September 11 Attacks, Research Paper Example

According to the Britannica Encyclopedia, the attacks of September 11 of 2001 were a series of suicide terrorist attacks committed that day in the United States. According to the official version of the US Government, were committed by members of the Al Qaeda jihadist network, through the hijacking of aircraft in line to be impacted against multiple targets, causing the death of nearly 3000 people, producing more than 6000 wounded, as well as the destruction of the scene of the World Trade Center in NYC and devastating damage to the Pentagon, in the State of Virginia, being the episode that would precede to the Afghanistan war and the adoption by the US Government and its allies of the policy called war against terrorism. (Britannica 2015)

The attacks were attributed to nineteen members of the jihadist network Al-Qaeda ,1 divided in four groups of kidnappers, each of them with a terrorist pilot that would be responsible for piloting the plane once already reduced the cabin crew. The aircraft of the flights 11 and 175 American Airlines United Airlines were the first to be kidnapped, being both sent crashing into the twin towers of the World Trade Center, the first against the North tower and the second shortly after against the South, causing both skyscrapers will collapse in the next two hours. (Kean 2004)

In his journal entry concerning the causes of terrorism, author Pilat notes the increased concerns of Jihad as well as other worrying forms of terrorism. It would have to be inhuman not to condemn the attacks of September 11 against the Twin Towers and the Pentagon on the part of al-Qaeda, and it would be cruel who did not show solidarity with the more than three thousand victims of the terrorist act. (Pilat 2009)

Having said that, we need to go deeper into the question and ask ourselves: why did this attack happen so premeditated and thoroughly? Things do not pass simply because some crazed are filled with hatred and commit such crimes against their political opponents. There should be deeper causes that if persist will continue to be fed into terrorism.

If we look at the history of more than a century, we realize that the West as a whole, and particularly the United States have humiliated the Muslim countries of the Middle East. Controlled their governments, took their oil and staged immense military bases. They left behind much bitterness and anger, culture broth for revenge and terrorism. Part of this may have been influenced by Mohamed Atta, a 9/11 hijacker of American Airlines flight 11, who was thought to be Muslim. Really, Mohamed was Egyptian. (Coll 2005)

A terrible method of terrorism is the kind that occupies the minds. In the wars and the guerrillas will you need to fill the physical space to actually succeed;in the terror or not simply occupy the minds, and distort the imaginary fear. This was seen in the War on Terror in the midst of the early 2000’s. The Americans occupied physically the Afghanistan of the Taliban and Iraq, but the Taliban occupied psychologically the minds of Americans. There was unfortunately the prophecy that made Bin Laden on October 8, 2002: “The United States you’ll never be safe, never more will have peace”. (Kean 2004)

So as not to give the impression of being un-American, transcribe here part of the words of the bishop of Melbourne Beach (Florida), Robert Bowman, who before being bishop had been fighter pilot and military carried out 101 combat missions in the Vietnam war. He wrote an open letter to the then President Bill Clinton, who ordered the bombing in Nairobi and Dar Salam in 1998, where the American embassies had been attacked by terrorism. The content is applicable also to Bush, who took the war to Afghanistan and Iraq, war continued by Obama. (Lyman 2004)

We have done that in Iran, in Chile and in Vietnam, Nicaragua, and in the rest of the “banana republics” of Latin America. Country after country, our government is opposed to democracy, stifled freedom and violated the rights of the human being. This is the cause why they hate us throughout the world. For this reason that we are targets of terrorists. Evidence of this is presented as the 9/11 Commission reports that the Iranian government assisted in planning the weaponry used in the 9/11 attacks for Al-Qaeda. (Lyman 2004)

Steven Emerson along with co-author Daniel Pipes wrote an entry in the Wall Street Journal about Iranian officials allowed Al-Qaeda pass through Iranian borders with explosives. Instead of sending our sons and daughters in the world by killing Arabs and thus obtain the oil beneath his land, we should send them to rebuild its infrastructure, feuding with drinking water, feed the children at risk of starvation. This is the truth and this is what the American people must understand.(Emerson & Pipes 2001)

The right answer was not to fight terror with terror in the Bush, but rather with solidarity. Members of the associations of victims of the Twin Towers were to Afghanistan to form associations to help the people come out of misery. Through this humanity is as void the causes that lead to terrorism. (Kean 2004)

Even before the September 11, Afghanistan, Iraq and anything having to do with the Middle East had been exclusively a matter of academics, politicians and internationalists. Even the Gulf War of 1991, transmitted live and direct on CNN and achievement arouse for a long time. After that day, the whole world rediscovered and became interested in the region, Islam and everything related to its people. Only in the first three months after the attacks, were published in USA dozens of books relating to the history, geography, geopolitics and culture of that region of the planet, which for many was barely only a waypoint on the map. (Zelizer 1992)

But since then has been published quite, the chasm between the West and the Islamic world is bigger than ever, but salvageable. “The Arab riots have shown that democracy is not only possible, it can arise outside the sponsorship of the West”, explains Cesar Door, historian and professor of contemporary political history of the University of San Marcos. (Coll 2005)

However, the greatest consequence of the attacks was the identification of all Arabic and Islamic terrorism as well noted by author Coskun in the Journal of Suleyman Demirel University Institute of Social sciences. . This demonization continues to persists even today. The Sikh community, for example, that is not Muslim, is one of those who has suffered most the prejudice of the Americans in these ten years due to the turban and long beards that distinguish them. The protests last year against the construction of an Islamic center near Ground Zero and the publicized announcement of an evangelical pastor to burn copies of the Qur’an ( “Islam is the devil”, preached), are another illustration of such intolerance that was installed in the US after the attacks. (Coskun 2012)

Well, things became very difficult for American Muslims. A survey by the Pew Institute Research Center for the people and the Press disclosed this week revealed that something as simple as shopping or take the subway became reason for fear for them. And although more than half of those surveyed said feel ‘guarded’, a 48% recognized that many Americans helped them to cope with this bad time.

The people who experienced directly the terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers continues to develop a set of psychological problems, such as PTSD, depression, anxiety disorders and the self-destructive behaviors, including alcohol and drug addiction. The terrible mortality rate due to the collapse of these buildings of more than 100 flats has led to a process called complicated grief or traumatic. For those people who experienced a duel of this type, the death of their loved ones was like a jolt that produced a sort of traumatic reaction.

The experiences of an individual during and shortly after the traumatic event can also influence their reactions to trauma. For example, the degree of dissociation during and immediately after the event has been associated with the degree of post-traumatic distress and PTSD .  An extreme degree of anger or guilt post-trauma (frequent among survivors of the Twin Towers) seems to increase the risk of a pathological response.  In addition, the acute stress disorder during the first month after the trauma is associated with an increased risk of PTSD.  The role of social support in the recovery process is not entirely clear, although there is evidence that indicates that the negative social support (such as blaming the victim by the traumatic event) seem to hinder the recovery process.

The terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers affected the whole world of directly and indirectly. As stated in an article by History.com, the entire nation was in mourning as well as many other countries. Even countries like France felt as if these terrorist attacks were attacks not only on the US, but on the world. The financial center of Wall Street remained closed for several days, as well as American airports, and the whole country lived a season of startled and uncertainty. (History 2010)

Author Sacha Pfeiffer wrote in her article about how 9/11 is taught through education in many ways; from the history of the attacks to how education can contribute. Several governmental institutions, private and academic joined forces to provide guidance, crisis intervention, and training in the evaluation and treatment of reactions to the trauma. For example, the Psychiatric Institute of the State of New York and Columbia University created a network of information of mental health professionals who are interested in voluntarily offer their services to the victims of the Twin Towers disaster. In addition, these and other academic institutions offered numerous workshops to educate and train mental health professionals in the city about the treatments for trauma that have been endorsed by scientific evidence. (WBUR 2015)

The New York Consortium for effective treatment of the trauma, funded by the Foundation of the New York Times, was created to address the psychosocial needs of families, adults and children in the aftermath of the Twin Towers. The mission of the Consortium is to organize the distribution between the health services clinic staff well trained and create an infrastructure to assess the effectiveness and quality of treatment through continuous training, the promotion of treatments backed by scientific evidence and the follow-up studies to assess the impact of the services provided. Although there are the requisite knowledge of effective treatments and the process of training that they require, due to the magnitude of the event, nor the city of New York or anywhere in the world has the infrastructure and trained personnel to cope with a disaster of this nature.

This also affected tourism in New York as noted by Bajekal in his TIMES article titled “The Economic Toll of Terrorism”. It took the city 34 months to return to their normal hotel occupancy levels after 9/11. Tourism in countries such as Egypt were also affected by acts of terrorism as their tourism industry fell 8% after the 2005 attacks. Bali suffered terrorist bombings in 2002 which led them to cut their hotel prices by 37%. (Bajekal 2015)

Unfortunately, the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks led to many unfavorable policy changes in surveillance and civil liberties. This was well defined in Mathieu Deflem’s article on the fear of counterterrorism. The most notable change in surveillance policy was the enactment of the 2001 PATRIOT ACT. This was criticized by man organizations and institutions as unconstitutional as it violated the basic rights to privacy. While it is true, that these stages involve the citizens a growing insecurity and instability whose response is oriented in the handling political-ideological of what is called positive and negative; as presented by Grover in the article titled “The Positive and Negative Effects of September 11”. Of course, it was a negative effect that nearly 3,000 civilians lost their lives on September 11^th. The enactment of the Department of Homeland Security as well as the PATRIOT ACT were both intended to be positive effects to protect the American people, but they carried underlying negative effects as they violated the US constitution which this country was built on. (Deflem 2015) (Grover 2015)

It was necessary however to help protect against the way terrorist were using the internet and media to recruit other terrorist and suicide bombers. This was explained by Janbek and Williams in their journal article titled “The Role of the Internet After 9/11”. Terrorists still found ways to communicate to potential recruits through their speeches and use of media outlets. This is why the FBI needed to tighten security on the internet. (Janbek 2014)

Arise various minority groups on which are deposited various negative stereotypes in order to reduce distress and anxiety such as that of Arab-Americans following 9/11. This was presented by Padela and Heisler in their article on abuse and distress among Arab-Americans. As well as immigrants represent a group easy to identify, for its part, the tourists also seem to be easy targets abroad for any attack whose claim geo-political look for the attention of international public opinion. The external enemy allows the consolidation of the hegemonic authority and the reproduction of legitimacy. (Padela 2010)

In conclusion, we started suggesting the idea that while the millenarianism, the growing wave of perception of insecurity that brings with it the modernity, or the blame for actions not assumed are important aspects to the time of establishing the causes of this new era that we live, do not seem to be the main causes.  The events of 9/11 were devastating on the American people as well as many other parts of the world. Tourism and modern migration not only defy the logic of capitalism, but in addition to the own nation States. Within this context, the attacks and the military offensives have function as achieve the balance of the own system while keeping the chains of solidarity toward one’s own national structure and excluding toward the outer limits abroad. The American Government must protect us from domestic terrorism, but also limit their own power over the public with the Constitution.

References

Encyclopedia Britannica. (n.d.). September 11 attacks | United States [2001] Britannica.com. Retrieved October 2, 2015, from http://www.britannica.com/event/September-11-attacks

Pilat, J. F. (2009). The causes of terrorism. Journal Of Organisational Transformation & Social Change, 6(2), 171-182. doi:10.1386/jots.6.2.171_1. Retrieved October 2, 2015, from EBSCOhost.

Coll, S., & Glasser, S. B. (2005). Terrorists turn to the Web as base of operations. The Washington Post, 7, 77-87.

Co?kun, M. K. (2012). The impact of September 11^th, 2001 on the study of Islam in Canadian and American graduate higher education. Journal Of Suleyman Demirel University Institute Of Social Sciences, 16(2), 243-263. Retrieved October 2, 2015, from EBSCOhost.

Emerson, S., & Pipes, D. (2001). Terrorism on Trial. The Wall Street Journal,31. History.com. (2010). Reaction to 9/11 – facts & summary – history.com. Retrieved September 27, 2015, from http://www.history.com/topics/reaction-to-9-11

Kean, T. H., & Hamilton, L. H. (2004). The 9/11 Report: The national commission on terrorist attacks upon the United States. St. Martin’s Paperbacks.

Lyman, P. N., & Morrison, J. S. (2004). The terrorist threat in Africa. Foreign Affairs-New York-, 83(1), 75-86.

Wbur News Station. (n.d.). 9/11 taught differently around the world, tufts grad finds | WBUR. Retrieved September 27, 2015, from http://www.wbur.org/2011/09/08/911-taught-differently

Bajekal, N. (2015). The economic toll of terrorism. Time, 186(3), 15. Retrieved September 25, 2015, from EBSCOhost.

Deflem, M., & McDonough, S. (2015). The fear of counterterrorism: Surveillance and civil liberties since 9/11. Society, 52(1), 70-79. doi:10.1007/s12115-014-9855-1.Retrieved October 2, 2015, from EBSCOhost.

Grover, S. (n.d.). The positive & negative effects of September 11, 2001. Retrieved October 2, 2015, from http://www.ehow.com/info_8469325_positive-effects-september-11-2001.html

JANBEK, D., & WILLIAMS, V. (2014). The role of the internet post-9/11 in terrorism and counterterrorism. Brown Journal Of World Affairs, 20(2), 297-308. Retrieved September 25, 2015, from EBSCOhost.

Padela, A. I., & Heisler, M. (2010). The association of perceived abuse and discrimination after September 11, 2001, with psychological distress, level of happiness, and health status among Arab Americans. American Journal Of Public Health, 100(2), 284-291. Retrieved October 2, 2015, from EBSCOhost.

Zelizer, B. (1992). CNN, the Gulf War, and journalistic practice. Journal of Communication, 42(1), 66-81.