What America Forgot About the Wars After 9/11

Jan de Vries · 2026-09-11

Mike Bedenbaugh has a message for Americans, and it's not an easy one to hear. He wants us to remember what happened after 9/11 — not just the towers, not just the Pentagon, but the two decades of conflict that followed. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the drone strikes, the military interventions that stretched from the Middle East to Africa. He's not asking us to relive the pain. He's asking us to remember the consequences. ### The Wars That Never Really Ended When the Twin Towers fell, America was united in grief and rage. We wanted justice. We wanted safety. And we trusted our leaders to deliver both. But what we got was something far more complicated. - The war in Afghanistan lasted 20 years — the longest in U.S. history - The Iraq War cost over $2 trillion and thousands of American lives - Military operations spread to Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Libya, and beyond - Over 7,000 U.S. service members died in post-9/11 conflicts - Hundreds of thousands of civilians lost their lives These aren't just numbers. They're fathers, mothers, sons, daughters. They're families torn apart on both sides of the ocean. ### Why Memory Matters Bedenbaugh isn't arguing that America should apologize for defending itself. That's not the point. He's saying that forgetting what happened after 9/11 makes it easier to repeat the same mistakes. And that's dangerous. "The conflicts which followed 9/11" — that phrase covers a lot of ground. It includes the Patriot Act, the surveillance state, the Guantanamo Bay prison, the renditions, the torture programs. It includes the rise of ISIS, the refugee crisis, and the destabilization of entire regions. When we forget, we lose the ability to ask hard questions. Did we make the right choices? Could we have done things differently? What did we sacrifice in the name of security? > "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." — George Santayana That quote gets thrown around a lot, but it hits differently when you're talking about real wars and real graves. ### The Human Cost We Don't See Here's something most of us don't think about: the soldiers who came home. They brought the war with them. PTSD, traumatic brain injuries, addiction, suicide. The VA system has struggled for years to keep up. Meanwhile, military families have carried burdens that most civilians can't imagine. And then there are the civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan. Millions displaced. Hundreds of thousands dead. Infrastructure destroyed. Generations growing up knowing nothing but war. Bedenbaugh wants Americans to sit with that. Not to feel guilty, but to feel responsible. Because a democracy is only as good as the decisions its people make — or allow to be made. ### What Comes Next Remembering isn't about living in the past. It's about using the past to make better choices now. The U.S. is still involved in conflicts around the world. Drone strikes continue. Troops remain in places most Americans couldn't find on a map. The question isn't whether we should defend ourselves. Of course we should. The question is how. And that's a question we can only answer if we remember what happened the last time we went to war without asking enough questions. So take a moment. Read about the conflicts that followed 9/11. Talk to a veteran. Listen to someone who lived through it on the other side. And then decide what kind of country you want America to be. Because forgetting isn't just dangerous. It's a choice. And it's one we don't have to make.