I was in New York City on the day the two planes hit the twin towers, saw the smoke, smelled burning flesh, and comforted a neighbor who narrowly escaped one of the towers, guided by brave firefighters who subsequently died when that Tower collapsed.  On 9/11/26, we listened to several beautiful and moving remembrances of that terrible day when nearly 3,000 lives were lost. So, it was quite astonishing to see that Marshall Helmberger chose this occasion to criticize American foreign policy, promote the legitimacy of Osama bin Laden’s stated grievances, and seemed to frame 9/11 primarily as a consequence of American policy, rather than as an act of terrorism, driven by a radical Islamist ideology that is hostile to American and Western influence in Muslim countries. 
Yes, America has made policy mistakes both before and after 9/11, but they were not the cause of 9/11.  Bin Laden’s central complaint was the mere presence of American troops in Saudi Arabia, which he called an “occupation”, even though they were approved by the Saudi government.  The 9/11 Commission documented bin Laden’s increasingly explicit campaign against America beginning in the early 1990s. In 1996, he issued a declaration calling for Americans to be driven from Saudi Arabia. In 1998, he and his allies issued a declaration calling for the killing of Americans wherever possible, and called it an individual religious duty.  That same year, Al-Qaeda bombed U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, and in 2000 bombed the USS Cole. Al-Qaeda, like other Islamic jihadist factions, embraces the Muslim concept of waqf, which holds that any land once conquered by Muslims must remain forever held in trust for Allah.  For jihadists, this means there is a religious duty to prevent any non-Muslim influence or control of any land conquered by the Ottoman Empire. For jihadists, this alone means U.S. presence in the Muslim World must be expelled by any means necessary.
Mr. Helmberger also cites bin Laden’s grievance against U.S. support of Israel but bin Laden’s campaign against the United States was rooted in a much broader Islamist ideology and opposition to American military and political influence in the Muslim world.  Israel was one of several political and ideological grievances invoked by bin Laden, but suggesting that objection to U.S. support of Israeli was a central cause for the 9/11 attack is misleading. However, it did give Mr. Helmberger an opportunity to air his criticism of Israel.
It is not realistic to believe that adjusting U.S. foreign policy can guarantee protection from terrorism. Reducing America’s involvement abroad might alter some conditions in which terrorism develops, but it would not eliminate determined extremists, whether radicalized abroad or here on the internet. The realistic goal of government is not to make terrorism impossible, but to make it harder to plan, harder to execute, and more likely to be detected and stopped while preserving the openness, freedom and confidence in democratic self-government that defines America. The steps taken by our government since 9/11 have successfully prevented major terrorist attacks in the U.S. for the past 25 years.
Charles Marsden
Ely