9/11: Remembering the Day, Reflecting on What Followed

 

Today is 09/11/2026 in the American format of writing the date. Twenty-five years ago, on a day like this, I was in Japan. I had just successfully defended my PhD thesis, and was preparing to go to Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, USA, to start a postdoctoral fellowship in human computational motor control. That day I came home from the lab so tired, to receive a phone call from a friend in a distressed voice, asking me to turn on the TV.

 

What was unfolding on the TV screen shocked me. My legs went numb, and I called my wife, Visakha. The unimaginable was happening. I kept getting phone calls from friends. Some planned a fund-raising event in the Irish Pub in the city. Sri Lankan friends got together and cooked some spicy food for the fund raiser dinner in the pub. Folks from different countries living in Saga came together in one thought – that unity will rise above hatred. I felt so much energy in that friendship among people I never had met, but came together in the following weekend fundraiser evening.

 

In the following month, me and my wife, Visakha, flew to Baltimore. It was our first time in America. On the way, we had to take two transits in other countries, and we felt the tight security scrutiny, especially because we were South Asians. When we landed in the Newark Airport, we were tense. The long line was slowly moving through the immigration counters. Our turn came, and the immigration officer checked our documents, and welcomed us to America.

While we were waiting outside for our local flight to Baltimore, several strangers talked with us about random things. The tone in every conversation had the assumption that we were locals. It was our first taste of America. It was different, it had openness, and it had a tone that invited humbleness.

 

At Johns Hopkins, the community were still in shock. Daily conversations had a political tone. People were deeply questioning the American identity, and its future course. The community at Johns Hopkins was very diverse. People had roots in many different countries in the world. One day, there was a speech by an academic leader to the scholarly community. It had so much energy to galvanise unity and harmony in the community against divisive atrocities. It was my first taste of leadership that could alleviate fear, suspicion, and frustration in a community.

 

 

 

 

 

Yet, I was deeply questioning what the perpetrators of the 9/11 terrorist attacks might have had in their minds when they planned it. There must have been a bigger objective going beyond simply destroying two skyscrapers and part of the Pentagon. Perhaps what happened afterwards, from within the US government, could have been part of their objective—to drag the US into a war in the Middle East? The stated aim was to destroy weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) that could have posed a threat to allies such as Israel. There was a huge Jewish community in Baltimore, and we were good friends with several very kind families. We felt their concerns, but we also had frank conversations about the effectiveness and human cost of an invasion of Iraq, when so many civilians were being killed with no sign of the WMDs that had been used to justify the war.

 

We felt the rising civilian frustration about the Bush administration’s war in Iraq. Many experts who knew Afghanistan also predicted that it would be almost impossible to destroy Al-Qaeda through a ground invasion. The mess created by the interventions in the Middle East ultimately contributed to conditions in which ISIS could grow stronger. Luckily, ISIS never posed the kind of direct physical threat to Israel that many had feared, although it waged terror elsewhere. We were relieved, at least, to see that our friends in Israel were safe.

 

Baltimore was just a 30-minute drive from Washington, DC. Therefore, we often went to DC, and the National Mall became a place for walks with our newly born daughter. What was inscribed on the walls of every memorial we walked past left lasting impressions on our minds about the high aspirations and ideals upon which America was built.

 

The Thomas Jefferson Memorial has this inscription: “I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions. But laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.”

 

The Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial carries another powerful statement: “I have said this before, but I shall say it again and again and again: Your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars.” Nearby is another inscription: “We must be the great arsenal of democracy.”

 

Fast forward to 2026, and I am again saddened to see America drawn into the war with Iran, causing immense damage not only to the Middle East but also to the wider world. This comes at an enormous cost to American taxpayers and, to me, seems far removed from the aspirations of America’s founders and from the principles expressed by great leaders such as FDR, the very ideals we encountered on those walls as we walked through the National Mall.

 

On this day of memorial, reflection, and solemness, I request all those who love America, benefited from its open heartedness, and the never quenching desire to uplift those who aspire to be successful in that great land, to deeply resolve not to let American military power to be abused by anybody else on the planet by purposely putting America in danger to drag it to war Americans never want. Americans deserve better, by investing that money in American infrastructure, education, innovation, and business promotion with trade across the globe. Defence is best done not through miscalculated wars, but through a combination of diplomacy and presence.