back and hit back hard.” “I can hear you. The rest of the world hears you. And the people — ” “So the president decided to go to war.” “ — And the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon.” “We had to go to Afghanistan. There’s no question in any of our minds, it’s a war of necessity. We had to go after Al Qaeda, we had to kill them, we had to get them out, and we had to pursue them to the ends of the earth.” “The word on the street was everyone’s got to be united with the president. You know, the country is in mourning.” Three days after the attacks, Lee was under pressure to vote yes on a resolution in Congress to authorize going to war against Al Qaeda and its allies when she heard a eulogy at a memorial service. “That as we act, we not become the evil we deplore.” “It was at that point I said, We need to think through our military response, our national security response and the possible impact on civilians.” “Mr. Speaker, members, I rise today really with a very heavy heart. One that is filled with sorrow for the families and the loved ones who were killed and injured this week. Yet I am convinced that military action will not prevent further acts of international terrorism against the United States.” “Got back to the office and all hell was breaking loose.” “The only dissenting voice was Democrat Barbara Lee of California, voting no.” “Phone calls, threats. People were calling me a traitor. She’s got to go. But I knew then it was going to set the stage for perpetual war.” Within weeks of 9/11, the U.S. struck back in Afghanistan. “The United States military has begun strikes against Al Qaeda terrorist training camps and military installations of the Taliban regime.” Soon after, U.S. ground troops arrived in the country. “The invasion was a success very quickly.” “At the gates of Kabul, news of a Taliban collapse had already reached these thousands.” “The Taliban retreat has turned into a rout.” “By the end of the year, the Taliban had been driven from power. A large number of Al Qaeda operatives had either been killed or captured.” And although Osama Bin Laden had managed to escape, the U.S. had accomplished its main goal. “Al Qaeda could not operate out of Afghanistan anymore.” President Bush knew there was a history of failed military campaigns in Afghanistan. “We know this from not only intelligence but from the history of military conflict in Afghanistan. It’s been one of initial success followed by long years of floundering and ultimate failure. We’re not going to repeat that mistake.” [Applause] But after his initial success, Bush expanded the mission to nation-building. To prevent further Al Qaeda attacks, his administration said it wanted to transform the poor, war-torn country into a stable democracy, with a strong central government and U.S.-trained military. “The idea was it would be impossible for the Taliban to ever return to power and impossible for Afghanistan to ever be used as a safe haven again.” “There were girls starting to go to school, there were clinics and hospitals being set up, there were vaccinations, there were elections planned. Everything was kind of humming along and we all thought, OK, this is going to be fine.” But by the mid-2000s, after the Bush administration expanded the war on terror to Iraq, Richard Boucher realized that the U.S.-backed Afghan government was plagued by corruption and mismanagement. “I used to say to my guys on the Afghan desk, ‘If we’re winning, how come it don’t look like we’re winning?’” “The Taliban have staged a major comeback, seizing control of large swaths of the country.” “The people were not rejecting the Taliban. And that was, in the end, because the government couldn’t deliver much for the people. Everybody had this idea in their heads that government works the way it does in Washington. But Afghanistan hasn’t worked that way in the past. I think that was a moment we should’ve at least asked ourselves whether it wasn’t really time for us to leave and to say to the Afghans, ‘It’s your place, you run it as best you can.’” Instead, by 2011, President Bush’s successor, Barack Obama, had sent nearly 50,000 more troops to Afghanistan, hoping to reverse the Taliban’s gains. “I think one of the biggest mistakes we made strategically, after 9/11, was to fail to finish the job here, focus our attention here. We got distracted by Iraq.” One of those troops was Marine Captain Timothy Kudo. Part of his job was to shore up support for the government by digging wells and building schools. He soon lost faith in that mission after, he says, his company killed two Afghan teenagers they mistakenly believed were firing on them. “And their family saw this happen. The mothers, the grandmothers, they came out. It was the first time I’d ever seen an Afghan woman without wearing a burqa. They were sobbing and crying uncontrollably. I mean, how can you kill two innocent people and expect anything that you say to matter at that point?” “People here have little faith in U.S. forces anymore. More Afghans now blame the violence here on the U.S. than on the Taliban.” Weeks after Kudo returned home from Afghanistan, there was a monumental development. “I started getting all these texts, like, ‘You’ve got to check out the TV.’ My roommate calls me from the other room. ‘Turn on CNN.’” “The United States has conducted an operation that killed Osama Bin Laden, the leader of Al Qaeda.” “U.S.A.! U.S.A.!” “In that moment, people are celebrating in front of the White House. They’re celebrating by Ground Zero.” “This is where it happened. We’re back. It’s justice!” “And to my mind, there’s no more reason to go through this madness. And, of course, we then did it for another decade.” “I think the military and the national security apparatus thought they could win. And I think that they also wanted to believe that because they had invested so much. People had died and they didn’t want them to die in vain.” “2011, Bin Laden is now dead. Why was it so hard to de-escalate?” Jeffrey Eggers was on President Obama’s National Security Council. He says that the goal since 9/11, to make sure Afghanistan would never again be a safe haven for terrorists, had become a recipe for endless war. “We will forever prevent the conditions that led to such an attack.” “Danger close!” [Gunfire] “And if you define it that way, when are you finished?” [Gunfire] “Go! Come on, come on, come on!” Though the surge failed to push back the Taliban, the U.S. drew down troop levels even as doubts were growing that Afghan forces would be able to defend the country. In 2021, President Biden, the fourth president to preside over the war, announced that he would withdraw U.S. troops, a plan set in motion by his predecessor, Donald Trump. “Nobody should have any doubts. We lost the war in Afghanistan.” “And we’re clear to cross?” “It wasn’t a peace agreement; it was a withdrawal agreement. The agreement was essentially, As we withdraw, don’t attack us.” As the U.S. leaves Afghanistan, the Taliban is taking over again, having quickly overrun the Afghan Army, which the U.S. spent more than $80 billion to train and equip. “The Taliban are out in full force. And their Islamist rule is already coming back.” “They can use this as a recruiting tool. They are now the champions of the jihadi movement because they pushed out the United States.” And U.S. officials are reflecting on the beginning of the war, 20 years after 9/11. “More people should have thought about endless war, not just in Congress but in the State Department, in the Defense Department, C.I.A. and elsewhere, in the White House. That the recipe of using military means to go after terrorism was just going to get us into one fight after another after another. One can only hope that Americans of the new generation will think about this.”

In an address to Congress and the nation on Sept. 20, 2001, President George W. Bush made it clear that the response to the terrorist attacks would not be confined to a single military strike on one group, network or country: “Our war on terror begins with Al Qaeda, but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated.”

Help students uncover the motivation behind the attacks and evaluate the international repercussions of the “war on terror” using the following resources:

The Terrorist Attack : Who was responsible for the attacks on Sept. 11? Why did they target the United States, and particularly civilians? Britannica and USA Today each offer brief summaries of the plot and the roles of Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. To go more in depth, you might have students watch the three-part documentary series “ Road to 9/11 ” from the History Channel, which provides a 360-degree overview of events that led to the attack.

To help students understand why the World Trade Center, Pentagon and U.S. Capitol were targeted, see the 9/11 Memorial and Museum lesson plan, “ Targeting American Symbols .”

The U.S. Response and the Global “War on Terror”: On Oct. 7, 2001, just weeks after the attacks, Mr. Bush announced that America had started a bombing campaign against Al Qaeda, the group responsible for the attacks, and the Taliban, the group that harbored them in Afghanistan.

So began the longest war in American history, which ended this year with the removal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan. What did the war accomplish? Use our Lesson of the Day on “ The U.S. War in Afghanistan: How It Started, and How It Ended ” to have students evaluate the causes and consequences of the 20-year conflict. They can also watch the 10-minute RetroReport video (embedded above), which looks at the decisions that shaped the war. And, they can use our Lesson of the Day “ What Will Become of Afghanistan’s Post-9/11 Generation? ” about how the lives of young people in Afghanistan have suddenly changed with the withdrawal of U.S. forces.

Beyond The Times, see the five-part lesson plan “ The Costs of War ,” created by the Choices Program, which examines the human, economic, social and political costs of the “war on terror” through videos and class discussions.

Veterans of the War in Afghanistan: Listen to voices of veterans in The Argument podcast episode “ You Don’t Bring Democracy at the Point of a Gun ” or read about their experiences in the essay “ Serving in a Twenty Year War .” How do these firsthand accounts and perspectives change how students understand the realities of the so-called war on terror? What questions would they ask these veterans if they were New York Times reporters?

After exploring one or more of the pieces in this section, students might discuss the prompts below:

What is terrorism? Why do some individuals and groups target civilians for political purposes?

Was the United States justified in using military force in Afghanistan after Sept. 11? What is the legacy of the “war on terror”? Has it made us safer?

What lessons can we learn from the war? How do you think the United States and other countries should work toward preventing future terrorist attacks? If the United States, or another country, were hit by foreign terrorism again in the future, how should we respond? What principles, critical questions and experiences should help us form our response?

8. Examine Ripple Effects in the United States

In the two decades since Sept. 11, many aspects of American life have changed, from travel and art to education and immigration . Your conversation with students about post-9/11 America could take on any one or many of these topics. Below, we suggest two possible lenses, based on recent Times texts, through which to examine the ripple effects in the United States:

Muslims in America : Invite students to read “ Muslim Americans’ ‘Seismic Change’ ” by Elizabeth Dias and consider how the aftermath of Sept. 11 has brought both challenges, including a surge in Islamophobia, but also possibilities for the Muslim American community, such as the election of Muslim Americans to Congress and award-winning television featuring Muslim American actors and stories, that would have been unfathomable 20 years ago.

Civil Liberties and Surveillance: Two decades after the attacks, police departments across the United States, and particularly the N.Y.P.D., are using counterterrorism tools, like facial recognition software, to combat routine street crime. Although police officials say these methods have helped thwart would-be attacks, others say they subject everyday people to “near-constant surveillance — a burden that falls more heavily on people of color.” Invite students to read “ How the N.Y.P.D. Is Using Post-9/11 Tools on Everyday New Yorkers ” and debate the benefits and drawbacks of these tactics.

After reading one or both of these articles, students might discuss the following questions:

In what important ways has Sept. 11 transformed American life?

Did anything described in the articles connect with anything you’ve experienced, read or witnessed? How have these changes affected your life, whether you knew it or not?

What does America’s response to Sept. 11 say about the United States today?

9. Explore Why Conspiracy Theories Sometimes Flourish

Today’s students are often familiar with conspiracy theories and their popularity on social media. Here is how one student responded to our 2020 Student Opinion question: Do You Think Online Conspiracy Theories Can Be Dangerous? :

Conspiracy theories can either be malicious, dumb fun, or anything in between. Some conspiracy theories can be serious and about tragedies such as 9/11, but some conspiracy theories can be interesting, such as bots in a video game being alive. I enjoy a conspiracy theory every now or then, but I wouldn’t take them as an absolute truth, you always have to take them with a grain of salt.

In the article “ How a Viral Video Bent Reality ,” Kevin Roose writes about how the conspiracy film “Loose Change” energized the “9/11 truther” movement and also supplied the template for the current age of disinformation.

Students can read this article and consider some of the questions raised in the article:

Why do you think some people are drawn to conspiracy theories?

What role does technology play in the spread of conspiracy theories?

Respond to this quote from the article: “A more urgent lesson to take from ‘Loose Change’ is that conspiracy theories tend to flourish in low-trust environments, during periods of change and confusion.” Why do you think that is? How does that lesson apply to today’s world?

You can pair this article with the Student Opinion question mentioned above, inviting students to post their own comments in response to that question, or with our Lesson of the Day “How to Deal With a Crisis of Misinformation,” which includes strategies for countering misinformation.

10. Watch Our On-Demand Panel for Students: The Post-9/11 Generation

How did 9/11 shape the generation that grew up in its aftermath?

With New York Times journalists and student voices, we discuss this question in our special interactive panel. The panel features Yousur Al-Hlou and Biz Herman, who examined how Sept. 11 has been taught in classrooms around the world, and Kiana Hayeri, who photographed young Afghans as they experienced the recent withdrawal of U.S. troops from their country. Invite students to register and view the on-demand panel .

Want more? For the 10th anniversary of Sept. 11, in 2011, we published this roundup of hundreds of resources from The Learning Network and The New York Times for teaching about Sept. 11 and the aftermath, including ideas from educators across the country and links to the front pages of The Times for the 10 days after Sept. 11.

Nicole Daniels has been a staff editor with The Learning Network since 2019. More about Nicole Daniels

How 9/11 Changed the World

The World Trade Center buildings in New York City collapsed on September 11, 2001, after two airplanes slammed into the twin towers in a terrorist attack. Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images

BU faculty reflect on how that day’s events have reshaped our lives over the last 20 years

Bu today staff.

Saturday, September 11, 2021, marks the 20th anniversary of 9/11, the largest terrorist attack in history. On that Tuesday morning, 19 al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked four American commercial flights destined for the West Coast and intentionally crashed them. Two planes—American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175—departed from Boston and Flight 11 struck New York City’s World Trade Center North Tower at 8:46 am and Flight 175 the South Tower at 9:03 am, resulting in the collapse of both towers. A third plane, American Airlines Flight 77, leaving from Dulles International Airport in Virginia, crashed into the Pentagon at 9:37 am, and the final plane, United Airlines Flight 93, departing from Newark, N.J., crashed in a field in Shanksville, Pa., at 10:03 am, after passengers stormed the cockpit and tried to subdue the hijackers.

In the space of less than 90 minutes on a late summer morning, the world changed. Nearly 3,000 people were killed that day and the United States soon found itself mired in what would become the longest war in its history, a war that cost an estimated $8 trillion . The events of 9/11 not only reshaped the global response to terrorism, but raised new and troubling questions about security, privacy, and treatment of prisoners. It reshaped US immigration policies and led to a surge in discrimination, racial profiling, and hate crimes.

In observance of the anniversary, BU Today reached out to faculty across Boston University—experts in international relations, international security,  immigration law, global health, terrorism, and ethics—and asked each to address this question: “How has the world changed as a result of 9/11?”

Find a list of all those with ties to the BU community killed on 9/11 here.

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There are 43 comments on How 9/11 Changed the World

this is very scary to me.

Yes this is very scary

This was a very sad moment in time but we need to remember the people that sacrificed themselves to save us and the people that died during this event. It was sad but at least it brought us closer together. I wonder what the world would be like if 9/11 never happened?..

Yes that is a good thing to rember…

We will all remember 9/11, a very important moment in our life, and we honor the ones who sacrificed their lives to save others in there.

It changed the world forever, it is infact a painful memory to remember

I feel bad for all the families that had family and friends die.

i feel bad for all the people and their family and friends that died

9/11 is tragic and it will always be remembered though I have to say that saying 9/11 changed the word is quite an overstatement. More like how it changes America in certain ways and the ones responsible for it but saying something like what you said makes it sound like it was Armageddon or something.

Whether or not those of us in other countries like it, for the last several decades and certainly still in the current time, when something changes the USA in significant ways that impact policy, legislation, education, the economy, health care, etc. (not to mention the ways in which public opinion drives the American political machine), the US’s presence on the international stage means those changes ripple outward through their foreign policy, treatment of both residents/citizens of the USA and local people where the USA has a military, economic and/or other presence around the world.

The complex web of international agreements, alliances, organizational memberships, and financial interdependency means that events that happen locally often have both direct and indirect implications, short and long term, around the world, for individuals and for entire segments of society.

As for the direct results of 20 years of military response to 9/11 on civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan, it certainly changed their world.

The original BU 9/11 Memorial webpage is still up: https://www.bu.edu/remember/index.html

Reading through the remembrances from that day onward …

Omg scary .

I honor them all.

I wonder how much time people had to get out before the building collapsed

the south tower collapsed in 10 seconds.

Yes but it didnt colapse untill 56 minutes after it was hit

Shall all the people who risked their lives, never be forgotten.

am i blind or was there no mention of how it actually affected the world afterwards??

I know right?

My dad died in 9/11, He was a great pilot

Wow. I’m really sorry for your loss I hope you can still go far in life even without your dad. Sometimes you just have to go with your gut and let them go.

i dont really think you understood that comment

i just read the story and im so sade for the dad that died . If i was there i wouls of creiyed and i saw someone in the chare that someone dad died and i felt so bad when i saw the comment but i dont know if that is real but if it is i feal bad for you if my dad died or my mom i woulld been so sade i would never get over it but this story changed my life when i read it.Also 1 thing i hoop not to any dads diead because i feel bad fo thos kids.

yo all the dads and moms died all of them will never get forgoten every single one of them

Never forget, always remember

everyone is talking about the twin towers but what about the pentagon.

I know, right?

it is super scary

Sorry for all the people who Lost their family

Thanks for helping me with this report, and yes so sorry for all yall who lost family

So, so sorry to all y’all who lost family

I am deeply sorry for anyone who lost family, friends, co workers, or anybody you once knew. This really was a tragedy to so many.

my dad almost died from the tower

very scary but needs too be remembered!

I have to say this is most definitely a U.S. American write up. Saying the word is an overstatement in many ways. It would be more better if you were to specifically point out you mean the US and those others involved with the attacks. Overall if we are going to be completely factual “people/individuals” are the ones who change things depending on whatever. The world changes every day since the start of time.

While I agree with your first point, I would say that the attacks did in fact change the world. At the very least, they changed the way airline security is done everywhere.

great article,

I believe that the people, who sacrificed their lives in flight 93, the one that crashed in Pennsylvania, resonated the most with me, as it could have gone anywhere, and they sacrificed themselves to save more. I am deeply sorry for all losses, but I hope we remember this crucial moment in history to learn from our mistakes in global affairs, but also honor those who sacrificed themselves in all the attacks.

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Essays revisited: Reflecting on 9/11

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In the days and weeks after Sept. 11, 2001, the Times ran dozens of analysis and opinion pieces examining how the events of that day might change the United States and the world. We asked some of the writers who contributed their thoughts after the tragedy to look back at what they wrote then and reflect on it from the vantage point of today.

Richard Rodriguez works at New America Media. His book on the influence of the desert on the Abrahmic religions will be published next year.

On the Sunday after 9/11, Rodriguez wrote eloquently that “it was a week when words failed us. We sensed ourselves entering some terrible epoch, but we did not have sufficient nouns and verbs.” Ten years later, the words are clearer, as is the extent of what was lost.

I believe the time has come to put away the ceremonies of 9/11—the politicians’ speeches at Ground Zero, the parade of children holding the photos of their dead fathers and mothers, the bag-pipes, the tolling bell, the roll call of the dead.

Those of us who were alive that day will always dread the annual alignment of those two numbers — nine, eleven -- the blue September sky; our thoughts will return to the ashes. Let that be the way of it. There is no moratorium on grief.

The dreadful mnemonic date has formed a seal over our minds. Something is wrong. It will not be fixed.

In generations past, America used wounds to form armies. Remember the Alamo! Remember the Maine! After the attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt bore witness to December 7, “a date which will live in infamy.”

In the decade since the attacks of September 11th, Americans have turned inward. We have become a nation obsessed with guarding our borders, particularly the Mexican border, even as ghostly TSA images of our naked bodies reach upward, as though under arrest.

We eschew the international, except for the deserts from which the terrorists came. Under the banner of 9/11, President George W. Bush sent Americans to war against Iraq. We were crazed. Osama bin Laden was the leering genie within the explosions. We toppled Saddam Hussein. We ended up fighting Taliban tribesmen in Kandahar.

When American special forces killed Osama bin Laden in May (we do not remember the date), there was no pervading sense in America that the era of 9/11 was finished. Some Americans danced in the street, waved flags, honked their horns. The fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan went on.

What is maddening us is that the wars of 9/11 can have no ending, because we have no clear purpose, because they have no clear adversary. We are not fighting nations; we are fighting peasants and mercenaries and religious ideologues and millionaires. In the war against terrorism, there will never be an “eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month”; it will always be 9/11.

But an America that only guards against a dangerous world diminishes its power in the world. In the last ten years, China has usurped the noun Americans thought we held the patent to—the “future.”

While we have deployed troops backward, into the Bible, China has built dams in Africa and made trade agreements with South America. The Chinese have welcomed young men and women from the Third World to Chinese universities. While U.S. troops are killed building roads between tribal villages in Afghanistan, the Chinese sign mineral contracts in Kabul.

The “Arab spring” that began in Tunisia and spread throughout the Middle East has toppled dictators with whom our government maintained “relationships.” We want to feel encouraged by the youthful rebellions. We want to conflate rebellion with American democracy in the designs of the crowd. All the while, we worry the stage is being set for a coming Islamist revival.

Some in our national media have advanced the hope that American technology is liberating the young of the Middle East. Are Apple, Facebook and Twitter democratizing the region? My suspicion is that Americans are confusing conveyance with content. We credit the iPhone with ideological apps that the rest of the world does not necessarily buy.

Hemmed in by an adversarial world, we turn on each other: President Bush was, in the eyes of his critics on the left, a fool wound up by big business. President Barack Obama, according to his critics on the right, is a socialist and a Muslim. Our Congress has become an international scandal. Conservatives versus progressives.

About the only thing that Washington and the nation can seem to manage these days are monuments—we are monument mad, anniversary obsessed. Which leads us to Ground Zero, the tenth anniversary.

This year, put your hand on your heart for all who were lost, for all we have lost, then turn from this place and look at it no more, and see what our nation has become.

Geraldine Brooks, former Mideast correspondent and author, most recently, of the novel Caleb’s Crossing.

In a December 2001 essay titled “ Iraqi people deserve to be liberated ,” Brooks wrote: “Iraq is a far richer country than Afghanistan, gifted with oil, water, good farmland, scenic beauty, rare antiquities. Were it were not for the bleak and terrible regime of Hussein, it could be the showplace of the region. Now is the time to make some belated amends for a tragic mistake. Some in the Bush Cabinet want to strike Iraq to safeguard the West from future terrorism. That is a reason. But there is an even better one. It should be done for the sake of the Iraqis.”

When I wrote those words, I thought I knew Iraq pretty much as well as any non-Iraqi at that time could know it. I’d traveled there many times, in war and peace, visited its cities under oppression and during their brief liberation, in 1980s prosperity and 1990s decline. I’d met with dissidents and torture victims in Europe, Australia and the Mideast. I had seen the effects of Saddam’s brutal terror, but I hadn’t understood that it also acted as a vise, holding that nation together.

It might be possible to plead that in the run up to the war none of us could foresee the depth of fecklessness of the Bush/Cheney administration, or know just how profoundly the plan for the peace had been neglected. So ideological blindness begat the grim fiesta of lawlessness and looting, squandered Iraqi trust, inspired and enabled insurgency.

But the truth and the lessons of Iraq are more compelling and far simpler. Augustine knew them when he set out the basis of just war theory in the fourth century: One should never resort to war unless the threat is existential and there is no other way to answer it; success should be likely and the suffering created less than the suffering averted. Neither of the first two criteria applied to the Iraq war, and the others remain debatable.

Iraqis have had to endure a decade of fear and continue to live with a ravaged infrastructure. The birth pains of their freedom have been unnecessarily agonizing and their future remains uncertain. For us, meanwhile, the costs of war are everywhere apparent: in the shattered bodies of soldiers, in a glinting prosperity dulled by crushing debt, and in a national psyche coarsened by a war whose unequal sacrifice has demanded so much from a few and little more than jingoistic platitudes from the rest.

Peter Tomsen, U.S. special envoy and ambassador on Afghanistan from 1989 to 1992 and author of the just-published “The Wars of Afghanistan.”

In his October 2001 essay “ Past Provides Lessons for Afghanistan’s Future ,” Tomsen warned that: “If the U.S. military offensive is drawn out, and Washington lacks an overarching strategic vision for the region, Pakistan could unravel. Islamic militants would take to the streets, the already wobbly economy could fall and the army splinter into rival factions.” Today Tomsen is still worried.

We entered Afghanistan with the best of intentions, but 10 years later, it is clear that American policy toward Afghanistan and Pakistan has not succeeded.

There are those who will say we should have pressed the war harder, that we should have committed more forces. That was not the problem. Even 500,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan could not bring peace as long as Pakistan’s army and military intelligence service, the ISI, continue to foster sanctuaries for international terrorist groups inside Pakistan.

Today, American and Afghan troops are under constant attack from a variety of Pakistan-supported organizations, including the Afghan Taliban, the Afghan Haqqani and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar networks, and three ISI-created Pakistani religio-terrorist organizations. Since 9/11, numerous international terrorists, including Faizal Shahzad, the would-be Times Square bomber, have been trained in Pakistani sanctuaries for extremists.

It is clear that Pakistan’s generals have no more intention of dismantling these safe havens now than they had before 9/11. If Washington does not finally deal with Pakistan’s duplicity, our stabilization efforts in Afghanistan will fail and the country will slip into yet another cycle of warfare.

American policy-makers must realize that the risk of taking a tougher approach to Pakistan is less, in the long run, than the risk of continuing the status quo. Ten years of inaction have not paid off. More troops and money are not the answer; nor is continuing to hope that Islamabad’s episodic cooperation with the CIA in eliminating specific terrorists will blossom into a productive working relationship. The United States needs an overarching, long-term policy toward Pakistan that would focus geo-strategic and bilateral pressure on Pakistan’s military leaders to end the Afghan war and stop international terrorism emanating from Pakistan. America and the international community could then focus on helping Afghanistan to once again become a neutral crossroads for Eurasian commerce rather than a proxy battlefield for predatory neighbors.

Naomi Klein, author most recently of “The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism”

In a September 2001 essay titled “ Game Over: The End of Warfare as Play ,” Klein noted that the United States had fought a series of wars in which it had experienced few casualties. “This is a country that has come to believe in the ultimate oxymoron: a safe war,” she wrote. The attacks of 9/11 would change that, she believed. “The illusion of war without casualties has been forever shattered.” Today, she’s not so sure.

I suppose it was wishful thinking. As I watched footage of New Yorkers fleeing from the attacks, their terrified faces covered in dust from the collapsing towers, I was overwhelmed by how different these images were from the people-free videogame wars that my friends and I had grown up watching on CNN. Now that we were finally getting an unsanitized look at what it meant to be attacked from the air, I was sure it would change our hearts forever.

But the Bush Administration was determined to tightly police what we saw of the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, introducing “embedded” reporting, and banning photographs of returning caskets. They also let it be known that reporters who embedded themselves with local populations instead of with allied troops were acceptable military targets -- as attacks on Al Jazeera reporters in Afghanistan and Iraq made clear.

The wars being waged by our governments in our names are today more distant to us than ever before. . Some of the fighting is carried out by mercenaries, who die without so much as a mention in the papers. And drone attacks have ushered in something even more dangerous than the “safe war” -- the idea of “no touch” warfare. This sends a clear message to the civilians on the other side of our weapons that we consider our lives so much more valuable than theirs that we will no longer even bother showing up to kill them in person.

As we should have learned ten years ago, this is an extraordinarily dangerous message to send.

Doyle McManus, op-ed columnist

In March 2002, in a front page analysis piece titled “ U.S. Gets Back to Normal ,” McManus, then the paper’s Washington bureau chief, concluded that the news wasn’t how much the attacks had changed America, but how little.

“Six months after Sept. 11,” he wrote, “here’s what’s changed:

“The federal government, its budget and its public image. The focus of American foreign policy. Security measures at airports, seaports and border crossings. The nation’s sense of patriotism, cohesion and vulnerability. The lives of almost 1.4 million people in the armed services…. [and] the victims, their families and friends.

“Here’s what hasn’t changed much: Everything else.” Today, he says, that’s still mostly true.

Since Sept. 11, the federal government has continued to grow. Spending has mushroomed on war-fighting, intelligence-gathering and homeland security. Security measures at airports and seaports are even tighter than before – although the government promises we’ll be allowed to keep our shoes on some day.

But that hasn’t made us love the federal government more. In the frightened months after Sept. 11, polls found that Americans’ trust in the government’s ability to do the right thing soared; in the years since, that same measure has plummeted.

That’s largely because the issue that concerns Americans most is no longer terrorism, but economic stagnation – and the federal government hasn’t succeeded in overcoming that threat.

As for “the nation’s sense of patriotism [and] cohesion,” the patriotism is still there, but the cohesion we discovered in 2001 was evanescent. A divisive war in Iraq and a virtual civil war over fiscal policy quickly turned politics nasty again.

In 2002, I asked Harvard social scientist Robert D. Putnam if 9/11 could have a lasting positive effect on our sense of community, and he was skeptical – appropriately, as it turned out.

“After almost any crisis, calamity or natural disaster, there’s a sudden spike in community-mindedness, whether it’s an earthquake, a flood or a snowstorm in Buffalo,” he said. “But these spikes don’t last. Over time, the community feeling dissipates.”

The only exception, Putnam noted, was Pearl Harbor – because World War II called on every citizen to sacrifice. This time, only a few were called on; the rest of us were encouraged to go shopping.

The focus of American policy has shifted, too. Immediately after 9/11, it was stopping further terrorism; then it was managing the consequences of our Global War on Terror, especially in Iraq and Afghanistan. But now the focus is broader – and, increasingly, economic. As the just-retired chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, often said, “The single biggest threat to our national security is our debt.”

The war on terror isn’t over, even though it’s no longer called by that name. There are still almost 100,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, almost 50,000 in Iraq. The real cost of those wars – more than 5000 killed in action, more than 45,000 injured – changed many lives irrevocably.

But for most Americans, the most striking fact remains not how much 9/11 changed, but how little.

Graham Allison is director of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and a former assistant secretary of Defense.

In November 2001, Allison wrote that “After Sept. 11, a nuclear terrorist attack can no longer be dismissed as an analyst’s fantasy. … As the international noose tightens around Al Qaeda’s neck, the group will become more desperate and audacious.” Ten years later, he says we have made some progress in keeping nuclear weapons out of terrorist groups’ hands.

On 9/11, 19 terrorists killed more Americans than the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. If the terrorists had been in possession of a nuclear weapon, the attack might have killed 300,000.

Post 9/11, President Bush, and now President Obama, have declared nuclear terrorism the biggest threat to American national security.

The United States has taken the lead in investing more than $10 billion and countless hours in securing and eliminating nuclear weapons and material worldwide. President Obama’s Nuclear Security Summit in 2010 focused exclusively on the threat. As a result of these efforts, thousands of weapons and material that could have produced thousands more weapons are better secured today than they were a decade ago. In Russia, which has the world’s largest stockpile of nuclear weapons and material, hundreds of sensitive sites have been secured; 17 countries have eliminated their weapons-usable material stockpiles entirely.

But to prevent a nuclear 9/11, all nuclear weapons and weapons-usable material everywhere must be secured to a “gold standard” — beyond the reach of terrorists or thieves.

On that agenda, much remains to be done. The ever-more fragile state of Pakistan has the world’s most rapidly expanding nuclear arsenal. North Korea today has enough material for about 10 nuclear bombs. And Iran now has enough low enriched uranium, if further processed, for four nuclear weapons. One of these weapons in the hands of terrorists could mean an “American Hiroshima”

The price of success in preventing a nuclear 9/11 remains eternal vigilance.

James Fallows is a national correspondent for the Atlantic and an author.

In September 2001, Fallows wrote in his essay “ Step One: Station a Marshal Outside Every Cockpit Door ” that: “There may not be a next time, as everything involving air travel becomes more constrained. The tightening of security, while necessary, almost certainly will have aspects of fighting the last war. We may spend years refining passenger-screening processes, only to have the next terrorist explosive arrive by barge.

… Any system careful enough to eliminate sophisticated terrorists also would be cumbersome enough to negate the speed advantage of traveling by air.”

I wish my fears had had turned out to be wholly unfounded. And when it comes to the specific scenario of bombs aboard barges, I’m glad to say that they have been, at least so far.

Unfortunately, there was a much broader challenge that many people, including me, foresaw from the very beginning of the push toward a sweeping emphasis on “homeland security” and the “global war on terror.” This was the risk that, in the name of “protecting” ourselves against future threats, we might ultimately give up, distort or sacrifice the values that made a free society most worth defending. I am sorry to say that this fear has largely been realized.

We can’t be sure of much when it comes to future acts of terrorism, but one certainty is that there will never be “another 9/11.” That attack depended for its shocking success on people not imagining that airliners would be used as large-scale urban bombs. Everyone in the world now understands that possibility, which is why a “9/11-style” attack simply cannot be pulled off again. If the passengers and crew on a plane did not stop future hijackers from flying a fuel-laden plane into a city, the Air Force would.

We also know that our reflexive response to threats has given tremendous leverage to any handful of people who conceive of a new means of attack. Because of one foiled shoe-bombing attempt, hundreds of millions of air passengers worldwide continue removing their shoes before boarding planes. Osama bin Laden’s associates spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on their attacks. America’s chosen response has cost the nation trillions of dollars in direct military and security expenditures, not to mention the other costs.

The long-standing truth about terrorism is that the worst damage it inflicts is not through the initial attack but rather through the self-defeating and extreme response it often evokes. It is past time for America to consider a security response that does more damage to potential attackers and less to ourselves.

Shireen T. Hunter is a visiting professor at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service .

In her September 2001 OpEd (“ Wake-Up Call for the Islamic World ”), Hunter argued that Muslims themselves have been the ones most adversely affected by the extremist ideas and groups that have sprung up amid them, “giving credence to the worst perceptions of Islam as a rigid, aggressive, reactionary and xenophobic creed.” She recommended that Muslim nations “stop using Islam as an instrument of foreign policy” and to “abandon outdated utopian and expansionist schemes.”

Unfortunately, in the intervening years, Muslim nations have continued this behavior. Thus, in their bids to expand their regional influence, countries such as Saudi Arabia, Iran and Pakistan have stoked the fires of sectarianism in Iraq, Bahrain, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen. Saudi Arabia has even resorted to manipulating sectarian divisions in Lebanon and Syria in its attempt to eliminate the Iranian influence. Meanwhile, Iran has continued to support its Shiite co-religionists in Lebanon.

The upshot of this situation is that in the Muslim world today, sectarian divisions and hatreds are even deeper. This seriously hampers the establishment of peace and even a modicum of stability, and dims the prospect of consensual politics. Instead, the manipulation of sectarian divides and rivalries for power and influence, notably between Iran and Saudi Arabia, has led to new tragedies such as that in Bahrain where the Shiite majority is being brutally repressed by the Sunni rulership.

Meanwhile, Al Qaeda Inc. branches have sprung up in Iraq, Yemen and elsewhere, and remain strong, despite the deaths of Osama bin Laden and other top leaders; the Taliban are resurgent in Afghanistan; and the ultra-conservative Salafists have developed strong footholds in Egypt, Tunisia and Jordan.

All this time, the needs and aspirations of the people have been ignored, leading them to revolt as we have seen during the “Arab spring.” Yet revolts and revolutions seldom lead to democracy. Generally they result in politics of revenge, chaos and eventually another form of dictatorship. Muslim countries have missed an opportunity.

Alexander Cockburn coedits the CounterPunch website and writes for the Nation and other publications.

“The lust for retaliation traditionally outstrips precision in identifying the actual assailant,” Cockburn wrote in September 2001 (“ The Next Casualty: Bill of Rights? ”). “The targets abroad will be all the usual suspects -- the Taliban or Saddam Hussein, who started off as creatures of U.S. intelligence. The target at home will be the Bill of Rights.”

It was maybe an hour after the north tower of the World Trade Center collapsed that I heard the first of a thousand pundits that day saying that America might soon have to sacrifice “some of those freedoms we have taken for granted.” They said this with grave relish, as though the Bill of Rights – the first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution — was somehow responsible for the onslaught, and should join the rubble of the towers, carted off to New Jersey and exported to China for recycling into abutments for the Three Gorges Dam.

Of course it didn’t take 9/11 to give the Bill of Rights a battering. It is always under duress and erosion. Where there’s emergency, there’s opportunity for the enemies of freedom. The Patriot Act, passed in October 2001 and periodically renewed in most of its essentials in the Bush and Obama years, kicked new holes in at least six of our Bill of Rights protections.

The government can search and seize citizens’ papers and effects without probable cause, spy on their electronic communications, and has, amid ongoing court battles on the issue, eavesdropped on their conversations without a warrant. Goodbye to the right to a speedy public trial with assistance of counsel. Welcome indefinite incarceration without charges, denial of the assistance of legal counsel and of the right to confront witnesses or even have a trial. Until beaten back by the courts, the Patriot Act gave a sound whack at the 1st Amendment, too, since the government could now prosecute librarians or keepers of any records if they told anyone the government had subpoenaed information related to a terror investigation.

Let’s not forget that a suspect may be in no position to do any confronting or waiting for trial since American citizens deemed a threat to their country can be extrajudicially and summarily executed by order of the president, with the reasons for the order shielded from the light of day as “state secrets”. That takes us back to the bills of attainder the Framers expressly banned in Article One of the U.S. Constitution, about as far from the Bill of Rights as you can get. We can thank the War on Terror, launched after 9/11, for it.

Jonathan Turley is a law professor at George Washington University.

In his September 13 Op Ed (“ Cries of “war” stumble over the law ”), Turley warned against the government seeking “greater flexibility” in responding to terrorists by treating criminal attacks “as a matter of war.” “Our system,” he wrote, “requires that legal means be used to achieve legal ends. We decide those means and ends within the general confines of the Constitution.” How has the founding document fared?

As the smoke was still rising from the Pentagon and World Trade Center, it became quickly evident that some of the greatest damage from the September 11th attacks would not come from without but from within our nation.

There was an almost immediate effort by Bush officials to change the definition of war. Rather than declare war on Afghanistan (where Bin Laden was sheltered), President George W. Bush wanted to declare war on terrorism. It was no rhetorical triviality. Bush decided to invoke the heightened constitutional powers of a wartime president by declaring war on what was a category of crime. Because there could never be a total, final defeat of terrorism, this “war” would become permanent – as would the heightened powers of the president.

Ten years later, the country remains “at war,” with President Barack Obama expanding many of the national security powers of his predecessor and, in the Libyan war, claiming his own re-definition of war: “a time-limited, scope-limited military action.”

Of course, the ominous signs in 2001 were realized in a myriad of other ways, from the establishment of the first American torture program to the widespread use of targeted assassinations, including operations killing American citizens. Ironically, I wrote then of the possibility of a new law that could govern the use of assassination, one that would deny a president unilateral authority to kill individuals and would reduce the need to invoke war powers. Instead, the Bush administration claimed full wartime authority as well as radically expanding the use of assassination as an unchecked presidential power. The claim of unilateral presidential authority to kill even United States citizens has been embraced by Obama.

What ultimately fell on that terrible day proved to be some of our most important constitutional structures. Tragically, it is a degree of damage that cannot be claimed by Al Qaeda alone.

Laila Al-Marayati, Los Angeles physician

In a January 2002 essay titled “ An Identity Reduced to a Burka ,” Al-Marayati wrote: “It should be obvious that the critical element Muslim women need is freedom, especially the freedom to make choices that enable them to be independent agents of positive change.”

After the tragic events of 9/11, there were some genuine attempts to improve understanding and awareness between peoples. But that good will has given way in recent years to increased anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and around the world, prejudices that were reflected in a recent Gallup poll. Muslim women who choose to wear hijab take the brunt of the hostility. They are subject to verbal assault and to misdirected legal actions such as in the ban on the headscarf imposed in France. For centuries, Muslim women have been in the crosshairs of the supposed conflict between Islam and the West. Shortly before the invasion of Afghanistan, we saw images, almost daily, of burqa-clad women who had been suffering under the Taliban. But what most people forget is that they were suffering long before 9/11 and that they continue to experience hardship today in most parts of the country. In 2001, their plight was exploited for political expediency, to help drum up support among freedom-loving Americans for a war that has yet to make life better for the common Afghan woman. Over the past decade, Muslim women around the world have continued to demand their rights and claim their position alongside their Muslim brothers by advocating for changes in legal systems that discriminate against them, by educating their daughters, and by challenging harmful traditions that have no basis in Islam. Many of them are now engaged in the struggle of their lives to achieve the kind of freedom that Muslims living in the U.S. appreciate. It is too soon to predict the outcome, but we should have no doubt that women will be at the forefront of positive change. We should support their efforts, not for political expediency, but because it is the right thing to do.

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Smart News | September 9, 2021

Free Online Resources About 9/11

Browse 12 archives, databases and portals that help users deepen their understanding of the attacks

Nora McGreevy

Correspondent

Twenty years after September 11, 2001, the first generation that grew up in a world profoundly altered by the attacks is coming of age.

Many of these young adults have little or no memory of the day itself. As the Pew Research Center reports, just 42 percent of 25-year-old Americans clearly remember where they were when they learned of the attacks. But for those who do remember, the horror of 9/11 remains fresh.

On that day, more than 2,977 people were killed in New York, Arlington and Pennsylvania. Thousands sustained physical injuries, and thousands more continue to reckon with trauma inflicted by the tragedy. Post- 9/11 wars , including those in Afghanistan and Iraq, have killed hundreds of thousands and displaced millions more. The profound changes wrought by September 11, including the U.S. military response and the attacks’ impact on American art and culture , continue to be felt to this day.

Individuals hoping to learn more about this multifaceted history may find it difficult to know where to start. To support this search, Smithsonian has compiled a list of 12 free resources that deepen readers’ understanding of the September 11 attacks and their complicated, painful legacy. From the Library of Congress to the National September 11 Memorial and Museum, these archives, databases and web platforms help researchers and members of the public alike make sense of one of the most defining events of the 21st century.

National September 11 Memorial and Museum

Every year, millions of people visit Ground Zero to see the two square reflecting pools installed where the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center (WTC) once stood. The museum affiliated with this memorial offers a bevy of digital resources , including explanatory exhibitions about the history of the WTC and the search for al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden . Librarians and educators can register to download a free poster exhibition about the attacks for classroom use.

Online viewers can also peruse the museum’s collection of more than 70,000 artifacts, including material evidence such as a pair of shoes worn by a survivor of the towers’ collapse. Those interested in hearing firsthand accounts of the day can listen to an edited selection from the museum’s ever-expanding collection of more than 1,000 oral histories.

September 11 Digital Archive

A project of the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media at George Mason University, this free online archive holds more than 150,000 files related to 9/11. Users can browse over 40,000 first-person accounts; scroll through some 15,000 images; or peruse emails, documents, sound clips, videos and other digital ephemera.

The Library of Congress

Within hours of the attacks, Library of Congress (LOC) staff began collecting original materials linked to the day. Online users can search the library’s digital collections to find photographs, poetry, art, maps and eyewitness accounts of 9/11, many of which were featured in a 2002 exhibition at the Washington, D.C. institution.

The library’s 9/11 web archive preserves slices of the early internet as it appeared in the weeks and months following the attacks. Offerings include memorial websites, the front pages of major magazines like the New Yorker , political and religious websites, and the home page of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee .

On the day after the attacks, the LOC’s American Folklife Center started collecting oral history interviews with survivors and people across the country. “This collection captures the voices of a diverse ethnic, socioeconomic, and political cross-section of America during trying times and serves as a historical and cultural resource for future generations,” the library notes. Listeners can hear more than 150 of the audio recordings here .

National Museum of American History

Shortly after September 11, Congress designated the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History (NMAH) as the official repository for all objects related to the attacks. Curators cast a wide net, searching for items that explained the immediate impact of the violence and illuminated rescue and recovery efforts.

Today, viewers can explore the collection online. Items of note include the cellphone that then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani used to coordinate emergency efforts on the day of the attacks and a clock from the Pentagon whose hands froze when the plane hit the building.

NMAH also holds a turban that once belonged to Balbir Singh Sodhi , an Indian immigrant who owned a gas station in Mesa, Arizona. Four days after the attacks, a gunman killed Sodhi in a drive-by shooting. The killer had assumed that Sodhi was Muslim because of his turban; in reality, he was a follower of the Sikh faith. His murder marked the first in a wave of post-9/11 hate crimes against Muslim, South Asian, Arab and Middle Eastern communities in the U.S.

Brooklyn-based nonprofit StoryCorps preserves short oral histories—some accompanied by animations—from September 11 survivors and victims’ families. Viewers can peruse the multimedia stories and read transcripts of interviews on the organization’s website. Listings include an interview with Sodhi’s brothers, Rana and Harjit Sodhi .

American Archive of Public Broadcasting

The September 11 attacks consumed news cycles across the country on the day of the event and for weeks afterward. Through the 9/11 Special Coverage Collection at the American Archive of Public Broadcasting , members of the public can comb through hours of footage from 68 local and national television and radio stations.

Featured clips include a “PBS NewsHour” segment that aired on the evening of 9/11 and a September 12 “ New York Voices ” episode that found hosts Bill Moyer and Bill Baker interviewing religious leaders, callers and frontline workers as they began to process the attacks.

The Costs of War Project

More than 50 scholars, human rights practitioners and other experts contribute to Brown University’s Costs of War project, which documents the enormous human and monetary cost of the U.S.-led, post-9/11 military interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as related violence in Pakistan and Syria. Readers can explore academic papers, data and classroom resources for free on the program’s website . All told, the team estimates that these conflicts have killed more than 929,000 people and displaced more than 38 million across the world.

Pew Research Center

To mark the 20th anniversary of the September 11 attacks, Hannah Hartig and Carroll Doherty of the nonpartisan Pew Research Center compiled a comprehensive, user-friendly overview of data about 9/11. Readers can access the resource here . Topics covered include trends in public opinion over the past two decades: For instance, though Americans overwhelmingly supported the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan at their outset, 69 percent now say that the U.S. mostly failed to achieve its goals in Afghanistan.

Othering and Belonging Institute’s Islamophobia Project

Researchers with UC Berkeley’s Othering and Belonging Institute maintain a searchable database of anti-Muslim legislation introduced and enacted in the past decade, as well as major shifts in anti-Muslim sentiment that took place in the U.S. in the wake of 9/11. Online users can use the site more broadly to learn about the history of Islamophobia and find additional reading resources on the subject.

National Archives and Records Administration

In late 2002, Congress and President George W. Bush created the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, otherwise known as the 9/11 Commission , to research the events of September 11. Investigators conducted more than 1,200 fact-finding interviews. Executive summaries of some of these interviews have been declassified and can be located in the National Archives and Records Administration’s (NARA) digital catalog .

The commission’s full report, which is preserved by NARA and can be read in full here , chronicled the events of the day as accurately as possible and provided recommendations to prevent future attacks.

U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence

Within three years of the attacks, the United States had launched wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The military also opened Guantanamo Bay detention camp, a U.S. military prison in Cuba, as part of a series of aggressive anti-terrorism military operations.

In 2014, the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence released an investigative report detailing the CIA’s use of torture and other human rights abuses inflicted on prisoners at Guantanamo and elsewhere during the so-called “War on Terror.” Though the full document remains classified, members of the public can read the committee’s executive summary, findings and conclusions online .

The New York Times

On the tenth anniversary of the attacks, the New York Times created an expansive hub for educators seeking to explain 9/11 and its impact on the world to students. Free resources include lesson plans, activities and readings that address complex subjects such as the war in Afghanistan and racism against Muslim Americans.

A separate anniversary collection designed for adult readers is available online, too. Highlights include more than 2,500 “ impressionistic sketches ” of lives lost, an interactive reconstruction of the World Trade Center as it stood prior to the attacks and a feature article on Muslim Americans who came of age in the decade following 9/11.

The Washington Post

In 2019, a protracted legal battle mounted by the Washington Post successfully secured the release of a series of interviews with high-ranking officials about the war in Afghanistan. Reporter Craig Whitlock published the Post ’s first survey of the papers in an article titled “ At War With the Truth ”; the story was later turned into a book .

As Whitlock reported, the documents “reveal[ed] that senior U.S. officials failed to tell the truth about the war in Afghanistan throughout the 18-year campaign, making rosy pronouncements they knew to be false and hiding unmistakable evidence the war had become unwinnable.” Readers can explore the Post ’s reporting, feedback from the public and interviewees, timelines of the war, and more than 2,000 pages of documents online.

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Nora McGreevy | | READ MORE

Nora McGreevy is a former daily correspondent for Smithsonian . She is also a freelance journalist based in Chicago whose work has appeared in Wired , Washingtonian , the Boston Globe , South Bend Tribune , the New York Times and more.

Primary Sources

This collection of primary sources was developed to help teachers engage students in a variety of key topics related to 9/11 and the War on Terror. The topics were developed as a result of our research into how 9/11 and terrorism are being taught in the US and what teachers needed to include perspectives often missing from textbooks and other curriculum sets. Therefore, we compiled primary source sets centered around key themes that emerged from our research and aligned with inquiry questions developed as part of our Teaching with Primary Sources project.

American Intelligence Failure

Perspectives of Muslim and Arab Americans

Rise of the TSA

September 11, 2001 - The Day of the Attacks 

Soviet & Afghan War

The Patriot Act

Veteran’s experiences.

Funding for this project was provided by The Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources Midwest Region Grant Program.

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Students Reflect on 9/11 in Essay Contest

First responders and supporters from the city of Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. have once again sponsored an essay contest in which local students can reflect on their understanding of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11.

The second annual September 11th remembrance essay contest, which is open to Palm Beach Gardens residents and the dependents of city employees, requests that students in grades nine to 12 "reflect on how the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 affected our nation and the future of the world."

Building on their successful 2015 contest , the contest is being sponsored by the Palm Beach Gardens Police Foundation, Fire Chief’s Association of Palm Beach County and Palm Beach Gardens Fire-Rescue, according to the Palm Beach Post .

Essay submissions should be between 500 to 700 words and applications are due Aug. 15, 2016. Three winners will be chosen. 

By 9/11 Memorial Staff

Previous Post

The lens: capturing life and events at the 9/11 memorial and museum.

The Lens: Capturing Life and Events at the 9/11 Memorial and Museum is a photography series devoted to documenting moments big and small that unfold at the 9/11 Memorial and Museum.

9/11 Museum Honors Legacy of New York Yankees

With the Bronx Bombers opening their season yesterday at Yankee Stadium, the 9/11 Memorial and Museum honors the connection between the Yankees and legacy of Sept. 11.

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The Essential 9/11 Bibliography

Our staff has been reminiscing on some of the best pieces of reporting and investigative journalism that came out in the aftermath of 9/11. What were your favorites? Leave us a link in the comments below.

Why Do They Hate Us? (Fareed Zakaria, Newsweek , Oct. 14, 2001) “To the question ‘Why do the terrorists hate us?’ Americans could be pardoned for answering, ‘Why should we care?’ The immediate reaction to the murder of 5,000 innocents is anger, not analysis. Yet anger will not be enough to get us through what is sure to be a long struggle. For that we will need answers. The ones we have heard so far have been comforting but familiar. We stand for freedom and they hate it. We are rich and they envy us. We are strong and they resent this. All of which is true. But there are billions of poor and weak and oppressed people around the world. They don’t turn planes into bombs. They don’t blow themselves up to kill thousands of civilians. If envy were the cause of terrorism, Beverly Hills, Fifth Avenue and Mayfair would have become morgues long ago. There is something stronger at work here than deprivation and jealousy. Something that can move men to kill but also to die.”

The Counter-Terrorist (Lawrence Wright, The New Yorker , Jan. 14, 2002) “The legend of John P. O’Neill, who lost his life at the World Trade Center on September 11th, begins with a story by Richard A. Clarke, the national coordinator for counter-terrorism in the White House from the first Bush Administration until last year. On a Sunday morning in February, 1995, Clarke went to his office to review intelligence cables that had come in over the weekend. One of the cables reported that Ramzi Yousef, the suspected mastermind behind the first World Trade Center bombing, two years earlier, had been spotted in Pakistan. Clarke immediately called the F.B.I. A man whose voice was unfamiliar to him answered the phone. ‘O’Neill,’ he growled. ‘Who are you?’ Clarke said. ‘I’m John O’Neill,’ the man replied. ‘Who the hell are you?'”

The Man Behind Bin Laden (Lawrence Wright, The New Yorker , Sept. 16, 2002) “How an Egyptian doctor became a master of terror.”

Selective Intelligence (Seymour Hersh, The New Yorker , May 12, 2003) “Donald Rumsfeld has his own special sources. Are they reliable?”

Now They Tell Us (Michael Massing, The New York Review of Books , Jan. 29, 2004) “In recent months, US news organizations have rushed to expose the Bush administration’s pre-war failings on Iraq. ‘Iraq’s Arsenal Was Only on Paper,’ declared a recent headline in The Washington Post . “Pressure Rises for Probe of Prewar-Intelligence,” said The Wall Street Journal . ‘So, What Went Wrong?’ asked Time . In The New Yorker , Seymour Hersh described how the Pentagon set up its own intelligence unit, the Office of Special Plans, to sift for data to support the administration’s claims about Iraq. And on ‘Truth, War and Consequences,’ a Frontline documentary that aired last October, a procession of intelligence analysts testified to the administration’s use of what one of them called ‘faith-based intelligence.’

Watching and reading all this, one is tempted to ask, where were you all before the war? Why didn’t we learn more about these deceptions and concealments in the months when the administration was pressing its case for regime change — when, in short, it might have made a difference? Some maintain that the many analysts who’ve spoken out since the end of the war were mute before it. But that’s not true. Beginning in the summer of 2002, the ‘intelligence community’ was rent by bitter disputes over how Bush officials were using the data on Iraq. Many journalists knew about this, yet few chose to write about it.”

Behind Diplomatic Moves, Military Plan Was Launched (Bob Woodward, The Washington Post , April 18, 2004) “Shortly after New Year’s Day 2003, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice had a private moment with President Bush at his ranch in Crawford, Tex. Bush felt the effort to get United Nations weapons inspections inside Iraq on an aggressive track to make Saddam Hussein crack was not working. ‘This pressure isn’t holding together,’ Bush told her.”

Torture at Abu Ghraib (Seymour Hersh, The New Yorker , May 10, 2004) “In the era of Saddam Hussein, Abu Ghraib, twenty miles west of Baghdad, was one of the world’s most notorious prisons, with torture, weekly executions, and vile living conditions. As many as fifty thousand men and women — no accurate count is possible — were jammed into Abu Ghraib at one time, in twelve-by-twelve-foot cells that were little more than human holding pits.”

The 9/11 Commission Report (July 22, 2004) “We present the narrative of this report and the recommendations that flow from it to the President of the United States, the United States Congress, and the American people for their consideration. Ten Commissioners-five Republicans and five Democrats chosen by elected leaders from our nation’s capital at a time of great partisan division-have come together to present this report without dissent. We have come together with a unity of purpose because our nation demands it. September 11, 2001, was a day of unprecedented shock and suffering in the history of the United States. The nation was unprepared.”

CIA Holds Terror Suspects in Secret Prisons (Dana Priest, The Washington Post , Nov. 2, 2005) “The CIA has been hiding and interrogating some of its most important al Qaeda captives at a Soviet-era compound in Eastern Europe, according to U.S. and foreign officials familiar with the arrangement.”

Bush Lets U.S. Spy on Callers Without Courts (James Rise and Eric Lichtblau, The New York Times , Dec. 16, 2005) “Months after the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United States to search for evidence of terrorist activity without the court-approved warrants ordinarily required for domestic spying, according to government officials.”

NSA Has Massive Database of Americans’ Phone Calls (Leslie Cauley, USA Today , May 11, 2006) “The National Security Agency has been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth, people with direct knowledge of the arrangement told USA TODAY.”

Power Grab (Elizabeth Drew, The New York Review of Books , May 24, 2006) “For five years, Bush has been issuing a series of signing statements which amount to a systematic attempt to take power from the legislative branch. Though Ronald Reagan started issuing signing statements to set forth his own position on a piece of legislation, he did it essentially to guide possible court rulings, and he only occasionally objected to a particular provision of a bill. Though subsequent presidents also issued such statements, they came nowhere near to making the extraordinary claims that Bush has; nor did they make such statements nearly so often.”

The Hidden Power (Jane Mayer, The New Yorker , July 3, 2006) “The legal mind behind the White House’s war on terror.”

The Agent (Lawrence Wright, The New Yorker , July 10, 2006) “Did the CIA stop an FBI detective from preventing 9/11?”

Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency (Barton Gellman, The Washington Post , June 25, 2007) “Dick Cheney is the most influential and powerful man ever to hold the office of vice president. This special report examines Cheney’s largely hidden and little-understood role in crafting policies on national security, the economy and the environment.”

In the Land of the Taliban (Elizabeth Rubin, The New York Times Magazine , Oct. 22, 2006) “As I traveled through Pakistan and particularly the Pashtun lands bordering Afghanistan, I felt as if I were moving through a Taliban spa for rehabilitation and inspiration. Since 2002, the American and Pakistani militaries have focused on North Waziristan and South Waziristan, two of the seven districts making up Pakistan’s semiautonomous tribal areas, which are between the North-West Frontier Province and, to the south, Baluchistan Province; in the days since the 9/11 attacks, some tribes there had sheltered members of Al Qaeda and spawned their own Taliban movement. Meanwhile, in the deserts of Baluchistan, whose capital, Quetta, is just a few hours’ drive from the Afghan city of Kandahar, the Afghan Taliban were openly reassembling themselves under Mullah Omar and his leadership council. Quetta had become a kind of free zone where strategies could be formed, funds picked up, interviews given and victories relished.”

The Battle for Guantanamo (Tim Golden, The New York Times Magazine , Sept. 17, 2006) “Col. Mike Bumgarner took over as the warden of Guantánamo Bay in April 2005. He had been hoping to be sent to Iraq; among senior officers of the Army’s military police corps, the job of commanding guards at the American detention camp in Cuba was considered not particularly challenging and somewhat risky to a career. He figured it would mean spending at least a year away from his family, managing the petty insurgencies of hundreds of angry, accused terrorists.”

Exposure (Philip Gourevitch and Errol Morris, The New Yorker , March 24, 2008) “The woman behind the camera at Abu Ghraib.”

Right at the Edge (Dexter Filkins, The New York Times Magazine , Sept. 5, 2008) “Pakistan’s wild, largely ungoverned tribal areas have become an untouchable base for Islamic militants to attack Americans and Afghans across the border. Inside the tribal areas, Taliban warlords have taken near-total control, pushing aside the Pakistani government and imposing their draconian form of Islam. And for more than a year now, they have been sending suicide bombers against government and military targets in Pakistan, killing hundreds of people. American and Pakistani investigators say they believe it was Baitullah Mehsud, the strongest of FATA’s Taliban leaders, who dispatched assassins last December to kill Benazir Bhutto, the former prime minister. With much of the North-West Frontier Province, which borders the tribal areas, also now under their control, the Taliban are increasingly in a position to threaten the integrity of the Pakistani state.”

The Falling Man (Tom Junod, Esquire , Sept. 8, 2009) “Do you remember this photograph? In the United States, people have taken pains to banish it from the record of September 11, 2001. The story behind it, though, and the search for the man pictured in it, are our most intimate connection to the horror of that day.”

The Wrong Man (David Freed, The Atlantic , May 2010) “In the fall of 2001, a nation reeling from the horror of 9/11 was rocked by a series of deadly anthrax attacks. As the pressure to find a culprit mounted, the FBI, abetted by the media, found one. The wrong one. This is the story of how federal authorities blew the biggest anti-terror investigation of the past decade — and nearly destroyed an innocent man. Here, for the first time, the falsely accused, Dr. Steven J. Hatfill, speaks out about his ordeal.”

An Army of One (Chris Heath, GQ , September 2010) “You might have heard about the recent spectacular misadventure of one Gary Faulkner. Equipped with little more than a sword he’d bought on a home-shopping network, a pair of night-vision goggles, and the blessing of a vengeful Christian God, the 50-year-old ex-con (and his failing kidneys) traveled to the most volatile region of Pakistan to capture Osama bin Laden. What’s surprising is that it wasn’t his first attempt. It was his eleventh. What’s alarming is that it won’t be his last.”

Top Secret America (Dana Priest and William Arkin, The Washington Post , July 19, 2010) “The government has built a national security and intelligence system so big, so complex and so hard to manage, no one really knows if it’s fulfilling its most important purpose: keeping its citizens safe.”

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The writer of the academic essay aims to persuade readers of an idea based on evidence. The beginning of the essay is a crucial first step in this process. In order to engage readers and establish your authority, the beginning of your essay has to accomplish certain business. Your beginning should introduce the essay, focus it, and orient readers.

Introduce the Essay.  The beginning lets your readers know what the essay is about, the  topic . The essay's topic does not exist in a vacuum, however; part of letting readers know what your essay is about means establishing the essay's  context , the frame within which you will approach your topic. For instance, in an essay about the First Amendment guarantee of freedom of speech, the context may be a particular legal theory about the speech right; it may be historical information concerning the writing of the amendment; it may be a contemporary dispute over flag burning; or it may be a question raised by the text itself. The point here is that, in establishing the essay's context, you are also limiting your topic. That is, you are framing an approach to your topic that necessarily eliminates other approaches. Thus, when you determine your context, you simultaneously narrow your topic and take a big step toward focusing your essay. Here's an example.

The paragraph goes on. But as you can see, Chopin's novel (the topic) is introduced in the context of the critical and moral controversy its publication engendered.

Focus the Essay.  Beyond introducing your topic, your beginning must also let readers know what the central issue is. What question or problem will you be thinking about? You can pose a question that will lead to your idea (in which case, your idea will be the answer to your question), or you can make a thesis statement. Or you can do both: you can ask a question and immediately suggest the answer that your essay will argue. Here's an example from an essay about Memorial Hall.

The fullness of your idea will not emerge until your conclusion, but your beginning must clearly indicate the direction your idea will take, must set your essay on that road. And whether you focus your essay by posing a question, stating a thesis, or combining these approaches, by the end of your beginning, readers should know what you're writing about, and  why —and why they might want to read on.

Orient Readers.  Orienting readers, locating them in your discussion, means providing information and explanations wherever necessary for your readers' understanding. Orienting is important throughout your essay, but it is crucial in the beginning. Readers who don't have the information they need to follow your discussion will get lost and quit reading. (Your teachers, of course, will trudge on.) Supplying the necessary information to orient your readers may be as simple as answering the journalist's questions of who, what, where, when, how, and why. It may mean providing a brief overview of events or a summary of the text you'll be analyzing. If the source text is brief, such as the First Amendment, you might just quote it. If the text is well known, your summary, for most audiences, won't need to be more than an identifying phrase or two:

Often, however, you will want to summarize your source more fully so that readers can follow your analysis of it.

Questions of Length and Order.  How long should the beginning be? The length should be proportionate to the length and complexity of the whole essay. For instance, if you're writing a five-page essay analyzing a single text, your beginning should be brief, no more than one or two paragraphs. On the other hand, it may take a couple of pages to set up a ten-page essay.

Does the business of the beginning have to be addressed in a particular order? No, but the order should be logical. Usually, for instance, the question or statement that focuses the essay comes at the end of the beginning, where it serves as the jumping-off point for the middle, or main body, of the essay. Topic and context are often intertwined, but the context may be established before the particular topic is introduced. In other words, the order in which you accomplish the business of the beginning is flexible and should be determined by your purpose.

Opening Strategies.  There is still the further question of how to start. What makes a good opening? You can start with specific facts and information, a keynote quotation, a question, an anecdote, or an image. But whatever sort of opening you choose, it should be directly related to your focus. A snappy quotation that doesn't help establish the context for your essay or that later plays no part in your thinking will only mislead readers and blur your focus. Be as direct and specific as you can be. This means you should avoid two types of openings:

• The history-of-the-world (or long-distance) opening, which aims to establish a context for the essay by getting a long running start: "Ever since the dawn of civilized life, societies have struggled to reconcile the need for change with the need for order." What are we talking about here, political revolution or a new brand of soft drink? Get to it.
• The funnel opening (a variation on the same theme), which starts with something broad and general and "funnels" its way down to a specific topic. If your essay is an argument about state-mandated prayer in public schools, don't start by generalizing about religion; start with the specific topic at hand.

Remember.  After working your way through the whole draft, testing your thinking against the evidence, perhaps changing direction or modifying the idea you started with, go back to your beginning and make sure it still provides a clear focus for the essay. Then clarify and sharpen your focus as needed. Clear, direct beginnings rarely present themselves ready-made; they must be written, and rewritten, into the sort of sharp-eyed clarity that engages readers and establishes your authority.

Copyright 1999, Patricia Kain, for the Writing Center at Harvard University

Articles on 9/11 (September 11)

Displaying 1 - 20 of 155 articles.

A reflexive act of military revenge burdened the US − and may do the same for Israel

Peter Mansoor , The Ohio State University

Emergencies Act inquiry report should tackle the racist origins of national security

Reem Bahdi , University of Windsor ; Fahad Ahmad , Toronto Metropolitan University ; Jeffrey Monaghan , Carleton University , and Yasmeen Abu-Laban , University of Alberta

Is the terrorism threat over?

Greg Barton , Deakin University

Jan. 6 Committee’s fact-finding and bipartisanship will lead to an impact in coming decades, if not tomorrow

Claire Leavitt , Smith College

Who was Ayman al-Zawahri ? Where does his death leave al-Qaida and what does it say about US counterterrorism?

Haroro J. Ingram , George Washington University ; Andrew Mines , George Washington University , and Daniel Milton , United States Military Academy West Point

Your past is my present – how Volodymyr Zelenskyy uses history

Anil Menon , University of Michigan and Pauline Jones , University of Michigan

Ukraine war shows it’s time to do away with the racist ‘Clash of Civilizations’ theory

Katherine Bullock , University of Toronto

War sent America off the rails 19 years ago. Could another one bring it back?

Jason Opal , McGill University

Cabinet papers 2001: how ‘securitisation’ became a mindset to dominate Australian politics for a generation

Chris Wallace , University of Canberra

20 years after 9/11, the men charged with responsibility are still waiting for trial – here’s why

Lisa Hajjar , University of California, Santa Barbara

Afghanistan’s war rug industry distorts the reality of everyday trauma

Jamal J. Elias , University of Pennsylvania

9/11: how politicians and the media turned terrorism into an Islamic issue

Jared Ahmad , University of Sheffield

9/11 twenty years on: al-Qaida is defeated – but jihadism is here to stay

Christina Hellmich , University of Reading

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Ian Pace , City, University of London

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Roberto Lucchini , Florida International University

American Muslims are at high risk of suicide – 20 years post-9 /11, the links between Islamophobia and suicide remain unexplored

Amelia Noor-Oshiro , Johns Hopkins University

9/11 did not change the world – it was already on the path to decades of conflict

Paul Rogers , University of Bradford

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Maria Flood , University of Liverpool and Michael C. Frank , University of Zurich

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Erica Kuligowski , RMIT University

20 years after 9/11, the American colossus has gone and the Middle East remains  strife-torn

Tony Walker , La Trobe University

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• 9/11 20th Anniversary
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• Islamic State
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• United States
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Chair in Global Islamic Politics, Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation, Deakin University

Professor in The Division of Global Affairs and The Department of Political Science, Rutgers University - Newark

Professor of Music, City, University of London

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Assistant Professor, Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, University of South Carolina

Professor of History, University of Dayton

Professor of Criminal Justice, City University of New York

Assistant Professor of Justice, Law & Criminology, American University School of Public Affairs

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New 9/11 Evidence Points to Deep Saudi Complicity

Two decades of U.S. policy appear to be rooted in a mistaken understanding of what happened that day.

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Produced by ElevenLabs and News Over Audio (NOA) using AI narration.

F or more than two decades , through two wars and domestic upheaval, the idea that al-Qaeda acted alone on 9/11 has been the basis of U.S. policy. A blue-ribbon commission concluded that Osama bin Laden had pioneered a new kind of terrorist group—combining superior technological know-how, extensive resources, and a worldwide network so well coordinated that it could carry out operations of unprecedented magnitude. This vanguard of jihad, it seemed, was the first nonstate actor that rivaled nation-states in the damage it could wreak.

That assessment now appears wrong. And if our understanding of what transpired on 9/11 turns out to have been flawed, then the costly policies that the United States has pursued for the past quarter century have been rooted in a false premise.

The global War on Terror was based on a mistake.

A new filing in a lawsuit brought by the families of 9/11 victims against the government of Saudi Arabia alleges that al-Qaeda had significant, indeed decisive, state support for its attacks. Officials of the Saudi government, the plaintiffs’ attorneys contend, formed and operated a network inside the United States that provided crucial assistance to the first cohort of 9/11 hijackers to enter the country.

The 71-page document , released in redacted form earlier this month, summarizes what the plaintiffs say they’ve learned through the evidence obtained in discovery and recently declassified materials. They allege that Saudi officials—most notably Fahad al-Thumairy, an imam at a Los Angeles mosque and an accredited diplomat at Saudi Arabia’s consulate in that city, and Omar al-Bayoumi, who masqueraded as a graduate student but was identified by the FBI as an intelligence operative—were not rogue operators but rather the front end of a conspiracy that included the Saudi embassy in Washington and senior government officials in Riyadh.

The plaintiffs argue that Thumairy and Bayoumi organized safe reception, transportation, and housing for hijackers Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi, beginning upon their arrival in California on January 15, 2000. (Both Thumairy and Bayoumi have denied aiding the plot. Bayoumi, along with Saudi Arabia, has also denied that he had any involvement with its intelligence operations.) The filing further argues that Thumairy and Bayoumi introduced the pair to local sympathizers in Los Angeles and San Diego who catered to their day-to-day needs, including help with immigration matters, digital and phone communications, and receiving funds from al-Qaeda by wire transfer. Saudi officials also helped the two al-Qaeda operatives—both Saudi nationals with little education or command of English, whose experience abroad consisted mostly of training and fighting for jihadist causes—to procure a car as well as driver’s licenses. This support network was crucial.

Garrett M. Graff: After 9/11, the U.S. got almost everything wrong

The filing, responding to a Saudi motion to dismiss the case, which is currently before the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, makes extensive reference to FBI investigative reports, memos, communications records, and contemporaneous evidentiary materials that are still under seal but are likely to be made public in the coming weeks. One of us—Steven Simon—has been a plaintiffs’ expert in the case, enlisted to review and provide an independent assessment of the evidence. Some of the claims in the filing appear to be corroborated by a document , prepared by the FBI in July 2021 and titled “Connections to the Attacks of September 11, 2001,” as well as by other documents declassified under President Joe Biden’s Executive Order 14040 . The materials produced thus far in the case deal mainly with Saudi support provided to these two California-based al-Qaeda operatives, and their fellow hijackers of American Airlines Flight 77, which was crashed into the Pentagon. Assuming that the case—now seven years old—goes forward, the presiding judge could order a further, broader discovery phase probing possible Saudi support for the other hijackers, most of whom came to the East Coast beginning in mid-2000.

The materials that have already surfaced, however, document the extent of the complicity of Saudi officials. The 9/11 Commission Report recounted numerous contacts between Bayoumi and Thumairy, but described only “circumstantial evidence” of Thumairy as a contact for the two hijackers and stated that it didn’t know whether Bayoumi’s first encounter with the operatives occurred “by chance or design.” But the evidence assembled in the ongoing lawsuit suggests that the actions Thumairy and Bayoumi took to support the hijackers were actually deliberate, sustained, and carefully coordinated with other Saudi officials.

In addition to the documents showing financial and logistical support, the evidence includes several videotapes seized by the U.K. during raids of Bayoumi’s properties there when he was arrested in Birmingham in September 2001. One video—a more complete version of a tape reviewed by the 9/11 Commission—shows Mihdhar and Hazmi at a welcome party arranged by Bayoumi after they moved to San Diego. The full video, the filing claims, shows that the party was organized by Bayoumi and Thumairy “to introduce the hijackers to a carefully curated group of likeminded community members and religious leaders.” The U.K. police also found, according to the filing, a notepad on which Bayoumi had sketched “a drawing of a plane, alongside a calculation used to discern the distance at which a target on the ground will be visible from a certain altitude.”

Another seized video contains footage of Bayoumi in Washington, D.C., where he met with Saudi religious officials posted as diplomats at the embassy and visited the U.S. Capitol. In the video, according to the filing, Bayoumi “carefully films and notes the Capitol’s structural features, entrances, and security posts,” addressing his narration to his “esteemed brothers.” The Capitol was the likely fourth target of the 9/11 attacks, the one that was spared when passengers aboard United Flight 93 wrestled with the hijackers and the plane crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

If Thumairy and Bayoumi were the front end of the support network for the hijackers, their control officers in the U.S. would have been in Washington at the Saudi embassy. In the pre-9/11 years, Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Islamic Affairs had a sizable presence in the embassy, as well as at the consulate in Los Angeles. The ministry’s representatives oversaw the many Saudi imams like Thumairy in Saudi-supported mosques in the U.S., and posted Saudi “propagators” to Muslim communities in the United States. The Islamic Affairs offices and personnel appeared to operate according to different procedures than the other units within the embassy. And the support network for the hijackers had powerful backing in the Saudi capital. The FBI found evidence that when the Saudi consul general in Los Angeles sought to fire a member of the support network, who had been storing jihadist literature at the consulate, Thumairy was able to use his influence to save his job. As the new filing also documents, there was extensive phone traffic between Thumairy, Bayoumi, and the embassy during crucial moments when the hijackers needed and received support.

The plaintiffs’ claims are contested by lawyers representing Saudi Arabia on a range of technical, jurisdictional, and factual grounds. They deny that Saudi officials directed support to the hijackers or were otherwise complicit in the attacks. Thumairy “did not assist the hijackers at all,” the lawyers have said, and his alleged actions would not have fallen within the scope of his official responsibilities. Bayoumi’s assistance was “minimal” and unrelated to terrorist activity, the lawyers argue, and neither he nor Thumairy belonged to a jihadist network. Some of the disputes are less about facts than about interpretation. The Capitol video, in the Saudi view, is nothing more than a typical home movie by an enthusiastic tourist; the San Diego video of Bayoumi’s party in the hijackers’ apartment is said to depict a gathering of mosque-goers for some purpose unrelated to the presence of two newly arrived al-Qaeda terrorists. If the court denies the Saudi motion to dismiss in the coming months, we will know whose view of the evidence has been the more persuasive.

A fter 9/11 , President George W. Bush and his team argued that a nonstate actor like al-Qaeda could not have pulled off the attacks alone, and that some country must have been behind it all. That state, they insisted, was Iraq—and the United States invaded Iraq. In a savage irony, they may have been right after all about state support, but flat wrong about the state. Should we now invade Saudi Arabia?

The answer is no. The Saudi Arabia of 2001 no longer exists. The country is still capable of criminal action; witness the case of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi, victim in 2018 of a team of Saudi murderers in Istanbul. But the Islamic extremism that coursed through central institutions of the Saudi state appears to have been largely exorcised. Few countries in the world have been so consistently misunderstood by the U.S. as Saudi Arabia, though, so that judgment is necessarily a provisional one.

To understand why, a little history is necessary. At the time al-Qaeda emerged as full-fledged terrorist organization, in the 1990s, the country’s religious establishment wielded tremendous power, controlling the judiciary; the Ministry of Islamic Affairs; an array of large institutions such as the al-Haramain Foundation, the Muslim World League (MWL) and the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY); and other well-funded NGOs. The power of the religious establishment was rooted in the compact at the heart of the Saudi state: The legitimacy of the ruling family has been bound up with the Wahhabi clergy since Muhammad ibn Saud, the patriarch of the royal family, and the religious reformer Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab joined in an alliance in 1744 that would conquer the Arabian Peninsula.

From the April 2022 issue: Absolute power

The MWL, WAMY, and other religious charities were established for the purpose of dawa , or spreading the faith. The Wahhabi clerical establishment had strict notions of how Saudi society should be regulated and believed that it would be best for Muslims worldwide to be subject to Wahhabi rules, but they were not predisposed to declare war to propagate Wahhabism. The pact the Wahhabi clerics formed relegated matters of statecraft to the house of Saud. It was a system that worked, until it didn’t.

Change came because of the counterinsurgency that the Egyptian government waged against the radical Islamists who had assassinated President Anwar al-Sadat in 1981. That campaign augmented an existing effort to suppress the Muslim Brotherhood, which continues today. Many who escaped the wrath of the Egyptian government fled to Saudi Arabia, flooding into the religious universities and teaching positions, or obtaining jobs in the religious bureaucracy. The result was a new ideological framework that meshed Wahhabi doctrine together with Muslim Brotherhood activism. The hunger for jihad among young Saudis was stoked by the thrilling stories of the war in Afghanistan against the Soviets told by fathers and uncles returning from their “jihad jollies,” as Western officials referred to these expeditions—which mostly took place far behind the front lines of that conflict.

As a concession to the clergy’s demands and the realities of the new environment, the monarchy authorized the creation of a religious-affairs ministry. But the youthful radicals soon had access to both the ministry’s gigantic budget, which mixed public and private money in a helter-skelter way, and an apparatus that could deploy ministry personnel abroad under diplomatic cover, including to the United States.

Thus, from the mid-1990s, the ministry was staffed and run by a growing number of people who shared with Osama bin Laden the view that the world was gripped by a cosmic struggle between believers and infidels. In short, they saw the United States as the leader of “world infidelity,” and believed that true Muslims had a duty to fight the infidels. Complementing those beliefs was the distinctive additional bit of jihadist dogma—of which bin Laden became the greatest proponent—holding that restoring the realm of Islam to its historic greatness required striking the United States on its own territory. Only through violence could the U.S. be forced to end its support for the apostate regimes that plagued the Muslim world. And only once the props were kicked out from under those regimes—Egypt, Syria, and Iraq—could truly Islamic governments take charge. That was the idea behind 9/11 and the campaign that was supposed to follow.

The United States, in the 1990s and after, was aware of some activities of the Saudi religious establishment, especially, for example, in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bosnia, where fighters—including the future hijackers Mihdhar and Hazmi, to name just two—were supported through Saudi charities. The picture became more ominous as the decade progressed as such charities, including al-Haramain, were implicated in the East Africa embassy bombings, which killed 224 people, injured nearly 5,000, and destroyed U.S. diplomatic posts in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam. As staff members working on counterterrorism on the National Security Council staff, we watched a succession of our colleagues from the White House and the State Department visit Riyadh to ask for better policing of these “charities.” Routinely, they came back with nothing to show for their efforts, while other weighty issues on the U.S.-Saudi bilateral agenda—containing Iran, achieving Middle East peace, lowering energy prices—ensured that Riyadh never felt any serious pressure.

Why there wasn’t much more of a response from the monarchy won’t be fully understood until the royal archives are opened, assuming that internal discussions were even recorded. But it does seem, in general, that the house of Saud ruled but did not govern; governance was typically for commoners. Without inquiring closely into the day-to-day operations of the religious and foreign-affairs ministries, the royals could not have had a clear idea of what was being done in their name, including the deployment of Saudis with diplomatic visas for the purpose of attacking the kingdom’s strongest, most reliable transactional partner.

Astonishingly, the attacks of 9/11 had little effect on the Saudi approach to religious extremism, as diplomats and intelligence officials have attested. What finally changed royal minds was the experience of suffering an attack on Saudi soil. In May 2003, gunmen and suicide bombers struck three residential compounds in Riyadh, killing 39 people. The authorities attributed the attacks to al-Qaeda, and cooperation with the U.S. improved quickly and dramatically. Mohammed bin Nayef, son of one of the country’s most powerful princes and its interior minister, emerged as the national counterterrorism chief and later interior minister. MBN, as he is known, transformed Saudi intelligence into America’s most valuable foreign partner in the fight against terrorism, providing tips that led to later plots being thwarted. MBN himself became a friend to a succession of CIA directors.

When King Abdullah died, in 2015, his half brother Salman bin Abdulaziz succeeded him, and MBN was made crown prince. Two years later, however, Salman removed MBN, stripped him of his ministry and other offices, and installed his own son Mohammed bin Salman. MBN was soon detained and subjected to execrable conditions , and disappeared from public view.

Mohammed bin Salman (widely known as MBS), now the country’s de facto ruler, may have seen MBN as a rival, but he certainly shared his opposition to extremism. During his time in power, the influence of the Wahhabi establishment appears to have been drastically curtailed. The country’s notorious religious police have largely disappeared from sight, and the Ministry of Islamic Affairs has been reformed, along with the massive Islamic organizations. In 2018, Mohammad bin Abdulkarim Al-Issa, the new head of the Muslim World League, visited the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum—a development that for his predecessors would have been utterly unthinkable.

There will be plenty of tension and recriminations if the exhibits in the New York case become public and the case progresses. Should the plaintiffs overcome the Saudi motion to dismiss, an extended period of merits discovery and a potential trial on liability for 9/11 will exacerbate matters. But many years after the attacks, it seems likely that judicial determination—not military action—is the most viable means by which to close the books on 9/11.

R evelations from the legal case are also likely to set off another round of self-flagellation over the failures of America’s law-enforcement and intelligence agencies. The 9/11 Commission Report and other accounts—including our own —showed the FBI to be shamefully asleep at the switch before the attacks. Indeed, some 9/11 Commission investigators thought the report went soft on the FBI to prevent morale from collapsing entirely. In light of the new revelations, we can expect renewed criticism. How could the bureau have been so ignorant of what the staff of a foreign embassy were doing under its nose? Counterintelligence, after all, is a core bureau responsibility. And the FBI’s conduct on this case is inexplicable. Curiously, agents continued investigating until at least 2021 and, to judge by the 2021 document, knew about the Saudis’ indispensable support for the hijackers. But their work was shut down by the Justice Department. There will be lots of questions to answer.

Ben Rhodes: The 9/11 era is over

If the criticism over these missteps is sharp, it will pale—or at least it should—next to how we reevaluate the global War on Terror, which defined American life and international affairs for some 20 years. The spectacle of 9/11 suggested that there was a new breed of super-terrorists, and the coordination, tradecraft, and sophistication behind the attack on the Twin Towers made that contention persuasive. It would have been foolhardy after that enormity not to expect more catastrophic attacks, and no one could say with any certainty how large al-Qaeda was or how capable it might be. Bin Laden had sought to galvanize the angry masses of the Muslim world in support of his movement. Approving reactions to 9/11, indicating that many Muslims around the world thought the U.S. had finally gotten what it deserved, led policy makers to believe that there was a reservoir of individuals who might be radicalized and line up behind al-Qaeda.

And there were. But the question was whether these Muslims in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and South America could be marshaled into a force capable of inflicting grievous harm on the U.S. homeland. In the aftermath of the attacks, U.S. law enforcement at all levels turned to deal with the newly revealed terrorist threat. The FBI and local authorities showed up at Saudi-backed mosques around the country, hundreds of Muslim men were detained for immigration violations or under material-witness laws, and the Saudi support network went to ground. Washington secured the country’s borders following the attacks and, building on already-existing no-fly lists, made travel to the U.S. by would-be terrorists exceedingly difficult.

The next big attack never materialized. Indeed, al-Qaeda’s record after 2001 was a fizzle—a fact that has puzzled experts. Most years brought no more terrorist deaths in the U.S. than the pre-2001 period had, and some saw fewer. Al-Qaeda managed to organize no attacks against the American homeland for 18 years after 9/11. The deadly Islamist attacks of this period—including the Boston Marathon attack in 2013, the San Bernardino shootings in 2015, and the Pulse club massacre in Orlando in 2016—were the work of Muslims inspired by the jihadist terrorists but who had no notable contact with bin Laden’s organization. In December 2019, a Saudi air cadet killed three people in a shooting at the Navy’s Pensacola Air Station, an attack that was the first—and to date only—since 9/11 in which investigators traced a line back to al-Qaeda.

Abroad, terrorist strikes in Bali, Madrid, Paris, and London killed in the double and low triple digits—attacks on a scale the world was largely accustomed to, even if several of the attacks came tightly bunched. But there was nothing remotely like 9/11. In the U.S., the near-miss of the “underwear bomber,” a young man who tried to blow up Northwest Airlines Flight 253 to Detroit in December 2009 with a bomb in his briefs, prompted the Washington bureaucracy to further tighten screening procedures. American and foreign intelligence and law-enforcement agencies disrupted terrorist cells around the world. After the obliviousness that preceded 9/11, America demonstrated an extraordinary capacity to act decisively and effectively.

But above all else, without a support network in the U.S. that could provide cash and documents, facilitate travel, and secure lodging, large-scale terrorist attacks by foreign groups became nearly impossible.

Al-Qaeda did not exactly shrivel and die, but as many of its most capable operatives, such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, an architect of 9/11, were captured, the group became much less dangerous, and jihad against the U.S. lost some of its appeal. The eventual consequence was what became known as the “relocalization of jihad,” a return to settling scores against leaders and governments principally in Muslim parts of the world. In North Africa, al-Qaeda affiliates kidnapped foreigners and killed government forces. In places as diverse as Yemen and Southeast Asia, like-minded groups fought the local regimes and murdered civilians. Former imperial powers of Europe, situated close to the Middle East and North Africa, also faced, by virtue of their colonial histories, a continued threat of radicalization embedded within their own society.

From the March 2015 issue: What ISIS really wants

The most dramatic instance of this relocalization occurred in Iraq, where America’s removal of Saddam Hussein lifted the lid on the antipathies among the Shia, Sunni, and Kurdish communities. As the U.S. dismantled the Iraqi army and much of the Iraqi state, these sectarian and ethnic groups turned against one another in pursuit of an elusive security. War is the great incubator of extremism, and out of the civil conflict that the U.S. triggered emerged a jihadist entity that dwarfed al-Qaeda in its geographic and ideological reach. The Islamic State was the brainchild of extremists who understood that Sunni fury at the loss of their privileges in the new Shia-dominated Iraq could burn far hotter than the implausible global jihad of Osama bin Laden. Indeed, just as al-Qaeda seemed to be collapsing in 2014, ISIS conquered nearly half of Iraq. The turmoil of civil war in neighboring Syria gave ISIS a haven that grew to cover a third of that country as well. The Islamic State’s achievement in holding territory—something al-Qaeda never managed—attracted recruits from throughout the Arab world and Europe who yearned to create their vision of a truly Islamic polity. ISIS, an unwanted child of the U.S. occupation of Iraq, came closest to achieving the mass mobilization that U.S. policy makers feared after 9/11. But in the end, the group’s threat to the region’s states and its external terrorist operations galvanized a broad coalition of countries that crushed it. The U.S. contributed a great deal militarily to the effort, but at home, the only hint of a threat came from fearmongering in the media.

W hat would we have done differently if our intelligence and law-enforcement agencies had learned shortly after the 9/11 attacks that officials of our close friend Saudi Arabia had given regular, reliable, and essential support to terrorists seeking to kill Americans in large numbers?

We would, at a minimum, have immediately compelled Riyadh to dismantle the jihadi infrastructure within its institutions and to liquidate what was left of it on our soil and in countries around the world. We likely would still have toppled the Taliban in Afghanistan and tried to destroy what was left of al-Qaeda there. But if we had understood that the attacks of 9/11 had depended on state support—and if we had eliminated that state support—we might well have had the confidence to leave Afghanistan quickly, instead of lingering for 20 years. As additional attacks failed to materialize, we would also have been more prepared to rely on strong border controls and intelligence to keep us safe. Of course, the discovery of Saudi involvement in 9/11 would have thrown a massive roadblock in front of the George W. Bush administration’s rush to topple Saddam Hussein, although perhaps nothing could have restrained a heedless president from that course of action. But perhaps we would have felt secure enough to close the detention camp at Guantánamo, which has been a permanent demonstration of our disregard for the rule of law. And perhaps as well, we would not have subordinated almost all our other foreign-policy goals to our counterterrorism efforts—a practice that undermined American efforts to support democracy and human rights abroad.

Today, for most Americans, the global War on Terror has become a hazy memory from the time before Donald Trump. In Washington, policy makers avoid discussing the subject. Yet it bears remembering: It cost us $6 trillion, and that number is expected to go higher because of the long-term health-care costs for veterans. It turned the Middle East upside down, increasing the regional influence of Iran. More than 7,000 American servicemen and women died in action; 30,000 more, an extraordinary number, died by suicide. In all, more than 800,000 Iraqis, Afghans, and others, most of them civilians, perished in the war.

The War on Terror and its origins in 9/11 are seen in retrospect as farce and tragedy. But the emerging picture of the preparations for 9/11 make recognizing the sheer scale of the blunder inescapable.