What if 9/11 didn't happen?

Note: This theory was originally written on the New Idea Central Wiki with a few elements from What if Argosy (pulp magazine) formed a film company in 1903?.
Depends largely on how visibly foiled the plot was. Iconic images of bloodied terrorists subdued by passengers aboard one or more planes will carry a lot of weight, but normal security halting the hijacking of all four planes will barely register in the national mindset.
George W. Bush entered his presidency in peacetime and the US is now in its fifth presidential term of undeclared war. Without 9/11, the invasion of Iraq is probably not possible, although dealing with Saddam Hussein’s continued agitations might (or might not) force a different method to calm him down, similar to what Reagan did with Libya in the 80s. A lack of Iraq invasion is going to prevent both the wider Arab spring and ISIS.
Afghanistan is still a big question mark, since it was always bin Laden’s goal to draw the west into an interminable conflict with the Muslim world. Clinton failed to capture or kill him late in his presidency, which was not revealed for some time after. If 9/11 is prevented, it’s possible that Bush gets a chance to do what Clinton did not. This might mean that al Qaeda dies a relatively unsung death in the Muslim world since their record is relatively unknown outside of some embassy attacks, the USS Cole and (in this timeline) two failed attacks on the WTC.
== Changes==
*NFTs either don't become a thing or at the very least die quickly due to people seeing them as an obvious scam.
*ITTL, Bill Cosby lives up to his family-friendly image far more and is a much better person who doesn’t abuse, rape, insult, etc.. As a result, he remains a prominent media figure to this day.
*Our solar system and everything in it, including the planet earth, is larger ITTL than in OTL (due to the larger size of the sun and the planets, the planets of the solar system are farther from the sun; this results in their temperatures being approximately the same as in OTL). A lot of Earth's cities, towns, etc. in OTL still exist ITTL; several of them are the same size as in OTL, while others are larger (an example being the State of Virginia, with an added city being North James, between the counties of Goochland and Henrico); with that being the case, there's more room on Earth; thus, in this alternative timeline has more continents, countries, states/provinces/territories, cities, towns, etc..
* The dodo bird species never went extinct.
*Alexander Lukashenko didn't become prime minister of Belarus, replacing him with someone else. Therefore, Belarus joins the Council of Europe and some other European communities.
*Global warming isn't frequent, reducing the polar bear species’ risk of extinction.
* China remains a democracy, and Tibet stays independent.
* No more layoffs, and the workers aren't overworked and underpaid.
*PETA is founded under the WWF to focus on proper animal care and as a monitor for zoos.
*Twin Towers of The World Trade Center continue to exist. The only notable thing was that Michael Jordan returned to basketball. Today, 2,977 people continue their lives as normal. The Pentagon finds the missing $2.3 trillion in transactions after a day of searching. Flights 11, 175 and 77 reach Los Angeles International Airport on time and Flight 93 reaches San Francisco Int'l Airport early on September 11, 2001.
* Al Gore was elected President in 2000.
**
*Due to them stealing art and information, AI art would never existed. 
**Uberduck would never remove the cartoon voices.
***As a result Uberduck would have permission to have cartoon voice models from the voice actors.
** GoAnimate would still keep the Non-Business themes after late 2015.
***The GoAnimate/Vyond Community aka GoAnimators/Vyonders and Plotagoners would never happened.
**SAG-AFTRA has signed a deal with Replica to allow actors to create & license a digital A.I. replica of their voice for video games & other media wouldn't happened.
*Save Koreans Japanese Chinese from extinction pollution.
*The COVID-19 outbreak and 2002-2004 outbreak doesn't happen.
** 2020-2022 films's original release date wouldn't delayed (due to the COVID-19 outbreak doesn't happen).
** All events wouldn't be cancelled.
**Films based on COVID-19 wouldn't exist.
*All productions wouldn't be rushed.
* Christine Weston Chandler is never born.
**As a result, Sonichu wouldn't exist.
*The riots wouldn't happen.
*Six Flags wouldn't merge with Cedar Fair Entertainment Company.
*Autism Speaks isn't founded.
*Adobe Flash doesn't shut down, due them fixing the zero day exploit, and starts development on a newer, more power-efficient Flash, to compete with HTML5.
*2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami and 2024 Sea of Japan earthquake doesn't happened.
*The following people didn't die and are still alive to this day ITTL (with some exceptions):
**Steve Irwin
**John F. Kennedy (until 2008)
**Walt Disney (until 1996)
**Bruce Lee
** Elvis Presley
**Jim Henson
**Freddie Mercury
**John Candy
**Kurt Cobain
** Frank Wells
**Bob Ross
**Chris Farley
**Aaliyah
** Chris Rebello
**Corey Haim
**Stephen J. Cannell
**Steve Jobs
**Jeff Conaway
**Whitney Houston
**Edd Gould
**Paul Walker
**Robin Williams
**Bob Hoskins
**Michael Friedman
**Harold Ramis
**James Horner
**kitty0706
**Wes Craven
**Alan Rickman
**Carrie Fisher
** Harambe
**Chester Bennington
**Brad Grey
** Autumn Snyder
** Jerimin Dilao
**Stephen Hillenberg
**Avicii
**Stefán Karl Stefánsson
**Etika
**Cameron Boyce
** Juice Wrld
**Kobe Bryant
**Rick May
**George Floyd
***Changes due to George Floyd's protests wouldn't happen.
**AinoPower
**Sean Connery
**Chadwick Boseman
**Dustin Diamond
**James Moulton
**Ivan Reitman
**Technoblade
**Coolio
**Kevin Conroy
** Jason David Frank
**Lisa Marie Presley
**Patrick Phyrillas
**Chris Shaffer
**Steve Harwell
*Humans live longer than they do IOTL.
*Cocomelon would never exist.
* Kraft wouldn't have made several commercials with the message just give up, kids won’t eat healthier food.
*Austria doesn't get renamed.
*FANDOM doesn't retire the Oasis skin.
** UPC was never introduced.
**Improve moderation.
**It doesn't close down wikis that have no set theme and are not spam.
**Badges are remained.
*Chuck E. Cheese's doesn't go bankrupt.
**The Chuck E. Cheese shooting in Aurora, Colorado doesn't happen.
*The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) wouldn't exist. 
**Underaged (12 and under) YouTube users wouldn't occur.
**Susan Wojcicki was never made CEO. Jawed Karim is still in charge.
**YouTube's copyright system is much better.
**The Happy Tree Friends short "YouTube Copyright School" does not exist.
**Users do not need Google accounts for YouTube.
**Instead of a "for kids/not for kids" system, a rating system similar to the ESRB was created exclusively for YouTube and: 0-3, all ages, for 7+ and up, for 10+ and up, 13+, and 16+. An 18+ rating was not made due to concerns that it would be used to upload pornographic content onto YouTube.
** Ratings are not assigned to videos by bots; the uploader has to set the rating themselves.
**The ratings also do not determine whether the comments can be disabled or not, as the comments can only be disabled if the uploader wants to disable them.
**Any video can be saved to a playlist, played on the miniplayer, and commented on (unless the uploader has manually disabled comments) regardless of their age rating.
** Annotations are still present, as are collaborative annotations.
**Titles are still above the video rather than below.
**Friend lists and video responses weren't retired.
**Each channel still has custom backgrounds.
**Dislikes continue to remain visible, as do comment dislikes.
**The crackdown on Elsagate videos has been much more successful.
**YouTube Rewinds have been made since 2007 ITTL (not having been cancelled in 2020 like in OTL), and have several differences: not overemphasizing on popular music or fads, are only aimed towards YouTube audiences instead of mainstream audiences, and only YouTubers are featured.
**All logos remain the same from OTL.
***This means that Adult Swim wouldn't take over Cartoon Network's 5:00pm hour and Checkered Past wouldn't exist.
*Elon Musk wouldn't acquire Twitter in 2023.
** The website wouldn't rename as X.
**Don't make it required to log in to view.
*Japan didn't invade China.
*All Kmart and Sears stores would remain open.
*Cable and satellite TV take a slightly longer time to start "dying" and streaming takes a slightly longer time to start gaining more popularity.
** Streaming services don't take over the world, though they still exist in the timeline but not to kill other competitors. 
***
*Normal TV shows don't get as politically biased as they do in OTL.
*Christmas doesn't become as commercialized as it does in OTL. Christmas music also would generally start playing on the radio and TV starting on Black Friday and not the day after Halloween.
*VHS tapes would still be manufactured to this very day.
**S-VHS and D-VHS saw more usage, due to instead being marketed as "second-generation" and "third-generation" versions of VHS.
**Fourth-generation VHS tapes started being manufactured in 2006, with the fifth generation arriving in 2018.
*The asteroid never hit Mexico, meaning that more dinosaurs survive, and some evolve into dragons.
**The dragons that actually exist ITTL are similar to these that exist in mythology IOTL.
*The USSR would successfully democratize under Boris Yeltsin, and wouldn't break up.
**The Baltic States would never be annexed by USSR after WWII.
**This means the Russia-Ukraine war doesn't happen, and Vladimir Putin is never in power.
**The Cold War would still end in 1993, with USA and USSR becoming allies, and Germany still reuniting.
**The full name of the country would be Union of Soviet Sovereign Republics.
**Mongolia, Manchuria, and Uyghurstan would be SSRs.
*The UK would have more autonomy for its Constituent Countries, meaning that Southern Ireland remains British.
**Brexit never happened ITTL.
*Micronesia (including the Federated States of Micronesia, Northern Mariana Islands, Marshall Islands, Palau, and U.S. Minor Outlying Islands) would have been colonized by the UK, making it a Commonwealth Realm.
Category:What if? ideas