9/11 and George Washington's Warning Against Entangling Alliances

The wound of September 11, 2001, has not closed. It has aged, but it has not disappeared.

Nearly 3,000 people were killed. Families were broken in a single morning. Firefighters, police officers, office workers, airline passengers, flight crews, bystanders, and rescuers entered the nation’s memory forever. Some saw the horror from the streets of New York, Arlington, and Pennsylvania. Millions more watched it unfold on television, unable to look away and unable to understand how the world had changed so quickly.

Twenty-five years later, remembrance still matters. So does honesty.

The 9/11 attacks were an act of mass murder carried out by al-Qaeda. That fact should never be softened. Yet the history around 9/11 is larger than one morning, one organization, or one leader. It sits inside a long record of empire, oil, religion, ideology, financial power, and foreign policy choices that tied the United States to the Middle East in ways George Washington warned against at the very beginning of our republic.

Washington warned against foreign influence for a reason

George Washington did not live in a world of oil concessions, global banking, intelligence agencies, or commercial jetliners. Yet his Farewell Address in 1796 spoke directly to a danger that modern America has faced again and again: the danger of being pulled into foreign rivalries until national judgment is clouded.

The phrase “no entangling alliances” is often linked to Washington, though the exact wording comes from Thomas Jefferson’s First Inaugural Address. Washington’s own warning was just as clear. He cautioned Americans not to let foreign powers manipulate domestic politics or drag the United States into permanent attachments.

His famous passage reads:

That line deserves careful reading. Washington was not calling for hatred of foreign nations. He was not telling Americans to distrust one people, one faith, or one region. He was calling for fair, balanced vigilance.

He warned against favoritism. He warned against emotional attachments to foreign powers. He warned against allowing outside interests to shape American decisions from within.

That is why 9/11 and Washington’s and Jefferson's warnings against entangling alliances belong in the same conversation. The attacks did not happen in a vacuum. They came after decades of American involvement in the Middle East, including alliances with monarchies, military deployments, covert actions, arms deals, oil partnerships, and support for regional power struggles.

To say that history mattered is not to excuse terrorism. It is to take Washington seriously.

The World Trade Center was never just a group of buildings

The World Trade Center became a target because it symbolized American financial power, globalization, and New York’s role as a command center of the world economy. Al-Qaeda’s public statements focused on U.S. military presence in the Middle East, support for Israel, sanctions and wars involving Iraq, and what its leaders described as Western domination of Muslim lands.

There is no credible public evidence that the towers were attacked simply because of the Rockefeller family. But the Rockefeller connection to the World Trade Center is real, VERY real, and it helps explain why that site carried such symbolic weight, and why it was a primary target.

David Rockefeller, president and later chairman of Chase Manhattan Bank, was one of the leading voices behind the redevelopment of Lower Manhattan after World War II. He helped create and lead the Downtown-Lower Manhattan Association, which promoted a major international trade center as a way to revive the financial district.

His brother, Nelson Rockefeller, then governor of New York and later Vice President under President Gerald Ford, also played a major role in the political process that made the project possible. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey built and owned the complex. The World Trade Center was not a Rockefeller private project in the narrow sense, but the family’s influence, money, relationships, and globalist aspirations completely enabled it from an idea into reality.

That matters because the towers represented more than office space. They represented a worldview.

They stood for:

• International finance, where banking interests control world activity

• Open global trade

• State-backed development

• American commercial reach and influence

• New York’s place at the center of global capital

  
  

To supporters, this was progress. To enemies of the United States, it was a visible symbol of power. Perhaps an overreach of power beyond our borders, involving entangling alliances. The terrorists chose civilians as targets, which made the act morally indefensible. Still, the symbolism was not accidental.

The Rockefellers helped shape international institutions

The Rockefeller family’s influence did not stop with oil or Lower Manhattan. It reached into philanthropy, diplomacy, education, public health, and international affairs.

While John D. Rockefeller Jr. did not directly found the League of Nations. The League grew out of the aftermath of World War I and was closely associated with President Woodrow Wilson’s international vision, backed by Rockefeller. The United States never joined it. Still, Rockefeller money and Rockefeller-backed institutions supported most of its internationalist causes during the 20th century, often against the best interests of the United States.

The family’s role in the United Nations story is more direct.

After World War II, the United Nations needed a permanent headquarters. John D. Rockefeller Jr. purchased land along the East River in Manhattan and donated it for the UN complex. That gift helped place the United Nations in New York City, tying the city, and the Rockefeller family, even more closely to global diplomacy. As part of their family indoctrination to be eligible to benefit from family trust funds, family members are encouraged to work for the United Nations, even today.

David Rockefeller also supported international engagement throughout his life. Through Chase Manhattan Bank, the Council on Foreign Relations which is still funded mostly by the Rockefeller family, philanthropic networks, and personal relationships with world leaders, he became one of the most visible private citizens in America’s foreign policy circles.

To admirers, this reflected a serious commitment to peace, trade, development, and global cooperation. To critics, it showed how private wealth could sit too close to public power, and even control the publicly-facing politicians.

Both views raise a hard question: when wealthy private actors shape global institutions, who watches the watchers?

Washington’s warning applies here too. Foreign influence is not only a matter of foreign governments whispering in American ears. Influence also moves through banks, foundations, oil companies, universities, lobbyists, military contracts, and elite social networks. The "deep state" if you will.

That does not mean every international institution is corrupt. It means a republic must stay alert when private power and public policy become intertwined.

Oil tied America to the Middle East in lasting ways

The Rockefeller fortune began with Standard Oil, the company John D. Rockefeller built into one of the most powerful businesses in American history. After the U.S. Supreme Court ordered Standard Oil broken up in 1911, its successor companies remained major players in global energy. Those companies include Chevron, Exxon (previously Esso), Mobil (now combined into ExxonMobil), Amoco, Marathon Oil, Vasoline, British Petroleum, Conoco, Saudi Aramco, and even the credit rating company Transunion.

By the 20th century, oil had become more than a business. It was the fuel of navies, armies, aircraft, factories, cars, and modern economies. Control over oil meant control over strategic power. Indeed, control over your life.

The Middle East, especially after major discoveries in Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf, became central to that power. American oil companies owned by the Rockefeller family, with roots in the old Standard Oil system, entered deep relationships with Saudi Arabia and other regional states. These relationships involved concessions, payments, infrastructure, political access, and long-term agreements with ruling families.

It is fair to say that oil money helped bind American business interests to Middle Eastern monarchies. It is also fair to say that the United States often tolerated repression, royal privilege, and anti-democratic systems when oil supplies and strategic access were at stake.

History shows close relationships between American oil interests and Saudi rulers. It shows commercial payments, government-backed partnerships, and a steady merging of energy policy with foreign policy.

The point does not require exaggeration. Oil created entanglement.

America needed oil. Oil companies wanted access. Middle Eastern rulers wanted revenue and protection. U.S. presidents wanted stability. Arms dealers found customers. Military planners wanted bases. Intelligence agencies wanted influence. Each step created another tie.

Over time, those ties became hard to cut.

Entanglement created blowback

The word “blowback” describes unintended consequences from foreign policy actions. It does not mean every attack is America’s fault. It means actions abroad can create reactions that come home in unexpected and terrible ways.

By the late 20th century, the United States had built a heavy footprint in the Middle East. It backed allies, sold weapons, protected oil routes, stationed troops, opposed Soviet influence, fought wars, enforced sanctions, and worked with governments that many people in the region viewed as illegitimate.

Al-Qaeda used these grievances for its own violent ideology. Its leaders twisted real political anger into a campaign of religious extremism and mass killing. They did not represent all Muslims, all Arabs, or all critics of American policy. They represented a fanatical movement willing to murder civilians for spectacle and power.

Still, Washington’s warning helps us see why foreign entanglements are dangerous. They do not stay overseas. They pull domestic politics, military spending, civil liberties, immigration debates, religious tensions, and public fear into one knot.

After 9/11, the United States entered wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The war in Afghanistan targeted al-Qaeda and the Taliban government that sheltered it. The Iraq War, launched in 2003, became far more disputed and destabilizing. Both wars cost lives, money, trust, and moral clarity.

The attacks also reshaped life at home. Americans saw new security systems, surveillance debates, airport restrictions, terrorism alerts, and a long argument over how much freedom should be traded for safety.

Washington understood the pattern before the modern world gave it modern tools. Foreign attachments, once formed, change the republic itself.

The lesson is vigilance, not isolation

Washington did not argue that America should have no contact with the world. Trade, diplomacy, cultural exchange, and temporary cooperation all have their place. The danger lies in permanent dependence, emotional favoritism, and private interests that push the country toward foreign commitments the public does not fully understand.

A serious lesson from 9/11 should include several truths at once.

The dead deserve remembrance without politics cheapening their memory. Terrorism deserves condemnation without excuses. Islam should not be blamed for the crimes of al-Qaeda. American foreign policy should not be treated as innocent simply because America was attacked. Wealthy families and corporations should not be turned into myths, but their influence should not be ignored either.

The Rockefeller story shows how private wealth can help build public monuments and international institutions. The oil story shows how business needs can become strategic commitments of our nation. The Middle East story shows how religion, land, security, empire, and money can feed conflicts across generations.

Washington’s Farewell Address asks citizens to stay awake to all of it.

Not paranoid. Awake.

Not biased against one foreign nation. Awake to every foreign influence.

Not hostile to the world. Awake to the cost of being ruled by alliances, dependencies, and fears.

Remembering 9/11 means asking harder questions

The pain of 9/11 remains sacred ground. The lives lost should be remembered first, before theories, politics, or arguments. Grief deserves that order.

But remembrance should not stop at mourning. A republic honors its dead by learning from history, especially when the lessons are uncomfortable.

The World Trade Center stood at the crossing point of finance, global trade, political power, and private influence. The Rockefeller family was and still is instrumental in shaping that world, from Lower Manhattan to international institutions. Oil wealth and Middle Eastern alliances helped draw the United States into relationships that carried both profit and danger. Violent extremists turned their hatred toward civilians and changed history in a morning.

George Washington warned that foreign influence would test the judgment of a free people. He warned that alliances and attachments could bend national purpose. He warned that a republic must guard its independence of mind.

On September 11, America saw the terrible cost of a world where distant conflicts are never truly distant.

The clearest tribute we can offer is memory joined to wisdom. Remember the dead. Tell the truth carefully. Question power. Resist hatred. And keep Washington’s warning alive, because our republic still needs it.