Who Planned 9/11? Unveiling the Attackers' Motives

Why this matters

Osama bin Laden published a declaration of war before 9/11 happened, laying out his grievances and intentions in language almost nobody read until after the attacks made it relevant. Understanding what he wrote is not the same as sympathizing with it. It's the difference between calling someone evil, which is true and easy, and understanding how he believed the attacks would work.

That second part is uncomfortable, but it's history. Bin Laden believed the American response would validate his strategy, and students have to sit with the possibility that he was partly right about how the country would react. That's a harder lesson than a villain origin story.

From one teacher to another

This is the uncomfortable reading. I'm not asking students to sympathize with bin Laden; I'm asking them to understand him, which means taking seriously his stated ideology and strategy. That's harder than just calling him evil, which is easy and true but incomplete. Students need to see how he thought the attacks would work and how the American response partly validated his predictions. That's history.