How 9/11 continues to shape the US and the world 20 years on

Published

4 years ago

September 8, 2021

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To look at the front page of the New York Times of Tuesday, September 11th, 2001 is to reach back into another era – an era, in many ways, which doesn’t look very different to that of today.

The president was under pressure over the economy, there was violence in the Middle East and the New York Giants had lost to the Denver Broncos.

But even before many New Yorkers would have opened their newspaper on that clear, sunny September morning, America and the world had been changed forever.

At 8.46am and 9.03am, two hijacked airliners were flown into the twin towers of the World Trade Center. Another jet was crashed into the Pentagon near Washington DC and a fourth was brought down in a field in Pennsylvania.

What had seemed unimaginable – an unprecedented terrorist attack on American soil, striking at the very heart of society and witnessed on television screens around the world – was a shock the country has still not absorbed.

The results of a recent USA Today/Gallup poll are astonishing. Some 60% of Americans say the attacks permanently changed the way the country lives, more than the number who felt that way on the tenth anniversary.

The youngest, and those who weren’t even born on September 11th, felt that impact the strongest of all.

Twenty years on, the debate continues about how much America and the world was altered by the events of September 11th but in myriad ways, big and small, the scars of that day are still evident.

Endless War

Who would have thought that when the US launched airstrikes on Afghanistan within a month of September 11th that it would be almost 20 years before the last American troops would finally leave the country?

The initial aim of the invasion, ordered by US president George W Bush, was to crush al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, the terrorist group and its leader blamed for planning and carrying out the attacks, and deny them the base from which they had operated. Prime Minister Tony Blair was a key ally of the US in offering military support.

But Mr Bush had already told the US Congress and the American people that the country was engaged in a new type of military action that went far beyond a few targeted strikes against a single enemy.

The “war on terror” was born and it would not end, he said, “until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated”.

The war in Afghanistan became the longest in US history. Some 800,000 served there and nearly 2,500 died. More than 20,000 are listed as wounded – the true cost of psychological wounds is far higher.

The more than 400 UK service personnel who died in Afghanistan add to thousands of Afghan civilians, police and military personnel, aid workers and contractors over the 20 years.

While the war in Afghanistan enjoyed public support initially, that waned over the years, especially after the killing of bin Laden in 2011.

That the “war on terror” encompassed the far more controversial invasion of Iraq – in the supposed hunt for stocks of weapons of mass destruction that were never found – would cost a further 4,500 American military lives, some 179 British and 100,000 Iraqi. A million Americans served in Iraq.

Everywhere you look are remnants of the war. The prison camp at Guantanamo Bay just one we almost forget these days.

The pursuit of the “war on terror” would define American foreign policy and arguments rage about whether it was won or lost.

It is undeniable that the spectre of a repeat of September 11th, the fear of an attack on the homeland, has driven American actions abroad for far longer than anyone expected.

Air travel

Anyone who has flown into, out of or around the US in recent years will be familiar with those blue-uniformed custodians of the body scanner, the TSA.

Before September 11th, not only did the Transportation Security Administration not exist but airport security was a pale shadow of the operation we see today. Fewer than 10% of checked bags were screened back then.

The TSA was built from scratch within months and in direct response to the September 11th attacks. It is now a behemoth with a budget of $8bn and has undoubtedly made air travel safer.

The law that created it also mandated that all bags be screened, cockpit doors be reinforced and air marshals be put on planes.

If you can remember flying pre-2001, or if you watch an old film with an airport scene, it was a time of no lines at security, no need for a boarding pass to get to the departure gate and far less stress.

But as previously-unseen threats manifest, so too have security measures. Things that could be used as a weapon, like blades, were banned. Shoes had to be removed, a move that followed the failed shoe bomb attack in 2001, and electronics received extra screening.

The limit on liquids which could be used to make a bomb have been accepted, sometimes grudgingly, by passengers along with those growing queues and the need to arrive earlier at the airport.

While some success is obvious – 3,200 guns seized at airports last year, almost all loaded – much of the security infrastructure is hidden from view with vetting and background checks and behavioural analysis part of the system. This has also led to suspicions and complaints of racial profiling.

And like the booming business in trusted-traveller programmes – where passengers pay fees and disclose background information to bypass the checks – it has come at the cost of another big aspect of change in our post-September 11th world: privacy.

Surveillance and privacy

Just 45 days after the September 11th attacks, the Patriot Act was signed into law with the stated aim of tightening US national security.

It expanded the surveillance reach of law enforcement including permitting the tapping of international and domestic telephone lines. In essence, it made it easier for the US government to monitor US citizens.

Opponents say it was the birth of a “mass surveillance regime”, expanding powers to carry out electronic searches without court orders and property searches without someone’s consent or even knowledge.

In the years that followed, those programmes were expanded and supported by the Bush and Obama administrations and Congress.

The revelations of whistle-blower Edward Snowden in 2013 reverberated around the world, his allegations of the broad extent of the US National Security Agency’s efforts to gather data on a massive scale revealed the expansion of the power granted to the intelligence services.

Civil liberties groups began a fight against the scope of the laws arguing they undermined privacy rights and are, in some cases, unconstitutional.

But, as Congress quietly renewed many of the powers, public opinion remained broadly supportive of the intelligence services right to snoop in the name of national security.

A quarter of Americans, though, did say they had changed the way they used technology in the wake of the Snowden revelations.

Congress has now acted to rein in some of those powers and the more controversial data collection techniques have been abandoned.

But in an era when data is exploding, and with a greater awareness of transparency and privacy, the tension between civil liberties and national security is alive and well.

Anti-Muslim sentiment

In 2000, 12 anti-Muslim assaults were reported to the FBI in the US. In 2001, the number had leapt to 93. It has never returned to pre-2001 levels.

A decade and a half after September 11th, half of Muslims in the US said they found it more difficult to live in the country as a result of the attacks.

But it initially appeared the backlash against the Muslim community that everyone had feared could be averted.

Six days after the attack, President Bush visited a mosque in Washington and condemned harassment of the Muslim community. “The face of terror is not the truth faith of Islam,” he said. “That’s not what Islam is all about. Islam is peace. These terrorists don’t represent peace. They represent evil and war.”

Polls taken two months after September 11th showed 59% of Americans had a favourable view of Muslim Americans, up from the number before September 11th.

But in the years that followed, polls showed a growing suspicion of people of Middle Eastern descent and a growing number of Americans who associated Islam with violence.

Even though the Muslim population has grown in the years since September 11th, researchers say many Americans know little about Islam and that views about the Muslim community have divided along political lines.

A survey by Pew Research in 2007 found that half of Americans believe that Islam is “not part of mainstream American society”, but that view was held by 68% of Republicans and just 37% of Democrats.

American psyche and patriotism

It is one very visible testament to the impact of September 11th on every street in America

The flags that fly on porches and front lawns, the protocol of never leaving them there unlit after dark, gained an added meaning for many. There is also a greater suspicion of those who don’t fly the flag, who don’t wear their patriotism proudly in post September 11th America.

Millions of words have been written about the surge in patriotism after September 11th. President Bush harnessed the spirit, with a bullhorn in one hand and his arm around a firefighter at Ground Zero, to rally Americans around the flag.

It has often been said that the US military saw a surge in enlistment after September 11th. In fact, despite a surge in calls to recruiting centres, the increase in the number who actually signed up was negligible. In 2005, the US fell short of its annual recruitment goal.

But there is no doubt many of those who did enlist in 2001 and 2002 were motivated by a desire to seek revenge. And, after all, the US had not been actively engaged in an official war until the invasion of Afghanistan.

Bush’s exhortation that “you are either with us or against us” struck a chord.

In the immediate aftermath of September 11th, there was a surge in the number of people looking to volunteer for charities and donate blood. A similar rise in attendance was seen at churches.

When researchers looked at all of those numbers again nine months after September 11th, only the levels of patriotism remained as high.

This took root in American culture as even Hollywood focused on patriotism rather than violence.

And the overt reverence for the military and first responders and their service is an undoubted legacy of what Americans witnessed on September 11th.

Changed the world

While the ways in which September 11th changed America are unmistakable, the impact of those attacks around the globe is a varied picture of the subtle and brutal.

For the people of Afghanistan and Iraq, years of war and its terrible costs are a living embodiment of America’s reaction to the attack on home soil. The repercussions have been felt throughout their neighbours and beyond.

The loss of life of British military personnel, and those of other allied nations in those wars, are scars with which hundreds of families still live.

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If few people in the broader population paid attention to the names of al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden before September 11th, many countries have seen first-hand in the years since the devastation of the sort of attacks they inspire.

The world has also drawn lessons from the withdrawal from Afghanistan and whether the “war on terror” succeeded. Wherever we are in the world, even if it is something as minor as taking our belt off at airport security, the impacts of September 11th are with us.

Twenty years on

One third of all Americans alive today were children or hadn’t been born on September 11th 2001. Everyone else, as they always say, knows exactly where they were when it happened.

At the time many feared it was the beginning of a wave of such attacks but, for whatever combination of reasons, it hasn’t been. Americans have been protected, even if it has come at a cost.

But 9/11 shook the confidence of the world’s superpower and not even the passing of twenty years has fully restored that.

US

Jeffrey Epstein’s most lucrative currency was people – six years after his death, he continues to haunt those who knew him

Published

8 hours ago

December 7, 2025

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Jeffrey Epstein's most lucrative currency was people - six years after his death, he continues to haunt those who knew him

Framed photos with presidents, princes and even the pope adorned the many homes of Jeffrey Epstein.

This article contains images and language that some readers may find disturbing.

The disgraced New York financier’s most lucrative currency was people. He made a career out of connections with world leaders in politics, business titans and science’s most lauded brains.

The man formerly known as Prince Andrew, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, described Epstein‘s appeal in his infamous TV interview: “He had the most extraordinary ability to bring extraordinary people together and that’s the bit that I remember, going to the dinner parties where you would meet academics, politicians, people from the United Nations. It was a cosmopolitan group of what I would describe as US eminence.”

His network was not just US-based but the global elite – among them hedge fund owners, bankers and hoteliers.

But as more and more new documents and photos are made public, we can build up an intimate portrait of a man who kept so much private.

Another man once called a prince, but of darkness this time, Peter Mandelson, described his “best pal” as a “prolific networker”. Epstein’s friends crossed political parties – Republican and Democratic – and continents.

Epstein’s Palm Beach mansion was just a seven-minute drive from Donald Trump‘s Mar-a-Lago. In 2002, Mr Trump told New York Magazine: “I’ve known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy. He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”

They are said to have fallen out while competing to purchase a mansion in 2004.

The release of thousands of Epstein’s personal emails shows he had had plenty of world leaders in his inbox.

The former prime minister of Norway and former president of the Maldives sought his advice on politics and finance respectively.

An enigma

Epstein’s emails are short, often abrupt and riddled with spelling mistakes. The impression he wanted to give: he was a busy man, an enigma. You were lucky to be getting a reply.

He cared about appearances – his own and of the women he abused. He dated many models, including a former Miss Sweden. He followed a strict diet to keep lean and insisted the women in his life did the same.

His now notorious 50th birthday book is packed full of candid snaps, some featured here, that flaunt his lavish lifestyle. It is also brazen in its relishing of Epstein’s proclivity for young women. Images of scantily clad women are included in photos and doodles.

The anecdotes from his wealthy, powerful friends are often smutty or innuendo-led. “It’s no secret that Jeffrey appreciates beautiful women. But not many people know that he can create them out of thin air,” reads one.

Massages were entry route to abuse

Epstein’s black book of contacts had lengthy lists of women lined up for “massages” in Florida, California, New Mexico, New York, London, Paris and his island.

At least 152 women are named in it with phone numbers – they were available on speed dial.

The premise of a massage was often his entry route to abuse. The massages were scheduled, part of his daily routine. Whether on a private jet or his private island, he acted with impunity for far too long.

Epstein did not show remorse for his crimes

Multiple women went to the police to report his actions over the years. But the only jail time he was ever sentenced to was in 2008 after a controversial deal where he pleaded guilty to state charges of soliciting a minor for prostitution. He was sentenced to 18 months in jail, but only served 13 and negotiated the ability to leave the jail six days a week for up to 12 hours a day for work.

Despite becoming a registered sex offender in 2008, he was far from a social pariah. Nor did he show remorse for his crimes.

Even a decade after his conviction, he was still mocking sexual abuse. He wrote in a message to a friend in 2018, “so many guys caught in the me too, reaching out to me. Asking when does the madness stop. Funny,” and then that “breast cancer was easier to cure than the me too movement”.

‘Epstein claimed if girls had started menstruating they were of age to have sex’

Virginia Giuffre revealed in her memoir that Epstein would say that criminalising sex with teenage girls was a cultural aberration. He would point to different US states having different ages of consent – in Florida it was 18. He claimed if girls had started menstruating they were biologically of age to have sex.

Documents released by the House Oversight Committee reveal he paid to “clean up” what came up about him on Google after his conviction. On 11 December 2010 he bemoaned that despite forking out thousands, “the google page is not good” in an email.

‘An extraordinary volume’ of naked photos of young girls

On 6 July 2019, Epstein was arrested on federal charges related to sex trafficking after his private jet flew into the US from Paris.

“An extraordinary volume” of naked photos of young girls were found in his New York town house. Authorities also found a safe containing 48 loose diamonds, $70,000 (£52,000) in cash and three passports belonging to the sex offender. The expired Austrian passport had a photo of Epstein, but a different name and an address in Saudi Arabia.

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On 10 August 2019, Epstein was found dead in his New York prison cell while awaiting trial. Forty-eight hours before he died he signed a will which put his assets in a trust, the beneficiaries of which remain private.

Epstein’s most vocal victim, Ms Giuffre, who took her own life this year, closes her memoir Nobody’s Girl saying: “Epstein is dead but the attitude that allowed him to do what he did, it’s alive and well.”

Six years after his death, Epstein continues to haunt those who knew him. Some may be scared – for their reputation, careers and for what more could still come out.

US

US national parks drop free admission on MLK Day and Juneteenth, but add Trump’s birthday

Published

16 hours ago

December 6, 2025

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US national parks drop free admission on MLK Day and Juneteenth, but add Trump's birthday

Americans will be able to visit national parks for free on Donald Trump’s birthday next year, but will no longer be able to do so on Martin Luther King Jr Day or Juneteenth.

The Department of the Interior has released a list of what it calls “resident-only patriotic fee-free days” for next year.

Mr Trump‘s birthday, which falls on the Flag Day national holiday, has been added to the list, as has the Fourth of July weekend and President Theodore Roosevelt’s birthday.

However, Martin Luther King Day and Juneteenth have been removed. Juneteenth was recognised in 2021 under Joe Biden’s administration and commemorates the end of slavery in the US.

Also removed are the anniversary of the Great American Outdoors Act in August and the National Public Lands Day in September.

“President Trump’s leadership always puts American families first,” the US interior secretary Doug Burgum said.

“These policies ensure that US taxpayers, who already support the National Park System, continue to enjoy affordable access, while international visitors contribute their fair share to maintaining and improving our parks for future generations.”

The department said it was also introducing “America-first entry free policies”, which means US residents will continue to “enjoy affordable pricing” while international visitors “will pay a higher rate to help support the care and maintenance of America’s parks”.

It said the annual pass will cost $80 (£60) for US residents and $250 (£187) for nonresidents, with nonresidents without an annual pass paying a $100 (£75) per person fee to enter 11 of the most visited national parks, in addition to the standard entrance fee.

Trump renames US Institute of Peace after himself

The decision to make his birthday a ‘free’ day comes after Mr Trump’s name was added to the sign on the headquarters building of the United States Institute of Peace in Washington DC.

The State Department shared a photo of the building’s new facade and called Mr Trump “the greatest dealmaker in our nation’s history”.

He has also unsuccessfully put himself forward for the Nobel Peace Prize, sought to put his name on the planned NFL stadium in Washington DC, and had a new children’s savings programme named after him.

US

White House: Europe ‘unrecognisable in 20 years or less’

Published

1 day ago

December 6, 2025

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White House: Europe 'unrecognisable in 20 years or less'

President Trump’s “America First” agenda has been spelt out in a new White House National Security Strategy that should make stark reading for allies and foes of the United States alike.

The new 33-page document outlines an upending of American foreign policy objectives and priorities which have stood largely unchanged through different administrations stretching back decades.

The document says American strategy went “astray” over many years. It seeks to reframe America’s strategic interests as being far narrower now than at any time in its modern history.

Among the key points, the document says:

• Europe faces “civilizational erasure” and could be “unrecognisable in 20 years or less”

• “Certain NATO members will become majority non-European” within a few decades

• America will “shift away” from the “burden” of the Middle East seeing it now as a “source and destination of international investment”

• In the Western hemisphere, America should pursue a policy of “enlist and expand… restoring American pre-eminence”

• In Africa, American policy focus should be on trade not “providing and spreading liberal ideology”

In black-and-white, the text articulates a dramatic strategic shift which has been playing out at lightning speed over the past year.

The document underlines the end of the concept of America as an arbiter of the democratic rules-based order.

“American foreign policy elites convinced themselves that permanent American domination of the entire world was in the best interests of our country. Yet the affairs of other countries are our concern only if their activities directly threaten our interests,” the paper says.

Every US administration publishes at least one National Security Strategy during a presidential term.

The focus of this one is starkly different from that published by President Biden in 2022.

It’s also notably different from the document which President Trump published during his first term. His 2017 paper cast the world as a contest between “repressive regimes” and “free societies”.

This new one places the necessity to do trade above the imposition of values.

“We seek good relations and peaceful commercial relations with the nations of the world without imposing on them democratic or other social change that differs widely from their traditions and histories.”

Mass migration and Europe

The new document is highly critical of mass migration.

It warns that uncontrolled migration is destroying the concept of nation states which could impact America’s strategic alliances and the countries it counts as reliable allies.

The paper is particularly critical of Europe, of the European Union as a concept and of individual European nations.

“Should present trends continue, the continent will be unrecognizable in 20 years or less,” the paper says.

It continues: “As such, it is far from obvious whether certain European countries will have economies and militaries strong enough to remain reliable allies.

“Many of these nations are currently doubling down on their present path. We want Europe to remain European, to regain its civilizational self-confidence, and to abandon its failed focus on regulatory suffocation.”

The document’s language around the politics of governing parties across Europe is particularly stark.

Regarding Ukraine, the document says: “The Trump Administration finds itself at odds with European officials who hold unrealistic expectations for the war perched in unstable minority governments, many of which trample on basic principles of democracy to suppress opposition.

“A large European majority wants peace, yet that desire is not translated into policy, in large measure because of those government’s subversion of democratic processes.”

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The document outlines how his administration will seek to support “patriotic European parties”.

This is entirely in line with President Trump’s rhetoric but still represents a major departure from the longstanding principle of not interfering in the politics of allies.

It says: “American diplomacy should continue to stand up for genuine democracy, freedom of expression, and unapologetic celebrations of European nations’ individual character and history.

“America encourages its political allies in Europe to promote this revival of spirit, and the growing influence of patriotic European parties indeed gives cause for great optimism.”

Ukraine and Russia

On European-Russia relations, the document raises the prospect of war but curiously does not presume that such a conflict would involve America.

“Managing European relations with Russia will require significant US diplomatic engagement, both to reestablish conditions of strategic stability across the Eurasian landmass, and to mitigate the risk of conflict between Russia and European states.”

By contrast, President Biden’s National Security Strategy, published in 2022, underlined repeatedly the “iron-clad” commitment the United States had to Europe’s security.

Chinese risk and opportunity

The document presents Asia and the Indo-Pacific region as a source of opportunity for strategic and economic cooperation.

“President Trump is building alliances and strengthening partnerships in the Indo-Pacific that will be the bedrock of security and prosperity long into the future…”

And specifically on China, the paper presents a goal of “economic vitality” achieved through a balanced economic relationship between the two countries combined with an “ongoing focus on deterrence to prevent war”.

Deterrence would be achieved, it outlines, by maintaining preeminent military strength over China.

It says: “This combined approach can become a virtuous cycle as strong American deterrence opens up space for more disciplined economic action, while more disciplined economic action leads to greater American resources to sustain deterrence in the long term.”

Hemispheres of influence

In line with President Trump’s focus on spheres of influence, particular focus is given to the western hemisphere.

There are clear references to the impact of drugs from south and central America into the US and more subtle references to control of the arctic.

“The United States will reassert and enforce the Monroe Doctrine to restore American pre-eminence in the Western Hemisphere, and to protect our homeland and our access to key geographies throughout the region,” the paper says.

It continues: “We will deny non-Hemispheric competitors the ability to position forces or other threatening capabilities, or to own or control strategically vital assets, in our hemisphere.”