By Isaiah Thomas
Board of Editors
The 25th anniversary of the terrorist attacks of 9/11 hit us harder than we thought it would. We remember not only the shock and horror of the day, but what happened before and after.
We remember the turn of the century as an exciting, optimistic time. The Cold War was over. We had won, and distinguished academics told us that history was over and nothing bad would ever happen again. Russia and China seemed nice and friendly. We enjoyed cable television and looked forward to flat screen TV’s. This Internet seemed like it would be lots of fun. Maybe someday we could watch movies on it!
In retrospect, how innocent we were! Of course, we didn’t know, unlike George W. Bush, that al-Qaeda was determined to strike in the United States, as his intelligence briefing told him. We didn’t know that outsourcing airplane security to minimum wage drones so airlines could make more money might cost thousands of innocent lives. And if the Mayor of New York put his emergency command center in a building already attacked by al-Qaeda due to its proximity to his office and his love nest, who noticed?
That changed.
Remember what happened next? The media last week were full of happy tales of heroic interventions and national unity, and there was indeed a lot of that. As it turned out, thousands labored at Ground Zero, not including a busto real estate developer who never gave a dime to the victims’ families. Now we know that those who worked there were exposed to a toxic stew in the air and ground that has since claimed more lives than the original attack. We know this because the current Mayor of New York released the documents proving it had been suppressed by the supposed Republican heroes of 9/11, now living in disbarred disgrace in Florida.
But even the normally staid New York Times admitted on September 11, 2026 that what happened after the attack destroyed the unity and purpose the nation had mostly displayed in the immediate aftermath:
Yet this recitation of post-Sept. 11 accomplishments masks a harder truth. The principal legacy of America’s response to that horrible day is not a stronger, more resilient nation. It is instead two long, bloody wars — one of which, in Iraq, was started on false pretenses — that mostly weakened the United States, at home and abroad. It is an America more isolated from the world.
More than 7,000 service members were killed and more than 53,000 wounded in the war on terror. By one estimate, it cost more than $8 trillion and 900,000 lives. It drained resources that could have been used to strengthen the country against emerging rivals. Some of the steepest costs are the hardest to measure: the damage to our social compact and our domestic politics. Many soldiers who answered the call to defend the country and fought in the misguided wars, along with their families and communities, understandably feel betrayed by their leaders.
Well, yeah.
Elsewhere in the day’s news you learn that the busto real estate developer, now a corrupt demented bigot who incredibly enough is President of the United States, is intent on repeating the exact same bigoted idiocy that generates the awful results listed by its Editorial Board:
Closing out his speech at the Pentagon today, Trump again suggested that the military conflict with Iran was part of the legacy of 9/11 terror attacks. “Today we renew the sacred oath that we first swore in their names a quarter of a century ago. We will never, ever forget,” he said. “That’s why we fight today. We don’t have a choice. There can only be victory. We fight hard. We fight to win.”
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| At the beginning, the 21st Century seemed like fun |
By the way, we’re losing, just as in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Times was too circumspect to recount accurately how the nation descended from the unity of 9/11 to the abyss in which it is now trapped. In their account, it sounds like a hurricane came ashore.
Let’s take the advice of our old expository writing instructor and use the active voice. The debacles of the last 25 years didn’t just happen. Republicans caused them.
As mentioned already, unqualified Republican frat boy George W. Bush, installed as President by a narrow 5-4 vote of the bent Supreme Court, ignored the torrent of intelligence about the imminence and seriousness of another terrorist attack in the United States. His handlers, including Vice-President Dead-eye Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld, were equally oblivious, despite the best efforts of White House Antiterrorism adviser, Richard Clarke, who couldn‘t even get a meeting with Dead-eye Dick to discuss the al-Qaeda threat until September 4, 2001. (9/11 Commission Report at 201.)
Having left the nation exposed, while the rubble still smoked, the tinny Republican warmongers immediately saw the terrorist attack as a license to carry out their unfinished agenda of global domination, by building an unconstrained lawless Presidency that could chuck U.S. citizens into dungeons without anything resembling due process and overthrowing Middle East dictators who had nothing to do with 9/11.
These Republicans chose to take America to war based on lies, and demonize our allies when they refused to go along with the preposterous war of aggression. Remember freedom fries?
Their henchmen, despite occasional self-serving requests from Bush for tolerance, built the case for war not only on lies but by fanning the flames of American intolerance and bigotry, in this case toward all Muslims, who were regarded as an undifferentiated mass of bloodthirsty terrorists bent on destroying America. They also led a drive to undermine the civil liberties of all Americans, with special emphasis on those who dared to criticize Mission Accomplished George. Remember “shut up and sing?” We do.
The results were accurately described by the Times Editorial Board as far as it went.
But the disgraceful Republican performance after 9/11 resonates strongly today. In 2026, another Republican bigot, stupider and more despicable than even George Bush, has built an entire political movement on hatred and fear of anyone who practices one of the world’s great religions.
We’ve already quoted his laughably bigoted case for starting a losing war of choice against Iran, a country that had nothing to do with 9/11, and even came to our aid in the aftermath of the attack.
But the Islamophobia fomented by the previous generation of Republican hacks and warmongers has been stoked to volcanic levels by the current crop of corrupt cynical Republican bigots:
When Zohran Mamdani, as Mayor of New York, said he would as part of his duties, attend 9/11 memorial ceremonies at Ground Zero, white bigots let their freak flag fly:
Council Member Vicki Paladino demanded that Mayor Zohran Mamdani not attend the 9/11 ceremony, saying he “does not belong there” and that “we, the people” do not want him there.
— Mediaite (@mediaite.com) September 9, 2026 at 1:41 PM
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Just a reminder that the core principle of both white racist Republicans and Islamist extremists is that they get to decide who belongs, and who doesn't.
Speaking of hate and intolerance of those with different religions, let's go to Texas!
In the state where white men are men and everyone else is cattle, Texas Republicans are desperately trying to cling to power by making a naked appeal to religious intolerance and anti-Muslim bigotry.
The clown who is running for Texas Railroad Commissioner (despite the name, a powerful office with control over what they call down there erl) posted the following troll bait in support of his campaign for elected office:
Let's unpack this photo. it shows a bunch of young people in the stands at a Texas football game, wearing Texas regalia (including the stupid hats) and cheering on their team. That sounds pretty Amurican to us.
To white bigots like Bo, though, there's a problem: most of the cheering guys in the foreground appear to be South Asian. There are persons of South Asian heritage in Texas. Some were actually born there. Some attend the University of Texas. As for their foreignness, they must be hiding it deep under their disguise as Longhorn football fans.
Smearing these cheering students is consistent with the general climate of Islamophobia in Texas, although someone might want to tell Bubba that most South Asians aren't in fact Muslim.
Captain Karl Rove, having pocketed his winnings for decades from fomenting hatred and bigotry to elect sh***y Republican candidates, is now shocked, shocked to discover what has been going on his casino:
Karl Rove said he’ll break 30 years of only supporting Republicans to vote against “bigot” Bo French www.texastribune.org/2026/09/14/b...
— Catherine Rampell (@crampell.bsky.social) September 14, 2026 at 8:05 PM
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Sure, Karl. Now see if you can find those six million emails you erased.
Remember that al-Qaeda’s enemy was the tolerance and openness of the democratic secular “infidel” West. Their goal was to replace it, at least in the Middle East, with intolerant religious extremism, just like Texas Republicans. As the 9/11 Commission report found at 51-52:
To the second question, what America could do, al Qaeda’s answer was that America should abandon the Middle East, convert to Islam, and end the immorality and godlessness of its society and culture:“ It is saddening to tell you that you are the worst civilization witnessed by the history of mankind.” If the United States did not comply, it would be at war with the Islamic nation, a nation that al Qaeda’s leaders said “desires death more than you desire life.”
Like the Republican Party, bin Laden declared the world “divided between infidels and believers.” The only difference of course was the religion espoused by the haters.
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| Bin Laden's followers await his 25th anniversary remarks |
Bin Laden also wanted to drive American influence and power out of the Middle East. Thanks to the Mad King’s disastrous war against Iran and subsequent inability to protect Saudi and the Gulf States, the era of American dominance in the Middle East has ended.
And the ongoing effort by the corrupt, clueless, and depraved Republican Party to split the United States from its democratic allies, while fostering the recrudescence of Fascism in Europe, may well complete the work that bin Laden couldn’t, before his life was ended by real President Obama.
Although bin Laden was unavailable for comment, from his current residence in Hell he must be pleased by the havoc wrought by 25 years of Republican disasters in the Middle East, all perpetrated in supposed response to his dastardly attack on September 11, 2001.
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