THREAD: I was 13 years old on 9/11. The one thing that still sticks with me is the feeling of complete and utter fear in the weeks & months following the attack. I remember seeing clips on TV of the Twin Towers falling down over and over again for the rest of the year.

I remember going to school the next day and spending the entire time talking with my teachers about the horrible event that took place. I also remember the sense of patriotism; strangers getting together and helping one another out. Naturally, I also remember the...

grief, which hung over the country (and certainly the city of New York) like a dark, dense fog. People were scared, constantly wondering when the next terrorist attack was going to happen. All of a sudden, the great U.S. seemed naked and vulnerable.

This same fear proliferated within the U.S. government as well. As we now know, this fear drove some decisions we have since come to regret. I’m talking about the opening up of Guantanamo, which remains active to this day; an open-ended AUMF that has provided three different...

presidents with the authority to use military force in multiple countries on the thinnest of evidence; a cowed legislative branch afraid of challenging the president lest it be branded as unpatriotic; the establishment of a torture regime, which @Ali_H_Soufan has documented...

so vividly in his book; unprecedented surveillance powers for the NSA, including warrantless wiretaps; the hyping of the terrorism threat in general to unimaginable levels; and the invasion and occupation of a country, Iraq, that had nothing whatsoever to do with 9/11.

9/11 will be remembered as an iconic moment in U.S. history and the biggest inflection point for U.S. foreign policy since the dissolution of the Soviet Union. We should honor the victims, but also recognize the corrosive impact fear can have of our decision-making.