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Essay: 9/11 Changed America: How Terror Shaped Economy & Policies in 21st Century

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  • Published: 21 February 2023*
  • Last Modified: 22 July 2024
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  • Words: 1,154 (approx)
  • Number of pages: 5 (approx)
  • Tags: Terrorism essays

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America as a country was, where people would debate, is coming off one of the best decades in the nation’s history the 1990s. It prospered as a nation with the economy growing an average 4% per year between 1992 and 1999. 1.7 million jobs were added per year and the unemployment rate dropped to 4% at the 1999. American household income grew, and the poverty rate decreased. America finished strong and well during the end of the 20th century with Americans able to establish a good life with work and housing. As the 21st century was arriving, expectations were set high for the nation to become better and evolve. With all its bad history America wanted for its modern history to be about peace and stability for everyone. It was unfortunate that it didn’t last long. On September 11, 2001 a staged attack occurred with militants from the extreme group al-Qaeda. Four airplanes with civilians would be hijacked and then crashed into the twin towers of the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and in a field in Pennsylvania. Almost 3,000 Americans were declared dead with the events of 9/11. It was a stunning moment and the government promised to find out who was behind it. A few days later President Bush would give his speech that the US would declare war on terror. With the threat of terrorism, the United States policies in domestic and foreign has changed and became a foundation of what was years after and years to come. Those changes focused heavily on national security, immigration, and the economy.

With the threat of terrorism and the nation ready for war initiatives began to take full effect to make sure every civilian feels safe. The US needed a department that can surveillance and anticipate any potential threats to the nation. Thus, the Department of Homeland Security was made.  The biggest project to work on was commercial airlines. Airport security went through major overhauls by adding new security procedures. New technologies were added to better inspect equipment that passengers bring. The biggest addition is the implementation of the Transportation Security Administration. The Transportation Security Administration or TSA is a government agency which works for the Department of Homeland Security. This agency can have special authority if they suspect any individual and prevent them from flying onto the plane. It was a major change that helped shape what is now the airline security that is today. When it comes to national security however it wasn’t just solely focused on airline security. There was a higher emphasis on surveillance throughout everyone in the nation. With the USA Patriot Act information would be gathered from all kinds of media such as text messages, emails, phone calls, applications and so on. It was controversial as Americans felt their privacy was not secured and kept to themselves. There would be civil liberty groups protesting to the government about these acts and many were protesting that these acts were unamerican and felt unfree. Organizations and government buildings have also increased in security. These places require workers to wear items like badges and identify themselves before entering their work. And many places require guests to sign in and hand the officials their information. After 9/11 there were incidents of domestic terrorist’s attack that had occurred. Whether affiliated to extremists’ groups or not many select individuals had done such acts in various locations around nation for example the shooting at a concert in Las Vegas. Acts like these are why almost every mass crowding event require extra security protocol to prevent these acts.

The second most affected topic was immigration in America. When the attack of 9/11 happened, and the American intelligence discovered it was the extremist group Al-Qaeda that initiated the attack many Americans immediately were feeling uneasy with the Pakistani citizens that lived in America and the citizens of Pakistan or other Middle East countries. In 2002, about 70% of Pakistani citizens lost privilege of touring and 40 more percent dropped to immigrant visas. Other countries were also affected like Egypt but not as significant as Pakistan. Deportations also took place after 9/11 with Egypt having the highest peak in 2003. The immigrants that lived in America also were treated violently since 9/11. About 500 hate crimes were committed against American Muslims. Many Muslims were either verbally threatened or mistreated differently such as increased security check up. In January of 2002 the INS would launch an operation to track down and find about 6,000 males from the Middle East and deport them. Police officers now have the opportunity to deport anyone that they could arrest. Since 9/11 police officers could now arrest people and then have their fingerprints checked and run through the database of Homeland Security. This was a program that launched 2008 under the Obama administration called Secure Communities. Immigrants felt uneasy and unsafe following the events of 9/11 as America created many new protocols and procedures, some controversial, in fear of the threat of terrorism.

In the 1990s the economy prospered with it growing and jobs being offered. With the 21st century expectation was high on the economy becoming even better. But with the tragedy of 9/11 the economy took a hit that would take years to recover. When the planes crash a lot of government funding would go to cleaning up the destruction sites from the World Trade Center buildings and other sites like the Pentagon. That cost was $55 billion dollars in damage created as well as the money used to treat injuries and clean up the area. With the fear of attending planes, airlines companies lost money since no one wanted to be on them. The attacks also worsened the recession which was already trending downward. The threat of war would fear the Dow stock market and because of this unemployment climbed up. President Bush formally announced that America would go in the War of Terror. This war took many years however and tons of funding. Every year it mounted up more money and when Bush finished his presidency the war costed $1.2 trillion dollars. When Obama took in control the cost up to $2.1 trillion dollars. Because of all this money spending and funding debt would creep in the economy. The US had a debt crisis that is stilling happening with politicians not working to resolve a way to fix it. To substitute America from spending in the military, politicians chose to limit Medicare benefits.

September 11, 2001 can be considered the biggest tragedy in this nation’s history. One day 3,000 lives were lost and shook the entire population. It affected everyone but what happened that day shaped and established the policies that America created and lived on with. It is shown what has changed with national security all the new security protocols and the creation of the Department of Homeland Security. How immigration gave citizens and non-citizens new perspective on each other and how some were treated unfairly then others. And finally, how policies initiated would affect the nation’s economy early on and years to come.

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