Attacks of 11 September - Research Paper Example

? Attacks Of 9/11 ATTACKS OF 9/11 On a fine Tuesday morning of 11 September, 2001 militants associated from the banned organization of Al-Qaeda took control of 4 commercial flights by hijacking them. They crashed two of these passenger planes into the well-known World Trade Centre (WTC), one was crashed into the Pentagon and the last one was crashed into the grounds of Shanksville, Pennsylvania. The reason why these commercial airlines were turned into their controlled missiles was because they were wide bodied, on long flights therefore heavily fueled. Over 3,000 people died and 6,000 were left wounded. An American Airlines Boeing 767 which was heavily loaded with jet fuel about 20,000 gallons was crashed into the north tower of the WTC at quarter to nine in the morning. The crash made its impact at the eightieth floor of the 110 story building, leading to the deaths of hundreds of people and trapping the rest inside the building. As the evacuations were started after the attack which appeared to be a freak accident, 18 minutes later another plane, this time of the United Airlines, surfaced into the sky and crashed on the second building of the Trade Centre leaving a burning gaping hole into the building around the 60th floor (Dark House, 2002). These events left all the new Yorkers shocked and panicked because America was under attack. As the evacuations were underway in the neighboring and the twin towers when flight 11 destroyed any means of escape trapping 1,344 people. Although a few people managed to escape but the rest were trapped until the building started collapsing following after a series of bombardment that took place into the building seemed as if explosives were planted at intervals within the building. About 200 people jumped and fell from the building onto the surrounding buildings and streets. People trapped on the top floors managed to reach onto the roofs hoping for helicopter recues but the roof access doors were locked and no such plans were made. The south tower held onto itself for almost an hour until it finally gave away and collapsed roughly around 10am, while the north tower went down almost half an hour later. In the attempt of saving human lives and fighting fire inside the building 411 emergency workers, 340 firefighters, 60 officers and 10 paramedics lost their lives. At 9:37am flight 77 en-route to Los Angeles crashed into the pentagon with 53 passenger including 5 hijackers aboard (Brown, 2011). The western facade of the pentagon was completely destroyed killing 125 military and civilian personnel at once. For two and a half hours all the commercial flights and the private planes were guided to land in the airports of the United Stated and Canada and flights were canceled. As the security people and firefighters were taking care of three places trying to bring out people safe flight 93 of United Airlines which was enroute to San Francisco crashed into the grounds of Shanksville, Pennsylvania. The passengers in the plane had learned about the three events from their families through phones so a group of passengers tried to take command of the plane by fighting with the four hijackers when the plane sped and flipped then crashed into the grounds killing all the passengers, crew members and hijackers on board at 10:07am. Right after the first crash Al-Qaeda was held responsible which at first they denied then later in a videotape they took complete responsibility of the attacks (Poynter Institute for Media Studies, 2001). News anchors all over the nation started blaring and held Osama Bin Laden the master mind and Al-Qaeda responsible for the attacks. Al-Qaeda at first denied the attacks then in the videotape later they accepted the responsibility of killing 3000 and injuring 6000 people. They also stated the reasons for orchestrating such brutality. They stated their motives were USA’s support to Israel, sanctions against innocent Iraqi people and presence of US troops in Saudi Arabia. Referring to which Ron Paul at the Republican presidential debate in North Carolina said “the reason they came here and attacked us is because the US government has been there on their land. We are building 14 bases on their sacred land and mass killing people. And that we do not understand the vulnerability of the Middle Eastern politics. What would happen if China was doing the same in our land? We would object their actions! We need to adopt a perspective that will allow us to see what would happen if other entities of the world did the same to us”. There have been numerous such factors which cultivated this degree of hatred among foreign countries because these are the factors that led these attacks and mass killing. Most people in America are not aware of the grievances people in the foreign countries feel against the US Empire. Americans all over the worlds are taught not to forget what happened 11 years ago all the chain of events are recalled everywhere while Muslims have a very long pain and blood colored history.. All these events take us back to years and years of history of bloodshed and wars with arbitrary motives. In 1990 when US went to Kuwait after when Saddam invaded it, Kuwaiti babies were torn out of their incubators as the cold war ended US troops had established their bases in Saudi Arabia and had reached far too close to the sacred places of Makah and Medina which was threatening for all Muslim countries and its created quite a stir in the Muslim world. After this short war in Kuwait which followed recession and mass killing sanctions were declared in Iraq after destroying much of measures for preserving human health, Iraqis were completely cut off from the foreign aid. The food and medicine supplies were blocked out and it was marked as the “no fly-Zone” In this whole process in a very short time half a million people died most of which were children. These are years and years of hatred and pain which are the causes that led us to 9/11. What happened is not appreciated but these plausible causes cannot be denied. Unjust and immorality leads to hate and enmity. Over the years many theories have come forth every person has a different perception about the attacks many think tanks, scholars, writers, scientists and engineers have shed light and conceived different conclusions to these chain of events. The security system was breached at all means on that day 4 planes were hijacked. US government spends $40 billion a year on security and data accumulation and still could not prevent this happening. 19 militants easily managed to smuggle paper cutters and pocket knives through the security system. Why these systems had been so vulnerable that day? Another factor that puzzles a human mind is the speed with which the buildings collapsed within 102 minutes both towers demolished into a pile of smoke and rubble. In 2006 it was suggested that thermite or super-thermite might be used by the US government insiders. This theory was proved in 2009 when scientists explained their discovery proving that red chips which were thermites were found in the samples of ashes of the buildings. A few conspiracies justify the causes behind the catastrophic demise of the world trade centre; this theory was materialized in October 2001 that explosives were planted at different floors in the building. It also stated that the Bush Administration was involved into the demolition of the world trade centre. 9/11 was in fact the biggest Government failure. These theories only leaves one boggled and disturbed because these events have been debated and over debated, rebuttal and ridiculed over the decade. Yet it only took 19 men armed with small knives to inflict much more pain and destruction within an hour than the damage that was done in the cold war. Above all we cannot deny the fact that the Taliban and its head Osama Bin laden was a CIA creation. He was one of the Jihadists that moved to Afghanistan when CIA was conducting its operations in 1979 and he has the distinction of being created by the CIA. They were financed and provided ammunition till the end of the war until they were left there to rule. After 26 years of these brutal foreign policies USA had witnessed a “blowback” on September, 11, a CIA term that is used for the reaction of all the unfair policies abroad. In retaliation to the 9/11 attacks US government declared invasion in Afghanistan to fight terrorism which began in October 7, 2001 with the help of many countries around the globe. US government made Ariel attacks destroying their camps which also killed thousands of innocent people then later invaded Afghanistan through US marines to overthrow Taliban rule and insurgency (Voice of September 11th, 2000). Muslims all over the world were targeted and harassed in the days following 9/1 numerous such incidents were reported one very common incident were Illegal trespassing. Sikhs were also targeted because they wear beards and turbans which associated with Muslims. Mosques and religious buildings were reportedly attacked many innocent people are fatally shot and berated in public. Muslim women were degraded; their head scarves were snatched and were physically assaulted in public. Many foreigners were unjustly tortured, stripped from their rights of trial and detained without protection. After their innocence was proved they were released from the Guantanamo prison just for being in the wrong place. Anti- terrorist attacks were also carried out in the northern parts of Pakistan which became the hub of terrorism after the Afghan invasion thousands of the innocent Pakistanis lost their lives in the drone attacks; many false attacks were also made. Apart from the 3000 deaths caused in the 9/11 crashes innocent people are being killed to date ever since the attacks. People from all over the world are paying the price, for the crimes they did not commit it caused immense damage on the US economy. This irrationalism encouraged more attacks and cost more innocent lives. Demand for air travel dropped which cost $1.1 billion due to the strict security policies and a ‘no-fly list” that prevents thousands of Americans from travelling freely. People faced multitude of long-term damages like breathing problems and mental- traumas from facing such a large-scale tragedy. Muslims are still in a way held responsible and seen through suspicious eyes, only encouraging cultural and religious difference within the society. The positive outcomes were although very few but satisfying enough all the civilians gathered together to help the victims and their families. Many fire fighters, emergency workers and officers took leaves of absence and travelled from different part of the nation to help the victims and help the cause. Civilians donated blood and services to help the victims from the attacks. Post-traumatic growth rate eroded which created a positive element in the society to revive and take a fresh start from. The reasons that distinguishes the importance of this event in the history is the continuous bloodshed it caused, the many farce wars that the Bush administration took the nation to in which thousands of American have been killed and thousands have been injured. All those people were living a peaceful life and working in the great system only to wake up on fine morning go to work and be brutally slaughtered one day. September 11 occurred for the intervention and USA’s interference in the foreign affairs for a greater part of the century. The people who had to pay for them, their sacrifices will not be in vain. CONCLUSION The attacks of 9/11 were pivotal acts of aggression and hatred of the foreigners towards the US government and the civilians. One must understand the history to completely understand these monumental chains of events because it created Islamophobia into the world. Americans believe that the reason we were attacked was their freedom and values but this is not the case. The only way to prevent any future destruction and mass killing is to abandon the government’s foreign policies. REFRENCENS Dark Horse Comics., & DC Comics, Inc. (2002). 9-11. Milwaukie, Or., etc: Dark Horse Comics, etc. Voices of September 11th (Organization). (2000). Voices of September 11th: Quarterly newsletter. New Canaan, CT: Voices of September 11th Brown, D. (2011). America is under attack: September 11, 2001 : the day the towers fell. New York: Roaring Brook Press. Poynter Institute for Media Studies. (2001). September 11, 2001. Kansas City, Mo: Andrews McMeel Pub. Read More