20th Anniversary of 9/11 Attacks: Legacy of the War on Terror

On the morning of 11th September 2001, two planes crashed into the World Trade Centre in New York City. Hijacked American Airlines flight 11 and United Airlines flight 175 crashed into the North and South towers killing at least 2,750 people. That same day another American Airlines flight crashed into the pentagon in Washington D.C killing 187 people.  A fourth plane, United 93 was also hijacked and was believed to be heading to Washington D.C, the target being the Capitol building but it crashed into a field in Pennsylvania after the passengers and crew tried to regain control.

The terror group, Al Qaeda, led by Osama Bin Laden was quickly identified as being responsible for the attacks. In total, nearly 3,000 people died, making it the worst terror attack on US soil in history. America was consumed by grief, anger, and revenge.

The response by the west led by American president George W Bush marked the start of the so-called War on Terror. ‘Freedom itself was attacked this morning by a faceless coward and freedom will be defended’ said George W Bush in a press conference at the White House on 11th September 2001.

Within weeks of 9/11, the US bombing of Afghanistan began. At the time, Afghanistan was run by the Taliban who allowed Al Qaeda to grow and operate within the country.  When the Taliban refused to hand over Bin Laden, the US, supported by NATO forces, began a war to oust them and take down Al Qaeda.

‘They went in with a very narrow tactical objective to root out the terrorist leadership and they realized that they couldn’t sustain that situation without an investment in nation building. The nation building part of the exercise was ultimately botched’ said Sasha Havlicek, from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, in an interview with Sky News on Tuesday.

It would become America’s longest war. Tens of thousands of Afghans have been killed and thousands of American and NATO troops as well. In all, the United Nations estimates that nearly a quarter of a million people have died, most of them civilian. It all came to an end for the US this year when President Joe Biden pulled US troops out of the country and Afghanistan swiftly fell back into the hands of the Taliban once again.

‘Terrorists grow and thrive in security and governance vacuums, so the way that we’ve left Afghanistan doesn’t bode well’ says Sasha Havlicek.

The war in Afghanistan was followed two years later by the invasion of Iraq, on the elusive hunt for Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction. There began another long war for America, with no weapons of mass destruction found. Saddam Hussein was toppled, and sectarian tensions were stoked with profound regional implications.

In 2020, a study by the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs titled Cost of War, estimated the War on Terror has cost more than 801,000 deaths and 380 million war refugees and displaced persons.

On 2nd May 2011, nearly 10 years after 9/11, US special forces shot and killed a man in hiding, in a house in North-western Pakistan. A decade after 9/11, they got him. Osama Bin Laden was killed after a fire fight and the US forces took custody of his body.

The War on Terror was also raged on home ground in the US with the introduction of the Patriot Act by President George W. Bush’s administration. This allowed the US government to keep tabs on its citizens, tapping telephone calls, emails and more, effectively spying on its own people in the name of protection.

As the US War on Terror continued, the spotlight shined back on America’s own behaviour. A report from Sky News revealed that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was secretly taking suspects to countries on so called ‘Rendition flights’, where they could torture them for information. The Guantanamo Bay Detention Centre became a symbol of America’s failure to uphold the values it seeks to defend. 20 years after 9/11, 40 prisoners remain at Guantanamo Bay, most have not been charged, none have yet faced trial. They include the 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohamed.

9/11 had other ramifications, most notably, increased anti-muslim sentiment in America and beyond. In 2017, a survey found that half of the US Muslims found it difficult to live in the country, since the attacks. Islamophobia and anti-muslim bigotry predate the 9/11 attacks, but in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, it became increasingly apparent with Muslims, whether American born or immigrant being faced with widespread discrimination and hatred. Islamophobia spiked all over the world with all terror attacks happening being linked, without proof, to Muslims.

Although the US managed to eliminate the head of Al Qaeda, that led to the somewhat disintegration of the terror group itself, this did not put an end to terrorism, despite what the public thought. It gave rise to new and arguably worse terror groups such as Boko Haram and ISIS. These groups do not operate on a hierarchy system that Al Qaeda employed, with a seemingly apparent chain of command; these groups operate on a network system, with no discernible hierarchy and are present all over the world, with attacks ranging from Nigeria to Austria, which makes them increasingly difficult to track and apprehend.

One other impact of 9/11 has been air travel, which has been transformed to make it safer but with huge impacts. Before the attacks, security was not as rigorous and check in queues were not nearly as long. This has now all changed. There have also been changes to the planes themselves, with pilots now locked in their cockpits behind heavy steel reinforced doors.

9/11 has become one of the most symbolic moments in modern history. Reflecting on 20 years since the attacks, it is clear that it accomplished what it was supposed to; polarization.