![]() The fight in Afghanistan had support from the American people and the backing of NATO allies to dismantle al Qaeda, crush the Taliban and kill Osama bin Laden, the murderous mastermind of the 9/11 attacks.Īmerican support for the War on Terror became mixed as the campaign continued for years in an effort to target multiple terrorist cell and rogue regimes across the world. When American troops invaded Afghanistan less than a month after September 11th, they were launching what became the longest sustained military campaign in U.S. “It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated.” “Our war on terror begins with al Qaeda, but it does not end there,” said Bush. Bush addressed Congress and the nation on September 20, 2001, he made a case for a new kind of military response not a targeted air strike on a single training facility or weapons bunker, but a wide-ranging global War on Terror. Standing atop rubble with retired New York City firefighter Bob Beckwith, President George W Bush rallies firefighters and rescue workers at the site of the collapsed World Trade Center in New York City, September 14, 2001. WATCH: 9/11 Documentaries on HISTORY Vault 1. Here are five significant ways that America was changed by 9/11. “After the 9/11 attacks, the combination of fear and a recognition of various intelligence failures led to a range of policy changes that included restrictions on immigration, the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, and the expansion of the ‘no fly list’ from a very small number of people to thousands,” says David Sterman, a senior policy analyst at New America who studies terrorism and violent extremism.Īnd that was just the beginning. Congress and the White House answered with an unprecedented expansion of military, law enforcement and intelligence powers aimed at rooting out and stopping terrorists, at home and abroad. “Terrorism is aimed at carrying out acts of violence that will cause people to exaggerate the strength of the terrorist and the importance of their cause,” says Jenkins.Ĭonsumed by fear, grief and outrage, America turned to its leaders for action. The terrorists could very well attack again, perhaps with biological or nuclear weapons, and steps must be taken to stop them. What was once implausible and nearly unthinkable- a large-scale attack on American soil-became a collective assumption. The attacks cast a long shadow over American life from which the nation has yet to fully emerge. The shock and horror of September 11th wasn’t confined to days or weeks. ![]() READ MORE: 9/11: A Timeline of the Attacks “It was the largest attack by any foreign entity on U.S. ![]() “This was an attack unprecedented in the annals of terrorism in terms of its scale,” says Brian Michael Jenkins, a senior advisor to the president of the RAND Corporation and author of numerous reports and books on terrorism, including Will Terrorists Go Nuclear?. Nearly 3,000 Americans were killed on that clear, sunny morning when two hijacked airplanes crashed into the World Trade Center towers in New York City, another plowed into the Pentagon and a fourth was brought down in a crash on a Pennsylvania field by heroic passengers who fought back against terrorists. Septemis an inflection point-there was life before the terrorist attacks and there is life after them.
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