I don’t remember 9/11. I was 6 years old — I also have a bad memory — so I have no recollection of what I was doing that day, or when I learned that terrorists had killed nearly 3,000 people.
I knew the outline of what happened, but knowing the outline is not the same as understanding what the day felt like, or why the political choices that followed seemed so reasonable to so many.
Last week, I read the 9/11 Commission report for the first time and came across the official account of a call from Peter Hanson, a passenger on the flight that would eventually hit the South Tower of the World Trade Center:
“It’s getting bad, Dad — A stewardess was stabbed — They seem to have knives and Mace —They said they have a bomb — It’s getting very bad on the plane — Passengers are throwing up and getting sick — The plane is making jerky movements — I don’t think the pilot is flying the plane — I think we are going down — I think they intend to go to Chicago or someplace and fly into a building — Don’t worry, Dad — If it happens, it’ll be very fast — My God, my God.”
Moments after the call suddenly ended, Peter’s father, Lee turned on the television, and watched his son’s plane hit the World Trade Center. He watched his son die live on TV.
For my entire adult life it has been uncontroversial to be opposed to the Global War on Terror that then-President George W. Bush launched in response to the attacks. But if you were over the age of 18 in 2001, the odds are that you supported military action:
A Gallup poll fielded Oct. 5-6, 2001, showed that 82% of respondents favored direct military action in Afghanistan.
Another Gallup poll fielded Nov. 2-4 found 66% in support of sending “large numbers” of ground troops to Afghanistan. When asked how long U.S. military combat forces should be used to deal with terrorism, 56% of respondents said “more than 5 years, if necessary.
A CBS News poll fielded Oct. 8, after the bombing campaign began, showed 87% approved of the attacks on Afghanistan.
Expanding the war to include Iraq was also popular. In 2002, strong majorities of Americans supported military action to depose Saddam Hussein. We now know with certainty that Hussein did not collaborate with the hijackers, but in October 2002, 66% of Americans thought he did.
But the most revealing poll is not one showing American’s supported military action in Afghanistan, it is the one showing that just 3 percent of people thought the goal should be to to kill or capture Osama Bin Laden. Less than a month after 9/11, “support among Americans for the U.S.-led military attacks against Afghanistan targets is so strong that many Americans think not even the death or capture of Osama bin Laden should stop the anti-terrorist offensive.”
When CBS News asked what the goal of the U.S. attacks was, just 3% of Americans said “Kill/Capture Bin Laden” the other 90% said it should be to stop terrorists elsewhere. In other words, people were eager for the U.S. to undertake a broader attack on terrorism, not merely respond to the specific circumstances of what happened on 9/11. The public had embraced a war with no obvious geographic boundary or endpoint.
Bush helped mold that consensus and channeled it into a larger mission: A global struggle to defend and spread liberal democracy. Nine days after 9/11, Bush argued that the war “begins with al-Qaeda, but it does not end there.” In 2002, the Bush Doctrine was laid out in an official National Security Strategy which called for a “distinctly American internationalism” to make the world safer and better. Here’s how the document opens:
“The great struggles of the twentieth century between liberty and totalitarianism ended with a decisive victory for the forces of freedom—and a single sustainable model for national success: freedom, democracy, and free enterprise. In the twenty-first century, only nations that share a commitment to protecting basic human rights and guaranteeing political and economic freedom will be able to unleash the potential of their people and assure their future prosperity. People everywhere want to be able to speak freely; choose who will govern them; worship as they please; educate their children—male and female; own property; and enjoy the benefits of their labor. These values of freedom are right and true for every person, in every society—and the duty of protecting these values against their enemies is the common calling of freedom-loving people across the globe and across the ages.”
Of course, we now know that all of this went terribly wrong. These ideas became a license to use American military force to remake other nations at a staggering human cost.
The Costs of War project at Brown University estimates that the total death toll in post-9/11 war zones of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen is between 4.5 million and 4.7 million. This number includes both direct combat casualties and indirect deaths from things like malnutrition, economic collapse, displacement, and other knock-on effects that were put in motion by the wars.1
When these wars failed, they discredited liberal internationalism as well as military intervention. The right that emerged from the wreckage rejected the cosmopolitanism of the Bush years. Where Bush made efforts to reject collective responsibility for Muslims, Trump now openly denigrates them as inferior.
How did we get there? What was Al-Qaeda’s goal? How did America’s response end up discrediting the liberal internationalist project? My co-host Matt Yglesias and I talk about all of this and more on this week’s episode of The Argument.
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The Argument. Libbing out.
Corrections:
At around 03:40 and 14:45, Matt says the first World Trade Center bombing was in 1994 instead of 1993.
Around 04:06, Jerusalem says “thousands” were injured in the first 1993 bombing, but the number is actually 1,042.
Around 05:30, Jerusalem says Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was “heavily involved” in the 1993 attack on the world trade center, but the report says KSM wired $660 and otherwise “does not appear to have contributed any more substantially to this operation.”
Around 11:00, Jerusalem describes a case in the 9/11 Commission Report in which one operative, Zacarias Moussaoui, enrolled in a flight school in Minnesota but raised suspicions for being “uninterested in both taking off and landing of planes.” While Moussaoui was enrolled in flight school in Minnesota, the individuals described as being uninterested in takeoffs and landings were Nawaf al Hazmi and Khalid al Mihdhar.
In the same description around 11:00, Jerusalem says Moussaoui was picked up on a routine immigration violation, but the report says his flight instructor reported suspicions to Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS).
Around 12:35, Matt says that federal officials applied for a warrant for Moussaoui, but it didn’t meet FISA criteria. According to the report, the FBI decided not to submit a FISA application because headquarters didn’t believe the evidence was strong enough.
In the same section around 12:35, Matt says someone who was in custody from the World Trade Center plot recognized Moussaoui, but he is referring to Ahmed Ressam, who was convicted over the plot to bomb LAX.
Around 34:10, Matt says “if we get Osama in 2022,” when he means 2002
Around 1:00:00, Jerusalem says we have appropriated roughly $195 billion for the war in Ukraine. The figure appears to be closer to $183 billion.
At around 1:06:40, Matt says Amy Klobuchar was the attorney general of Hennepin County, but her title was actually Hennepin County Attorney.
Around 01:15:20, Matt says “Somewhere in the Dick Cheney archives, he’s saying that about Iraq, that Afghanistan, there’s not really much we can do there, but Iraq, I think, has potential.” This is actually a reference to a Donald Rumsfeld quote, who reportedly said, “there aren’t any good targets in Afghanistan. And there are lots of good targets in Iraq.”
In the same section around 1:15:20, Matt describes Samantha Power as an “Iraq War hawk,” but she was critical of the U.S. approach at the time
Around 1:24:00, Jerusalem says the entrance of a tutoring center explained 66% of the difference in math scores, but the cited study says 63%.
Show notes:
9/11 Commission Report, primary source for data about the attack: Report
“Flashbulb Memories,” study by William Hirst and Elizabeth Phelps referenced by Jerusalem: Current Directions in Psychological Science article
“Post September 11 Attitudes,” polling referenced by Jerusalem: Pew Research Center poll
Is Multiculturalism Bad for Women?, book by Susan Moller Okin referenced by Matt. Goodreads page
“What Happened to al-Qaeda?” article by Graeme Wood referenced by Jerusalem: The Atlantic article
“Elon Musk’s zero accountability life,” article by Kobe Yank-Jacobs referenced by Jerusalem: The Argument article
Problem from Hell, book by Samantha Power referenced by Matt. Goodreads page
Films referenced by Matt:
Peer Review: “Kumon Up: Private Tutoring Centers and Student Achievement,” article by Joshua Goodman and Samuel Nitkin: NBER working paper
“Democrats should fire bad teachers and bad cops,” article by Nicholas Bagley and Robert Gordon referenced by Jerusalem: The Argument article
“Nature or Nurture: Private Tutoring and Education Inequality,” study by Kyung Woo Lee, Sun Ku Hahn, and Tae Yoon Sung, referenced by Jerusalem: RISS page
The Road to Serfdom, book by Friedrich Hayek that will serve as the basis for our upcoming book club episode. Goodreads page
Transcript:
They get this range by taking the direct casualty count (between 905,000 and 940,000 direct deaths) and then multiplying that by 4 — a multiplier derived from a 2008 report by the Geneva Declaration Secretariat, which analyzed indirect deaths from 13 previous conflicts. This isn’t the most scientific method, but I think it’s safe to say that millions of people were killed as a result of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.