Twenty years ago terrorists challenged the world's only remaining superpower. In response, the United States declared a "war on terror." The world continues to struggle with the consequences.
The 9/11 attacks had an impact on the world that can still be felt
Twenty years have passed since the September 11 attacks. At Ground Zero in New York, the towers of a new World Trade Center rise above the skyline, and there is a memorial to the nearly 3,000 victims of the attacks. The city has bounced back and now has more residents than in 2001. Until the pandemic, the economy was booming.
But nothing is how it was in the US, large parts of the Middle East, and Afghanistan. The Taliban may be back, but when a terrorist attack recently killed some 170 Afghans and more than a dozen US soldiers during an evacuation operation at Kabul airport, it was the so-called "Islamic State" that claimed responsibility. That organization did not even exist 20 years ago when the "war on terror" began. Its emergence is closely linked to how the "war on terror" has been carried out.
"We know very well that the rise of IS was a direct result of the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003," Bernd Greiner says. In an interview with DW, the Hamburg historian explains that a large part of the initial IS fighters came from Saddam Hussein's old army. "It was disbanded by the United States from one moment to the next. That left hundreds of thousands of young men on the street with no prospects of employment. That kind of thing is humus for radicalization."
VIDEO 26:06 20 years after 9/11: Is the war on terror a lost cause?
Beginning a war with box cutters
In 2001, al-Qaeda terrorists brought down the World Trade Center, a symbol of economic power, and attacked the Pentagon, the center of US military power. Those attacks traumatized the US. Using nothing more than box cutters, men directed by Saudi Arabian Osama bin Laden turned passenger planes into weapons. It was an unprecedented humiliation for a country that seemed at the zenith of its power. A dozen years after winning the Cold War following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the US seemed invincible.
After the attacks, the US was engulfed by national sorrow and had the solidarity of the entire world. Then came anger and retribution which found understanding. For the first time in NATO's history, its mutual defense clause was invoked. In a military operation legitimized by the UN Security Council as an act of self-defense, NATO allies overthrow the Taliban in Afghanistan in a matter of months.
When then-President George W. Bush attacked Iraq in 2003, there was no longer any such legitimacy. There were false claims alone about Saddam Hussein's links to the September. 11 bombers and equally false claims that the Iraqi dictator was producing weapons of mass destruction.
Secretary of State Colin Powell presented false claims on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction to the UN
Many American politicians saw an opportunity after September 11 to demonstrate that the US was the world's "indispensable nation," says US historian Stephen Wertheim in an interview with DW. "They demonstrated this 'indispensability' by trying to remake an entire country and an entire region of the world."
Bernd Greiner sees another motive: "In its powerlessness and impotence in the face of this type of asymmetric attack, the US wanted to demonstrate to the world, and especially to the Arab world that whoever messes with us in the future has forfeited his right to exist." The historian sees both wars as also being highly symbolic acts.
Supporting Greiner's thesis is the fact that just a few weeks after September 11, the White House instructed the Pentagon to draft scenarios for a war against Iraq. When Henry Kissinger was asked by George W. Bush's speechwriter Michael Gerson why he supported the Iraq war, he said, "Because Afghanistan wasn't enough." America's radical opponents in the Muslim world wanted to humiliate the United States, "so we must humiliate them."
Almost 1 million war victims
The "war on terror" proclaimed by Bush became a liminal war. A war "that is not precisely defined, neither temporally nor geographically. It is being waged globally," as Johannes Thimm, a US expert at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs defines it. The "Cost of War" project of Brown University says the US government is carrying out anti-terror measures in a total of 85 countries. Their team, consisting of more than 50 academics, legal experts, and human rights activists, calculated that in the "war on terror" a total of nearly 930,000 people have been killed directly as a result of combat operations, almost 400,000 of them civilians.
World public opinion reacted with shock in 2010 when WikiLeaks revealed the true face of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. And to the publication of the "Collateral Murder" video which documented the murder of civilians in Baghdad.
George W. Bush declared major fighting over in Iraq on May 1, 2003
Damaged reputation
The reputation of the US was also damaged because it ignored the law of war. In an interview with DW, Thimm cites the official reintroduction of torture under a different name. "There is also a reason why this is not called torture, but rather 'enhanced interrogation techniques,' because torture is simply and unequivocally prohibited by international law."
Those violations include the detention of suspects for decades in completely lawless spaces, such as the US naval base at Guantanamo. And above all, the killing of terror suspects in drone attacks.
In an interview with DW, political scientist Julian Junk of the Hessian Foundation for Peace and Conflict Research states with regard to terrorist networks in Europe and Germany "we can see that the extralegal methods in the 'War on Terror' have had a mobilizing effect on Salafist and jihadist groups."
An eight-trillion-dollar mistake?
According to the Cost of War, the 20-year "war on terror" has cost the US the unimaginable sum of $8 trillion. This could easily pay for current US President Joe Biden's infrastructure program several times over. That is why US expert Bernd Greiner believes that "the US has massively damaged itself through these insane expenditures for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan."
"There are so many other worthy ventures to which the United States could have directed its vast people and resources," says Wertheim, "instead of responding destructively to the September 11 attack."
This article has been translated from German.
9/11 through African eyes
Across Africa, it was hard to miss the tragedy unfolding in the US as terrorists struck on September 11, 2001. DW journalists who were in Africa during the 9/11 attacks look back on that day.
A billow of smoke rises over New York during the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center
Kenya
Zainab Aziz
Zainab Azis, DW Kiswahili
I knew about the attack immediately because I was a journalist, working for the national broadcaster in the capital, Nairobi. In my heart and mind, I was thinking of the people inside those buildings. I was shocked, even before I knew the details.
The attack gave me flashbacks to the US embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. I had been hurt by falling glass when I found myself, by coincidence, outside the US Embassy in Nairobi.
The 9/11 attacks were really confirmation that terrorist activity was happening around the world. That attack in the US left us wondering what can happen to our countries. Immediately after the bombings in the US, police in Kenya took steps such as checking on people in hotels and stopping to search people on the streets.
On August 7 1998, more than 200 people were killed in bombings at the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
Niger
Abdoulaye Mamane
Abdoulaye Mamane, DW Hausa
I was a secondary school pupil in Niamey on 9/11. I remember being with my father around a radio and he explained the attack in which he said some people had died. We youth didn't pay much attention. But my father, who was a businessman, kept his ear on the radio.
At the time, the government of President Mamadou Tandja was still fresh. So there wasn't a big official reaction.
The public reaction came after people heard the name Osama bin Laden on the television and in the mosques. That's when people started giving the name to their new babies "Osama."
Young people later started calling their radio listening clubs names such as "Pentagon" or "Tora Bora" [after the US battle of Tora Bora in December 2001 in Afghanistan]. These are names you still hear today.
The World Trade Center towers in New York on September 11 2001
Mozambique
Amos Zacarias
Amos Zacarias, DW Portuguese for Africa
Despite being a kid at college in Sofala Province, I remember hearing that something happened, somewhere else. Nobody had clear information because we had no TV and no visuals [of the event]. We just imagined it was a game and people are just making it up.
My history teacher told us he had heard about something happening in the US. At that moment we thought it was someone far away playing a game. It was too far away.
The image that stays with me is of the adults and their concern for whether it would affect us. They knew how bad war could be so they didn't want to scare us. Mozambique was just recovering from civil war.
South Africa
Benita van Eyssen
Benita van Eyssen, DW Africa
I was packing for a flight back home to Johannesburg and the TV screen started flashing jolting images from the US of buildings, smoke, planes and frazzled reporters. I had just wrapped up work at the first-ever UN conference against racism and discrimination in Durban.
Days before there had been much controversy at the conference when the US and Israeli governments withdrew from the event that otherwise saw the participation of many world leaders of the time, including Olusegun Obasanjo, Fidel Castro, Yoweri Museveni and Yasser Arafat.
At first, I thought the US bombings had something to do with the refusal of the US to talk on a global level about racism and discrimination, or maybe with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I don't remember any immediate reaction from South Africa's leaders. At the time, President Thabo Mbeki was caught up in an awful AIDS denialist scandal and Nelson Mandela had been giving his attention to the UN meeting on racism.
Nigeria
Zainab Mohammed
Zainab Mohammed, DW Hausa
I shall remember 9/11 for the rest of my life. I came to learn of the attacks in the US 24 hours after they happened.
I had been married for only a few months and was traveling with my husband in Nigeria on September 11, 2001, when armed robbers attacked us along the Kaduna-Niger highway. I escaped through the hills and fell over before passing out, while my husband was seriously injured.
It was at the start of my journalism career and so it was easy to hear about what was happening in the US — although I was trying to recover from the shock of being attacked.
To Nigerians, 9/11 brought a fear of the unknown. If the Pentagon and the World Trade Center could be attacked, then what more? The word "terrorism” became the talk of the day. The names al-Qaida, Osama bin Laden, et cetera became common among people. The media updated people almost every second on what was a big tragedy for the entire world.
A fire officer barks orders to rescue teams at the World Trade Center
Ethiopia
Mantegaftot Silesh
Mantegaftot Silesh, DW Amharic
I had just graduated from Addis Ababa University and heard of that great tragedy on the night of September 11, which is the Ethiopian New Year. It wasn't as easy to access international media in Addis then as it is now. So we first heard the terrible news on the radio then we rushed to a nearby bar to watch the news on TV.
The images have stayed with me until now. I went home early that day and in our quarter, my friends and I were asking each other why and how could this happened. No one had the answer on that night. We had no idea about al-Qaeda or any other terrorist group at that time. We only heard the name Osama bin Laden again and again.
Ghana
Michael Oti
Michael Oti, DW Africa
I was in high school at the time in the capital Accra and I had very little interest in international politics. There was a lot of shuffling in and out of the teaching staff's common room.
The teachers told us about the attack but I recall just shrugging. Ghana is geographically so far from America — so I didn't feel any emotional connection.
I didn't really understand the magnitude of what had happened. All day that day the scenes of the airplanes flying into the Twin Towers were shown over and over on TV. From that point on, I knew the Americans were going to retaliate.
Across Africa, it was hard to miss the tragedy unfolding in the US as terrorists struck on September 11, 2001. DW journalists who were in Africa during the 9/11 attacks look back on that day.
A billow of smoke rises over New York during the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center
Kenya
Zainab Aziz
Zainab Azis, DW Kiswahili
I knew about the attack immediately because I was a journalist, working for the national broadcaster in the capital, Nairobi. In my heart and mind, I was thinking of the people inside those buildings. I was shocked, even before I knew the details.
The attack gave me flashbacks to the US embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. I had been hurt by falling glass when I found myself, by coincidence, outside the US Embassy in Nairobi.
The 9/11 attacks were really confirmation that terrorist activity was happening around the world. That attack in the US left us wondering what can happen to our countries. Immediately after the bombings in the US, police in Kenya took steps such as checking on people in hotels and stopping to search people on the streets.
On August 7 1998, more than 200 people were killed in bombings at the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
Niger
Abdoulaye Mamane
Abdoulaye Mamane, DW Hausa
I was a secondary school pupil in Niamey on 9/11. I remember being with my father around a radio and he explained the attack in which he said some people had died. We youth didn't pay much attention. But my father, who was a businessman, kept his ear on the radio.
At the time, the government of President Mamadou Tandja was still fresh. So there wasn't a big official reaction.
The public reaction came after people heard the name Osama bin Laden on the television and in the mosques. That's when people started giving the name to their new babies "Osama."
Young people later started calling their radio listening clubs names such as "Pentagon" or "Tora Bora" [after the US battle of Tora Bora in December 2001 in Afghanistan]. These are names you still hear today.
The World Trade Center towers in New York on September 11 2001
Mozambique
Amos Zacarias
Amos Zacarias, DW Portuguese for Africa
Despite being a kid at college in Sofala Province, I remember hearing that something happened, somewhere else. Nobody had clear information because we had no TV and no visuals [of the event]. We just imagined it was a game and people are just making it up.
My history teacher told us he had heard about something happening in the US. At that moment we thought it was someone far away playing a game. It was too far away.
The image that stays with me is of the adults and their concern for whether it would affect us. They knew how bad war could be so they didn't want to scare us. Mozambique was just recovering from civil war.
South Africa
Benita van Eyssen
Benita van Eyssen, DW Africa
I was packing for a flight back home to Johannesburg and the TV screen started flashing jolting images from the US of buildings, smoke, planes and frazzled reporters. I had just wrapped up work at the first-ever UN conference against racism and discrimination in Durban.
Days before there had been much controversy at the conference when the US and Israeli governments withdrew from the event that otherwise saw the participation of many world leaders of the time, including Olusegun Obasanjo, Fidel Castro, Yoweri Museveni and Yasser Arafat.
At first, I thought the US bombings had something to do with the refusal of the US to talk on a global level about racism and discrimination, or maybe with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I don't remember any immediate reaction from South Africa's leaders. At the time, President Thabo Mbeki was caught up in an awful AIDS denialist scandal and Nelson Mandela had been giving his attention to the UN meeting on racism.
Nigeria
Zainab Mohammed
Zainab Mohammed, DW Hausa
I shall remember 9/11 for the rest of my life. I came to learn of the attacks in the US 24 hours after they happened.
I had been married for only a few months and was traveling with my husband in Nigeria on September 11, 2001, when armed robbers attacked us along the Kaduna-Niger highway. I escaped through the hills and fell over before passing out, while my husband was seriously injured.
It was at the start of my journalism career and so it was easy to hear about what was happening in the US — although I was trying to recover from the shock of being attacked.
To Nigerians, 9/11 brought a fear of the unknown. If the Pentagon and the World Trade Center could be attacked, then what more? The word "terrorism” became the talk of the day. The names al-Qaida, Osama bin Laden, et cetera became common among people. The media updated people almost every second on what was a big tragedy for the entire world.
A fire officer barks orders to rescue teams at the World Trade Center
Ethiopia
Mantegaftot Silesh
Mantegaftot Silesh, DW Amharic
I had just graduated from Addis Ababa University and heard of that great tragedy on the night of September 11, which is the Ethiopian New Year. It wasn't as easy to access international media in Addis then as it is now. So we first heard the terrible news on the radio then we rushed to a nearby bar to watch the news on TV.
The images have stayed with me until now. I went home early that day and in our quarter, my friends and I were asking each other why and how could this happened. No one had the answer on that night. We had no idea about al-Qaeda or any other terrorist group at that time. We only heard the name Osama bin Laden again and again.
Ghana
Michael Oti
Michael Oti, DW Africa
I was in high school at the time in the capital Accra and I had very little interest in international politics. There was a lot of shuffling in and out of the teaching staff's common room.
The teachers told us about the attack but I recall just shrugging. Ghana is geographically so far from America — so I didn't feel any emotional connection.
I didn't really understand the magnitude of what had happened. All day that day the scenes of the airplanes flying into the Twin Towers were shown over and over on TV. From that point on, I knew the Americans were going to retaliate.
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