As we move past the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, we cannot fall prey to thinking that the attacks were organized in a vacuum. The unjustified attacks that day were not the result of Osama bin Laden et. al. suddenly awakening and deciding to attack a major city of a major superpower, nor was it orchestrated out of spite. Similar to the etiology of the Imperial Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, which was a response to American sanctions from the Imperial Japanese invasion of Manchuria, 9/11 was not an event that occurred in a vacuum. For one thing, 9/11 was not the first time the WTC had been attacked by radical Islamists, as there was a previous attack in 1993.

Indeed, the world of geopolitics is an ecosystem, an interconnected web of pressuring forces that results in adaptation and evolution. If we truly want to prevent another 9/11, I think we should examine our foreign policy under greater scrutiny and learn from history. Our relationships with despot nations, resulted in how a lot of anti-American sentiment in Iran was generated from a CIA-orchestrated overthrow of Iran in 1953 and instating the Shah. Trying to think about future ramifications of friending questionable nations would surely help, as well.

Max Engel

East Lyme