Tracing the Impact of 9/11 Forever Wars: From 2001 to the Present

A conversation examining the political and social impacts of the Forever Wars, and the stories too often left out of official remembrance.
About this Event

September 11, 2001, marked a defining turning point in U.S. and global history. The attacks claimed thousands of lives and reshaped public discourse, national security priorities, and international relations. Just nine days later, on September 20, 2001, President George W. Bush addressed Congress and formally declared the launch of the “Global War on Terror”, a campaign envisioned as both borderless and indefinite. Over the next twenty-five years, this framework would justify wars, military interventions, surveillance programs, immigration restrictions, detention regimes, terrorism prosecutions, and expanded security powers whose consequences continue to reverberate around the world.

As we reflect on the twenty-fifth anniversary of both 9/11 and 9/20, this panel explores the enduring legacies of the post-9/11 era in the 21st century. While official commemorations often focus on the attacks themselves and the national security response that followed, this conversation broadens the lens to examine the human, political, and social costs of the Forever Wars. What happens when we center the experiences of communities whose lives have been shaped by warfare, displacement, detention, surveillance, family separation, and the enduring effects of Islamophobia?

Bringing together scholars, practitioners, and advocates, the discussion will examine how decisions made in the aftermath of 9/11 transformed global politics and domestic governance. Panelists will consider how the Global Wars on “Terror”, i.e. US Forever Wars, evolved across administrations and national contexts, how its impacts have been felt both abroad and at home, and how its architecture continues to influence contemporary debates about security, migration, civil liberties, and state power.

The conversation also engages with questions of memory and accountability after atrocities and war crimes. Whose stories have been preserved in public remembrance, and whose have been overlooked or erased? How do communities remember lives lost to wars, bombings, drone strikes, torture, indefinite detention, terrorism prosecutions, surveillance, and forced displacement? And what does it mean to commemorate this history from the perspective of those who have endured its consequences?

Twenty-five years later, this panel invites participants not only to examine what has been lost, but also to consider what justice, historical reckoning, and collective responsibility require from us now.

Featuring:

• Negar Razavi
• Maha Hilal
• Niki Akhavan
• Moderated by Mariam Durrani