Javed Ali, associate professor of practice at the Ford School of Public Policy, began teaching in 2018. His government career in Washington, D.C., spanned from 2002-18, where he held positions in the Defense Intelligence Agency and the Department of Homeland Security before joining the FBI.
Before his government career started, he was in Washington on the morning of the attacks, and passed the Pentagon about 30 minutes before the third hijacked plane hit the building. A few minutes later, he could see the smoke rising from the Pentagon in the aftermath of the attack.
Based on his experience in Washington and the additional insights he's developed since teaching at U-M, he's had time to reflect on what the attacks meant for the country. He says one of the most important developments was "the government's ability to degrade and disrupt the abilities of terror groups from directly attacking the U.S.—at least at the scale and impact of 9/11—driven by new laws, tools and capabilities."
On the other side of the spectrum, he says, "the post-9/11 era created ethical and moral dilemmas associated with mass surveillance measures, detention and interrogation programs, and military operations that put hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops in harm's way and killed or wounded civilians and noncombatants. In addition, the direct financial costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan totalled in the trillions of dollars, according to some estimates."
Event: 25 years after 9/11: Reflections on the U.S. war on terror
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