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On the morning of September 11, 2001, 19 men hijacked four airplanes. They were from the terrorist organization Al- Qaeda. They flew two of the planes into the World Trade Center towers in New York City and another plane into the Pentagon. The Pentagon is the headquarters of the United States military. A fourth plane crashed in an empty field. The attackers killed 2,977 people.

Osama bin Laden was the Al-Qaeda leader who planned the attacks. In 2001, he lived in the country of Afghanistan under the protection of the Taliban. The Taliban are an Islamist group that ruled most of Afghanistan. U.S. President George W. Bush demanded that the Taliban surrender bin Laden. The Taliban refused. The U.S. and its allies invaded Afghanistan in October 2001. US troops remain there today, in the spring of 2020.

The 9/11 attacks killed thousands. Following the attacks, new wars and laws reshaped American policy at home and abroad.

Why do they hate us?

After the attacks, millions of Americans wondered: Why do they hate us? Many Americans believed that the answer was in religious differences. Most Americans knew little about the many varieties of Islam. In a climate of fear and anger, it was easy to blame all Muslims for the attacks.

The idea that the attackers and all Muslims hated America because they hated American culture was comforting to some people. The argument went like this: “Islam does not share Western values. They hate us because we’re a free society.” However, this was not an accurate response. Islam is a religion practiced by 1.5 billion people. Only a few people carried out the attacks.

Why do we hate them?

The idea that Muslims and “the West” were at war had deep roots. Political scientist Samuel Huntington wrote “The Clash of Civilizations.” Huntington divided the world into different civilizations, such as “the West” and the Islamic world. He said that the Cold War between the U.S. and Soviet Union had kept tensions between civilizations under control. But, once the Cold War ended “the West” and the Islamic world would clash. Huntington’s book became a bestseller after 9/11.

According to the FBI, hate crimes against Muslims surged after the 9/11 attacks. On September 17, President Bush called Islam a religion of peace. Yet the day before, he had announced a war on terror. Bush called it a “crusade.” The crusades were a series of medieval wars. Christian European armies invaded Muslim states.

New enemies and old conflicts

The causes behind the 9/11 attacks were complicated. The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979. A war lasted throughout most of the 1980s. The United States funded and armed the opposition forces. Many opposition fighters, including Osama bin Laden, would eventually join Al-Qaeda. A lot of people in the Middle East objected to U.S. and Soviet interference in the region.

The Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. Now the United States was the only remaining world superpower. That year, the U.S. military began the Gulf War. Many Middle Eastern countries allied with the U.S. The war was against Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. Half a million troops were stationed in Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia is home to the holy city of Mecca. Bin Laden believed that the presence of foreign troops in the land of Mecca was an insult to Islam. He began to hate the U.S. and Muslim leaders who allied with the U.S.

After the war ended, Al-Qaeda began terrorist attacks against Americans. These attacks were part of a larger strategy. Al-Qaeda believed that they could provoke the U.S. government into an extreme response. This would turn many people in the Middle East against Americans. Moderate governments would fall. Then, bin Laden could create an extremist state.

Forever war

In October 2001, the American military and allies invaded Afghanistan. The Taliban was quickly defeated. Yet the global conflict was just beginning. Bush said that terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda were part of an “Axis of Evil.” The axis included unfriendly states like Hussein’s Iraq. However, Iraq had not been involved in the events of 9/11. By incorrectly connecting terrorism to Iraq, the government laid the groundwork for another war. The Americans and a small number of allies invaded Iraq in 2003. This invasion was based on a false claim that Saddam Hussein was building weapons of mass destruction. The United Nations did not support the invasion.

American leaders wanted to overthrow unfriendly leaders like Hussein. They planned to replace these leaders with democratic governments. However, the war dragged on after Hussein’s death. Iraq quickly plunged into civil war. The American invasion allowed extremist groups in the Middle East to recruit more people.

American special forces killed Osama bin Laden in 2011 under President Barack Obama. This did not end the global war on terror. By 2011, new threats had arisen in the Middle East. This included a group that called itself the Islamic State (ISIS). In Afghanistan, the Taliban still has power and influence.

The cost

Two decades of war have transformed life in the U.S. The government now has more powers. The war in Afghanistan recently surpassed the Vietnam War as America’s longest conflict. Funding these wars has changed the American economy. In 2014, the U.S. government spent more money on their military than the next nine nations combined. Almost 3,000 people died in the 9/11 attacks. Thousands of soldiers have died in the wars that followed. Yet the largest group of casualties have been civilians. We know that hundreds of thousands of civilians have died in these wars. American military occupation of several Middle Eastern nations has created hostility to Americans. This has done lasting damage to America’s influence around the world.