What 9/11's Forgotten Conflicts Still Teach Us Today

Jan de Vries · 2026-09-11

### The Wars We Chose to Remember — And the Ones We Didn't Mike Bedenbaugh has a message for Americans, and it's not an easy one to hear. Two decades after the towers fell, he wants us to look at what came next. Not just the memorials. Not just the flags. But the conflicts that followed — the ones that stretched across years, cost thousands of lives, and reshaped entire regions. His argument is simple: memory is selective, and that's dangerous. ### The Cost Beyond the Headlines When the United States launched its response to 9/11, the mission felt clear. Find those responsible. Prevent it from happening again. But wars rarely stay that simple. What started as a hunt for al-Qaeda turned into two decades of military engagement across Afghanistan, Iraq, and beyond. The numbers tell a story that's hard to sit with: - Over 7,000 U.S. service members died in post-9/11 conflicts - More than 50,000 were wounded, many with injuries that will follow them for life - The financial cost climbed past $8 trillion, according to Brown University's Costs of War project - Hundreds of thousands of civilians lost their lives across the affected regions Those aren't just statistics. They're families. Communities. Futures that never happened. ### Why Remembering Matters Now Bedenbaugh isn't asking Americans to feel guilty. He's asking them to think. Because the decisions made in the months and years after 9/11 weren't inevitable — they were choices. And choices made in fear often look very different when viewed from a distance. > "The question isn't whether we were angry. Of course we were. The question is what we did with that anger, and whether we'd do it again." That's the heart of it. Every generation faces moments when grief demands action. The trick is knowing which actions will actually make things better — and which ones just feel satisfying in the moment. ### What Comes Next As new conflicts emerge and old ones fade from the news cycle, Bedenbaugh's reminder feels less like history and more like a warning. The consequences of military intervention don't end when the troops come home. They echo through generations, through politics, through the way a country sees itself. Remembering isn't about living in the past. It's about carrying its lessons forward. That's the only way any of it means something.