Also the usual pattern (seen in many countries/empires, not just USA) - since civil war war-profiting (closely related to the two parties & why the switch happened) the industry was always hungry and in need of a good loosing-ish war (or - only short periods without a war).

It always follows the same pattern --> need for profits/power expenditure rises --> if public is (fuded) on board, great, if not, we need a terrorist-like attack, seemingly unpreventable yet utterly publicly show before it happened.

Like in WWII, USA had stakes on both sides, but also not 'as big' of a military budget as they could have. The problem was that the public was super against entering the conflict (80~90% against, this is the time when the civil war was well within lining memory with soldiers and widows on proper military pensionsv still alive, regular parades, etc). So for the first time ever they decide to put all their ship-eggs in one Pearl-basket & advertise that move a lott, how they did that, where they did that (how much time they are gonna wait there, lul), and what defenses are there, how the seamen were sent home etc. All under the disguise of showing their military power to Japan (that's like exposing your balls to an enemy that is already attacking you). Ofc the attack successfully happened, propaganda machine spun up (still today we get movies about that, 'the horror'), the public option switched over night and politicians could hike the military budget substantially. (Movies that we don't get is about what/how USA did to japan - like how they killed more civilians with regular carpet bombing per day compared to the killed in blasts of atomic bombs - the most destructive single air attack in human history ... and USA dropped about 4× as much bombs total in Vietnam)

The same with 9-11, public is anti war, you have the two towers and movies detailing how easy it would be to crash a plane into specifically the towers. Or Vietnam proxy war, which lasted for so long that the public turned back against it (hippies) and government had to demonize them (the ridiculous anti weed laws/enforcement, "satanism", etc).

Funding and assisting a foreign terrorist group for profit is shockingly common. Sometimes you even have to manufacture a new group because the existing don't suit your needs.

Oh, and the atrocities compared are always like x killed in domestic attack, xxxxxx killed in the foreign bombarding campaign. When public opinion isn't that big of an issue a smaller trigger point is needed - usually USA sends literal military personnel into sovereign foreign countries & when the invaded county returns fire in the invading force USA counts that as an act of war (huh, I guess technically that is correct).