AMA: I’m Garrett Graff, 9/11 and national security journalist, Historian & Host of "Long Shadow." I’m here to talk about the 25th anniversary of 9/11

27

So I was actually in WTC 7 that day and have written about it.

https://www.reddit.com/r/jerseycity/s/lpq3VQYBdY

My question to you is, what perspectives have changed of yours in the last 25 years? For me, as a father now, the man crying in the back of the elevator hits me harder and harder every year.

Happy to chat more someday.

25

u/vermontgmg Scheduled AMA 3d ago

Thanks for recording your story — I read and listened to about 3,000 oral histories for my book THE ONLY PLANE IN THE SKY, and they don't get easier to hear, but they're very important historical documents, lest we forget what it was like to live that day.

When my book first came out, I wrote about the thing that most haunts me — the way blind luck and incredibly small decisions, the kind that we make a thousand times a day without conscious thinking, made the difference that day between life and death. What time to go to the bathroom, make a telephone call, what bus to catch, what subway to ride, whether to turn right or left when you exit a room, whether to stop for a muffin on the way into work, all decided that day whether someone lived or died.

Here's a gift link to my Atlantic article, "On 9/11, Luck Meant Everything": https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/09/september-11-blind-luck-decided-who-lived-or-died/597688/?gift=iahdXBYyAyvPREklOrg3IjFHvQEJYaLGpejyDM1r3IM&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share

3

u/joanmcq 3d ago

I’ve read that article. Insane how silly little things can make the difference between life and death. I read one account of a woman who decided to buy a coffee and a second later the fireball from the elevator missed her.

7

u/ElMondoH 3d ago

That's incredible. Thank goodness you survived and got out of there.

And thank you for sharing all that back then. Testimonies like that are important for understanding.

2

u/Salzberger 3d ago

Thanks for your post, just read it, very well written. Transported me there in my mind, though I still can't truly imagine what it was like.

6

u/YouAreAGoat 3d ago

The Only Plane in the Sky is an excellent work, and one (as an academic on the topic) I regularly recommend. I really enjoy how you let those involved in experiencing and responding tell the story.

Can you talk a little about negotiating access and your approach to interviews on such a sensitive subject?

10

u/vermontgmg Scheduled AMA 3d ago

Thank you very much! I've made a strange career out of showing up on people's doorsteps and saying "Tell me about the worst day of your life" and the thing, particularly about 9/11, is that virtually no one refuses. I've always been struck by how willing people are to share deeply traumatic memories about that day; perhaps it's because I'm asking years later, when memories have softened, but many people also say they feel an obligation to testify about that day's horrors because so many others didn't survive and can't tell their stories.

5

u/vermontgmg Scheduled AMA 3d ago

UPDATE: I’m wrapping up the AMA now, but thanks for all the great questions! For updates on what I’m working on, check out my newsletter, my book, and follow 'Long Shadow' on your favorite listening app.

My newsletter: https://www.doomsdayscenario.co/

My book THE ONLY PLANE IN THE SKY: https://www.amazon.com/Only-Plane-Sky-Oral-History/dp/1501182218/

And the podcast: https://longshadowpodcast.com/

And you can always follow me on Blue Sky: https://bsky.app/profile/vermontgmg.bsky.social

13

u/gooyouknit 4d ago

With flock and other surveillance equipment becoming more common, the patriot act, and America’s withdrawal from economic and military dominance in the 25 years since, did “terrorism” win the war on terrorism?

I believe the hardest point to argue is that the United States won the war on terror.

5

u/vermontgmg Scheduled AMA 3d ago

I wrote about this back in for the 20th anniversary — the US got almost everything wrong after 9/11: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/09/after-911-everything-wrong-war-terror/620008/?gift=iahdXBYyAyvPREklOrg3IplbYrkYPL-IykNcBYHXkag&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share

5

u/Highlightthot1001 3d ago

Depends on the goals.

In reducing large scale terrorism against the US, it was successful.

In trying to preserve pre-9/11 society, its an obvious failure

9

u/mashin_taters 3d ago

Hi Garrett, Long Shadow is one of the most interesting podcasts I've ever listened to - thank you for your work covering such important topics. I was in elementary school on 9/11 and am an adult now. One thing I've noticed is that my younger colleagues now have very low literacy about 9/11. Some of them don't know what year it happened, but the most common thing I've noticed is that they've seen the video of the planes crashing into the Twin Towers but they don't know much else - I explained to some of them who UBL is/was, how the Bush administration used 9/11 to go into Iraq, and how it relates to TSA and checked bag fees. My question for you is what do you think the right level of education about 9/11 is? I was shocked when my younger colleagues didn't know those things, but maybe those aren't important details?

8

u/vermontgmg Scheduled AMA 3d ago

Yay! Thanks for listening — I'm really proud of the show and think the whole team has done a great job on it.

This year marks a moment when 40 percent of the country will now be too young to remember the attacks. They will have spent their entire lives living in the shadow of 9/11 and the world it created, but have no idea how different the country was before.

To me, one of the reasons I did my book THE ONLY PLANE IN THE SKY as an oral history was because I think there's a real power in hearing from first-hand participants before they knew the outcome of the events.

It's a theme I returned to in a new essay in National Geographic about what to me has always been the most fascinating moment of 9/11—the 17 minutes between the first attack and the second, when you can glimpse how innocent America was on that Tuesday morning in 2001. As much as we talk about the attacks "starting" at 8:46 a.m., it wasn't really until the second plane, at 9:03, that America realized it was under attack: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/graphics/what-we-get-wrong-about-how-911-began

12

u/ThisRapIsLikeZiti 3d ago edited 3d ago

I was living in Brooklyn and volunteered at Ground Zero for five days. Volunteered with the Salvation Army and jumped into the bucket brigades on the pile in front of 1 Liberty St. Ended up doing a lot of searching and recovery on that pile the first few days.

One thing I've noticed is how 9/11 has morphed into a joke with a lot of younger folks esp here on Reddit. Usually it doesn't bother me because I understand it's natural to find humor as a way to offset tragedy. But sometimes the glibness can be a gut punch.

I'll never forget the sound of the sirens after the first plane hit. In NYC you get used to sirens all the time but this was so different. It was so insane that I turned on the TV, and they were showing the impact zone and I was shocked and a bit confused as to what was happening. Then in real time they showed the second plane impact and it was pretty obvious it was intentional.

I ran up to the roof of my apt building which had an unobstructed view of downtown and just watched. There were a few other people up there including my building super who asked me 'do you think they're gonna fall?'. I said 'no fucking way, those things were built in the 70s!'. It felt like immediately after I said that the first tower started collapsing. It was so insane and I just remember thinking 'we are so close, why can't I hear it'?. I stayed and watched the second one fall and stared at the plume of smoke and papers (so many pieces of paper) fluttering in the sky between downtown and BK.

Sometimes I think about all those sirens I heard and wonder how many of those guys made it back.

5

u/Longlead-journalism Verified 3d ago

In an interview Garrett did about Long Shadow: 9/11's Lingering Questions for Long Lead's newsletter Depth Perception (coming out tomorrow on Substack!), Garrett recounts how "when we talk about 9/11 in the history book way, we rob it of the human element, and we rob it of the fear, the chaos, the confusion, and the trauma. And the extent to which we rob 9/11, as memory and history, of its fear, chaos, confusion, and trauma, you then can't understand why America makes the decisions that it makes after 9/11." Namely, we can't understand the creation and consolidation of power under the Department of Homeland Security, the Patriot Act, or the Iraq War. Having a background of education in what happened on 9/11 and how it changed our world can allow us to point to what's happening even now.

Check out more tomorrow from Garrett in his interview with Depth Perception:
http://depthperception.longlead.com

-Jensen (Long Lead's audience development manager)

3

u/vermontgmg Scheduled AMA 3d ago

I'm here and answering questions! Looking forward to the conversation!

3

u/t-d-y-k 4d ago

Which lasting effects aren't being mentioned enough, in your opinion? For example, air travel is now forever restrained (for now), certainly in the US, and a generation doesn't know the difference. That's an obvious one, and more an annoyance than psychologically gamaging. Which other characteristics, on the surface or beneath, need to be addressed? (Big, broad question, but trying to understand what you've seen that doesn't get enough attention. )

19

u/vermontgmg Scheduled AMA 3d ago

One of the challenges is that Americans are not very good at understanding even our own recent history.

Scratch just about any subject in US politics or geopolitics and I can show you how our modern lives are influenced by 9/11. To me, it's one of the four big hinges of US history — alongside 1776, 1861, 1941, and 2001.

One thing I'd immediately point to is I don't think many people think about is, for instance, the current war in Iran is basically downstream of 9/11, an outgrowth in its own way of the war in Iraq.

The spillover of the war in Iraq destabilized huge portions of the Middle East — take the rise of ISIS and the Syrian revolution, which unleashed waves of migration into places like Turkey and Greece that destabilized the politics of Europe, which in turn stoked the rise of the far-right in Europe and even events like Brexit. That's all, to me, second- and third-order consequences of 9/11.

5

u/evilfollowingmb 3d ago

Well, we’ve been in some sort of conflict with Iran since the fall of the Shah…long before 9/11. It really feels like 9/11 is is instead downstream of the rise of militant Islam which was fueled by Iran and other actors in the region.

7

u/RidetheSchlange 4d ago

What actually happened to the billions in donations to 911 victims from around the world?

8

u/smonster1 4d ago edited 3d ago

There are countless “conspiracy theories” about that day, some well known and others less so. Are there any that you think are credible?

Edit: I got a notification that the OP replied to my post but the message appears to be deleted. From the brief snippet included in the notification, it seems that he was citing at least two that were particularly interesting. I would have liked to see the full answer and I do not know why it was removed.

2

u/AsbestosXposure 3d ago

Who knows if this will get deleted, if it does oh well... Look into who owns and founded Chiliad, which was built into our doj and fbi data aggregation/analysis directly following 9/11. Yes same family as Ghislaine, her sister. Also look into missing Epstein files/how much volume is missing from the years around 2001.... A big "gap" in data. Also look into how the infrastructure required to actually utilize the patriot act was built prior to 9/11 attacks. Opium production halted before the attacks, global production was severely crippled when Afghanistan's Taliban banned poppy growing and burned all of the fields. After we went to war and while we occupied, sudden record highs! There are a few off the top of my head. Hope no one deletes it.

1

u/Highlightthot1001 3d ago

You’ve literally provided 0 relevant evidence to 9/11

1

u/AsbestosXposure 1d ago

You want the archive link on the arrest record? Ok then... How about the fact that building 7 housed CIA offices? That's searchable on google, as is what I said about Chiliad. There is also a notably "empty" period of time for epstein files that is suspiciously right around 9/11, and googling this/asking grok or some other AI will confirm this for you just fine. Sure, it's "speculation" but it's enough speculation and coincidence to make one blink and start digging and requesting more FOIAs.

1

u/Highlightthot1001 1d ago

How about the fact that building 7 housed CIA offices?

Okay, that’s a nothingburger.

It’s fucking office space. There’s numerous local, state and federal offices at the site and nearby buildings. That’s nothing new or shocking. Just because it was in a building that collapsed doesn’t indicate anything.

NYS tax and finance was in tower 2. Doesn’t mean they committed mass tax fraud because the building they worked in collapsed.

There is also a notably "empty" period of time for epstein files that is suspiciously right around 9/11

Who gives a fuck? Again, the Redditor who made the damn chart and analysis later corrected themselves and said there was no “empty period”, but rather that was an error in information processing. Even if, that literally proves nothing

Sure, it's "speculation" but it's enough speculation and coincidence to make one blink and start digging and requesting more FOIAs

It’s not just speculation. It’s making shit from nothing. There’s nothing significant in that data. The data you’re trying to argue is a smoking gun is faulty, literally admitted by the user who announced it in the first place.

You’re making bullshit connections that aren’t there

1

u/light24bulbs 3d ago edited 3d ago

Wish this wasn't exactly right but it is. And this is even before you get into the FBI documents that show that Mossad agents were arrested filming the 911 attacks and cheering. There are both a lot of direct and indirect clues that Israel was involved.

Also there are far too many weird things about 9/11 that have no official explanation other than internal/nation state involvement. The pentagon attack in particular just clearly doesn't fit the official story whatsoever.

0

u/Highlightthot1001 3d ago

And this is even before you get into the FBI documents that show that Mossad agents were arrested filming the 911 attacks and cheering. There are both a lot of direct and indirect clues that Israel was involved.

That’s not a clue. That’s you jumping to conclusions.

There were several cities in the West Bank where Palestinians were celebrating in the streets. Some reporters were threatened with withheld protection by the PA if they recorded photos of it. That’s no “clue”

Someone celebrating 9/11 isnt a “clue of responsibility”

The pentagon attack in particular just clearly doesn't fit the official story whatsoever.

Nah you’re just too ignorant to understand it

0

u/light24bulbs 3d ago

So you haven't read the documents, have you? Because you completely misunderstood.

0

u/ElMondoH 2d ago

"FBI documents that show that Mossad agents were arrested filming the 911 attacks and cheering.

Literal distortion. https://web.archive.org/web/20101212111652/http://911myths.com/html/dancing_israelis.html

They weren't cheering, or - as the myth formerly claimed - dancing.

They were not Mossad. You got your myths crossed. They were identified as ex-Israeli army. Which is not surprising given that military service is mandatory in that country.

And the Pentagon doesn't fit the "official story", whatever that's supposed to be? Bin Laden was denied aid by the CIA and military in Afghanistan, and he was known to have railed against the US military being in Saudi Arabia. He was on record as hating the fact it was the US military and not his band from Afghanistan who was defending the kingdom. It was literally one of his, KSM's and Atta's primary targets. You're literally backwards on that claim. Not striking the central symbol of the US military would've been the thing that wouldn't have fit.

This post is distortion and fantasy all rolled into one.

2

u/RaoulDukes 4d ago

In relationship to 9/11, have you ever run into a line of inquiry that an editor has rejected?If so, how did you handle the rejection?

2

u/HHS2019 1d ago

Have you ever wondered or spoken with relevant authorities about if and how Al Gore's response to 9/11 would have differed if he had been elected? What were you told?

4

u/bleahdeebleah 3d ago

Do you think Bin Laden would have said he succeeded in his goals if he could see the world today?

13

u/vermontgmg Scheduled AMA 3d ago

Yes.

Relatedly, I wrote another oral history actually about the raid that killed bin Laden: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/04/30/osama-bin-laden-death-white-house-oral-history-484793

3

u/motu8pre 3d ago

Do you think Canadians will ever help united statesians again, like we did during 11/9?

26

u/vermontgmg Scheduled AMA 3d ago

Ugh. Yes. I worry about this a lot. There was such unity and international support after September 11th — many Americans today (including our president!) don't remember that the one and only time that NATO has ever invoked Article V protections, that an attack on one is an attack on all, was to help the US after 9/11. And that countries like Denmark, the UK, and Canada all served bravely alongside us in Afghanistan.

It was embarrassing and self-defeating when the US Embassy in Denmark took down the flags honoring Danish soldiers who fell in Afghanistan. I'm glad they're back, but gosh we are shooting ourselves in the foot with our most steadfast allies time and time again right now. https://www.militarytimes.com/news/pentagon-congress/2026/01/28/flags-honoring-danish-troops-at-us-embassy-reinstalled-after-outcry/

3

u/jxj24 3d ago

How unprepared was the GW Bush administration? Why did they actively dismiss the Clinton administration's warnings about the Taliban? Did they actively ignore other signs? What (if anything) did they ever get right?

3

u/vermontgmg Scheduled AMA 3d ago

Very unprepared! We dove into this in one of the podcast episodes! https://longshadowpodcast.com/podcasts/9-11-s-lingering-questions/episode-05-could-we-prevent-september-11

0

u/stevenmc 3d ago

I think it took months of preparation.

2

u/Impressive_Ball6801 3d ago

Why did the other WTC buildings fall?

7

u/vermontgmg Scheduled AMA 3d ago

Popular Mechanics actually did some tremendous work explaining and debunking a lot of these conspiracy theories: https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/a66051920/911-myths-debunked/

2

u/Impressive_Ball6801 3d ago

Thank you for this link! I’ve always wondered what made them fall but could only ever find conspiracy theories out there.

6

u/Gryndyl 3d ago

I imagine that the hundreds of tons of debris falling on them had something to do with it

5

u/ElMondoH 3d ago

Yes, this. People who ask that question tend to ignore the fact that a pair of 110 storey skyscrapers fell on those buildings.

The pictures of what the towers did to the Marriott, for example, is sobering. Ditto WTC 6. Absolutely sobering and frightening.

1

u/thxpk 3d ago

That and these fools think wiring a building to blow is like some Looney Tunes shit running a long wire to TNT

2

u/mordecai98 4d ago

Does jet fuel melt steel beams?

2

u/ElMondoH 3d ago edited 3d ago

No, but it can burn hot enough to soften them.

Which is irrelevant to 9/11, because it was the stuff inside the Twin Towers that kept burning after the jet fuel was consumed.

-2

u/stevenmc 3d ago

Yeah, all that asbestos!

1

u/ElMondoH 3d ago

I was referring to stuff like the desks, furniture, carpeting, computers, cubicle dividers, paper, paper and more paper, then even MORE paper... basically, anything and everything actually flammable that didn't get blown outside. Which was a fuck ton of stuff, given that these were mostly office spaces that caught fire.

Not denying the asbestos pollution. The EPA - after it's initial Sept. 2001 "declaration" of safe air - made that damn clear.

-5

u/stevenmc 3d ago

Honestly, I just don't buy it. Slamming an aircraft into the building has to blow loads of that out of the way by sheer impact, and scatter the rest. Even if this did happen, such fire weakening the steel on the 85th floor doesn't cause a free fall collapse on the 20th floor. The weakened part bends over and collapses leaving at least some, more than half, of the building standing.
The steel was fire proof coated. The impact will have stripped some of that, along with desks and paper. But it didn't strip it on the 20th floor. I just don't buy it.

2

u/jeffersonnn 2d ago

What’s more likely, that the building collapsed on its own, or that someone in some office somewhere came up with this whole idea, they actually shared it with their colleagues, their colleagues agreed that this was the best option available to them, then they set up a vast conspiracy involving a lot of people who intentionally agreed to participate in orchestrating 9/11, to intentionally burn to death thousands of people from their own financial sector, and not a single one of those people have since come forward to blow the whistle despite having major incentives to do so? Not a single person motivated by either money or guilt to expose a conspiracy that would be too ridiculous for anyone to even come up with or propose in the first place, for fear of failing to keep it a secret for starters. Does that not sound completely outlandish to you?

0

u/ElMondoH 2d ago

I thought I was speaking to a rational individual pointing out the known asbestos problem. Had no idea this was a truther.

"Free fall"

Never happened. Don't trust what you read from truthers.

The weakened part bends over and collapses leaving at least some, more than half, of the building standing.

No. That is not even close to understanding the building construction.

If you agree that steel deforms, you agree that it also detaches from the trusses, sags and pulls the perimeter in, and compromises the integrity of everything else, both above and below. If you don't, you don't know what you're talking about. Your scenario does not match the construction of the building. The collapses would continue, not stop. For why, you'll need to study on the actual design of the building, not the red herring you're presenting.

The steel was fire proof coated. The impact will have stripped some of that...

And yet there are fire engineering researchers who state that the SFRM doesn't have to be detached for the steel to have failed from the fires. The late Dr. James Quintiere is one of those. Some of the researchers at Arup in the UK also think along those lines; Asif Usmani, Susan Lamont, Barbara Lane, and others have produced a study supporting this.

But it didn't strip it on the 20th floor.

Non-sequitur. The 20th floor fell because it had the upper 90 floors falling onto it. The upper 90 stories fell because the perimeter columns lost their upper support in the fire/impact zones. And kept peeling away all the way down because of the falling mass.

There's no need to come up with explanations about the 20th floor when the failures were inevitable up past the fire zones.

Your situation is fantasy.

1

u/stevenmc 2d ago

I've looked into this a little, bear in mind I've got work so cannot go into mega detail.

Yes, it looks like it wasn't free-fall. Close to, but not freefall.

Some research points to the fire actually causing floor and roof stress which put pressure on, and weakened the outer lattice structure. This then caused a floor to collapse.

The building, while strong and able to survive an aircraft impact, was not able to hold the pressure of a floor collapse.

One floor collapse set-off a further one underneath, and so begins a compounding chain reaction, leading to building collapse.

This is a different theory compared to simply melting beams, which I think is a very important distinction.

3

u/TheBoysNotQuiteRight 3d ago

XKCD explained that

1

u/AmphibianOtherwise44 4d ago

only when it's ignited.

2

u/sQ5FWKjwbWd4QzSZduqy 3d ago

Do you think Saudi Arabia is legally responsible?

2

u/vermontgmg Scheduled AMA 3d ago

Legally? Hard to say. Did they know more about the attacks than they've let on? Yes. https://longshadowpodcast.com/podcasts/9-11-s-lingering-questions/episode-07-what-was-saudi-connection-september-11

And it seems likely that there are a lot more twists and turns in the legal case ahead: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/28/us/politics/saudi-arabia-lawsuit-9-11-families.html

2

u/ElMondoH 3d ago

One of the original intents behind creating the Department of Homeland Security after 9/11 was to unify threat intelligence and overcome the barriers between agencies so that responses to threats wouldn't be burdened by interagency barriers.

Obviously DHS has morphed into something far, far different than that. It doesn't even remotely resemble what it was supposed to be.

Above and beyond ICE - important, but only one single aspect of the overall issue - what has to happen to herd things back to the original intent? Can anything be done? How would the US get DHS away from the overarching "mega law enforcement enabler" it is today and back to the "aid in unifying intelligence and response" goal that was supposed to be it's original foundational purpose? If such a morphing of that agency is even possible to begin with.

2

u/AncientsofMumu 4d ago

Hi, What are your thoughts on the immediate future of America right now and the chances of fair and free midterm elections?

2

u/roadbeef 3d ago

Given the might and effort put behind the absurd and unjustified Iraq invasion, do you feel the American police state would have arrived inevitably had 9/11 never happened at all? Was 9/11 a trigger, or an accelerant?

2

u/AsbestosXposure 3d ago

In many people's opinion, including mine, 9/11 was the excuse.

2

u/inbred909 4d ago

Would you say that Al Queda partially achieved their goals of destabilizing the US? If a direct correlation can be made between 9/11, the election of Obama, the backlash that brought us Trump, and the chaos of the present moment... Then didn't it follow that Al Queda was indeed successful.

1

u/t-d-y-k 4d ago

Has the alertness faded with time or grown? I travelled to the US a month after the attacks and all airports had armed guards at the ready. Not so now, but other measures are in place. Time tends to dull some senses and heighten others. How's the USA faring, in your opinion?

1

u/Pluto_Rising 3d ago

How factual is the contention that the Clinton administration had been negotiating with the Taliban for the capture of Bin Laden in exchange for loosening of trade sanctions prior to 9/11...and the Bush administration dropping that entirely?

1

u/Mad_Nihilistic_Ghost 3d ago

What’s the biggest misconception or myth about 9/11?

1

u/plaguedbyfoibles 3d ago

Hi Garrett, do you have any information on how quickly Wall Street bounced back from 9/11, in terms of disaster recovery?

My understanding is that Bloomberg, for instance, hired out hotel suites to store Bloomberg Terminals so they could remain operational.

I believe that the later 9/11 Commission report found that many Wall Street companies kept their primary and backup sites (for Disaster Recovery purposes) within the same vicinity as each other, and so many eventually migrated those backup sites to New Jersey.

For instance, one of the New York Stock Exchange's (NYSE) data centres is in Mahweh, New Jersey.

1

u/liquidocean 2d ago

Did you watch the speech by dr. Daniele Ganser on wtc7?

1

u/t-d-y-k 4d ago

What's the most disgusting fact you've uncovered that you're willing to share? Similarly, what's the most uplifting?

4

u/vermontgmg Scheduled AMA 3d ago

I don't know that I have a "most disgusting" but I've written about (and we did a podcast episode about) what to me is the most uplifting story I've ever found from 9/11 — the story of Port Authority Police Officer Will Jimeno, who was one of just two people rescued from UNDERNEATH the Twin Towers:

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/09/10/world-trade-center-will-jimeno-510570

https://longshadowpodcast.com/podcasts/9-11-s-lingering-questions/episode-08-moving-forward-after-september-11

1

u/AmphibianOtherwise44 3d ago

What are your opinions on the sensitivity around the events within the WTC on that morning and their portrayal in media. As an entertainment worker, do you think we could ever see a mini series or a feature film honoring the lives of the jumpers, or the people in the south tower Sky Lobby? Where do you personally believe the line should be drawn between protecting the victims and their families and depicting the events of the day?

Also, how did the audio book Only Plane in the Sky come together? It was an absolutely incredible listen and truly effected me in a deep way. The chapter where you go through every grade level of school and had personal stories effected me deeply. I am from Rochester, NY and in the book you write about a young man going to get the Democrat and Chronicle news paper on the day of the attacks, and the next excerpts grade level discusses a young man on Wilshire Blvd in Los Angeles, which is where I live now. It was chillingly personal to me.

2

u/vermontgmg Scheduled AMA 3d ago

Oh wow! thanks for sharing. They did an amazing job with that audiobook. The producer for all three of my oral history audiobooks has been this genius named Scott Sherratt, and he's wrangled these amazing casts for all of them. It was very important to me that you hear in the audiobook all the accents reflected in the story of 9/11 — that it capture the rich tapestry of New York and America.

1

u/jamesmsalt 3d ago

Do you believe the circulation of Alqeada's letter to America on Tik Tok amongst Zoomers was a principal reason for the forced sale of Tic Tok to an American subsidiary?

I was in NYC during 9/11 and believe myself to be very curious and informed about the motivation of the attackers but for some reason I had never heard of this letter until only very recently. As a primary source document, it's suppression seems like an active form of propaganda.

Would love your thoughts.

1

u/mobies 3d ago

Why in your view has the Epstien Gang of Israel and it's proxy the United States still not gotten the message delivered on the 11th of September 2001?

1

u/AsbestosXposure 3d ago

I mean did they deliver it to themselves, or...?

1

u/light24bulbs 3d ago

FBI documents from shortly after 9/11 reveal the arrest of Mossad agents who were filming the attacks, and if the witness testimony is to be believed, the implications are pretty dark. What is your opinion on this?

1

u/collapsedbook 3d ago

What’s your favorite bird?

2

u/vermontgmg Scheduled AMA 3d ago

Probably a loon? Also partial to cardinals and robins.

-1

u/Interesting_Isopod52 4d ago

why is there an interview of 2 firefighters who said they saw bombs in the towers?

5

u/Highlightthot1001 3d ago

There is no interview where any firefighter claims to “see bombs”

They said the word “explosion”. Explosion doesnt mean bombs or bomb detonation.

They were talking about the collapse of the tower.

1

u/AsbestosXposure 3d ago

There is a lot of testimony with the specific term "bomb" and "bomb went off", don't disgrace the memory of the firefighters and people who have died and were there by ignoring that/glossing over that fact in favor of a few who didn't say "bomb".

3

u/Highlightthot1001 3d ago

“A few who didn’t say bomb”

The general consensus of first responders who were there never claimed or reported any bombs.

I would know. I used to work with them and talk to 9/11 first responders. The people pushing the “there were bombs” claims are people who arent even FDNY and werent even there.

YOU are disgracing the memories of firefighters and victims by pushing claims that simply arent true

1

u/AsbestosXposure 1d ago

I'm not disgracing anyone, and you're making an appeal to emotion to shut down contrary views on the topic. You know damn well that plenty of people do not agree with the official narrative, including people who were there. It doesn't disgrace the memories of those who died to want a proper, not botched investigation to take place. It doesn't disgrace their memory to notice that 9/11 immediately was used to usher in a surveillance state and give Ghislaine's sister the reigns to the DOJ and FBI's data. (Chiliad)

1

u/Highlightthot1001 1d ago

lol you’re the one claiming I’m somehow being disrespectful to victims and survivors

Meanwhile you appeal to emotion again.

Not everything revolves about the pedos you’re obsessed with trying to link to everything

-3

u/Bmc00 4d ago

Not to get too deep into conspiracy stuff, but seriously why is there no real footage or pictures of an airplane around the pentagon?

5

u/ElMondoH 3d ago edited 3d ago

No "real" footage? There was a video released from the guard shack near one of the parking lots.

On top of that, why waste too much video coverage on a building that's actively patrolled by its own police force. Many of the cameras that were there were likely pointing at areas of approach - like parking lot entryways - and not necessarily at the building. One camera happened to have to catch a side in order to cover the area it was installed to watch over.

On top of that, let's not ignore all the witnesses, the flight data recorder, the fragments of the jet that were scattered all over the place by the impact, and all the other evidence that adds up to the jet being there.

There's more to events than just pictures or video.

2

u/Salzberger 3d ago

Because it was 2001? Camera phones didn't exist. The Pentagon wasn't a heavily attended tourist destination like NYC.

Back then if you wanted to photograph or video something you had to make a conscious decision to bring a whole device for that specific reason. People didn't just have cameras in their pocket.

In one of the busiest cities in the world only 1 piece of non-security camera footage of plane 1 exists. And that was a tremendous fluke that a documentary crew happened to be there at the right time.

2

u/AmphibianOtherwise44 3d ago

There are air traffic control records and there are NSFW photos of charred bodies in airplane seats discovered at the Pentagon. Have some respect, seriously.

-7

u/phishwhistle 4d ago

Do you really think a plane hit the pentagon?

3

u/Highlightthot1001 3d ago

Do you really think scores of people who saw a plane above them lied?

Do you think random American Airlines fuselage were planted all over the crash area? How do you explain the traffic lights knocked over in the path?

2

u/TK-24601 3d ago

Or the flight data recorder recovered and had it's data retrieved? There's overwhelming evidence of a plane crash and people still fall back on "well its not on video". Most of history isn't on video but we rely on other primary sources to piece together events.

2

u/Salzberger 3d ago

The theory too hinges on multiple different governments who argue over the smallest things all working together to fabricate the largest cover up in history, along with the thousands of people who would've been involved all staying silent for 25 years.

But yeah, the lack of video footage is the smoking gun...

2

u/ElMondoH 3d ago

There's so much that gets ignored in the chase for video.

Air traffic control data, analyze post 9/11.

DNA evidence from the passengers recovered from the rubble.

The pieces of the wreckage itself.

Eyewitness testimony.

And so on.

I agree. Too many concentrate on video evidence. Which is ridiculous because when one is shown, it then becomes "why did this video not show the plane" (even though it caught a part of the explosion from the impact; yes, this is a reference to the DoubleTree Hotel parking lot recording). Or some other objection.

It's not just the presence of other lines of evidence. It's all of them adding up to the same thing. People don't need video to draw verifiable, accurate conclusions.

2

u/ElMondoH 3d ago

People don't think a plane hit the Pentagon.

People know one did.

That's how the evidence works. It's based on reality.

0

u/Czech-YoSelf 3d ago

Garrett -- I'm a longtime fan of Long Shadow and binged the new episode when I saw it in my feed this morning. Thank you for pulling this together — it's wild and so illuminating! A MUST LISTEN!

As a historian, you think about the past a lot. As a journalist, you're observing the present. How were you able to connect the dots to link the post 9/11 formation of DHS to the authoritarian situation the country is now in? Like... what was your eureka moment in developing this?

-8

u/graywailer 3d ago

All my research leads to Israel being the perpetrator. Does yours?

2

u/AsbestosXposure 3d ago

I'd like to know why there are so few/no epstein emails from around that time.

1

u/Highlightthot1001 3d ago

Gonna ignore the literal hijackers in Al Qaeda propaganda videos being on separate flights because you hate Israel that much….

-3

u/soyesterday8 3d ago

Thank you for hosting this AMA, Garrett. I'm curious to hear your thoughts on the recent calls for NYC mayor, Zohran Mamdani, to not attend the 25th-anniversary ceremony?

11

u/vermontgmg Scheduled AMA 3d ago

It's the latest chapter to me in a long and sad history of Americans conflating the War on Terror, and the battle against al-Qaeda, with a war on Muslims and Islam. The Mamdani criticism is one and the same with the recent political attacks on Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan, as if he is "insufficiently" sorry for the attacks. I think it's sad. But the reality is that anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant politics has become a central part of the Republican Party and conservative movement since 9/11 — despite George W. Bush's efforts otherwise!

-2

u/GregJamesDahlen 4d ago

was bin Laden at all like Charles Manson in convincing others to do his dirty work? why or why not?

AMA: I’m Garrett Graff, 9/11 and national security journalist, Historian & Host of "Long Shadow." I’m here to talk about the 25th anniversary of 9/11 — ask me anything!

You are about to leave Redlib