Also important was the fact that the events were visually reported by the news media in real time and, by being subsequently and endlessly replayed and dissected, were reinforced among audiences well beyond the US. This owes much to the immediacy of the attacks and their relevance to Western audiences. Few modern events have attracted such a global audience, which is something we will study later in the course.
Just as a generation can recall where they were and what they were doing when they heard of the assassination of President Kennedy on 22 November 1963, so we can quickly recall our own personal experience – how we felt and what we thought – as witnesses of 9/11. It also led to US-led interventions in Afghanistan in October 2001 to overthrow the Taliban regime, which had provided safe haven to Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda, and in Iraq in March 2003 to overthrow Saddam Hussein.ĩ/11 is, for millions of people throughout the world, a rooted memory. The response of the US and its allies, notably the UK, but also Italy, Spain and others, was to launch a ‘war on terror’, which we will discuss in future sections. In addition to the destruction of a much loved architectural landmark, the attack on the World Trade Center cost the global economy countless billions in economic losses. The victims, while largely American, numbered nationals from some 90 countries. The same has to be said of the dark day of 11 September 2001, when terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center (New York City) and the Pentagon (Washington DC) robbed some 3,000 people, mostly civilians, of their lives. President Franklin Roosevelt said that 7 December 1941, the day of the attack on Pearl Harbour, ‘would live in infamy’. It will help you to make better sense of some key contemporary global events and to evaluate some of the public policies an event such as 9/11 can prompt. The course’s overall objective, by exploring the varied geopolitical causes and consequences of 9/11, is to provide a simple introduction to contemporary, cutting-edge issues in international politics and media studies. To discuss the growing securitisation of many areas of social life, and explore how the British state balances the trade-off between security and civil liberty in the face of organised and disorganised terrorism.
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