9-11 — latest news, discussion & facts

Also known as Was there an alternative?

9-11 is a collection of interviews with Noam Chomsky first published in November 2001 in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. The revised edition of 2011, 9-11: Was There an Alternative?, includes the entire text of the original book and a new essay by Chomsky, "Was There an Alternative?".

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The book was given a 2002 Firecracker Alternative Book Award.

Contents

Content

9-11: 2001 first edition

In the original edition of 9-11 of November 2001, Chomsky places the September 11 attacks in the context of past American intervention in the Middle East, Latin America, Indonesia, Afghanistan, India, and Pakistan. Chomsky warned against America increasing its reliance on military rhetoric and violence in response to the 9-11 attacks, and that escalation of violence as a response to violence would inevitably lead to more, and more devastating attacks on American civilians at home and around the world.

9-11 is written in a question and answer format. It consists of seven sections, each with one or more interviews of Chomsky. Interviewers include Italian periodical Il Manifesto; Kevin Canfield of the Hartford Courant; David Barsamian; Radio B92 of Belgrade; Elise Fried; Peter Kreysler; Paola Leoni of Giornale del Popolo (Switzerland); Marili Margomenou of Alpha TV (Greece); Miguel Mora of El País (Spain); Natalie Levisalles of Libération (France); and Michael Albert.

The first edition of 9-11 was published in more than two dozen countries and appeared on several bestseller lists, including those of The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, and The New York Times. An article about it in The New Yorker stated, "9-11 was practically the only counter-narrative out there at a time when questions tended to be drowned out by a chorus, led by the entire United States Congress, of 'God Bless America.' It was one of the few places where the other side of the case could be found."

9-11: Was There an Alternative?: 2011 extended edition

The extended edition of the book, published in September 2011, includes a new essay by Chomsky which examines the impact and consequences of US foreign policy up to the killing of Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan, and reflects on what may have resulted if the crimes against humanity committed on 9/11 had been "approached as a crime, with an international operation to apprehend the likely suspects."

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Also known as Was there an alternative?

Notable quotes

“[Terrorists] didn’t get that idea from my opera, don’t worry. They got the idea from Star Wars. Remember the first one? Two guys fly a plane in the middle of something and blow that up? The only difference is, in ‘Star Wars,’ they get away.”
— Margaret Atwood, "Margaret Atwood Says Terrorists ‘Got the Idea’ for 9/11 Attacks From ‘Star Wars’", Zack Sharf, Indiewire, (Apr 10, 2018).
“I can hear you! I can hear you, the rest of the world hears you. And the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon!”
— George W. Bush, impromptu speech given at Ground Zero at WTC site (September 14, 2001).
“If inciting people to do that is terrorism, and if killing those who kill our sons is terrorism, then let history be witness that we are terrorists.”
— Osama bin Laden on the September 11, 2001 attacks, in CNN broadcast of an interview that Al-Jazeera conducted in October 2001 (31 January 2002).
“Thank God for 9/11. Thank God that, five years ago, the wrath of God was poured out upon this evil nation. America, land of the sodomite damned... The deadly events of 9/11 were direct outpourings of divine retribution, the immediate visitation of God's wrath and vengeance and punishment for America's horrendous sodomite sins.”
— Fred Phelps, leader of Westboro Baptist Church, in "9/11: God's Wrath Revealed" - WBC Video News. Westboro Baptist Church (8 September 2006).
“We may have a hijack. We have some problems over here right now.”
— Air traffic controller, at 08:53, as quoted in Guardian Unlimited (17 October 2001).
“Countless investigations have examined why the United States didn’t see 9/11 coming, and the explanations are many. But one factor these assessments don’t fully capture is that some analysts did know that such an attack could happen, and that many of the earliest, most tenacious, and most perceptive of them were female, in an institution that had long underestimated women and their work.”
— Liza Mundy “The Women Who Saw 9/11 Coming”, The Atlantic, (November 18, 2023); adapted from The Sisterhood: The Secret History of Women at the CIA.

Quotes via Wikiquote (CC BY-SA), each with its original source.