[hnbad]

As someone who was old enough on 9/11 to be able to follow the events in real time (watching CNN while also following discussions on news aggregator websites at the time - yeah, those already were a thing): 9/11 did not justify the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, nor the erosion of American civil liberties, nor the mass surveillance against its own allies later uncovered by Snowden.

That the evidence used to justify the invasion of Iraq was fabricated was blatantly obvious at the time and foreign heads of state's statements on it were based more on diplomacy than credibility. The invasion of Afghanistan was easier to justify due to the presence of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan at the time and the cooperation of the Taliban with Al Qaeda but it was widely understood as being motivated by retaliation against Islamism more broadly rather than an attempt to take out the group that orchestrated the attacks. Neither invasion was justified by international law, not that this matters given that the US is not party to the International Criminal Court and has previously pledged to take military action against anyone attempting to extradite US citizens to the Hague.

9/11 was a horrible loss of civilian life and the collapse of the towers itself was a horrific mass death event even without taking any of the planes into account. But the US's invasions and occupation in Afghanistan and Iraq had a civilian death count far exceeding 9/11 and the US deliberately arrested "enemy combatants" and held and tortured them with no legal recourse, often for years without trial. Not to mention the state of the entire region during and after the occupation leading to the rise of ISIS and the return of the Taliban to power after the toothless puppet regime in Afghanistan collapsed.

That Al Qaeda was the Bad Guy doesn't make the US the Good Guy. At best the US is the Less Bad Guy. Preferable but not to be celebrated.

A lot of people born after 9/11 also have no recollection of the levels of racism and jingoism that followed the event: Muslims being ostracized and openly attacked, brown people in general being mistreated on suspicion of being Muslim, the lengths American corporations went to to spite the French for voicing concern when the US announced its intend to enter war in the Middle East.

And a lot of people think they are seeing exactly the same play out in Israel and Gaza since the Oct 7th attacks, except Israel didn't even take time to mourn the victims (or track the hostages) before engaging in a month-long retaliatory bombing campaign with a mind-boggling death toll.

[ben_w]

> That the evidence used to justify the invasion of Iraq was fabricated was blatantly obvious at the time and foreign heads of state's statements on it were based more on diplomacy than credibility.

It seemed obvious to me at the time when I watched a clip of the discussion in the House of Commons, but in retrospect what I thought was a weakness of the government position shouldn't have been seen that way, as (I learned from Johnson violating it) the standard for all statements in the House to be true.

Otherwise, I think I agree with what you say.