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

Trump’s tariffs are about something more than economics: power

Published

6 hours ago

April 3, 2025

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Trump's tariffs are about something more than economics: power

Tanking stock markets, collapsing world orders, devastating trade wars; economists with their hair ablaze are scrambling to keep up.

But as we try to make sense of Donald Trumps’s tariff tsunami, economic theory only goes so far. In the end this surely is about something more primal.

Power.

Understanding that may be crucial to how the world responds.

Yes, economics helps explain the impact. The world’s economy has after all shifted on its axis, the way it’s been run for decades turned on its head.

Instead of driving world trade, America is creating a trade war. We will all feel the impact.

Donald Trump says he is settling scores, righting wrongs. America has been raped, looted and pillaged by the world trading system.

But don’t be distracted by the hyperbole – and if you think this is about economics alone, you may be missing the point.

Above all, tariffs give Donald Trump power. They strike fear into allies and enemies, from governments to corporations.

This is a president who runs his presidency like a medieval emperor or mafia don.

It is one reason why since his election we have seen what one statesman called a conga line of sycophants make their way to the White House, from world leaders to titans of industry.

The conga line will grow longer as they now redouble their efforts hoping to special treatment from Trump’s tariffs. Sir Keir Starmer among them.

President Trump’s using similar tactics at home, deploying presidential power to extract concessions and deter dissent in corporate America, academia and the US media. Those who offer favours are spared punishment.

His critics say he seeks a form power for the executive or presidential branch of government that the founding fathers deliberately sought to prevent.

Whether or not that is true, the same playbook of divide and rule through intimidation can now be applied internationally. Thanks to tariffs

Each country will seek exceptions but on Trump’s terms. Those who retaliate may meet escalation.

This is the unforgiving calculus for governments including our own plotting their next moves.

The temptation will be to give Trump whatever he wants to spare their economies, but there is a jeopardy that compounds the longer this goes on.

Malcolm Turnbull, the former Australian prime minister who coined the conga line comparison, put it this way: “Pretty much all the international leaders I have seen that have sucked up to Trump have been run over. The reality is if you suck up to bullies, whether it’s global affairs or in the playground, you just get more bullying.”

Trading partners may be able to mitigate the impact of these tariffs through negotiation, but that may only encourage this unorthodox president to demand ever more?

Ultimately the world will need a more reliable superpower than that.

In the hands of such a president, America cannot be counted on.

When it comes to security, stability and prosperity, allies will need to fend for themselves.

And they will need new friends. If Washington can’t be relied on, Beijing beckons.

America First will, more and more, mean America on its own.

US

‘A genius actor’, ‘firecracker’, and ‘my friend’: Tributes paid to Top Gun star Val Kilmer

Published

6 hours ago

April 3, 2025

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'A genius actor', 'firecracker', and 'my friend': Tributes paid to Top Gun star Val Kilmer

Actors, directors and celebrity friends have paid tribute to Val Kilmer, after he died aged 65.

The California-born star of Top Gun, Batman and Heat died of pneumonia on Tuesday night in Los Angeles, his daughter Mercedes told the Associated Press.

She said Kilmer was diagnosed with throat cancer in 2014 but later recovered.

Tributes flooded in after reports broke of the actor’s death, with No Country For Old Men star Josh Brolin among the first to share their memories.

He wrote on Instagram: “See ya, pal. I’m going to miss you. You were a smart, challenging, brave, uber-creative firecracker. There’s not a lot left of those.

“I hope to see you up there in the heavens when I eventually get there. Until then, amazing memories, lovely thoughts.”

Kyle Maclachlan, who co-starred with Kilmer in the 1991 biopic The Doors, wrote on social media: “You’ll always be my Jim. See you on the other side my friend.”

Michael Mann, who directed Kilmer in 1995’s Heat, also paid tribute in a statement, saying: “I always marvelled at the range, the brilliant variability within the powerful current of Val’s possessing and expressing character.

“After so many years of Val battling disease and maintaining his spirit, this is tremendously sad news.”

Heat co-star Danny Trejo also called Kilmer “a great actor, a wonderful person, and a dear friend of mine” on Instagram.

Cher, who once dated the actor, said on X that “U Were Funny, crazy, pain in the ass, GREAT FRIEND… BRILLIANT as Mark Twain, BRAVE here during ur sickness”.

Lifelong friend and director of Twixt, Francis Ford Coppola said: “Val Kilmer was the most talented actor when in his High School, and that talent only grew greater throughout his life.

“He was a wonderful person to work with and a joy to know – I will always remember him.”

The Top Gun account on X also said it was remembering Kilmer, who starred as Iceman in both the 1986 original and 2022 sequel, and “whose indelible cinematic mark spanned genres and generations”.

Nicolas Cage added that “I always liked Val and am sad to hear of his passing”.

“I thought he was a genius actor,” he said. “I enjoyed working with him on Bad Lieutenant and I admired his commitment and sense of humor.

“He should have won the Oscar for The Doors.”

US

Island home only to penguins hit by tariffs – and other things you may have missed on ‘Liberation Day’

Published

6 hours ago

April 3, 2025

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Island home only to penguins hit by tariffs - and other things you may have missed on 'Liberation Day'

No one expected penguins to bear the brunt of Liberation Day.

But among the barrage of tariffs set out by Donald Trump, the US also took aim at uninhabited islands, talked up American beef and turned its nose up at plastic eggs.

Here is what you might have missed in the US leader’s expansive announcement.

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Tiny territories hit with big tariffs

At first glance, newly imposed tariffs on countries such as China, the European Union, India and the UK stand out – ranging from 34% to 10% respectively.

But the president also imposed tariffs on dozens of tiny territories – some of which don’t even have human inhabitants.

One of those was the Heard and McDonald Islands, an external territory of Australia in the Antarctic that is inhabited only by penguins and seals.

Despite having no human residents – or imports and exports – the island now faces a 10% tariff for any goods bound for the US.

According to export data from the World Bank, the US imported $1.4m (£1m) of mainly “machinery and electrical” products from Heard Island and McDonald Islands in 2022.

Australian territory Norfolk Island, a volcanic island 600 miles east of Queensland, was also hit with a hefty 29% tariff on exports to the US. That’s much higher than mainland Australia, which had a 10% tariff imposed.

The news was met with confusion by some of Norfolk Island’s 2,188 residents.

“Norfolk Island is a little dot in the world,” Richard Cottle, owner of a concrete-mixing business on the island, said on Thursday.

“We don’t export anything. It was just a mistake”.

Although the island does ship a modest amount of Kentia palm seeds abroad, this is typically worth less than $1m (£760,000) a year, with the products mostly going to Europe.

According to US government data, America has recorded trade deficits with Norfolk Island for the past three years.

Other tiny nations and territories were also hit with 10% tariffs, including Tokelau, a dependent territory of New Zealand, with a population of around 1,600 people, and the Cocos Islands, another territory of Australia, with a population of around 600 people.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told reporters he had no explanation for the tariffs, calling them “unexpected” and “a bit strange”.

‘Our beef is beautiful, theirs is weak’

After announcing a 20% tariff against the European Union, Mr Trump’s secretary of commerce Howard Lutnick spoke to Fox News to try to explain what was behind the decision.

In a brief but bizarre rant, Mr Lutnick spoke about the bloc’s ban on imported chicken from the US.

“I mean European Union won’t take chicken from America,” he said.

“They will take lobsters from America… they hate our beef because our beef is beautiful and theirs is weak.”

The EU has a ban on chicken washed in chlorine – a practice that is approved by the United States Department of Agriculture.

Although US beef is not completely prohibited in Europe, any beef that has been treated with artificial growth hormones – which is legal in the US and common among producers – is banned by the EU.

Why was Russia exempt?

Russia was not on Mr Trump’s tariff list, despite his threat to introduce some on Russian oil imports last week.

The US president made the threat after telling NBC’s Kirsten Welker he was “very angry” and “pissed off” after Vladimir Putin criticised the credibility of Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, as fragile peace negotiations are ongoing.

Mr Trump said that if Russia was unable to make a deal on “stopping bloodshed in Ukraine” – and Mr Trump felt that Moscow was to blame – then he would put secondary tariffs on “all oil coming out of Russia”.

“That would be that if you buy oil from Russia, you can’t do business in the United States. There will be a 25% tariff on all oil, a 25 to 50-point tariff on all oil,” he said.

Axios reported that White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told the publication on Wednesday that Russia was left off the tariffs list because US sanctions already “preclude any meaningful trade”.

Russia ran a $2.5bn goods trade surplus with the US in 2024, according to the US Trade Representative’s office, falling from $35bn in 2021 as a result of sanctions put in place due to the war in Ukraine.

World’s poorest nations face highest tariffs

Many of Mr Trump’s tariffs have targeted the world’s poorest countries.

Lesotho in southern Africa, listed as the 22 poorest country in the world, has been slapped with the highest duty of 50%. It primarily exports diamonds and garments, with the US as one of the top five exporting destinations, Sky News’ US partner network NBC News reported.

The second-highest tariff went to Cambodia at 49%, even though the US is Cambodia’s largest single-country export destination.

Madagascar in east Africa, the world’s ninth poorest country, will face 47% reciprocal tariffs. It primarily exports vanilla, cloves, and garments, with the US among the top five countries it exports to, according to NBC.

‘Huge complexities’ for Northern Ireland and the Republic

Under the 10% tariff imposed on the UK, Northern Irish goods will also be covered at the same rate.

Whereas the Republic of Ireland will subject to a 20% tariffs – which Mr Trump imposed on the entirety of the EU.

Reacting to the announcement, Ireland deputy premier Simon Harris said the tariff difference would create “huge complexities” for products that need to be carried across the cross-border dimension during production.

He said the issues were similar to those at play during the Brexit debate around maintaining a frictionless land border on the island of Ireland.

Mr Harris said it was on the US to “outline their understanding” on how the 10% differential between Northern Ireland and Ireland will play out.

Trump defines groceries

As has become common when delivering major addresses, the US president repeatedly deviated from his script.

At one point, he took time to define the word groceries: “It’s a bag with a lot of different things in it.”

He went on to describe the word as “old-fashioned” but “beautiful”.

‘Could you use plastic eggs?’

In another part of his wide-ranging speech, Mr Trump got onto the topic of eggs – the price of which reached an all-time high earlier this year in the US due to the outbreak of bird flu.

On Wednesday, Mr Trump confirmed that the annual White House tradition of rolling around 30,000 Easter eggs across the South Lawn is expected to proceed, and will use real eggs, despite pleas for plastic ones to be used instead.

“They were saying that for Easter ‘Please don’t use eggs. Could you use plastic eggs?’ I say, we don’t want to do that,” Mr Trump said.

He did not clarify who was telling him not to use real eggs.