The US blamed Osama Bin Laden for the 9/11 attacks on New York and bombed Afghanistan in retaliation killing thousands of innocent Afghans. Around 3000 people died in the New York attack. Around 300, 000 died in the wars after 9/11.
Former New York Mayor Giulani told current Mayor Zohran Mamdani it was inappropriate for him the attend the 911 Memorial suggesting that Muslims for responsible for the 9/11 attack.
Muslim Americans and people from Muslim-majority nations were among the victims who died on 9/11. Among the deceased were first responders like Salman Hamdani, a 23-year-old Pakistani-American NYPD cadet and emergency medical technician, who rushed to the Twin Towers to save lives and died in the collapse. And Tariq Amanullah, a vice president at Fiduciary Trust who was in the South Tower. Dozens of Muslim professionals working inside the towers lost their lives.
The friends and families of the Muslims who died on 9/11 mourn the deaths of their loved ones just as much everyone mourns their loved ones who died. However, Islamophobia has risen since with recent attacks on Mosques and Islamic centers.
Mamdani signed two executive orders ahead of the 25th anniversary of September 11. One creates an annual citywide Day of Remembrance and Service, including moments of silence, memorial programs, and volunteer opportunities. The other updates New York City’s continuity planning for emergencies, while Mamdani has also said he plans to attend the Ground Zero commemoration.
Mamdhani also released over 170,000 pages of city records this week, documents that had been buried, some literally, in 68 boxes stashed away in a city office for over two decades. What they show is not ambiguous.
City officials knew the air around Ground Zero was dangerous, contaminated with asbestos, benzene, and toxic dust, while publicly reassuring residents and responders it was safe to breathe.
The federal EPA made the same false assurance within a week of the attacks. Both levels of government chose calm messaging over honest warning, and thousands of people paid for that choice with their lungs, their bone marrow, their lives.
Here is the number that should stop you cold: more people have now died from 9/11-related illnesses than were killed in the attacks themselves. Over 140,000 people enrolled in the World Trade Center Health Program.
Nearly 50,000 diagnosed with certified WTC-related cancers. More than 12,000 firefighters alone carrying at least one related physical or mental health condition. This is not collateral damage from an act of terror.
This is the result of a deliberate decision by people in power to prioritise economic normalcy and political optics over the health of the very people who ran toward the disaster to help.
That is the real significance of this release. Not conspiracy. Confirmation, in writing, that first responders, residents, office workers, and schoolchildren in Lower Manhattan were sacrificed to a narrative of resilience their own government knew was false at the time it was told.
Mamdani framed it plainly: “the very least our city owes the families, survivors and first responders whose lives were forever changed by 9/11 is transparency and accountability.” That took twenty-five years, a lawsuit, and an administration finally willing to stop hiding behind red tape.
Millions more pages are coming over the next year. Whatever else those documents contain, the pattern already established here is damning enough: when empire needed a story of strength after 9/11, the truth about who was breathing poison became expendable.
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