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Rylan McClelland

Professor Malcolm Campbell

UWRT 1104

November 8th, 2017

Living through Terror: How Terrorism Changed American Culture

Terrorism has been an issue for many centuries, occurring in many places around the

world. It has caused many wars throughout known history and changed the relationships between

groups of people. Recently, terrorism has become a big problem in the United States of America.

It has caused several changes in American culture to the point where the general public has

become desensitized to the horrific news that comes from these attacks. This paper goes through

the events that started this culture shift from the 9/11 attacks up to the most recent attacks on

Halloween 2017.

9/11 Attacks

The War on Terror all started after the September 11th attacks in 2001 when members

of Al Qaeda hijacked several planes with the intent on harming many people. Two of the planes

were flown into the North and South towers of the World Trade Center in New York City.

Another plane was flown into the Pentagon building in Washington D.C., the nations capital.

The final plane was believed to have another building in D.C. as its target, like the White House

or the Capitol building. However, the brave men and women on the flight were able to take back

control from the hijackers and crash land the plane in a field in Pennsylvania. Meanwhile in New

York City, the fires in the Twin Towers caused by the planes started to make the structure of the

towers collapse in on themselves, resulting in a huge pile of rubble in the middle of this city.
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This attack was devastating to all Americans. No one saw it coming and many people

believed that the attack would continue in other regions of the country. This is when the

American people began to develop a fear of terrorism. This fear fueled many things, such as

changes in the government and ethnic group relations. After the attacks, the United States

military began to send troops to the Middle East to find those responsible. The military searched

through Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, and several other countries.

While the military was searching, back home the American people began to turn on each

other. People began to fear those that came from Middle-Eastern families or those that were

born there(Woods). Many hate crimes were committed against them and people looked down

upon them. The government created a new tool to ensure another attack like the 9/11 attacks

would not happen again. The Transportation Security Administration or TSA put new security

procedures in place and screened all those who traveled through airports in order to protect

everybody that decided to take a flight somewhere(Green).

The TSA has a negative connotation due to the added time in puts on getting through the

airport as well as the fact that they are accused of racial profiling against those who are of

Middle-Eastern descent. However, the TSA has been proven to be very useful because it has

ruined many terrorist plots. The United States government also passed the Patriot Act, which

allowed the government to have surveillance over all U.S. citizens in order to keep the country as

a whole safe from more attack, but it also violated many civil liberties such as a citizens right to

privacy.

The US military faced several problems while in the Middle East. They discovered that

many countries there were unhappy with the United States and some were really dangerous. In
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2003, the military took down Saddam Hussein who was the President of the Iraqian government,

which the U.S. government believed had access to Weapons of Mass Destruction. Many of the

terrorists we did find in pursuit of those responsible were captured and sent to Guantanamo Bay,

a prison facility for terrorists. Through torture and other means, the U.S. government was able to

find out who was the mastermind behind the 9/11 plot.

Eventually in 2011, the government found the man, Osama Bin Laden, and had him

killed by Seal Team Six, a counter-terrorism force that performs missions for the U.S.

government; this pleased many Americans. After Bin Ladens death, the fighting in the Middle

East began to die down. The United States government believed that the war was over after this

and they began to bring the troops back home. The vacuum of power that was created after the

troops left alloweding for a new and dangerous terrorist organization to develop, the Islamic

State in Iraq and the Levant or as everyone in America knows them, ISIS.

Boston Marathon Bombings

On April 15, 2013, two bombs went off near the finish line of the 117th Annual Boston

Marathon, that killed three civilians and wounded more than 260 other people. Two pressure-

cooker bombs that were packed with shrapnel sitting inside backpacks were placed along the

finish line of the marathon. Several of the people that were hit by these bombs ended up losing

some of their limbs. Many were taken aback to this attack that came out of nowhere. However,

this tragedy caused the community to work together to find the perpetrators of this attack.

Less than two days after the attack, the FBI was able to discover two male suspects that

they believed to be the ones responsible by searching through thousands of videos and

photographs taken from security cameras in the area where the attack had occurred. The FBI then
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released images of these men in order to help with the search and on the 19th, a manhunt was

underway to find them.

After an intense search for the suspects throughout the day, police were able to capture

one of the bombing suspects, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, while his older brother, Tamerlan had died

after he was wounded from a shootout with law enforcement. Before he was captured, Tsarnaev

reportedly wrote a note that the Boston bombings were committed in retaliation for U.S. wars in

Muslim countries. Investigators have suggested the Tsarnaevs were motivated by extremist

Islamic beliefs but planned and carried out the bombings on their own and were not connected to

any terrorist groups(Boston).

Like 9/11, these bombings also changed the way America was. In order for the FBI to

track down the two suspects, they had to follow leads towards other suspects as well as use any

methods necessary to find the true culprits. They violated many peoples civil liberties but at this

point, Americans had grown use to this. Eventually, they found out who caused this attack. The

discovery of the true identities of the culprits also sent another wave of anger in people due to

their ethnicity. People once again began to commit hate crimes against immigrants from the

Middle East only because of these two radicalized men.

Although this attack was similar to 9/11 in some ways, a big difference between the two

events was the technology of the time. Since 2001, new inventions have changed the way

Americans live their lives. Smartphones allowed the bystanders to record videos or take pictures

of the attack that could then be placed onto a social media site where more people can see what

has happened and can try to get involved in helping. Media coverage had also changed from

2001 because the news stations became more involved in stories like this one, so there was 24/7

coverage throughout the whole manhunt that took place on April 19th(Bommarito).
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Halloween Attack

There have been several attacks since the Boston Marathon bombings. Throughout the

world, the terrorist organization ISIS has attacked many places. They have claimed responsibility

for many attacks in the Middle East as well as the ones that have happened in Europe. They have

had attacks in other major world cities like Paris and London. They have also attacked the

United States several times at places like in San Bernardino, California and at the Pulse

Nightclub in Orlando, Florida.

The most recent attack occurred in New York City, only a few blocks away from the

new World Trade Center building on October 31st, 2017. Eight people were killed and almost a

dozen were injured when a man, now identified as Sayfullo Habibullaevic Saipov, drove a rented

pickup truck down a busy bicycle path and into a school bus before exiting the truck and

shooting off a fake firearm. The man was stopped by police and is currently being investigated.

A note written by Saipov was found at the crime scene claiming that the attack was made in the

name of ISIS. At this point in time, most Americans were expecting another attack to happen

sometime soon and many were so desensitized to this tragedy that they went on with their lives

like any other day.

In conclusion, American culture has shifted into one that no longer has people with

shocked reactions towards terrorist attacks. Hate plays a big part in the spread of terrorism in

society and new technology can be helpful in preventing future attacks. Americans who wish to

live safe and normal lives will have to realize that they need to change their attitude towards

terrorism. They need to stand with the government and repel these terrorist organizations.

Otherwise, attacks will keep on happening and more people will be harmed.
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Works Cited

Bommarito, Sal. 8 Ways the Boston Bombing Changed America Forever. Mic, Mic Network

Inc., 24 Oct. 2015, https://mic.com/articles/37705/8-ways-the-boston-bombing-changed-

america-forever#.d9ibXMDUh. Accessed 05 Nov 2017

Boston Marathon Bombings. History.com, A&E Television Networks, 2014,

www.history.com/topics/boston-marathon-bombings. Accessed 05 Nov 2017

Green, Matthew. How 9/11 Changed America: Four Major Lasting Impacts (with Lesson

Plan). The Lowdown, KQED News, 8 Sept. 2017,

https://ww2.kqed.org/lowdown/2017/09/08/13-years-later-four-major-lasting-impacts-of-

911/. Accessed 05 Nov 2017

ISIS Fast Facts. CNN, Cable News Network, 17 Oct. 2017,

www.cnn.com/2014/08/08/world/isis-fast-facts/index.html. Accessed 05 Nov 2017

Meet 'Seal Team 6,' The Guys Who Killed Osama Bin Laden - And Whose Members Are Now

Going Public. Business Insider, Business Insider, 14 Nov. 2014,

www.businessinsider.com/meet-seal-team-6-2014-11. Accessed 05 Nov 2017

Rappaport, Gary. What You Can Do. MINNESOTANS AGAINST TERRORISM, Minnesotans

against Terrorism, 2003, www.minnesotansagainstterrorism.org/do.htm. Accessed 05

Nov 2017

US Terrorist Attacks Fast Facts. CNN, Cable News Network, 1 Nov. 2017,

www.cnn.com/2013/04/18/us/u-s-terrorist-attacks-fast-facts/index.html. Accessed 05

Nov 2017
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Woods, Joshua. "The 9/11 Effect: Toward a Social Science of the Terrorist Threat." The Social

Science Journal. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S036233191000056X?

_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_origin=gateway&_docanchor=&md5=b8429449ccfc9c30159a5f9

aeaa92ffb&ccp=y Accessed 10 Oct 2017.