Twenty-five years after the seismic terror attacks on September 11, 2001, people at home
and across the globe are reflecting not just on the events and outcome of that day, but on
the state of a nation and world since then. More than a generation has been born with no
direct knowledge or experience of that day, but virtually every aspect of political discourse
and foreign relations, business and technology, function and interaction since, has been
affected by the attacks of that day.
While many are now only able to process the events of the day as history, not memory, the
day still stands as a watershed moment of foreign terrorists attacking the United States
domestically, something the country had been relatively shielded from prior to 9/11.
But now, a quarter of a century later, many Americans are more worried about attacks at
home from domestic extremists, rather than foreign groups, according to recent polling.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted from August 28-31 found that, when asked to name the
biggest threat to the safety of the average American, 33% of respondents picked “domestic
terrorism”, while 20% picked foreign terror attacks. 42% picked random acts of violence
such as mass shootings.
This is a shift from just a decade ago when a similar poll from 2013 showed 28% of
Americans thought foreign terrorists as the greater threat, and only 21% chose domestic
attacks as the most threatening. 51%, however, picked random acts of violence as the
greater threat in 2013.
Foreign al Qaeda militants crashed two hijacked planes into the World Trade Center towers
in New York City on September 11, one into the Pentagon in Washington D.C., and another
was diverted to crash in Shanksville, PA. after passengers and crew rebelled against the
hijackers. Nearly 3,000 were killed in the attacks.
Numerous al Qaeda-led attacks continued after 9/11, including the 2003 compound
bombings in Riyadh, the 2004 Madrid train bombings, the 2007 London public transport
station bombings, the bombing of the Danish embassy in Pakistan in 2008, the 2012 attack
on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, and many others.
In the wake of the attacks, a wave of newfound patriotism and unity swept across the
country, and decades of war unfolded, as the U.S. invaded Afghanistan, in effort to
eradicate the al Qaeda organization and its leaders, as well as other perceived terrorist hot
spots such as Iraq.
Also, legislation was enacted to increase surveillance, security and background checks,
prompting protests that some of the very freedoms central to our republic were being
curtailed in a zealous overreach by intelligence authorities.
At the same time, 6 in 10 Americans—including 8 out of 10 Republicans—think the U.S.
government response to the September 11 attacks has been somewhat effective in
preventing attacks against Americans on U.S. soil, while a bipartisan majority (71% of
Democrats, 75% of Republicans) think the increased airport security has been worth the
disruption to travelers as well.
Americans are also more inclined to support government-run airport security as opposed
to putting that in the hands of private contractors.
The expansion of domestic surveillance, however, has been less popular. 65% oppose
allowing U.S. intelligence agencies to monitor electronic communications of U.S. citizens
without a warrant. A 2008 law that allowed that to happen lapsed in June, though the Trump
administration has reached out to Congress for reauthorization.
The rise in domestic extremism though, seems to have overtaken what many Americans
fear the most, as domestically inspired attacks have been on the rise, such as the 2016
mass shooting at a Florida gay nightclub, numerous attacks on Latino, Jewish and Black
Americans, multiple assassination attempts on President Donald Trump, and the killing of
Conservative activist Charlie Kirk while speaking to university students in Utah.
Asked which ideology-driven attacks pose the bigger threat, 61% of the Reuters poll
respondents picked domestic extremists while just 34% picked those from abroad.
The legacy of September 11 remains strong though, as nearly 6 in 10 people say they would
support a military response if there were another major attack, though many expressed the
wars that followed the attack were not worth the cost. 48% said the war in Afghanistan was
not worth the toll, while only 21% said it was. The war in Iraq drew a similar response, with
51% disapproving of the cost and 21% approving of it.
25 years later, 75% of people responded that the events of September 11 had a major
impact on the nation, while only 41% described the 2007-2009 financial meltdown as
having had a major impact on the country, underscoring the lasting impact of the tragedy.
Be the first to comment