25 years ago, the world changed. September 11th, 2001 was an inflection point. We didn't know it at the time, but we woke up in one world, and transitioned into another over the course of the day.
Life was different then. We didn't even know anything had happened until a neighbor called us, as I recall. We had a single computer, and it wasn't perpetually online. We had internet access, but it was still a dial-up connection, not broadband. Our family also had no cable or satellite TV, and we didn't spend our days glued to network news. Everything was basic analog signals, too. If we had it by then, our cellular phone (singular, for the entire family) was only used for voice calling, not text messages.
The western US is not the same as the urban east coast. News trickled in slowly over the day and continued for several days after. I don't really remember when Osama bin Laden was fingered as the mastermind. I do remember the search for survivors in the rubble. I remember the fury and demand for revenge. Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and later the Iraqi government were all eventually conflated as conspiring to commit the attack despite what, in hindsight, we can charitably describe as varying levels of evidence for those accusations. However, at the time, tensions were high as anthrax letters and other concerns about followup attacks loomed large.
A "war on terror" would follow, but the means of war are just terrorism on a larger scale. Politicians promised these would be swift and decisive strikes. Instead, civilian deaths and other atrocities orders of magnitude greater than what the US suffered were inflicted across Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, and beyond for over two decades and counting. Puppet regimes and mission creep further destabilized the middle east, and shifting loyalties resulted in various US agencies sometimes funding both sides of civil wars, leading to the US backing a literal al-Qaeda warlord taking power in Syria. The former dictators of nations like Iraq, Syria, and Libya were far from saints, but was it good for anyone to have the US destabilize those regimes and install new governments in their stead after subjecting the people there to war and devastation?
Cracks in the official narrative began to emerge soon enough, and I dove deep into the 9/11 conspiracy sphere in response. I'm not convinced "Bush did 9/11" or any of the other alternative explanations of the event hold water, but I remain unconvinced we were given the true and complete story by our public officials, either. The military-industrial complex hoovered up money while the Americans suffered the effects of money supply inflation and distorted incentives from economic intervention to "fix" the economy. Was this a premeditated plan to centralize wealth and power, or just opportunistically not letting a crisis go to waste?
Here in the US, we have been subjected to the PATRIOT Act, TSA porno-scanners and gate rape, financial surveillance in the guise of "fighting terrorism," and now Flock cameras monitoring our movements and building a database of everywhere we go. If "the terrorists hate us for our freedom," as we were told 25 years ago, surely we are loved and adored now, 25 years later, as the Panopticon has been built around us and our liberties have been eroded continually since then?
Now, we are over six months into a new war against Iran we were assured would last only weeks, not months. It started with a sneak attack on Iran in the midst of negotiations, and among the civilian deaths were scores of schoolgirls. Similar to how 9/11 galvanized Americans behind George W. Bush, Iranians who were protesting the Iranian regime found themselves asked to choose between their domestic tyrants and external enemies. Is anyone really surprised Iran continues to resist? The cycle continues. Politicians claim new power. Civilians suffer the cost. Soldiers are sent to kill and die based on dubious justification. Another generation fails to learn, hate and fear maintain the status quo, and the old profit off their blood and sweat. War is the health of the state, just as Randolph Bourne sagely warned over 100 years ago.
Interesting historical and contemporary notes on war policy. I would like to add two elements that I consider important:
The "war on terror" was not only exported, but also "imported" domestically: the logic of the "war on terror" was used to restructure the internal governance model of the United States. The PATRIOT Act, the TSA's body scanners, and the subsequent mass surveillance (such as the Snowden revelations) were not temporary responses to external threats, but were gradually institutionalized, turning the "state of exception" into "normalcy." In other words, the war on terror not only consumed resources abroad, but also permanently eroded the privacy and civil liberties of American citizens.
The economic and political cost of the military-industrial complex was quietly transferred to the ordinary population: the enormous expenses of the wars abroad and the bailouts of the domestic economy did not come from "extra funds," but from debt and monetary expansion. Through quantitative easing and debt issuance, the government injected funds into the financial system and the military machine, but the real cost was borne by ordinary Americans through the loss of purchasing power, asset price inflation, and the decline of public services. This "cost transfer" was not transparently discussed, but remained hidden under the narrative of "national security" and "maintaining prosperity."🤔
The PATRIOT Act and the reorganized Department of Homeland Security were both abominable. DHS includes the new ICE which has been in the news for its abuses this year.
Compared to the destruction abroad, it seems minor, but the economic devastation here from pointless war is undeniable. Taxation, money supply inflation, ballooning national debt, etc. stem in large part from the GWOT.
Bad decisions by a few that affect millions, and consequences that, unfortunately, they have to drag along like shackles.
As we see now with the undeclared war against Iran and its resultant spending/debt and supply shock, to say nothing of the death and destruction it has caused and will continue to cause across the middle east.
Unfortunately, humanity is advancing, by leaps and bounds, toward 'involution,' to avoid calling it outright destruction.
World Wars I & II were declared. WWIII seems to have been simmering for 25 years without any formal announcement at all. And that assumes we don't include the cold war or prior middle east interventions.
It's a fact indeed.
Please vote for the Ecency Proposal.
"The events of September 11th were not merely a turning point; they were a scar upon the soul of humanity, and the voices of the innocent still echo softly in our minds. Yet, my heart aches most for the families of those who perished—trapped in a crucible of agony, terror, and helpless longing as they watched the tragedy unfold, unable to rescue their beloved, no matter how desperately they reached out.
May their souls find eternal serene peace in the heavens. And my deepest gratitude to the author, who has beautifully reshaped this sorrow through his own lens, for literature has forever been the sacred vessel for the soul’s purging of grief