What Happened? |
On Friday, the United States commemorates the twenty-fifth anniversary of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. On September 11, 2001, four commercial planes in the U.S. were hijacked by members of the terrorist organization Al Qaeda. |
Those planes were then flown into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. A fourth plane crashed in a field in Pennsylvania while heroic passengers attempted to subdue their hijackers. |
Two thousand nine hundred and seventy-seven victims were killed in New York and Washington, and thousands of workers and first responders who arrived at the scenes have died since then due to illnesses stemming from exposure to toxic chemicals. |
Why it Matters |
The terrorist attacks of September 11th altered the trajectory of American and world history in ways that are still being felt today. It was the single deadliest attack on the U.S. since Pearl Harbor. In response to the attacks, then President George W. Bush ordered American military forces to invade Afghanistan and then Iraq to find and eliminate those responsible for planning the attacks. Those military operations cost the U.S. two trillion dollars and thirty-five thousand casualties, including nearly five thousand military members killed in action. |
The fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 gave Americans a sense of triumph and invincibility for nearly a decade, but the 9/11 attacks shattered those feelings forever. Because the attacks were caught on video, the images themselves had a significant psychological impact. |
A massive surveillance state sprung up ostensibly to help find potential terrorists in the country who were planning attacks, but that surveillance system has also been used to spy on American citizens. The colossal Department of Homeland Security was established to better coordinate federal resources to find and arrest potential terrorists, but now that same apparatus is being used to hunt illegal immigrants. |
The U.S. military campaign to find and eliminate terrorist groups became known as the Global War on Terrorism, or GWOT for short, and it included dozens of countries besides Iraq and Afghanistan. GWOT lasted from October 2001, when U.S. forces launched attacks on Afghanistan, until 2021, when the U.S. military left that country. |
The leaders of Al Qaeda were eventually found and eliminated, including their top leader Osama Bin Laden, a wealthy Saudi who planned and funded the 9/11 attacks. He was found at a compound in Pakistan and killed in a daring raid by U.S. Special Forces. |
America itself became a more militarized society, with thousands of police departments receiving billions of dollars’ worth of military equipment to use against potential terrorists. It became a more heavily surveilled society and ubiquitous cameras quickly became a normal feature of modern life. |
The national debt swelled due to spending from GWOT conflicts, and politics became more polarized than ever. While Al Qaeda was defeated, the costs were enormous, and the phenomenon of extremist terrorism lives on today in a variety of different forms, including the current ruling regime in Tehran. |
How it Affects You |
For those who were old enough to remember 9/11, the events of the day itself dominate their memories. For younger generations who were either not yet born or too young to recall it, the response to 9/11 and the prominent features of the post-9/11 world are what defines their understanding of that day. As the war with Iran demonstrates, the legacy of 9/11 is still driving the policies of the U.S. government today. |
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