I think today marks the anniversary of a coup led by Augusto Pinochet to overthrow the democratically elected Chilean government led by Salvador Allende, who was the first Marxist to be elected president in a Latin American democracy. The CIA investigated itself using declassified documents and determined no wrongdoing. Just that it “appeared to condone” the coup, but found “no evidence” of any participation, which means the United States definitely participated to some extent in the rise to power of a ruthless autocrat who disappeared or executed thousands of people and interred and tortured tens of thousands more over nearly two decades.
Or something like that.
Lawrence Wright wrote that the hijackers chose the date when John III Sobieski, the King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania, began the battle that turned back the Ottoman Empire’s Muslim armies that were attempting to capture Vienna (present-day capital of Austria) on September 11, 1683. During 1683, Vienna was the seat of the Holy Roman Empire and Habsburg monarchy, both major powers in Europe at the time. For Osama bin Laden, this was a date when the West gained some dominance over Islam, and by attacking on this date, he hoped to make a step in Islam “winning” the war for worldwide power and influence. – Wikipedia on the 9/11 attacks
Sometimes it’s enough for the US to have given their consent to this sort of stuff. With how unpopular Allende was in some circles and knowing how coup-happy South America is, it’s not necessarily that CIA did anything other than unofficially say or just imply “we wouldn’t be too bothered if Allende was to go and would be happy to work with a more like-minded government” or something.
My favorite knock knock joke for something like 15 years now:
“Knock knock.”
“Who’s there?”
“9/11”
“9/11 who?”
“YOU SAID YOU’D NEVER FORGET!”
It’s funny because the conservatives clearly wanted 9/11 to be something that would rile up Americans for generations, but they blew all the international charitable attitude towards it by destabilizing the middle east (which Europe actually had to deal with the consequences of, unlike the US) and then following up with Trump of all people as the next Republican after Bush.
Like, they couldn’t have made the rest of the world and US citizens care any less about it.
Especially post Occupy Wall Street when most of the country realizes how fucked up Wall Street is and that 9/11 was an attack on… Wall Street. Not as much sympathy for traders these days.
The real terrorists were the ones we were brewing here at home all along.
I’d like to see the 9/11 attacks become something like Pearl Harbor day (December 7th, 1941) in something we acknowledge happened but don’t actually have department store sales over, and speeches by elected officials are optional, usually if victims / veterans are getting together for a pageant.
From a statecraft standpoint, I remain impressed with just how low the 9/11 attacks smote the US, and I’m sure even Bin Laden regarded it as a lucky hit, intending it to be a sting like the Doolittle raid, but with such perfect timing that it accelerated the US dissolution towards one-party autocracy. Now, many of the failings of the United States as a free democracy are laid plain, and it’s our mess to clean up or to leave to fester.
If Harris wins in 2024, we’ll get that chance, but Obama also promised hope and change and didn’t deliver, and it cost us dearly. Again. So we’ll see.
Regardless of who wins, the mess has barely begun. Donald Trump brought up WWIII yesterday for a reason: he tilted international politics towards nationalism and militarism. In just 4 years, he managed to embolden Russia, piss off Iran, and encouraged China to become more hardline. Even if he loses, the damage is done.
There is a solid chance we see global conflict on a terrifying scale within the next 4 years, in small part thanks to that psychopath winning in 2016. The liberal world order deserves much of the blame, but Trump definitely accelerated things.
A lot of shit happened in the past on 9/11, especially in German history. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/November_9
