Verified Document

Expression That Has Been Dedicated To The Essay

¶ … expression that has been dedicated to the 2001 terrorist attacks by Al-Qaeda that the United States suffered from on September 11. It won't be incorrect to state that 9/11 proved to be a turning point for the George W. Bush administration and the foreign policy of the United States of America. The events unswervingly led to the United States support for the downfall of Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan where it was believed to have its foundation. These attacks were also important as they were later used by the United States of America as a justification of invading Iraq regardless of the fact that no apparent proof could be presented regarding any connection between Iraq with Al Qaeda. Nevertheless, the 9/11 impact was strong enough and the invasion was therefore strongly supported by the American public ("9/11," 2013). Description of the Event

Al-Qaeda is a radical Islamic group that has been involved in various terrorist activities and was led by Osama bin Laden. Nineteen agents of Al-Qaeda were responsible for carrying out the 9/11 attacks. They were able to get through and defeat a security checkpoint system and then made use of 3 commercial jet airplanes. The purpose was the destruction of the renowned World Trade Center (New York) and damaging of the Pentagon. Unfortunately, they were successful in executing their plans resulting in the death/missing of more or less three thousand innocent people. Thus, there is no doubt that the 9/11 was unquestionably the most upsetting and overwhelming terrorist episode in the history of the United States of America ("The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States," 2004).

Historical and Contemporary Causes of the Event

Even though the attacks on September 11, 2001 were a shock; they weren't a surprise owing to the fact that the American government had been warned by the Islamist extremists about their plan of killing American people in large numbers and without any discrimination. Al-Qaeda had already established itself as an intoxicating opponent of United States of America by targeting embassies of the United States in Kenya and Tanzania in August 1998. Regardless of the fact that various Al-Qaeda plans had been picked up by the U.S. Intelligence, they were unable to do anything about the 9/11 attacks ("The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States," 2004). Osama bin Laden clearly took the responsibility of the 9/11 events in a video in which he gave a full description of his dealings with Muhammad Atta, the major hijacker. The 9/11 Commission conducted the biggest criminal investigation till date and also wrapped up by claiming Al-Qaeda to be the sole culprit for the 9/11 attacks. However, the question is what caused the terrorist group to launch such a devastating and hateful attack on the Americans? There have been various explanations that are being given to describe the causes of the attacks ranging from apparently reasonable but faulty and the more realistic and believable (Bergen, 2006).

Imagination: The major malfunction in the whole 9/11 scenario was that of imagination as the leaders were unable to open up their mind's eye and understand the intensity of the Al-Qaeda threatening. The Congress, media and even the public policy debate in the United States did not pay any heed to the impending danger of terrorism. Though United States was being consistently challenged by the Al-Qaeda, the administration did not plan or designed anything to meet the dangers. The administration was not certain whether Al-Qaeda threats had any weight or not. They were not sure whether Al-Qaeda had to be taken seriously or not. Thus, this lack of imagination resulted in the loss of thousands of precious lives and millions of dollars ("The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States," 2004).

Policy and Strategy: Both Clinton and Bush administrations did not regard terrorism as a prime national security concern. This imagination failure thus affected the policy-making and the subsequent decisions. The mentioned administrations had not imagined to invade Afghanistan fully considering it as almost unthinkable before the events of 9/11 (Zakheim, 2011).

Competence:...

However, those capabilities were not enough to handle the problem. The administration did not do much for the expansion or reformation of the available resources for handling Al-Qaeda. The CIA did not have sufficient resources for the performance of any paramilitary operations with the available workforce. Also, it did not make any effort for the expansion of the resources and competences on a large-scale before 9/11 attacks. There was also a lack in the capabilities of the CIA for collection of intelligence from human representatives (Zegart, 2007). All the important institutions including Department of Defense, NORAD, FBI, FAA etc. lacked the important capabilities and competence that are mostly needed for countering any terrorist attack. It can be easily concluded therefore that it was a collective failure that made it possible for just nineteen human beings to deceive the security systems and take thousands of lives as a result ("The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States," 2004).
Management: The 9/11 plot could not be thwarted due to the lack of ability of the government to manage the problems that the twenty-first century had brought with it. The action officers were not trained enough to collect and mull over the facts and figures regarding Al- Qaeda. It was the mere incapability of the management that it did not ensure the sharing of information and clear assignment of duties to agencies. There were also critical issues related with the people in top office who were unable to set priorities and give out resources. The government was unsuccessful to pool intelligence and use it for the guidance, planning and assigning of duties for "joint operations involving entities as disparate as the CIA, the FBI, the State Department, the military, and the agencies involved in homeland security" ("The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States," 2004, p. 11).

Unproductive and Ineffective Diplomacy: The United States government made efforts from February 1997 to September 2001 for using diplomatic pressure so that it could convince the Taliban administration in Afghanistan to discontinue its support for Al-Qaeda. The U.S. administration also pressurized Taliban to exorcise Bin Laden to any other state where he could be countered for all his internationally-rebellious actions. The U.S. sometimes warned and sometimes it put sanctions but all such attempts were faced with failures. Two consecutive Pakistani governments were being also forced by the United States to have a reconsideration of their relationship with Taliban. However, this unsuccessful attempt to find a mixture of incentives and force made the Taliban stronger and consequently resulted in 9/11 ("The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States," 2004).

Support to Israel and Foreign Policy about Middle East: The way United States had always treated and supported Israel and its foreign policies regarding the Middle East were one of the major reasons why Al-Qaeda attacked America. According to Osama bin Laden, it was the major reason behind 9/11. Al-Qaeda strongly criticized America; particularly "the support it gave to Israel's invasion of southern Lebanon in 1982, first triggered Bin Laden's anti-Americanism, which during the 1980s took the form of urging a boycott of U.S. goods" (Bergen, 2006).

Afghan Jihad and Subsequent Radicalization: Even though no proof has ever surfaced regarding the training and funding of CIA to Bin Laden and his agents, a number of critics strongly believe that a generation of Arab revolutionaries was radicalized after the Afghan-Soviet War. This consequently gave rise to bitterness against America and the foundation of Al-Qaeda took place in 1988 that continued their so-called jihad to all over the world especially West (Bergen, 2006).

Leaky Aviation Security: The information about the aviation security system was easily available and the hijackers went through it keenly. Thus, it then became really easy for them to use items that did not contain much metal and was allowed to carry. Despite the fact that 2 of the 19 hijackers were on the watch list of U.S.TIPOFF; the TIPOFF data was not used by the FAA ("The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States," 2004).

Different Interpretations of the Event

The attacks of 9/11 can be interpreted in a number of ways. Firstly, there is an official interpretation that is being accepted by a number of people that the 9/11 was in fact a surprise attack on the government and people of the United States of America by Islamic radicals. However, another group of people interpret 9/11 in a more complex way. For them, the official interpretation…

Sources used in this document:
References

9/11 from The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed.. (2013). Questia. Retrieved October 11, 2013, from http://www.questia.com/read/1E1-N-9-11/9-11

Bergen, P. (2006, September 24). What were the Causes of 9/11?. Prospect Magazine. Retrieved October 12, 2013, from http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/whatwerethecausesof911/#.UllYG1Awpcp

Economic Impact of the September 11 World Trade Center Attack. (2001, September 28). Fiscal Policy. Retrieved October 13, 2013, from http://www.fiscalpolicy.org/sep28WTCreport.pdf

Griffin, D.R. (2005, May 10). David Ray Griffin: 9/11 and the American Empire | Scoop News. Scoop - New Zealand News. Retrieved October 12, 2013, from http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0505/S00129.htm
Heyl, E. (2012, September 19). The State of the Airlines, Post 9/11. Tribune-Review/Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. Retrieved October 13, 2013, from http://www.questia.com/read/1P2-33671096/the-state-of-the-airlines-post-9-11
Nordgren, M.D., Goldstein, E.A., & Izeman, M.A. (February 2002). The Environmental Impacts Of The World Trade Center Attacks: A Preliminary Assessment. NRDC. Retrieved October 13, 2013, from http://www.nrdc.org/air/pollution/wtc/wtc.pdf
The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States. (2004, July 22). GPO. Retrieved October 12, 2013, from http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/GPO-911REPORT/pdf/GPO-911REPORT-24.pdf
Zakheim, D.S. (2011). What 9/11 Has Wrought. Middle East Quarterly, 18(4), 3+. Retrieved October 12, 2013, from http://www.questia.com/read/1P3-2529914721/what-9-11-has-wrought
Zunes, S. (2003, September 12). Post-9/11, U.S. Makes Enemies Faster Than It Can Kill Them. National Catholic Reporter,39, 17. Retrieved October 13, 2013, from http://www.questia.com/read/1G1-108050545/post-9-11-u-s-makes-enemies-faster-than-it-can-kill
Cite this Document:
Copy Bibliography Citation

Related Documents

Extant Literature Has Been Dedicated
Words: 3092 Length: 10 Document Type: Literature Review

, 2001) The use of support vector machine learning is widely supported to be used to notice micro calcification clusters in the digital mammograms. It is indeed a learning tool that originated from modern statistical theory of learning. (Vapnik, 1998). In the recent past years, SVM learning has got a large range of real life applications. This includes handwritten digit detection (Scholkopf et al., 1997), recognition of object, (Pontil&Verri, 1998), identification

Extant Literature Has Been Dedicated
Words: 3251 Length: 10 Document Type: Term Paper

The use of open-ended questions that require multiple items in the answering points were observed to lead to a sharp increase in the attrition rate (Crawford et al.,2001). The use of questions that are organized into tables in conducting the various forms of web surveys was also observed to increase the rate of attrition (Knapp & Heidingsfelder, 1999).The advantages of using the web-based surveys to the designer is the

Graduate MSW Focus and Intentions
Words: 1171 Length: 4 Document Type: Essay

Social Work Statement of Purpose While some people may be able to point to a distinct time or place in their lives when they knew how they wanted to make their livelihood, for others, the path to a profession cannot be mapped so precisely. My motivation to seek a Master's Social Work (MSW) degree is rooted in diverse experiences in both my personal and occupational lives. I grew up in a family

Colombia Is the Third-Largest Recipient
Words: 19788 Length: 58 Document Type: Research Proposal

During this penultimate period of violence under Rojas, the violence that wracked Colombia assumed a number of different characteristics that included an economic quality as well as a political one with numerous assassinations taking place. These were literally contract killings there were sponsored by opposition forms. There were also horrendous genocidal acts that were carried out by gangs combined with authentic revolutionary fighting in some regions of the country. The fourth

Approaches to Biographical Literature Elizabeth Bishop and Robert...
Words: 3398 Length: 13 Document Type: Research Paper

Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell The publication in 2008 of Words in Air: The Collected Correspondence of Robert Lowell and Elizabeth Bishop offers the reader a privileged glimpse into the long and emotional friendship between two major postwar American poets, who were each an active influence on the other's work. Bishop would enclose a poem in a 1961 letter to Lowell, claiming the draft "undoubtedly shows your influence" but also noting

Women's Philosophy the Issue of
Words: 3162 Length: 9 Document Type: Term Paper

This brings us to the idea of ideal femininity. What is the ideal woman? What should we expect of the female gender in the new millennium? When comparing the two views above, I would say that Chan's ideal of the woman as one who is worthy of recognition for her efforts in any context is far more valid than that forwarded by Campbell, who creates an emotional victimhood for women.

Sign Up for Unlimited Study Help

Our semester plans gives you unlimited, unrestricted access to our entire library of resources —writing tools, guides, example essays, tutorials, class notes, and more.

Get Started Now