9/11′s double tragedy -

A missing legacy

The great crises in U.S. history have often inspired the country to great accomplishments.

The Civil War led to the emancipation of Black Americans and a sprawling program of domestic investment in railroads, colleges and more. World War II helped spark the creation of the modern middle class and cemented the so-called American Century. The Cold War caused its own investment boom, in the space program, computer technology and science education.

The attacks of Sept. 11 — which occurred on a sparkling late-summer morning 20 years ago tomorrow — had the potential to leave their own legacy of recovery. In sorrow and anger, Americans were more united in the weeks after the attacks than they had been in years. President George W. Bush’s approval rating exceeded 85 percent.

It isn’t hard to imagine how Bush might have responded to Sept. 11 with the kind of domestic mobilization of previous wars. He could have rallied the country to end its reliance on Middle Eastern oil, a reliance that both financed radical American enemies and kept the U.S. enmeshed in the region. While attacking Al Qaeda militarily, Bush also could have called for enormous investments in solar energy, wind energy, nuclear power and natural gas. It could have been transformative, for the economy, the climate and Bush’s historical standing.

Bush chose a different path, one that was ambitious in its own right: the “freedom agenda.” He hoped that his toppling of the Taliban in Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein in Iraq would inspire people around the world to rise up for democracy and defeat autocracy. For a brief period — the Arab Spring, starting in 2010 — his vision almost seemed to be playing out.

Today, though, we know it did not. Bush and his team bungled Iraq’s postwar reconstruction. In Afghanistan, the U.S. rejected a Taliban surrender offer, and the Taliban recovered to win the war. In Egypt and Syria, autocrats remain in power.

Some wars have left clear legacies of progress toward freedom — like the anti-colonization movement and the flowering of European democracy that followed World War II. The post-9/11 wars have not. If anything, the world has arguably become less democratic in recent years.

Twenty years after Sept. 11, the attacks seem likely to be remembered as a double tragedy. There were the tangible horrors: The attacks on that day killed almost 3,000 people, and the ensuing wars killed hundreds of thousands more. And there is the haunting question that lingers: Out of the trauma, did the country manage to create a better future?

More on 9/11’s legacy

The Washington Post’s Carlos Lozada, surveying books about the attacks and their aftermath, writes: “9/11 was a test. The books of the last two decades show how America failed.”

“Twenty Years Gone”: The Atlantic’s Jennifer Senior on one family’s heartbreaking loss and struggle to move on.

“The fact that the United States itself went on to attack, and wreak even greater violence against innocent civilians around the world, was largely omitted from official narratives,” the novelist Laila Lalami writes for Times Opinion.

“The twin towers still stand because we saw them, moved in and out of their long shadows, were lucky enough to know them for a time.” Colson Whitehead wrote this essay shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks. Many people revisit it.

From The Times

Jennifer Steinhauer speaks to veterans of two wars that followed the attacks. “I am still fighting a little bit of that war, inside,” one said.

The remains of more than 1,100 victims have never been identified. But New York City continues to search for DNA matches, Corey Kilgannon writes — a task the chief medical examiner called “a sacred obligation.”