The Attack Of The United States

September 11, 2001 (herein referred to as 9/11) was a day in American history, which will be remembered as the most horrific attack on American soil. This attack, carried out by nineteen Islamic extremists, was associated with al-Qaeda, and involved the hijacking of four airplanes. Two of those airplanes were hijacked and flown directly into the World Trade Center in New York City, New York. The third plane’s target was the Pentagon in Washington D.C., and the fourth plane was brought down in Pennsylvania where it is believed the passengers aboard fought the hijackers. This horrific day in history cost over 3,000 people their lives, and was labeled the worst attack on American soil since the attack on Pearl Harbor during World War II.

On December 7th, 1941, Japanese forces attacked Pearl Harbor. They demolished the entire United States Pacific Fleet. At the time, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the thirty-second president of the United States. He was in his third term when the devastating attack began. The attacked took place at the U.S. Naval Base in Oahu, Hawaii. The air attack started at 7:48 in the morning, Hawaiian time. There were about 3,500 casualties from the bombing, and more than 2,300 of them were deaths. The attack beached or sank 12 American battleships, and nine others were severely damaged. A total of 160 aircraft were demolished and 150 were damaged (“The Japanese Attacked Pearl Harbor”). Japan was planned to wipe out the Philippines, the East Indies, Malaya, and Burma. Their only concern was with the U.S. Pacific Fleet, they were afraid the U.S. would ruin their plans (“The Attack on Pearl Harbor”). In the address, Roosevelt asked Congress to have the United States enter World War II. The vote was unanimous, except for a Montana pacifist whose vote differed from the rest of the House (“A Date Which Will Live in Infamy”). All over the country, radio stations were interrupting broadcasts to deliver the news about the bombing. After the attack, most people knew that America was going to enter World War II long before the president gave his speech. Entering the war affected the country greatly, like taking America out of the Great Depression. Men were drafted to fight so there were many more

On September 11, 2001 Flight Two planes were flown into the towers of the World Trade Center in New York City. The planes where hijacked by 19 Al Qaeda terrorists that brought along their weapons , to many Americans the mention of 9/11 can be horrifying with the memories that they might have experienced that day with the site of the twin towers being brought down. Because of the hijacked planes, it destroyed many lives as well as the families that lost someone in that tragedy. The United States has changed since September 11th, 2001 because after new changes in airport security was made, deportation rose, and immigration decreased.

Videos of the plane crashing into the twin towers were played on a loop all over television, and photos of the tragedy were printed throughout newspapers all over the world. Specifically, in Britain, The Sun headlined its newspaper with ‘A Day That Changed The World,’ while The Daily Mirror called it ‘A War On the World’ (McLaughlin 191). In America, most newspapers had the word “war” in their headlines, which complies with President Bush’s “war on terror” that he brought up for the first time on the night after the attacks “in an emergency address to a joint session of the U.S. Congress” (McLaughlin

On a clear Tuesday morning of September 11, 2001, America changed forever. Terrorists crashed two planes into the World Trade Center towers in New York City. Another plane was crashed into the Pentagon in Washington D.C. There was also a fourth plane which was most likely headed for the White House that crashed into a field in Western Pennsylvania. This devastating event changed people’s lives forever. Thousands of people were killed along with many who were injured. Some of the survivors of this tragedy suffer post-traumatic stress along with other complications. Militants associated with the Islamic extreme group ‘Al-Qaeda’ planned to hijack four airliners and threatened them with suicide attempts against the United States. When the

Could the attack on Pearl Harbor have been prevented, or was it a completely unexpected and unavoidable event?

Throughout the 1990’s terrorism became more and more widely used as a means for achieving political ends. By the 2000’s, bin Laden had directed various attacks against the U.S. through the al-Qaeda terror network, including the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Africa (Mulhausen). On September 11th, 2001 things would change, Bin Laden would strike on United States soil. Nineteen terrorists hijacked four separate planes and crashed them into World Trade Center one and two and into the Pentagon while a fourth plane crashed in a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. These attacks left roughly 3000 people dead. Americans immediate response was to invade Afghanistan but the attack had changed the nature of American foreign policy. Eighteen months after the attacks, President Bush and the United States invaded Iraq. And since that day, the United States has been involved in rebuilding both nations. A large part of the reasoning given for the invasion of Iraq was the threat that Saddam Hussein posed in terms of his ability to acquire nuclear and/or chemical weapons. As you said in discussion, the threat of a terrorist organization acquiring nuclear capabilities is one of the things that make terrorism so scary. (Beaulieu)

On December 7, 1941 the world was embroiled into the attack of Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. Japan attacked Pearl Harbor with their ally, Nazi Germany. It started with Japan being a bit suspicious and not so thrilled with the Treaty of Versailles as it was seen as a way to keep everything in ship shape even if there were some disagreements in the world. The attack of Pearl Harbor could have been prevented if America had not forced them to trade, had not moved the Pacific Fleet in California, and by not provoking them by doing terrible things to Japan.

The terror attacks on September 11, 2001 at the Twin Towers in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington D.C. are remembered as America’s largest tragedy; after all, 3,000 people were killed in these attacks (Combs and Slann). A sense of security and confidence had vanished. However, what is not mentioned in the news articles, TV headlines, and radio chats on the anniversary of 9/11 is the large impact these attacks made on the American psyche. It is not that this outcome was of lesser importance, but it was one of the unnoticed, since all Americans underwent this change. Out of everything that came out of 9/11, this was well needed. Americans had been thinking the same thing about their country for a long time and needed to see that

There are not two more tragic dates in the last century that reside in the collective American psyche than that of December 7, 1941, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and September 11, 2001. On these dates, two surprise attacks on American civilians and military personnel showcased U.S. vulnerability to outside forces and united a nation against those that wished to harm her. Both horrific events have many similarities and many differences in regards to who carried out the attacks, what the objectives were for the attacks, and the American response after these infamous dates occurred. Unlike September 11, 2011, where a terrorist organization utilized U.S. civilian aircraft to attack the Pentagon, New York, and intended to attack targets in the nation?s Capitol (the last plane crashed into a field in rural Pennsylvania after the passengers attempted to retake control of their plane from the terrorists), on December 7, 1941, the nation of Japan audaciously attacked the U.S. naval fleet at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

Following the conclusion of the 7 years war, the British Empire was faced with a complicated quagmire of how to not only reorganize the new empire, but how to pay off the debt accumulated during the war. Throughout the war Britain placed enormous pressure on the population of England in the form of taxes and sought to alleviate that pressure in the aftermath of the conflict. In order to achieve this the British government placed new taxes on their North American colonies in the form of the stamp act, the tea act etc. Furthermore, the British government also began to crack down on the high levels of smuggling that was being carried out by colonial merchants in violation of the navigation acts. This was highly unpopular in the colonies who began to protest what they saw as unjust taxation without representation. Moreover, a major desire of 18th century colonists was the desire for more land in the form of westward expansion; however, the British government made this impossible through the implementation of the proclamation act of 1763 which sought to avoid conflict with the Native Americans by prohibiting westward expansion through private transaction of land between the Natives and the Colonists. The inability to compromise on these issues would result in clashes between mother Britain and her colonies which would eventually culminate into an outright rebellion by the colonies against the mother country.

The 2001 terrorists attacks mark first attack on American soil since Pearl Harbor. Following the attacks, the United States vowed to destroy al-Queda. Soon after, the United States would establish Military Commissions to prosecute suspected terrorists. As the Military Commissions have evolved, legal scholars and critics of military practices have challenged the constitutionality of the Military Commissions since the beginning of the war. Those who participated in the terrorist attacks have been detained and some are still awaiting trial. The day following his swearing in, President Obama honored his vow to close Guantanamo Bay as his first order of business. He drafted E. O 13492, which would close the detention center indefinitely.

The methods that people nowadays use to get news of any kind, whether it be sports, weather, or global, have changed drastically from the time where news was only available through newspapers and radio stations. Regarding terrorism, the media is the only source of information, unless it is a primary account of a soldier who had been at war. However, the media is able to manipulate any story to make someone or something either look good or bad. This is exactly what happened after the occurrence of 9/11. The media, along with the government, caught the wave of nationalism sweeping across the country and built news stories favoring America. For example, not many people talk about how the American government in 1990, intervened in the Middle East after Iraq invaded Kuwait, which could be a possible cause for the attacks of 9/11. This event and many other instances of American intervention in the Middle East have been swept under the rug by the U.S. government through the media. These incidences were all put forth as necessary steps to protect “our” best interests in the region. John Steinbrink, a professor of education and Jeremy Cook, a doctoral candidate at Oklahoma State University, used the media’s coverage of the aftermath of 9/11 as an example for education in media literacy, which is “the ability to read, understand, and interpret the influence of all forms of media in one’s life” (284). Using

Pearl Harbor occurred in the morning December 7th of 1941, which was a Sunday. There were six carriers with 423 Japanese fighter planes that attack Pearl Harbor. The Japanese attack in several waves, the first wave was 183 Japanese planes that took off 230 miles north of Oahu and were heading to Pearl Harbor. When these planes took off, at 7:02 a.m., a short radar station detected the planes and then contacted a junior officer who said it was American B-17 that was expected from the U.S. west coast. The second wave was 167 planes that took off from the Japanese carriers and headed to Pearl Harbor at 7:15 a.m. At 7:53 a.m., the first wave attacked the airfields and battleships and the second wave attacked other ships and shipyard

In the months leading up to Pearl Harbor, the impending threat that the territory of Hawaii perceived from the Japanese was imminent. Being isolated from the mainland, Hawaiian government officials and the United States military knew that there would be many struggles in the event such a catastrophe occur. The decision to declare martial law in the hours following the attack on that December morning was not an easy one, but it was most definitely the right one.