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The Nation was on the right side of history.

I hate to use this column to say “I told you so,” but in this case, “The Nation” was on the right side of history.

Has it really been 25 years? It was my first week of middle school in New Jersey. We were led out of the building—there were rumors of a bomb threat—and waited for hours until we were sent home. That night, I lay awake wondering if Osama bin Laden was hiding in my yard.

It has been a long quarter-century since 9/11. Almost everyone now recognizes that the US response to Al Qaeda’s attacks was misguided, that the George W. Bush administration’s crackdown did as much damage as the attacks themselves. The positions this magazine took in the weeks, months, and years after September 11, 2001—against torture and military adventurism, and for a reinvestment in domestic programs—are now common sense.

Our first issue to address 9/11 was dated October 1, 2001. It went to press as Manhattan smoldered with fumes and uncertainty. “A great paralyzing white wall of not........

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