Grand proclamations about an “axis of evil”prefaced wars that killed hundreds of thousands of Arabs and brown people, human beings tabulated as mere casualties, the sanctity of their lives incinerated just like the twin towers. The government tortured people and held them in secret prisons.

And then, the double tragedy: young American soldiers — the Sept. 11 generation of heroes — were sent to their early deaths because the attacks on America were hijacked for political ends by people in Washington.

Violence was done not just to bodies, but to language as well, and the word “terrorism” became a catchall phrase used to indict individuals on accusations alone. You had to choose a side: Were you with us, or with the terrorists? The outright manipulation of the people — assisted at times by a credulous media — all coarsened the country, turning a once proud and optimistic nation into a cynical and polarized place. A spiritual pallor descended over America.

If the United States were to have deliberately tried to make the worst possible foreign policy choices in the wake of Sept. 11, the results would have been only a little more disastrous than what actually happened. America invaded one country that had nothing to do with the attacks, and was drawn into a conflict with a tribal-extremist group of another country that could go on in perpetuity.

We were told that America would make no distinction between terrorists and the nations that harbored them. But 15 of the 19 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia, and there is credible evidence that at least parts of the Saudi government — business partners of both the Bush and Trump families — were aware of the coming attacks. Nothing but more business deals were done.

There was a hidden cost to all this enormous energy expended on war and bombings. Not just the refugees or the cages or the guarantee of tomorrow’s terrorists. Not just the racism and xenophobia internalized by brown-skinned children who became adults in the shadows of this mass tragedy. All the policy focus on war meant there was too little time spent on the cataclysmic challenges of the 21st century: climate change and wealth inequality, both of which will plague our generation long after the warmongers have disappeared.

This is not to exculpate the terrorists or their ideology. For them, I reserve a special fury, just as their actions induce in me a special shame. When I think of Islamists monopolizing and weaponizing a great religion, I am filled with rage — rage at the audacity to shout Allah’s name while sending innocent people to their deaths; rage at the perversion of so many minds by their religious leaders; rage at the reality of living in a brown body that is stereotyped, misperceived and disfigured beyond my recognition — and there is nothing I can do to save it. This is the world Sept. 11 gave us.