Twenty-five years on, September 11 is remembered as a day. Its more consequential legacy is a set of decisions.

In the weeks and months after the attacks, Washington claimed open-ended war powers, invaded two countries, built a surveillance apparatus aimed at its own citizens, and normalized detention without trial.

Those choices reshaped American foreign policy, but they also reshaped American life: how we travel, what the government knows about us, which powers a president now assumes are his, and how much of the federal budget flows toward war.

Quincy Institute Senior Research Fellow Steven Simon, who served as a National Security Council director under two presidents, sat down with Steve Coll, the Pulitzer prize–winning author of Ghost Wars and The Achilles Trap, to reckon with those decisions, what they cost, and how they continue to inform America's future.

Absolutely BATSHIT crazy interview, your brain will fold into a balloon dog trying to make sense of this, HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V97AG1b4H54

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[–] Ascrod@midwest.social 3 points 1 day ago

I saw "Come From Away" recently and reading/researching about the real story afterwards really opened my eyes to how much the Canadians supported us during the immediate aftermath. And then it came out that 9/11 happened because we were fucking around in the Middle East and full of hubris.

And here we are 25 years later having learned nothing at all.