More than 20 years later, are we ready to face up to the human toll of the war on terror?
By Norman Solomon, The Hill
As the anniversary of 9/11 approaches, candid public discourse about the “war on terror” is long overdue. Hindsight offers an opportunity to take a fresh look at the official pronouncements and unheeded dissent that came soon after September 11, 2001. The outlooks that prevailed at the time set the stage for historic disasters.

“Our responsibility to history is already clear — to answer these attacks and rid the world of evil,” President George W. Bush said in a speech at the Washington National Cathedral three days after terrorists took nearly 3,000 lives. A week later, he told a joint session of Congress that the impending war “will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated.”
Such resolve was inspiring to many. But the president’s vow to “rid the world of evil” was an announcement of an absurd goal, and it amounted to declaring endless war on an inexhaustible supply of enemies. Yet in a suddenly traumatized nation, suffused with grief, any concerns about such rhetoric were apt to seem beside the point; they got short shrift in the nation’s capital and news media.
At the start of October, a week before the U.S. attack on Afghanistan began, Detroit’s Catholic Bishop Thomas Gumbleton warned that “those who would rush to war and escalate the cycle of violence are completely out of touch with reality and with lessons of history.”
Recent Posts
The Ancient History Of Socialism In North America
October 14, 2025
Take Action Now There was nothing simplistic about moving — in many ways back to earlier traditions — to a system of governance not…
New Mexico Is Providing Free Childcare For All. It’s Time For Others To Do The Same
October 14, 2025
Take Action Now The state is setting a powerful example with its first-in-the-nation plan. But the policy has support across the USBy Katrina…
Nobel Peace Prize Winner Supports Israel’s Genocide & Trump’s War On Venezuela
October 14, 2025
Take Action Now Nobel Peace Prize laureate María Corina Machado is a far-right Venezuelan coup-plotter funded by the US government. She supports…
Israeli Historian Ilan Pappé: Despite Ceasefire, Palestinians Still Face “Elimination, Genocide”
October 13, 2025
Take Action Now “I hope that the world will not be misled that Israel is now ready to open a different kind of page in its relationship with…