This is Democracy – Episode 56: September 11, 2001 – 18th Anniversary: Lessons and Legacies

Narration 0:05
This is Democracy,

a podcast that explores the interracial intergenerational and intersection of unheard voices living in the world’s most

influential democracy.

Jeremi Suri 0:17
Welcome to our new episode of This is Democracy. We are recording this episode on the 18th anniversary of the terrorist attacks of September 11 2001. And we have with us, my good friend, esteemed colleague and distinguished policymaker, William Inboden. Welcome, William.

William Inboden 0:38
Good to be here.

Jeremi Suri 0:39
Will is a

professor of history and Public Policy at the LBJ School and University of Texas. He is the executive director of the Clemens center for strategy and statecraft. He’s also a distinguished fellow with the Strauss center. And in addition to being an accomplished academic, he’s someone who has had an extensive policy career working on the National Security Council for President George W. Bush and doing all sorts of policy work since then. And before we turn to our discussion

William Inboden 1:11
with Jeremy, you forgot to mention any former undergraduate and graduate school classmate of Professor series that that

Jeremi Suri 1:16
is true, that is true. What one could argue that that will adjust the person I followed around from one place to another, including London for one summer as well. So but before we get lost on those stories, we have

William Inboden 1:29
Zachary before he was a poet. Yes,

Jeremi Suri 1:32
it’s hard to remember what that was. But speaking of Zachary’s poetry, Zachary, you have a poem for us to start today, right? Yeah. What is the title of your poem

Zachary Suri 1:40
ghosts of 911 2001. Let’s hear it. I wasn’t there when two planes flew into the Twin Towers at 8am. on a Tuesday morning. I wasn’t there when my mother was jet fuel rain fire from office building windows from a TV screen in a Milwaukee classroom. And I wasn’t there and they jumped from 80 stories up to escape being burned alive next to their squeak we heard about on the TV screen in the history classroom, with video footage from two decades ago. And it all seems a bit old to us, visioning at our desks, wishing we didn’t have to hear about the smell of burning flesh, watching us a plane smashed into a building that collapsed under its weight like Lego bricks. And I wasn’t there on grading footage with cursing firefighters in the background who seemed so old to us now. And I wasn’t even breathing when planes blew up financial centers dive bombed into the Department of Defense. And I wasn’t even there was an explosion rocket, Pennsylvania field. And we just can’t imagine it and the humidifier swimming classroom 18 years later, we can’t imagine what it’s like to feel like you’re under attack from all directions to lean against patriotism when you don’t know if there could be a bomb in the cereal boxes you pick up from the grocery store. And I read an article the other day about Paul Simon singing the boxer on Saturday Night Live and they were still searching for survivors. And all I can think about is how those piercing lie the lies must have felt through the TV sets. And what do you do when you’re attacked by a beer man 7000 miles away in the Hindu Kush, and almost 3000 people die. And perhaps that’s a good thing. Perhaps it’s good to have known Iraq to have known Afghanistan all my life. And I guess I can almost measure my age and the length of wars. And perhaps it’s a good thing to have grown up patriot ties in the Patriot Act standing for the Pledge of Allegiance, to have grew up in a world where you have to take off your shoes to prove you’re not hiding any blaze between your toes. A world where I watched my beard, a dark skinned father get purposefully randomly selected at every airport stop, where I now as an adolescent male have to get my books and my stuffed animals swab that London Heathrow like they’re going to blow up the skies. And perhaps it’s a blessing to have woken up in a minefield and forgotten why we have to get to the other side.

Jeremi Suri 3:44
That’s a wonderful poem, Zachary. What powerful? What what is what is the message of your poem,

Zachary Suri 3:48
my poem is really about what it’s like to be as I am in the generation that was born just after 911 and has felt the ghost has been haunted by by September 11 2001. But hasn’t known it has felt the after effects for so long. And and in many ways, it’s a very different perspective to think about it as someone who has not didn’t actually experience that event. And it makes me think about the path that we took as a nation after is in a very, in a much more critical, but also much more truthful way.

Jeremi Suri 4:21
Yeah, it’s extraordinary. it’s it’s a it’s a memory that you don’t have, but yet it’s a memory that structures your life in every way. Will you your your career is in many ways been centered on on 911. Where are you on that day,

William Inboden 4:36
I was in Washington, DC, I had actually just moved there a week or two earlier from Yale. So I was you know, still unpacking boxes and by bachelor pad, rented rented apartment. I had accepted a job with the State Department but had not started yet, because I was awaiting the security clearance. And meanwhile, I was working at the think tank, the American Enterprise Institute, and the morning of 911. My morning commute driving into the EI headquarters would take me right past the omnichannel states within five right past depending on so i’d passed, you know, maybe 150 yards away from the south and south side of the Pentagon about a half hour before it got hit. Wow. So of course you have no idea what is coming. But I remember the day for me is just a series of vivid vignettes, interspersed with you know, blurriness and trauma. So I remember sitting at my desk AI and my intern running up saying, hey, a plane hit the World Trade Center. And my immediate thought was, oh, maybe it’s like an errant paper cup. And it was just was just an accident. And a few minutes later, he came right up and said, a second plane hit. And all sudden, I realized something is going on. And then someone else said the Pentagon’s been hit. And so I in several colleagues from the think tank run out to the roof of our building, which is just about it was at seven 10am. So just a few blocks to the White House and a couple miles as the crow flies across the river from Pentagon and get up to the roof and look across and towards the Pentagon and see this pillar of black smoke, unlike anything I’ve ever seen in my life before it, you know, felt like Armageddon or just something really apocalyptic. And and then the panic starts to set it to wonder what’s next are we next? We had no idea at the time about flight 93. Of course now we know that that was going either for the White House in the capital and the heroic passengers who rush the cabin, you know, saved certainly many other innocent lives in Washington DC. I remember running back down to my desk and phoning my parents in Tucson, Arizona. It was you know, three hours behind at the time. They just woke it up. They had no idea anything was going on. I remember screaming to the phone. Like, Mom, I’m okay. Don’t worry. And she’d What are you talking about? I said, turn on the TV. And so that’s how she found out what was going on. I remember going into normal Bernstein’s office he’s a you know, conventional scholar, a guy and sitting there with him and several others watching the TV as the Twin Towers came down, then kind of getting a sense that we needed to evacuate the building. And it was not ordered. But a number of us realized this doesn’t feel safe. And you know, I ended up having several hours walk back to my place in Virginia. But remember, we’re going out on the streets of DC. And there were literally thousands upon thousands of people on the street. And no one was saying a word. Wow, it was this eerie silence all you heard was kind of a clap clap clap of shoe leather on the street. Everyone is in shock. Some people are crying, you know some people hugging each other. But But we were still in just this this very vivid, literal state state of terror and uncertainty. So yeah, so those are my Those are my memories of the day. Wow.

Jeremi Suri 7:52
Wow. And And how long did it take to get a sense of what had actually happened?

William Inboden 7:58
By that evening, I remember, you know, the long walk home that evening, gathering several other friends at my bachelor pad and you know, watching the news. And by then we’re starting to realize it was this al Qaeda attack. I certainly had heard a lot kinda knew who they were, but had no idea that they were capable of something like this. And then I remember it late at night or early the next morning. I don’t know why this thing sticks in my head. Charles Krauthammer column comes up the Washington Post. And it was headline, This Is War, right. And that’s the first time it actually sunk into me. Then there was this war dimension to this again, it feels silly to say now that it took that long, but you’re sure it’s a terror attack, you just usually have no category for something like this to other freshman yet for me, in the days and weeks afterwards. One was just the pervasive sense of terror that lasted for months. Being afraid on the metro. On the streets are my first couple of plane flights afterwards. The other was the sentence of unity and solidarity. Very palpable, almost hard to describe. I was gonna ask you about Yeah, almost hard describe now and are very polarized and divided age. And the divisions is we can talk about returns soon enough factors, right. But for months afterwards, everything from everyone having American flags in the front yard on their cars. Strangers spontaneously hugging each other. Yeah, just a real sense of we as a nation, pulling together, the political divisions just seems so silly and irrelevant in thinking they returned soon enough. I don’t want to be naive about that. But yeah, those those two kind of intertwined feelings of ongoing terror and ongoing unity and solidarity is how they coexisted. And of course, you’ll remember especially for DC, I cant rember the exact dates, but within just a few weeks of the 911 attacks, he also had the anthrax rights, which again, we know now or we seem to know, we’re just, you know, a, a lone lone wolf and not nothing, you know, related all kinda fortunately killed a few people. But going back to that feeling of terror, of course, oh, my goodness, this is that this is neck, right.

Jeremi Suri 10:05
I remember being afraid to open the mail. And yeah, we were told I was an assistant professor in my first year, then, actually, my first week teaching American Foreign Relations. And I remember being totally at some University circular at the University of Wisconsin saying to wash our hands after we opened our mail.

William Inboden 10:20
And again, it sounds crazy in hindsight, but at the time that made sense that

Jeremi Suri 10:23
right, that made perfect sense,

William Inboden 10:26
because that’s one of the perverse effects of terrorism, of course, is just how it permanently alters your psyche, it makes normal daily actions and interactions of human life. So twisted and right. And risk risk Pro.

Jeremi Suri 10:39
Sorry. And and in addition to being someone who lived through this at Ground Zero, in a sense, well, and then someone had to make policy in response to this. You’ve also done a lot of research on this period. What do we know now with the benefit of hindsight and research about what really happened on that day?

William Inboden 10:57
I’m trying to think of what the what the main main highlights would would be? I mean, obviously, one of the things that happened was, it was a, you know, pervasive breakdown in our, certainly our intelligence and warning apparatus, right. And the 911 Commission, I think, did some really, really good work. Showing that I mean, we looking back, if we had connected the dots, we should have known a lot more. I’m not fingering any individual for blame there. But there were just some serious structural problems in a series of series and similar

Jeremi Suri 11:22
to Pearl Harbor. And that’s Yes,

William Inboden 11:24
right. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. No, I think some of the analogies are compelling there. Certainly has come out just the radical uncertainty and and terror that President Bush and himself felt surely curses coming out some of the difficult call said Vice President Cheney made in the in the bunker there about given the shoot down order for you know, what, flight 93? Right, right. So some of the difficult calls calls that were made then.

Jeremi Suri 11:51
And just for those who might not know, right, the order was given that if there was a chance to shoot down that plane before it sky

William Inboden 11:57
civilian airliner within its millions on it, but yeah, RFID for we’re going to shoot it down. So yeah. And then I do remember, this has come out to give obviously, I think that as a veteran of the Bush administration, I’m hardly unbiased. Right. And so I, and by the way, I was not a mean policy maker on the counterterrorism. So things I got, right. I won’t take any credit for either. But I do think that some of the early controversial decisions that bush administration made, for example, to go into Afghanistan with a light footprint, the special operators working with the Northern Alliance, a lot of warnings that that wouldn’t work, or it’s going to be a quagmire, or things like that. And that was going to take forever to topple the Taliban. And, you know, there are some early tactical and strategic successes there. I do think, you know, it’s come out that President Bush took some very deliberate controversial, intentional steps not to demonize Islam, right. So he goes to visit the Washington mosque just a few days afterwards. He says Islam is a religion of peace, and was really vilified by a number on the right for that. But, and that was partly his own incorporation, lessons of history, he had read about and been very moved about the appalling internment of Japanese Americans after Pearl Harbor, and did not want to replicate that was an entire class of American citizens, the vast majority of whom are very peaceful and patriotic. So those are some of the, like I said, some of the things that the positive things that were, you know, difficult calls at the time, and I think it’s less come out that there was careful delivery. Many others, of course, that, you know, would be less laborious

Jeremi Suri 13:30
and and it should be said, just building on what you said, well, that there was definitely an effort by the president at the time to to apply the lessons of history and really try to limit what could have become a sort of hateful set of attitudes towards those from the Middle East and those who are Muslim. But there was evidence also at in areas he couldn’t control that some hatred was rising, and that there were there were examples of violence towards certain communities. So you should have both things happening. Yeah,

William Inboden 14:00
say that, again, one of the perverse effects of terror as well as just you know, one of the, you know, the tragedies of certainly at least to some, some people, some people in America, I mean, I do remember this sort of sense that we come in Sanford, is our country going to come a part of it? Right, right. I mean, it will be really turning. Fortunately, we didn’t Fortunately, there was not a mass turning against each other. But there were certainly some, you know, different acts of discrimination and violence that, you know, truly appalling. And as

Jeremi Suri 14:24
a policymaker, we’ve talked about this before, I think that experience that you just described, so vividly. stayed with you. Right. And when you and your colleagues in various places within the administration, and this would apply to people who then worked for President Obama, I think, right, when they made policy, these memories, and perhaps even these feelings, yeah. Were there with you on a day to day basis? Right. Yeah,

William Inboden 14:46
it’s it’s a, it’s a very intensely personal form of learning, quote, the lessons of history in terms of you are living your own personal history, you’re remembering your personal. So it’s not just the history that we study and teach about where that happened before we were born. But it’s the the personal histories that each of us bring, and then certainly my 911 experience, you know, continue to shape my thinking about this. But all the more profoundly for bush for Condi for Rumsfeld for Secretary Palin, Vice President Cheney. This is not at all to justify every decision they made. Some of them we know, in hindsight, were I think, quite quite erroneous. But but that was, you know, I heard this is not unique to me. I heard a couple of other Bush administration veterans say this, but simply for President Bush and his senior team, every day for the next seven half years was 911. Everyday was not 11. In terms of, you know, he knew as the commander in chief, this has happened in his watch, and he swore obviously, never never again, right. All right. So if you want at least understand the kind of existential mindset he was bringing to bear that was that that does not justify every decision, of

Jeremi Suri 15:43
course, yeah. But it helps to at least explain.

Zachary Suri 15:44
Yeah, exactly. You had a question. We talking about sort of the aftermath of 911. And some of the decisions that were made, what do you see really as the missed opportunities, in many ways of 911. But, but also the opinions that were really capitalized on?

William Inboden 15:59
Yeah. A few missed opportunities, I’ll say, and I hope this doesn’t sound too much like armchair quarterbacking, I will put a little bit of this on myself. Some of these I’ve gotten record before. So I think there was a missed opportunity to do a robust post conflict stabilization reconstruction effort in Afghanistan. I understand the original light footprint strategy worked. But in the sort of 2003 to 2006 window, there was a missed opportunity there. And we’re still I don’t know that a perfect outcome could have been had, but it wasn’t fully tried. that relates to the second missed opportunity. And perhaps the biggest tragedy was the Iraq war. Again, I’m on record as saying this. I was a strong supporter of the war at the time. Knowing on what we thought we knew at the time, I now think the war or was a mistake. And I understand the mindset that went into it, I think it was a mistake and, and contributed quite a bit to the the the subsequent partisan divisions in our country, those who were already creeping in 2002, with things like the Patriot Act, and Guantanamo and some of the other stuff, that would be another one third missed opportunity. This came up at our counterterrorism panel yesterday, three administrations. Now Obama, Trump and bush have all failed to develop a really robust counter radicalization strategy. We’ve gotten very good as a country at killing and capturing terrorist potential terrorist, we have not figured out how to prevent the radicalization process itself. And there’s no, it’s a very hard question. There’s only so much a government can do. But that’s another missed missed opportunity I would point to. And then finally, I would point to them, not so much the missed opportunity, but the dissipated opportunity, the National Unity we had us. So that was it was so palpable when we had it. And it’s so painful when it’s gone. And there’s plenty of blame to go around and all sides.

Jeremi Suri 17:46
And partisanship is as American as apple pie, of course. But are there things that could have been done not simply by one side, maybe by both sides of the aisle and by people who were not very politically active that could have allow that unity to last longer?

William Inboden 18:02
Yeah, I’ll say a couple things. I’ll try to be even handed about this. And again, obviously, all these things are complicated. On the Bush administration side, I think a to a couple of related mistakes, we’re not going to Congress sooner on some of the terrorist surveillance programs, again, arguable about whatever your doctrine of article to an executive power is, if that was actually required, but potentially, it would have been a really good idea to go to get congressional authorization because they would have gotten it, right, especially for two and five and seven and 702. If we want to get into the legal stuff of the Patriot Act. Similarly, in some ways under this is getting into much more fraught territory. And I’m still quite torn on this. But on the enhanced interrogation method or torture, again, I know who the terms themselves are, are contested. You know, when those were briefed to the intelligence committees, there actually was bipartisan support. Again, I understand the mindset at the time. I mean, when you really do worry about the next attacks coming, and you’re feeling the strong, strongest sense of anger over that. But eventually, those became partisan issues and also moral stains on our country. Likewise, I’d say probably with the Guantanamo facility, interestingly, and Jeremy, I’ve been doing a lot of talking, if I can put this to you. But here’s, here’s my observation. And a question to you, if you think I’m writing to reflect some to this, early on, the Bush administration did decide that the Cold War was the nearest approximation of a historical paradigm, as far as long term battle of ideas, kinetic dimensions, ideological dimension, some localized hot wars, you know, we need create new institutions, so on and so forth. And I do think that one very important part historically about the Cold War containment, strategic consensus coming in was the fact that you had a republican Eisenhower following a democrat Truman, Eisenhower runs against a lot of Truman’s policies in the 52 campaign and turns around essentially adopted as president with some nuances, obviously. Similarly, I do think that the Obama administration after criticizing on the campaign trail, lot of the bush administration’s more robust counterterrorism measures did end up adopting quite a bit of them, you know, he did keep Guantanamo Bay and he still was doing rendition, certainly, you know, up in the drone strikes, things like that, as well as the overall legal framework, you know, kept the Patriot Act, things like that. And that did help some sort of bipartisan consensus settle in on been maintaining a certain strategic framework instead of institutions for counterterrorism. Again, we could nuance it and quibble with all sorts. But in the main, that’s my take, I wonder if you would,

Jeremi Suri 20:29
I would, I would say, just building on what you said, well, so Well, I think there was not enough work done to educate the public about these issues. And that’s easy to say, in retrospect. And of course, in a sense, it’s impossible when decision makers are confronted with so many issues. And under the kinds of stress that you you described, you give us a wonderful window into how difficult that life is. But I think one of the one of the challenges that we have today, is we have a public that’s probably as ignorant of Foreign Affairs and these issues as ever, in our world, some history, in spite of being a very educated public. Yeah. And so I think there’s I think that’s part of the issue. And I think many of the examples you are giving, it’s not so much which position one would take, but can we have a robust discussion of this? And I think that really broke down during the Obama years, perhaps in part because of the White House, but also, in part because of the way I think mitch mcconnell wanted to run the republican party and Republican Party’s position on the blame to go around. Right. And so I think that’s, that’s one of the one of the reasons that unity didn’t last I do think unity requires a certain understanding and trust.

William Inboden 21:32
Yeah, yeah. I will say sorry, just because I went through a missed opportunities, let me say to, you know, to be even out of the record, and I’ve said this in other videos before, the fact that we’re sitting here on the 18 year anniversary of 911. And there has not been another large scale mass casualty attack on the United States itself. Since then, is I do think a remarkable achievement of a very bipartisan one across three administrations as both parties in Congress. And again, I go back to the other palpable sense we had the days and weeks after 911 was not if will get hit again. But window course, again, you just assumed it was happening until the fact that that didn’t is no accident. I agree.

Jeremi Suri 22:10
I guess what, what is often hard for us, even as scholars, I think, and certainly as citizens, and especially as young people exactly. To understand is, how much did we protect ourselves? And how much did we exaggerate the threat? And that’s not to criticize people for exaggerating the threat. I think you’ve given us a very good reason to empathize. Yeah. With those who including you and I, at the time will were convinced there would be another attack. Yeah. But but to what extent did did we perhaps exaggerate what might have been a somewhat diabolical but also Lucky Strike on the United States on?

William Inboden 22:43
Yeah, that’s, I mean, I don’t want to trivialize any of this. But But bin Laden and the 19 hijackers were incredibly lucky. Right. Yeah. I mean, in addition to a number of other factors. Yeah. And that in some ways, that’s an impossible question to answer, as far as how much is the lack of another attack, a successful US policy contingent on that? or How much is it just the fact that the threat wasn’t that bad after that, after that one moment, and I still would lean more towards the former I will, but it’s it’s an important debate to have it’s important question for scholars to ask, especially now is we’re in the moment where the new emerging strategic consensus is the secret environments about the great power competition. And, you know, jihad is terrorism anyway, is still out there. But it’s more of a second order concern. Overall, I generally share that consensus, but I do worry, we might be overlooking the reemergence of ISIS, and some resilience with with all kinda and I don’t know, I don’t want to see any more of this. But I would take my know, they certainly have the intention to do another attack. I don’t know if they make capability, or certainly a weak actor can still inflict a great deal of harm. Yeah,

Jeremi Suri 23:48
that’s certainly one lesson that seems is undeniable. What are some other lessons from this period lessons, as we think, you know, not simply about where we position ourselves in our politics, but we think about our country moving forward for the generation, many of them are listening to us, you know, what, what, what, what should they take from this as lessons? Yeah,

William Inboden 24:05
I certainly hope this doesn’t sound, you know, too much like patriotic pablum. But I surely came to a new appreciation of America, of our of our resilience, of the Unity we’re capable of as a as a country, knowing that that’s possible. Knowing the fact that we were targeted, rather than so many other countries are partly because of our virtues, I do think which are inimical to the perverse jihadist, jihadist vision. So in that sense, it actually gave me a certainly the outpouring of interest in national service and public service one soft words. And that’s not just about military and, you know, but

Jeremi Suri 24:42
firefighters very Yeah, exactly,

William Inboden 24:43
you know, policemen educators, right, it was a painful shock to the national conscience that also reminded us of living for something larger than ourselves. And and I don’t, I don’t want to lose that. I don’t lose that. I don’t think we fully have you know, this one reason why you You and I are so blessed to be teachers here at the University of Texas, right? we’re reminded that every day, but that was kind of dissipated in the 1990s. You know, we all were becoming a little fat and happy and lazy in the 90s. I don’t want to take that too far. And, and the trauma of 911 also, you know, brought out the better possibilities, right? Is there a way you think? I agree with everything you said, and said it so well. But is there a way perhaps, that 911 and our legitimate and empathetic responses to it also contributed maybe to some of the Xena phobia we see today and the obsession with keeping certain people out of the country that it seems to be part of our rhetoric, or do you think think those are separate things? Um, I would somewhat say they’re separate, but less that sound too, too ignorant, because as you know, I was emphatically opposed to that really awful Muslim ban that just imposes about everything that Trump has pushed. But I do think that the impulses that candidate Trump was tapping into in 2016, where a little more of a recent vintage, maybe targeted at some of the domestic, the homegrown terrorism issues we’ve had with Orlando’s hints, in terms of these were not directly tied to 911, but rather to some of the more more recent ones. And I do I do wish the Obama administration had been a little more forthcoming about, you know, some of the ideological roots. I don’t blame them for that for this at all. But also think that certainly for some of the more nativist and Zena phobic elements, especially in the in the Republican Party, be I was I was surprised and very disturbed at those elements, but I don’t trust them directly back to not love. I think they were a little more more recent vintage. But I, I’m still puzzling over that, frankly. Partly because it was so shocking to me.

Jeremi Suri 26:49
Right? It’s just it’s it’s, it’s it’s a great answer. It’s just it’s struggling it I struggled to understand how a party that was built around free trade, and in the sense of party that was about open movement, people in capital, became in a relatively short period of a party that that not just its leading figure, but many elements of the party seem to be opposed to those things. And yeah,

William Inboden 27:09
yeah, it’s our friends in the government department are going to have years and years of dissertations and produce in terms of sort of, you know, how malleable is political identity and converting and voting patterns? Yeah.

Jeremi Suri 27:20
Well, so Exactly. Did you have a question?

Zachary Suri 27:22
Well, it’s not really a question. It’s more I think of a more of a comment. I think it’s, it’s really, it’s really interesting to me how, how formative 911 is to, to so many things in our society. And I’m just curious and interested, what both of you would say to the idea that, what are the effects of young people today? being defined so much by 911? But also not having experienced it? And what what new perspective? Does that give young people who didn’t experience it in such a personal way?

Jeremi Suri 27:58
Yeah, it’s grabbing, will you work with a lot of other graduates who study foreign policy with you, but yet, they didn’t have this exposure? They were barely alive.

William Inboden 28:05
And ya know, that’s one of the ways I tracked the passing of time is, you know, each entering class in the fall, what are their memories of 911? And look, you know, that we now have some freshmen here, you know, since as a teenager, you literally were born afterward, right? And certainly, none of them will will actually remember it, I guess I’ll first say is accurate. It is a, I hope, no future students will ever have our first hand memory of something like this in terms of it’s a blessing, to not have to have it firsthand memory or experience of this, right. So let’s, let’s be thankful for that. This is no excuse for historical ignorance, of course, I want everyone to be able to know about it. But just as my generation was blessed to not have, you know, lived through Pearl Harbor, right? I mean, just don’t want to visit these these sort of trauma traumas again. But it should still be studied, talked about past on whether for the lessons about how horribly wrong things can go for, you know, the lessons about the dangerous possibilities in the world, but but also how these things can be prevented, and and the virtues that can come out of national unity and service and so on. So, yeah, it’s hard, it’s hard to get the balance, right.

Jeremi Suri 29:09
I think I think there’s a real blessing, as well said, in not having lived through this, but there’s a real danger and it being important to our society, and you’re not having lived through it, the blessing is that it doesn’t define your generation. And I do think, will might not fully agree with this. But I do think that there’s a more openness to people who look different and come from Muslim communities, among your generation, Zachary, because you don’t have this image of Muslim terrorists, that that that we have those who those of us who live through 911, it’s hard to avoid that. Even though one knows that image is not representative, that image is sort of seared in our minds. And that’s not true. I find that’s not true in my undergraduates. On the other hand, I do think, and this is this is true for all kinds of actors, because it’s clearly important to where we are as a society. Now, we still have soldiers in Afghanistan, we still Guantanamo as a prison for those we were accusing of terrorism and other other acts. It’s with us. And because there’s questions over what actually happened for those who didn’t live through it, it’s malleable for political purposes. And this is not unique to 911. political actors will use historical memory to justify different positions. And I do think it’s often maybe dishonest Lee, used in our immigration debate used in our debates about who’s an American citizen, to be very frank about it. I think the Trump administration manipulates the memory of 911 and inconsistent ways. But ways that I think can be powerful because of the ignorance that some have so so wills, final point, I think was absolutely right, being educated about this, and hearing people like well, who lived through it, but also have had the good fortune to be able to sit back and reflect upon it.

Zachary Suri 30:52
I mean, watching watching some of the footage from 911. yesterday with you, but also like in school, I think it’s really interesting to sort of watch the footage because at first it’s something it’s very, it’s very inspiring. It’s very patriotic, and, and it’s very emotional. But at the same time, it’s also, in many ways, very testosterone heavy.

Jeremi Suri 31:17
It’s definitely gender.

Zachary Suri 31:18
Yeah. And in many ways, in many ways, it’s something that, that that in many ways, I think, added to the almost militaristic patriotism, that I feel like, is something that that we’ve seen more of, and I don’t know if I would necessarily say that, like the Trump administration has been playing off of the the after effects of 911. But I think that one of the real things that that Trump has tapped into is this sort of left leftover, almost militaristic patriotism. Will you agree with that?

William Inboden 31:46
Yeah, I was in in part, I guess I’m still trying to get my mind around everything Trump is about because he’s so full of contradictions, right. I mean, on the one hand, there’s the militarism of the bellicosity. On the other hand, there’s, I think, almost this overeagerness to meet with meet with some of the bad guys, the ones that just continued, as well as this, you know, desire to bring all the troops home, and I think, leave us a real potential risk. So yeah, exactly. Yes. And maybe you want the the political benefits and image of it without the the political cost and effectiveness of it also didn’t want to come back to this question of Islam and the Muslims up there, because I remember, years ago, I was, I won’t say where but I was speaking to a large audience in a conservative rural region. And one of the questioners I was talking about counterterrorism 911, and one of the questions had asked, you know, rather piercing, you know, hateful question about Should we just kind of get rid of all the deplorable Muslims and, and I, I, I respond by saying, Listen, we need to say three things about Islam and terrorism first. Yes, it is true that the terrorists who attacked us 911 number of us did it in the name of this line to perversion, but we need to acknowledge that, and that a certain, you know, small subset of that of that that face has been has been radicalized. So we need to be honest about that on their own terms. Second, how and he was not in that. Second, I’m not done numerically, and I think even kind of spiritually, the biggest victims of terrorism are Muslims. If you just look at who the jihadists usually are targeted, it’s other other Muslims. And third, some of America’s most courageous, principled, important allies in the fight against terrorism are Muslims. And I said, you know, that’s why you won’t hear many American veterans or troops talking about the Muslim ban, because they’ve served alongside Muslims. You know, courageous Iraqis, courageous Afghans, given their lives for their country give their lives for a peaceful interpretation of their faith. And we will not win this fight without them. And so anytime I hear you know, jingoistic, you know, politicians call it you know, Islam itself is entire problem. I just emphatically reject that it’s, it’s normatively wrong, but it’s empirically false, too.

Jeremi Suri 33:49
And I think that point about it being being being empirically false is one of the lessons we need to take from this then there are bad actors in the world, they look, they have all different kinds of sizes and shapes, summer, Muslim summer, white, Christian, American, summer Jewish, right. And one of the things we’ve struggled with since 911, is sorting that out, sorting out the bad actors and the categories, which in some ways give covered to the bad actors.

William Inboden 34:14
Yeah. And then the last year, just speaking of this terrorism thing, in general, we’re now having a really, as a nation, wrestle with that we need to shift our paradigm, some on terrorism and confront much more, this very ugly, white nationalist terrorism, we are so passionate being the most recent example. But even if you look at just kind of FBI, you know, crime and terrorist tracking statistics, they’re not tracking larger numbers of white nationalist, you know, terrorist actors and the jihadists. And, again, I don’t want to downplay it all the ongoing threat, especially from ISIS and Al Qaeda. But the only good news, I suppose I can say there is at least some of the tools and methods we learned in fighting jihadist terrorism can now hopefully be effectively brought to bear there.

Jeremi Suri 34:57
And it’s a great point that the the lessons this historical experiences traumatic moment that you described so vividly. For us, well, there are lessons in there, first of all, and understanding threats, but also in the different things we can do and should do and the things we shouldn’t do. Exactly. Is this something that animates your generation, I know you said today at school, you had some conversations about this, maybe it’s because we’re wearing a hat. I

Zachary Suri 35:20
really think that that that it does, and part of it is just the the event itself. And it’s it’s very, it’s a very interesting dynamic to learn about 911 in school, because in school, we’re almost always taught about events that happened before parents were born, or about events in a very abstract sense. But when 911 is taught, especially in a very pragmatic sense about the deaths and in a very emotional way. It’s something that I think really touches people and kids and really inspires them, but also, also, in many ways, I think, teaches us all very important lessons. And I think it’s really powerful. And yes, I think we can’t, we can’t, we can’t lose that opportunity as we move farther and farther away from 911.

Jeremi Suri 36:10
Right. And I think that’s a perfect note to close on. Because so much of what we learned in this wonderful conversation is that we’re still grappling with this history. Will said that so many times your poem was about that Zachary. And, and it is the the willingness to revisit these issues, to struggle through understanding them that helps to make us better, and it’s why it’s usually the next generation, your generation, Zachary, that actually will find more wisdom in this than we have.

William Inboden 36:36
If I can add one thought I’m particularly in that is my rough rule of thumb. It’s hard when does something become history is usually about one generation, about 20 years. And we’re just about coming to that moment in terms of that’s enough time when we can start to have a little bit more of a dispassionate assessment take a fresher look. See how the passage of time but it’s inspired since then, practically more archives opening, things like that. And so, you know, it’s a rough rule of thumb, it’s not finally calibrated point being, Zachary, we’re just now hearing the window when you and your generation can take up a new assessment of 911 as history. And I think there’s a lot of new insights to be had there.

Jeremi Suri 37:12
And that that history will make us a better country as we understand it better. Well, thank you for joining us will and sharing this these very emotional memories with us. Thank you very

William Inboden 37:20
much. Thank you very much. It’s an honor to play a small part in this is democracy and

Jeremi Suri 37:23
thank you thank you for joining us for this episode of This is Democracy.

Narration 37:34
This podcast is produced by the liberal arts development studio and the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Texas at Austin. The music in this episode was written and recorded by Harrison lumpy, and you can find his music at Harrison lemke.com.

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Transcribed by https://otter.ai