It seems like one doesn't get much of an opportunity to influence the present either.
I remember that about half way between the 72 and the 23 attacks that I formulated a theory that trying to stop it was what we were doing the wrong thing. We kept stopping it before it got done. Over and over we stopped it just when it had extracted the worst human toll.
Saving no lives at all, insuring that the underlying issues never got resolved. Why,,, back in the good olden days we used to finish wars.
Except we didn't finish them them any better back then than we do now. I don't hold with that simple "finish the war" theory anymore. I don't have a solution anymore, I never did have a solution, I just thought I did.