• Yep. 9/11 was a golden opportunity for people in government who had been warmongering and fearmongering. Dick Cheney (who was SecDef under Bush I) and Donald Rumsfeld (who was SecDef under Ford and Bush II) were absolutely clamoring throughout the 90s for going back to the Middle East for war. We also had Biden who had co-authored an Omnibus bill in the mid 90s that he’d been trying to push through that was the prototype for the Patriot Act. And 9/11 served up the opportunity for all of them to get exactly what they wanted. They may not have planned it or orchestrated it, but they were absolutely happy to pounce on it as an excuse for driving civil rights back to the stone age.