Absolute Impunity: On the Legacies of 9/11 & the Policies of the War on/of Terror

Open Access

Abstract

It has been a little over twenty years since the attacks of September 11, 2001, and thus we are also going to be coming up on twentieth anniversaries of some of the most heinous restrictions on civil liberties in US history (though there is a lot of competition) and the twentieth anniversaries of instance after instance of unjustifiable atrocities committed in the name of the Stars and Stripes. Through autoethnographic reflection in conversation with Netflix's Turning Point: 9/11 and the War on Terror (2021) and Spencer Ackerman's Reign of Terror: How the 9/11 Era Destabilized America and Produced Trump (2021), this critical review essay explores the legacies of the Sept. 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, including policies of mass killing, mass propaganda, mass torture, and mass surveillance. The essay concludes with a reflection on where this leaves the US and world today: namely, in a place where it is increasingly "acceptable" to criticize the US war machine, though it has always been necessary.