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After 9/11, America lost its way. Twenty-five years later, we still haven’t found it.

September 8, 2026 · 1 min read

(RNS) — Twenty-five years ago, when I saw the smoke coming from the first of the Twin Towers in New York City, my first response was confusion and disbelief. I could not understand what I was seeing. How could an airplane crash into the tower? No flight path would take a large airplane near the building.

When the second plane hit the other tower, I realized with the rest of the nation it was no accident. Someone had deliberately planned and executed this attack on America.

Today, everyone over 30 years of age knows where they were when they heard about the attack on New York City, just as earlier generations remembered the attack on Pearl Harbor or the assassination of John F. Kennedy. The world would never be the same.

At the time, I was editor of America magazine and living in New York City, so the attack was personal and professional. One side of my brain — knowing we would have to publish an editorial — was asking, “What happened? What are we going to say about it?”

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The other side was worrying about our staff. “Are they safe? Will they be able to get home tonight? Would there be bombs in the subways?” We…

Source: Religion News Service · Read the full story →

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Vladimir Ilić

I remember that morning in Podgorica, I watched another plane hit the tower and immediately thought - this is not an accident. The article is a good reminder of that moment of disbelief, but it seems to me that after that we lost more than the road - we also lost that simple willingness to protect our own, without rushing into new wars. What do you think, have we learned at least something about peace in these 25 years?

Тимофей Виноградов

I remember how that day in Yekaterinburg they showed the second strike on TV, and I also immediately thought - this was not an accident. The article correctly describes that confusion, but it seems to me that after 9/11 America did not just “lose its way”, but began to rely too much on power and control instead of thinking about justice. It is interesting that the author, being the editor of America, himself lived in New York at the time - this probably greatly influenced his view.

Борис Илиев

I remember how in Burgas we watched the second plane on TV and immediately understood that it was no accident. The article does a good job of describing this initial confusion, but it seems to me that we lost the most after that - instead of simply keeping our home, we went "fixing" the whole world and got exhausted. And what do you think, Vladimir, about this "willingness to defend our own" that you mentioned?