Lies My Teacher Told Me

descriptions, though.) What about the “why” question, which today’s students
do need to contemplate? In its teacher’s edition, Holt makes clear that “why”
is not something teachers should address: “Tell students that in this section they
will learn about the attacks of September 11, 2001, their economic and social
consequences, and the response by Americans and the U.S. government.”
Pathways to the Present and Boorstin and Kelley also ignore the “why”
question. The Americans blurs any causal investigation by adding in terrorist
acts by the Irish Republican Army, Peru’s Shining Path movement, and Japan’s

religious cult, Aum Shinrikyo.^12 Only Pageant tells why the United States was
attacked:

Bin Laden was known to harbor venomous resentment toward

the United States for its economic embargo against Saddam

Hussein’s Iraq, its growing military presence in the Middle

East (especially on the sacred soil of the Arabian Peninsula),

and its support for Israel’s hostility toward Palestinian

nationalism. Bin Laden also fed on worldwide resentment of

America’s enormous economic, military, and cultural power.

The first sentence accurately summarizes the “Declaration of the World Islamic
Front for Jihad against the Jews and the Crusaders” that Osama bin Laden,
leader of al Qaeda, which was responsible for the 9/11 attacks, issued in

1998.^13 The second sentence is also accurate and useful.

Unfortunately, other than Pageant’s two sentences, today’s textbooks leave
students defenseless against the misinterpretations deliberately spread by our
government. Nine days after the attacks, President George W. Bush gave
Congress his answer to the “why” question:

Americans are asking, why do they hate us? They hate what we

see right here in this chamber—a democratically elected

government. Their leaders are self-appointed. They hate our

freedoms—our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our

freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other.^14

What a happy thought: they hate us because we are good!

Bush repeated variants on that paragraph throughout the next year. Perhaps
because it is so consoling, his interpretation took hold widely. The first and
perhaps leading book interpreting the terrorist attacks for young people,
Understanding September 11th, by Time reporter Mitch Frank, made a similar