9/11 - A New Conflict

This news report from the ABC network covers the confusion and panic in the moments after the Twin Towers began to collapse.

 The September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks mark the first attack on US soil since Pearl Harbor and the escalation of a new conflict for the United States. American activities in the Middle Eastern countries of Saudi Arabia and Iran through the 1980s and 90s combined with the United States' support of Israel earned us the animosity of the terrorist group Al Qaeda and their leader Osama Bin Laden. Bin Laden declared a Holy War on Americans in 1998, and in 2001 executed the largest, deadliest terrorist attack to date. At 8:46 and 9:03 AM EDT respectively, Al Qaeda terrorists flew two hijacked American airplanes into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City. They crashed another plane into the US Pentagon at 9:37 AM that day and a final hijacked airliner speculated to be on course for the White House was overtaken by the flight's passengers and crashed into a Shanksville, Pennsylvania field at 10:03 AM (Lavender, 2011). Death tolls remain inconclusive, even over a decade later, largely due to the fact that the Twin Towers crumbled to the ground soon after they were hit, burying bodies under tons of rubble and making recovery difficult. The New York City Police Department lists 2,823 people as missing or dead from the World Trade Center site. 40 people died in Pennsylvania and 184 were killed at the Pentagon (Overberg, 2008). The terrorist attacks ushered the United States into a new era of global relations, fraught with uncertainty and threats from terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda and Middle Eastern factions such as the Taliban. President Bush declared a War on Terror and vowed revenge against those responsible for the attacks, taking America's involvement in the Middle East to a new level. The War on Terror and the question of how the US should handle our interests in the Middle East have defined the last decade of American history and will likely continue to do so for some time. America's global role as a leader has attracted new enemies and the US must now be vigilant of quite different threats than we experienced during the Cold War.

Lavender, P. (2011). 9/11 timeline: Key events of september 11, 2001. The Huffington Post, Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/10/911-timeline-september-11-anniversary_n_953873.html

Overberg, P. (2008). Final sept 11 death toll remains inconclusive . USA Today, Retrieved from http://www.usatoday.com/news/sept11/2002-08-22-death-toll_x.htm