
Photo by National Park Service
After the 9/11 attacks, the whole world, including the Muslim world, sympathized with the United States.
The whole world, including the Muslim world, condemned the terrorist attacks that killed more than 3,000 innocent civilians.
The U.S. government had an opportunity to unite the world in bringing the Al Qaeda terrorists to justice. This could have been a step to unite the international community behind a rule of law.
Instead the Bush administration chose to implement pre-existing plans to invade Iraq, whose leaders had nothing to do with the terrorist attacks. The Obama administration has done likewise with Libya, Syria and other countries.
The result has been militarization of American life, eclipse of civil liberties and the deaths of many more innocent civilians in majority-Muslim countries than ever were killed in jihadist attacks on Americans and Europeans.
Even worse, a generation of Americans has grown up in which all these things are normal.
And jihadist terrorism, partly and maybe mainly as a result of U.S. policies, is stronger than ever before.