M. K. Tomiak
The modern western world had never witnessed an attack on the US as profound, momentous and devastatingly spectacular as those of September 11 2001. Not only were the attacks instantly
televised for a disbelieving global audience, but ‘the fact that the September 11 attacks struck New York and Washington, the two capitals of “Globalization” …explains not only why Americans were so deeply shocked and moved but also why the rest of the world was to such a degree.’ The death toll was similarly shocking, as ‘thousands of ordinary people from 26 countries…were killed on 9/11 in the first ‘military’ attack on continental US soil since the war of 1812.’ For a new generation of Americans, terrorism had been brought into their borders, and ‘not since the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 did Americans feel anything remotely as threatening to their homeland as this…that feeling made the US public highly receptive to calls to ‘do something about it.’