On September 11, 2001 the citizens of the United States of America were shaken to their core. The news coming out of the country eventually spread across the world, sending shock waves across the global community. It led to the US government going to war on foreign soil for indefinite periods of time and the deposing of dictatorial regimes in the middle east. It also led to an unpopular President winning his re-election bid three years later. Here is the crazy story of the 9/11 suicide attacks.
On that fateful morning, 19 terrorists affiliated with the Al-Qaeda hijacked four commercial airliners scheduled to travel from the East Coast to California. The hijackers crashed the first two planes into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City. The third team crashed into the Pentagon in Washington DC, while the fourth attack was thwarted by a passengers revolt and crashed in rural Pennsylvania.
These attacks killed 2,977 people, making it the deadliest terrorist attack in the western hemisphere. This shook the world as the victims of terror were generally based in the middle east and south Asia. An attack on the USA shook the world like it had never before.
In response, the USA formally responded by launching the war on terror and invading Afghanistan to depose the ruling Taliban regime. Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden, who by a twist of irony had been propped up by the Americans many years earlier to expel the Soviets, became the most wanted man on the planet. He would evade the US army and NATO until 2011, when he was killed during a US military raid on his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Another twist of irony considering how the Pakistanis have strung along the US since the late 1970’s.
It also led to a domino effect where leaders across the middle east like Saddam Hussein and Gaddafi were deposed by direct US intervention or indirect sponsoring of color revolutions. The middle east was left boiling for years to come. An unpopular George Bush regime had a fresh lease of life blown into their campaign and eventually the incumbent won the reelection bid in 2004.
The war eventually ended in 2021, when US troops completely exited Afghanistan, allowing the Taliban to swiftly retake control of the country. By then the US had got its revenge and was no longer interested in what was going on in the country – similar to what happened in Iraq and Libya. Bangladesh please take note.
Would the world be better or worse had these attacks not taken place? I, for one, believe things happen for a reason. The attacks forced the the west to take terror seriously for the first time. While their methods might have been questionable, they had the right intent to wipe out terror.
As for the “what if” questions, I would like to refer to Family Guy Season 10, Episode 5. In this episode, Brian and Stewie take a trip to the past where Brian tells his past self to stop the attacks for personal fame. This leads to a catastrophic future where the entire world seems to be at war. While this is an exaggeration of epic proportions, it still brings us to the old saying that things happen for a reason, even if it sounds insensitive.
9/11 reminds us that no matter how much society progresses, as long as ideologies that call for the destruction of others for no reason other than that they don’t hold the same beliefs, as long as they exist, there will never be peace. There is no such thing as good or bad terror.
Until tomorrow!
