CounterPunch Exclusives

CounterPunch Exclusives

Imaging a Better World Without 9/11, Approaching the 25th Anniversary

Image by Aidan Bartos.

Imagine a world where 9/11 didn’t happen.

If the TSA had considered box cutters a dangerous weapon and the hijackers never got them on the plane. If the CIA and FBI coordinated on intelligence. If the passengers were successful in subduing the terrorists as they seemingly were on Flight 93. 3000-plus Americans would then not have been murdered that day, and the world and the United States would be a profoundly different place.

To an extent, ruminating about alternative histories is an exercise in mental masturbation because, of course, the past and present cannot be changed. However, such a defining moment of the 21st century and American and world history occurred because, ultimately, a FAA rule didn’t disallow knife-like objects under 4 inches on airplanes. Therefore, it might be useful to consider a world where this horribly momentous event never took place.

A thwarted terrorist attack by Islamic extremists would have, unfortunately, caused increased racial profiling of Muslims or those thought to be Muslim, but it would have been unlikely to cause the creation of the Department of Homeland Security or its subsidiary agency, ICE, in 2003. There probably would have been more occasional attacks on Iraq for some reason or another, similar to Bill Clinton’s 1998 bombing of the country. But George W. Bush, initially against nation building, would have had a hard time pushing for a full-scale........

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