The Real Meaning of 9/11

In this special joint episode of New Ideal Live and The Yaron Brook Show, Onkar Ghate and Elan Journo join Yaron Brook to discuss the key events and turning points since 9/11, and provide a retrospective on ARI’s philosophic analysis of U.S. policy.

Among the topics covered:

Recalling the day of the attacks and the immediate aftermath;
The foreign policy failures that enabled the terrorist attacks;
The pragmatism that prevented the U.S. from identifying the ideological nature of the enemy’s threat;
The leftist/libertarian claim that the attacks were America’s own fault;
ARI’s take on the weak American response to the 9/11 attacks;
State sponsorship (by Iran, etc.) of the Islamic totalitarian movement;
What a morally principled response to the attacks would have looked like;
The difference between war and law enforcement;
The anti-intellectual, tribalist nature of 9/11 conspiracism;
Whether it’s true that we’ve surrendered freedom for security;
Whether the U.S. should recognize or send aid to the Taliban;
Resources on the history of Iran;
Whether America should fight Islamic totalitarianism everywhere;
How history would have been different if America had pursued the right strategy;
Whether America has become an easy target for Islamist terrorism;
How the Taliban contributed to the 9/11 terrorist attacks;
How altruist morality corrupts our thinking about hostage situations;
Whether another American historical figure would have responded better to 9/11;
The right’s infatuation with the Taliban;
Saudi Arabia’s support of terrorism, and how America should have dealt with it;
How the U.S. could have thwarted the attack or defeated the attackers’ state sponsors.

Mentioned in the discussion are Leonard Peikoff’s article “End States Who Sponsor Terrorism,” his talk “America vs. Americans” and the book Failing to Confront Islamic Totalitarianism, edited by Elan Journo and Onkar Ghate.

This podcast was recorded on September 11, 2021. Listen to the discussion below. Listen and subscribe from your mobile device on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify or Stitcher. Watch archived podcasts here.