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On September 11, 2001, people in the United States became aware of international terrorism in a way they may not have understood before.
The same could be said about the United States as a nation as well as the international community of U.S. allies. Some responses to the attacks were immediate. Some took place weeks after the attacks. Some took years. However long, September 11, 2001, changed the United States, its people, and the world forever.
◀ After 9/11, people all over the country were nervous. Would there be another attack? What would it be like? Was my city next? Individuals living and working in lower Manhattan were especially concerned. There was controversy even after the area was reopened less than a month after the attacks. With all the dust and debris from the attacks, was the air safe to breathe? How would people be able to stay in touch if there were another attack? For many, the answer to this last question was cell phones. Sales of cell phones spiked in the days after the attacks – throughout the country, not just in the northeast.
▲ Almost 200,000 Americans joined the military in the year following September 11. Tatchie Manso was a 20-year-old college student in lower Manhattan at the time. “Prior to [9/11], I never considered joining the military,” he told a reporter from army.mil. “It was at that moment I realized that there was something I needed to be part of that was greater than myself.” Manso joined the Army in 2004, after he had graduated college.
◀ September 11 affected everyone and everything. People in the area when the towers collapsed and people working to clean up the site afterward have suffered serious illnesses – in some cases, even death – as a result of breathing toxic air. Congress set up the Victim Compensation Fund in 2001 to give financial help to people severely affected by the attacks. The fund was closed in 2004, but authorized again in 2011 and 2015. In 2019, Congress passed a permanent authorization of the fund, extending the relief to eligible people until October 1, 2090.
Airport security became tighter. For example, everyone over 18 must now have valid identification. Before being allowed to go to the gate, passengers must take off their shoes and be scanned for weapons and other destructive objects. Large quantities of a liquid are banned from carry-on luggage. ▶
◀ Government agencies like the Department of Homeland Security were formed. (The Department of Homeland Security combined other government agencies in order to improve communications.) Congress passed the Patriot Act, which gave the government more freedom to find terrorists and prevent terrorism.
First-generation Lebanese American and army veteran Khalil Tawil was “especially affected by the perverted and cynical interpretation of Islam that al-Qaeda used to justify the attacks.” Like others, Tawil was inspired to attend West Point and join the military after the attacks. His idea was to bridge the gap between the Arab and U.S. worlds. Tawil’s decision was based on what he saw as an increase of violence against Muslims in the U.S. after 9/11. Statistics show that hate crimes against Muslims have increased by 500 percent since the attacks. Many Muslims in the United States find life more difficult since September 11. ▶
▲ NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, was formed in 1949. It is a pact between 30 countries in North America and Europe. The goal of the pact, called an alliance, is for the member nations to work together to defend freedom, democracy, and the rule of law. The pact has 14 articles, or parts. Article 5 says that “The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all.” Article 5 has been officially used only once – the evening of September 12, 2001. At that moment, members of NATO pledged to participate in the defense of the United States. And they did.
▲ On October 7, 2001, in an operation called Enduring Freedom, President Bush announced that U.S. and British forces had started airstrikes against al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan. The goal was to keep the Taliban from giving al-Qaeda protection and to keep al-Qaeda from using Afghanistan as a place where they could plan terrorist attacks like those on 9/11. By November 22, Turkey, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, France, and Poland had also sent troops to Afghanistan to support the U.S. effort as per Article 5 of the NATO treaty.
▲ The CIA had found and arrested Khalid Sheikh Mohammad in 2003. But it took 10 years of hunting for U.S. intelligence officers to finally find where Osama bin Laden was hiding. He was in a compound, or group of buildings surrounded by a wall. The compound was in Pakistan, near its border with Afghanistan. On May 2, 2011, U.S. forces raided the compound. They found and killed Osama bin Laden while President Barack Obama and others watched on a monitor at the White House.
▲ In July 2021, the U.S. began the gradual withdrawal of the 2,500 troops that remained in Afghanistan. The Taliban seized the opportunity of a shrinking U.S. military presence. Its fighters swept across Afghanistan, capturing city after city. On August 15, they reached the capital, Kabul, where they took control of the city and the government. The U.S. and other countries quickly sent military planes to airlift their citizens out of Kabul. In the following weeks, the planes also evacuated around 100,000 Afghans who feared life under Taliban rule as well as revenge for having worked with the United States and its allies. By August 30, all U.S. troops had left Afghanistan. The future of Afghanistan under Taliban rule is uncertain. So is the fate of its people.
