Twenty-five years after the September 11 attacks killed nearly 3,000 people, a progressive YouTube commentator named Hasan Piker has reopened an old and uncomfortable question: whether understanding the roots of political violence requires us to trace the hand that once fed those who later turned against us. Speaking with Axios, Piker invoked the concept of 'blowback'—the idea that American foreign policy interventions in the Middle East created conditions for violent retaliation—while insisting that explanation is not the same as moral acceptance. The distinction, long debated in academic and
Streamer Piker calls 9/11 'blowback,' draws backlash for U.S.-al-Qaeda comparison
The 9/11 attacks killed nearly 3,000 people in the United States.