tag:theconversation.com,2011:/au/topics/september-11-attacks-30517/articlesSeptember 11 attacks – The Conversation2023-07-28T15:38:08Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2087582023-07-28T15:38:08Z2023-07-28T15:38:08ZTerrorists are using fraud to fund their activities – the UK government needs to act urgently<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539487/original/file-20230726-17-fgwvcy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=49%2C0%2C5472%2C3604&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The link between fraud and terrorism financing in the UK has been overlooked by successive governments.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/concept-credit-card-theft-hackers-cards-1107463670">JARIRIYAWAT/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Fraud is one of the most popular methods now used to fund terrorist activities. But the connection between fraud and terrorism financing in the UK has been overlooked by successive governments, despite <a href="https://www.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmicfrs/publications/an-inspection-of-the-police-response-to-fraud/">an acknowledgement</a> of that link. </p>
<p>Worryingly, the UK government’s new <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1154660/Fraud_Strategy_2023.pdf">fraud</a> and <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1171084/CONTEST_2023.pdf">counter-terrorism</a> strategies offer no policies to tackle the problem.</p>
<p>Until the terrorist attacks in the US in September 2001, the international community had focused its financial crime efforts on tackling money laundering. As a result of 9/11, governments instigated a “<a href="https://www.routledge.com/The-Financial-War-on-Terrorism-A-Review-of-Counter-Terrorist-Financing/Ryder/p/book/9781138708310">financial war</a>” on terrorism which has limited the sources available to terrorist groups. Now similar work is needed to tackle the acts of terror funded through fraud.</p>
<p><a href="https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/160123/">My research</a> focuses on the numerous terrorist attacks which have been financed by fraud. This work has identified a terrorism financing dossier, which includes passport fraud, immigration fraud, identify theft, financial fraud and tax fraud. </p>
<p>Benefit fraud is one of the most common methods used to fund terrorism in Europe, especially in Belgium, Scandinavia and the UK. Credit card, personal loan and bank fraud is prevalent in terrorism networks in the US and the UK. And not-for-profit organisation fraud and tax fraud are also prevalent in the US, UK and Spain.</p>
<p>The UK government has introduced a series of measures to try to tackle these issues. These include the <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2022/10/contents/enacted">Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Act 2022</a> and the <a href="https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3339">economic crime and corporate transparency bill (2022)</a>, which is still going through parliament. Both are intended to extend the UK’s sanctions regime and improve the use of <a href="https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-9098/#:%7E:text=Unexplained%20Wealth%20Orders%20allow%20for,reversing%20the%20burden%20of%20proof.">unexplained wealth orders</a> (which allow for the confiscation of property without proving criminality).</p>
<p>However, there are no specific measures to tackle the association between fraud and the financing of terrorism. This means there are still a number of loopholes that terrorists could exploit. And organisations are under no obligation to report fraud to the security services. But terrorists have used fraud to help finance attacks in the UK over the past two decades.</p>
<h2>UK terror attacks</h2>
<p>In July 2005, four suicide bombers killed 52 people and injured more than 770 others after detonating four improvised explosive devices in London. The financing of this terrorist attack and its association with fraud stretch back to 1995. </p>
<p>That is when HMRC connected several suspected frauds with <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-12621383">Shehzad Tanweer</a>, one of the terrorists. Yet this information <a href="https://bills.parliament.uk/publications/48886/documents/2575">was not disclosed</a> to either the UK’s Financial Intelligence Unit or the security and intelligence services by HMRC.</p>
<p>In May 2017, <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/05/26/everything-know-manchester-suicide-bomber-salman-abedi/">Salman Abedi</a> detonated an improvised explosive device in the Manchester Arena, killing 22 people and injuring more than 800 others. Abedi had fraudulently used student loans and his maintenance grant to fund the attack. </p>
<p>He received £7,000 from the Student Loans Company after securing a place at university in October 2015. Higher education institutions are under <a href="https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/160289/3/Criminal%20Law%20Review%20%281%29.pdf">no legal obligation</a> to report any suspicions of fraud or terrorism financing to the National Crime Agency (NCA).</p>
<p>In June 2017, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-48580750">Khuram Butt</a>, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-40173157#:%7E:text=Rachid%20Redouane%2C%2030%2C%20claimed%20to,by%20the%20name%20Rachid%20Elkhdar.">Rachid Redouane</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jun/06/london-bridge-attack-third-attacker-named-in-italy-as-youssef-zaghba">Youssef Zaghba</a> used a van to knock down several pedestrians on London Bridge before continuing their terrorist attack on foot. In total, eight people were killed and 48 others were injured.</p>
<p>Butt had been <a href="https://news.sky.com/story/london-bridge-attack-mi5-accused-of-damning-list-of-failures-11750204">investigated and arrested</a> by Scotland Yard on suspicion of falsely reporting fraudulent activity on three separate bank accounts in October 2016. After his arrest, Butt was granted bail and the fraud charges were eventually dropped due to insufficient evidence. But the banks had been under no legal obligation to submit a report to the NCA.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/dubious-partnerships-new-plans-to-curb-wrongdoing-by-uk-registered-firms-are-riddled-with-loopholes-206010">Dubious partnerships: new plans to curb wrongdoing by UK-registered firms are riddled with loopholes</a>
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<p>What these examples demonstrate is that the current reporting obligations are unable to prevent such terrorism financing threats. In light of these cases, the reporting of fraud should become mandatory for organisations. It would place fraud on the same legislative footing as money laundering, for example, which is already recognised as an important source of terror finance. </p>
<p>The UK government also needs to reconsider its current fraud and counter terrorism strategies. They should include measures that focus on using fraud investigation as a disruptive mechanism to prevent future acts of terrorism.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/208758/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nicholas Ryder receives funding from InnovateUK. </span></em></p>Numerous terrorist attacks in the UK and abroad have been financed by fraud and the government needs to close financial loopholes to prevent future tragedies.Nicholas Ryder, Professor of Law, Cardiff UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1880562022-08-02T13:16:52Z2022-08-02T13:16:52ZWho was Ayman al-Zawahri? Where does his death leave al-Qaida and what does it say about US counterterrorism?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/477165/original/file-20220802-19-5lqhr3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C85%2C2986%2C2250&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Who will replace the man who replaced bin Laden?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/osama-bin-laden-sits-with-his-adviser-ayman-al-zawahiri-an-news-photo/681898?adppopup=true">Visual News/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Ayman al-Zawahri, leader of al-Qaida and a plotter of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, <a href="https://apnews.com/article/ayman-al-zawahri-al-qaida-terrorism-biden-36e5f10256c9bc9972b252849eda91f2">has been killed in a drone strike</a> in the Afghan city of Kabul, according to the U.S. government.</em></p>
<p><em>Al-Zawahri was the the successor to Osama bin Laden and his death marked “one more measure of closure” to the families of those killed in the 2001 atrocities, U.S. President Joe Biden <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2022/08/01/remarks-by-president-biden-on-a-successful-counterterrorism-operation-in-afghanistan/">said during televised remarks</a> on Aug. 1, 2022.</em></p>
<p><em>The operation came almost a year after <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/30/politics/us-military-withdraws-afghanistan/index.html">American troops exited Afghanistan</a> after decades of fighting there. The Conversation asked <a href="https://ctc.usma.edu/team/dr-daniel-milton/">Daniel Milton</a>, a terrorism expert at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, and <a href="https://extremism.gwu.edu/dr-haroro-ingram">Haroro J. Ingram</a> and <a href="https://extremism.gwu.edu/andrew-mines">Andrew Mines</a>, research fellows at the George Washington University’s Program on Extremism, to explain the significance of the strike on al-Zawahri and what it says about U.S. counterterrorism efforts in Afghanistan under the Taliban.</em></p>
<h2>Who was Ayman al-Zawahri?</h2>
<p>Ayman al-Zawahri was an Egyptian-born jihadist who became al-Qaida’s top leader in 2011 after his predecessor, Osama bin Laden, was <a href="https://www.npr.org/series/135908383/osama-bin-laden-dead">killed by a U.S. operation</a>. Al-Zawahri’s ascent followed years in which al-Qaida’s leadership had been devastated by <a href="https://direct.mit.edu/isec/article-abstract/43/2/45/12208/What-Explains-Counterterrorism-Effectiveness?redirectedFrom=fulltext">U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan</a>. Bin Laden had himself been <a href="https://www.ctc.usma.edu/letters-from-abbottabad-bin-ladin-sidelined/">struggling</a> in the years leading up to his death to exert control and unity across al-Qaida’s global network of affiliates. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A laptop screen shows Ayman al-Zawahri speaking with the English translation below reading 'Bush do you know where I am. I am in the midst.'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/477151/original/file-20220802-14-ulv6x8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=14%2C11%2C1982%2C1341&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/477151/original/file-20220802-14-ulv6x8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477151/original/file-20220802-14-ulv6x8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477151/original/file-20220802-14-ulv6x8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477151/original/file-20220802-14-ulv6x8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477151/original/file-20220802-14-ulv6x8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477151/original/file-20220802-14-ulv6x8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Ayman al-Zawahri challenging then-president George W. Bush.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/BidenAfghanistan/32481436d03047e8892fd3cef111ea9b/photo?Query=Zawahri&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=67&currentItemNo=23">AP Photo/B.K.Bangash</a></span>
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<p>Al-Zawahri succeeded bin Laden despite a <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/08/01/al-qaeda-leader-ayman-al-zawahiri-killed-drone-strike-afghanistan/">mixed reputation</a>. While he had a long history of involvement in the jihadist struggle, he was viewed by many <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/09/08/opinions/where-is-bin-ladens-partner-in-crime-ayman-al-zawahiri">observers</a> and even jihadists as a languid orator without formal religious credentials or battlefield reputation.</p>
<p>Lacking the charisma of his predecessor, al-Zawahri’s <a href="https://www.universiteitleiden.nl/binaries/content/assets/customsites/perspectives-on-terrorism/2017/issue-1/0620171-deciphering-ayman-al-zawahiri-and-al-qaeda%E2%80%99s-strategic-and-ideological-imperatives-by-sajjan-m.-gohel.pdf">image</a> as a leader was not helped by a tendency to embark on long, meandering and often outdated speeches. Al-Zawahri also struggled to shake rumors that he was a <a href="https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/lawrence-wright">prison informer</a> while detained in Egypt and, as author and journalist Lawrence Wright <a href="https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/lawrence-wright">detailed</a>, acted as a wedge between the young bin Laden and his mentor, Abdullah Azzam.</p>
<p>Al-Zawahri’s influence further waned during a series of popular uprisings known as the <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/12/17/what-is-the-arab-spring-and-how-did-it-start">Arab Spring swept across North Africa and the Middle East</a>, when it seemed that al-Qaida had been sidelined and unable to effectively exploit the outbreak of war in Syria and Iraq. To analysts and supporters alike, al-Zawahiri appeared symbolic of an al-Qaida that was outdated and rapidly being eclipsed by other groups that it had <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/11/isis-origins-anbari-zarqawi/577030/">once helped onto the global stage</a>, most notably the Islamic State.</p>
<p>But with the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/23/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-isis-caliphate">collapse of the Islamic State group’s caliphate</a> in 2019, the return to power in Afghanistan of al-Qaida ally the Taliban and the persistence of al-Qaida affiliates <a href="https://www.cfr.org/blog/islamic-state-and-al-qaeda-linked-african-insurgencies">especially in Africa</a>, some experts <a href="https://warontherocks.com/2022/05/how-strong-is-al-qaeda-a-debate/">argue</a> that al-Zawahri guided al-Qaida through its most challenging period and that the group remains a potent threat. Indeed, one senior Biden administration official <a href="https://apnews.com/article/ayman-al-zawahri-al-qaida-terrorism-biden-36e5f10256c9bc9972b252849eda91f2">told the Associated Press</a> that at the time of his death, al-Zawahri continued to provide “strategic direction” and was considered a dangerous figure.</p>
<h2>Where does his death leave al-Qaida?</h2>
<p>Killing or capturing top terrorist leaders has been a key counterterrorism tool for decades. Such operations remove terrorist leaders from the battlefield and force <a href="https://cup.columbia.edu/book/terror-in-transition/9780231192255">succession struggles</a> that disrupt group cohesion and can expose security vulnerabilities. Unlike the Islamic State, which has clear <a href="https://theconversation.com/islamic-state-leader-killed-in-us-raid-where-does-this-leave-the-terrorist-group-176410">leadership succession practices</a> that it has showcased four times since the 2006 death of its founder Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, al-Qaida’s are less clear. Al-Zawahri’s successor will only be the movement’s third leader <a href="https://archives.fbi.gov/archives/news/testimony/al-qaeda-international">since forming</a> in 1988.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.securitycouncilreport.org/atf/cf/%7B65BFCF9B-6D27-4E9C-8CD3-CF6E4FF96FF9%7D/S%202022%20547.pdf">top contender</a> is another Egyptian. A former colonel in the Egyptian army and, like al-Zawahri, a member of the al-Qaida affiliate Egyptian Islamic Jihad, <a href="https://www.fbi.gov/wanted/wanted_terrorists/saif-al-adel">Saif al-Adel is connected to</a> the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya that launched al-Qaida as a global jihadist threat. His reputation as an explosives expert and military strategist has won him strong standing within the al-Qaida movement. A number of other possibilities are behind al-Adel, with a recent <a href="https://www.securitycouncilreport.org/atf/cf/%7B65BFCF9B-6D27-4E9C-8CD3-CF6E4FF96FF9%7D/S%202022%20547.pdf">U.N. Security Council report</a> identifying several possible successors. </p>
<p>Either way, we’d argue that al-Qaida is at a crossroads. If al-Zawahri’s successor is broadly recognized as legitimate by both al-Qaida’s core and its affiliates, it could help to stabilize the movement. But any ambiguity surrounding al-Qaida’s succession plan could see the new leader’s authority challenged, which in turn could fracture the movement further.</p>
<p>Evidence suggests al-Qaida’s presence as a global movement will survive al-Zawahri’s death, just as it did bin Laden’s. The network has seen <a href="https://warontherocks.com/2022/05/how-strong-is-al-qaeda-a-debate/">a number of recent successes</a>. Longtime allies the Taliban successfully took control of Afghanistan with help from <a href="https://cisac.fsi.stanford.edu/mappingmilitants/profiles/al-qaeda-indian-subcontinent-aqis">al-Qaida in the Indian Subcontinent</a> – an affiliate which is now <a href="https://warontherocks.com/2022/05/how-strong-is-al-qaeda-a-debate/">expanding its operations in Pakistan and India</a>. Meanwhile, affiliates across the African continent – from Mali and the Lake Chad region to Somalia – remain a threat, with some <a href="https://www.securitycouncilreport.org/atf/cf/%7B65BFCF9B-6D27-4E9C-8CD3-CF6E4FF96FF9%7D/S%202022%20547.pdf">expanding beyond their traditional areas of operation</a>.</p>
<p>Other affiliates, like the group’s Yemen-based al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, remain loyal to the core and, according to the U.N. monitoring team, <a href="https://www.securitycouncilreport.org/atf/cf/%7B65BFCF9B-6D27-4E9C-8CD3-CF6E4FF96FF9%7D/S%202022%20547.pdf">are keen to revive</a> overseas attacks against the U.S. and its allies.</p>
<p>Now, al-Zawahri’s successor will be looking to retain the allegiance of al-Qaida’s affiliates as it strives to remain a potent threat.</p>
<h2>What does this tell us about US operations in Afghanistan under the Taliban?</h2>
<p>The American withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021 prompted questions over whether the U.S. could keep pressure on al-Qaida, <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-isis-k-two-terrorism-experts-on-the-group-behind-the-deadly-kabul-airport-attack-and-its-rivalry-with-the-taliban-166873">ISIS-K</a> and other militants in the country.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2021/11/20/sof-leader-calls-over-the-horizon-ops-in-afghanistan-hard-but-doable">U.S. officials explained</a> that an “over-the-horizon” strategy – launching surgical strikes and special operations raids from outside any given state – would allow the U.S. to deal with problems that emerged, such as terrorist attacks and the resurgence of groups.</p>
<p>But many experts <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/01/05/over-the-horizon-biden-afghanistan-counter-terrorism/">disagreed</a>. And when an <a href="https://apnews.com/article/afghanistan-kabul-taliban-strikes-islamic-state-group-b8bd9b0c805c610758bd1d3e20090c2c">errant U.S. drone strike</a> killed seven children, a U.S.-employed humanitarian worker and other civilians last fall, that strategy came under sharp scrutiny.</p>
<p>But for those who doubted whether the U.S. still had the desire to go after key terrorists in Afghanistan, the killing of al-Zawahri gives a clear answer. This strike <a href="https://apnews.com/article/ayman-al-zawahri-al-qaida-terrorism-biden-36e5f10256c9bc9972b252849eda91f2">reportedly involved</a> long-term surveillance of Zawahri and his family and robust discussion within the U.S. government before receiving presidential approval. Biden claims it was carried out without civilian casualties.</p>
<p>At the same time, it took the U.S. 11 months to strike its first high-value target in Afghanistan under the Taliban. This contrasts with the <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/us-military-significantly-reduced-global-airstrikes-in-2021-/6392771.html">hundreds of airstrikes</a> executed in the years before the U.S. withdrawal.</p>
<p>The strike occurred in a Kabul neighborhood populated by senior Taliban figures. <a href="https://apnews.com/article/ayman-al-zawahri-al-qaida-terrorism-biden-36e5f10256c9bc9972b252849eda91f2">The safehouse itself belonged</a> to a senior aide to Sirajuddin Haqqani, a terrorist <a href="https://www.fbi.gov/wanted/terrorinfo/sirajuddin-haqqani">wanted by the U.S.</a> and a top Taliban leader. </p>
<p>Aiding and abetting al-Zawahri was a violation of the <a href="https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Agreement-For-Bringing-Peace-to-Afghanistan-02.29.20.pdf">Doha agreement</a>, under which the Taliban agreed “not to cooperate with groups or individuals threatening the security of the United States and its allies.” The circumstances of the strike suggest that if the U.S. wants to do effective over-the-horizon operations in Afghanistan, it cannot <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/08/26/how-to-partner-with-the-taliban/">count on</a> the Taliban for support. </p>
<p>The strike on al-Zawahri also tells us little about whether the U.S. strategy post-pullout can contain other jihadist groups in the region like <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-isis-k-two-terrorism-experts-on-the-group-behind-the-deadly-kabul-airport-attack-and-its-rivalry-with-the-taliban-166873">ISIS-K</a>, which is vehemently opposed to the Taliban and <a href="https://ctc.usma.edu/the-islamic-state-threat-in-taliban-afghanistan-tracing-the-resurgence-of-islamic-state-khorasan/">expanding in Afghanistan</a>. </p>
<p>Indeed, we believe that if more jihadists perceive the Taliban to be too weak to protect the top leaders of al-Qaida and its affiliates, while at the same time unable to govern Afghanistan without U.S. aid, many may consider <a href="https://warontherocks.com/2021/10/the-taliban-cant-take-on-the-islamic-state-alone/">ISIS-K to be the best choice</a>.</p>
<p>These and other dynamics speak to the many challenges of pursuing an over-the-horizon counterterrorism in Afghanistan today, ones that are unlikely to be solved by occasional high-profile drone strikes and assassinations.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/188056/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The views expressed by Dr. Milton are his own and not of the U.S. Military Academy, the Department of the Army, or any other agency of the U.S. Government</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew Mines and Haroro J. Ingram do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The US strike against al-Zawahri leaves the future of al-Qaida at a crossroads as the terrorist movement looks for a new leader.Haroro J. Ingram, Senior Research Fellow at the Program on Extremism, George Washington UniversityAndrew Mines, Research Fellow at the Program on Extremism, George Washington UniversityDaniel Milton, Director of Research, United States Military Academy West PointLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1720562021-12-31T21:06:41Z2021-12-31T21:06:41ZCabinet papers 2001: how ‘securitisation’ became a mindset to dominate Australian politics for a generation<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/437663/original/file-20211214-27-1yc8mqc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">David Foote/National Archives of Australia</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>2001 was the final year of the Howard government’s second term in office. </p>
<p>It began with the government on the political defensive, doing poorly in opinion polls, but ended with a third successive victory in November. </p>
<p>Two epic political developments – the “<a href="https://theconversation.com/australian-politics-explainer-the-mv-tampa-and-the-transformation-of-asylum-seeker-policy-74078">Tampa crisis</a>”, in which the government ordered Australian troops to board a foreign vessel carrying rescued asylum seekers to stop them landing on Australian soil, and the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States – were decisive in the government’s re-election.</p>
<p>Tampa and September 11 remained influential factors in Australian politics for the next 20 years. These events drove a decisive turn towards “securitisation” in political discourse and public policy. </p>
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<p>In a political context, securitisation refers to the systematic transformation of regular public policy matters into security issues. This in turn is used to justify unusual measures as necessary to the survival of the state and safety of its citizens. </p>
<p>In 2001, Australia pivoted into this new securitised mindset. It was partly driven by events but also, to a significant extent, by political choice. </p>
<p>This pivot is evident in the 2001 Cabinet papers, released today by the National Archives of Australia. In them, domestic submissions, free from a securitisation mindset, dominate until Tampa and the September 11 attacks occur.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/437666/original/file-20211214-19-1n99m9d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/437666/original/file-20211214-19-1n99m9d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/437666/original/file-20211214-19-1n99m9d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/437666/original/file-20211214-19-1n99m9d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/437666/original/file-20211214-19-1n99m9d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/437666/original/file-20211214-19-1n99m9d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/437666/original/file-20211214-19-1n99m9d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The September 11 2001 terrorist attacks, along with the Tampa crisis, would reshape Australian politics for the next two decades.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Richard Drew/AP/AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The papers show the government developing possible responses to sharply rising asylum-seeker arrivals by sea during the first half of 2001. </p>
<p>This culminated in the so-called “<a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/about_parliament/parliamentary_departments/parliamentary_library/pubs/bn/2012-2013/pacificsolution">Pacific Solution</a>” of offshore detention, which unfolded over the last week of August. </p>
<p>Shortly afterwards, the September 11 terrorist attacks occurred. Although unrelated, the two events became fused in popular perception by political design as well as chronological proximity. </p>
<p>Strong support for the Beazley-led Labor opposition eroded under the combined weight of the Tampa and the September 11 attacks. </p>
<p>All of this meant the 2001 “khaki election” was conducted against the backdrop of perceived external threat and military action abroad. The government, in electoral trouble earlier in the year, was returned with effectively the same majority after allowing for a two-seat expansion of the House of Representatives.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/437672/original/file-20211214-27-6zuzti.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/437672/original/file-20211214-27-6zuzti.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/437672/original/file-20211214-27-6zuzti.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/437672/original/file-20211214-27-6zuzti.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/437672/original/file-20211214-27-6zuzti.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/437672/original/file-20211214-27-6zuzti.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/437672/original/file-20211214-27-6zuzti.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Strong support for the Labor opposition led by Kim Beazley quickly eroded under the combined weight of Tampa and the September 11 attacks.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Archives of Australia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Five of the 2001 Cabinet papers directly arise in response to the September 11 attacks. </p>
<p>One of these – “Options for defence enhancement for domestic security”, dated October 2 2001 – is historically significant as a window into a government grappling with a sudden shift in perceived domestic security needs. It also addresses questions about the continuing appropriateness of strategic fundamentals decided on just a year earlier in the <a href="https://defence.gov.au/publications/wpaper2000.PDF">2000 Defence White Paper</a>.</p>
<p>Interestingly, there is no “Pacific Solution” Cabinet submission nor decision in the 2001 release.</p>
<p>While asylum-seeker policy and Islamic terrorism dominate memories of federal politics in 2001, they do not dominate the 2001 Cabinet papers. </p>
<p>Two-thirds of a year elapsed before September 11 marked the beginning of the new securitised era in Australian and world politics. </p>
<p>Most of the 2001 papers are concerned with domestic policy across a wide range of areas, including many of continuing concern – notably climate change. </p>
<p>The climate policy and energy policy papers in this release are significant.</p>
<p>They show the Howard government had a far more nuanced view on climate change and its significance than any Coalition government since. These papers, along with last year’s, provide context for the Coalition’s proposal of a carbon trading scheme in the run-up to the 2007 election.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/cabinet-papers-2000-the-coalition-before-climate-denialism-but-on-the-path-to-offshore-detention-151576">Cabinet papers 2000: the Coalition before climate denialism, but on the path to offshore detention</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>We can see a coalition Cabinet not yet captured by resource sector interests, expressly constraining its resources minister from the untrammelled promotion of those interests.</p>
<p>The government is seen operating in once familiar co-operative frameworks for national actions with the states. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/437675/original/file-20211214-23-1bi8u3g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/437675/original/file-20211214-23-1bi8u3g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/437675/original/file-20211214-23-1bi8u3g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/437675/original/file-20211214-23-1bi8u3g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/437675/original/file-20211214-23-1bi8u3g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/437675/original/file-20211214-23-1bi8u3g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/437675/original/file-20211214-23-1bi8u3g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The 2001 papers reveal a far more nuanced view of climate change than any Coalition government since.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Archives of Australia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In preparation for a COAG meeting in June, for example, Cabinet in May settled agenda items including a national energy policy framework, a national action plan on salinity, and a proposed ban on human cloning. </p>
<p>The Reconciliation framework was also on the COAG agenda. Cabinet noted that “some state and territory governments had been actively campaign(ing) for a national apology to indigenous Australians”. Cabinet opposed such an apology.</p>
<p>Another paper states the government’s ongoing opposition to a treaty with Indigenous Australians.</p>
<p>Against the backdrop of the current COVID-19 pandemic, it is interesting to note the government sought state agreement through COAG on: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>continued high priority review and revision of national whole-of-government frameworks for the management of a major emergency animal disease outbreak, such as FMD (foot and mouth disease), to be co-ordinated by COAG Senior Officials.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Population policy is another interesting focus in the papers.</p>
<p>The then immigration and multicultural affairs minister, Philip Ruddock, had for some time favoured a higher profile for government-led population policy discussions in Australia. In pursuit of this he meshed discussion of long-term challenges, including an ageing population and declining fertility, with related issues of skilled migration, the workforce participation rate of women and older Australians, and the environmental impact of overall population levels. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/2001-polls-in-review-september-11-influenced-election-outcome-far-more-than-tampa-incident-112139">2001 polls in review: September 11 influenced election outcome far more than Tampa incident</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>While Ruddock was a population policy enthusiast, ministerial colleagues were concerned about the political sensitivities of such discussions. Cabinet decided at the beginning of 2001 </p>
<blockquote>
<p>to continue to resist the development of a formal population policy or the setting of long-term population targets.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The Coalition’s relative electoral success federally has its roots in political lessons flowing from this pivotal year in contemporary Australian politics. It has continued deriving enormous political dividends from them, while its opponents struggle to come to grips with and negate the potent impact of wedge politics.</p>
<p>Under the Howard government, security and immigration policy were the main, and interrelated, sites for its use. </p>
<p>From Tony Abbott’s ascension to the Liberal leadership onwards, energy policy and climate policy became key additional, interrelated, sites for wedge politics. </p>
<p>The consequences are ongoing.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/172056/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chris Wallace has received funding from the Australian Research Council. </span></em></p>The rhetoric and policy focus of the Howard government in the wake of the Tampa crisis and the September 11 terrorist attacks in 2001 changed dramatically – and the effects are still being felt today.Chris Wallace, Associate Professor, 50/50 By 2030 Foundation, Faculty of Business Government & Law, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1684222021-09-23T12:30:01Z2021-09-23T12:30:01Z20 years after 9/11, the men charged with responsibility are still waiting for trial – here’s why<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/422743/original/file-20210922-24-1gbobmy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=26%2C0%2C3000%2C1976&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and co-defendants return to court in November.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/Sept11WhereAreTheyNow/6c9f5ca01f284537ab17763897a37847/photo?Query=trial%20AND%20guantanamo&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=170&currentItemNo=0">AP Photo/Janet Hamlin</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As the <a href="https://www.911memorial.org/connect/commemoration/20th-anniversary-commemoration">20th anniversary of 9/11</a> passed, the five men accused of responsibility for the attacks were <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/article/september-11-trial-guantanamo-bay.html">still awaiting trial</a> in the Guantanamo <a href="https://www.mc.mil/">military commission</a>.</p>
<p>This case is the largest criminal prosecution in U.S. history in terms of number of victims. The charge sheet <a href="https://www.mc.mil/Portals/0/pdfs/KSM2/KSM%20II%20(Sworn%20Charges).pdf">lists the names of 2,976 people </a> who were direct casualties of two hijacked commercial airliners that crashed into the World Trade Center and caused the twin towers to collapse, another that crashed into the Pentagon and a fourth, probably aiming for the U.S. Capitol building, that was brought down in a field in western Pennsylvania when several passengers overpowered their hijackers. </p>
<p>Yet two decades after the U.S.’s worst terrorist attack, the 9/11 case remains mired in the pretrial phase with no start date for the trial. The hearings, which <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/sep/07/911-attacks-khalid-sheikh-mohammed-pre-trial-resumes">resumed September 7, 2021</a> after a 17-month COVID-19 related suspension, were the first for the case’s new judge – the fourth officer to fill that role.</p>
<p>As someone who has visited Guantanamo on 11 occasions since 2013 to observe legal proceedings in the 9/11 case, I have come to understand that the delays are the inevitable result of an irreconcilable conflict: The U.S. government’s objective is to convict and <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/8/31/death-penalty-trial-date-set-for-alleged-september-11-attackers">execute the accused men</a> as a way to provide justice for the thousands of victims. But those goals are stymied by the fact that the defendants are also <a href="https://law.unc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/extraordinaryrenditionandNC.pdf">victims of CIA torture</a>.</p>
<h2>No martyrdom-by-military commission</h2>
<p>The 9/11 case involves five defendants. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/cia-torture-report/rectal-hydration-inside-cias-interrogation-khalid-sheikh-mohammed-n265016">Khalid Sheikh Mohammad</a>, whom the government refers to as KSM, is accused of being the “mastermind” behind the attacks. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.hrw.org/legacy/photos/2008/guantanamo/Mubarek-Bin-Attash.html">Walid bin Attash</a> is accused of training two of the hijackers how to fight in close quarters using box cutters to take over the planes. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.hrw.org/legacy/photos/2008/guantanamo/Ramzi-Binakshibh.html">Ramzi bin al-Shibh</a> is accused of recruiting some of the hijackers who formed a cell in Hamburg, Germany, and serving as an intermediary between lead hijacker Mohammed Atta and al-Qaeda leaders. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/Newsroom/Press%20Releases/2006%20Press%20Releases/DetaineeBiographies.pdf">Ammar al-Baluchi</a>, whom the government refers to as Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, and <a href="https://www.hrw.org/legacy/photos/2008/guantanamo/Mustafa-Al-Hawsawi.html">Mustafa al-Hawsawi</a> are accused of making money transfers to some of the hijackers.</p>
<p>The men were charged in 2007 and arraigned in June 2008. The Bush administration hoped that the trial could be concluded before President George W. Bush left office. But that hope was dashed in December 2008 when Mohammad and the other defendants <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/09/us/09gitmo.html">offered to plead guilty</a> on the condition that they would be executed immediately. This <a href="https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/guantanamo/article1929229.html">attempt to martyr themselves</a> was not an option – the Military Commission Act does not have a provision for executions without trials.</p>
<p>The Obama administration, after <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/05/us/05gitmo.html">abandoning its plan to try the men in federal court</a> in New York, recharged them in the military commissions on April 4, 2012. In official filings, the abbreviated name for the case is KSM II to denote that this is a second attempt to pull this trial off.</p>
<h2>Demands for full disclosure</h2>
<p>For most of the 9/11 hearings I have attended, there have been fewer than 10 journalists in the media delegations. Procedural battles over complex and arcane points of law are seemingly not the stuff of headline news. </p>
<p>But as a <a href="https://soc.ucsb.edu/people/lisa-hajjar">scholar of law and torture</a>, they are fascinating to me. In trying to understand how torture does or should matter to the legal process in a case in which the defendants face the death penalty, I realized that the 9/11 case is caught between conflicting interests that play out in battles between defense teams and prosecutors over the <a href="https://www.americanbar.org/groups/public_education/resources/law_related_education_network/how_courts_work/discovery/#:%7E:text=This%20is%20the%20formal%20process,what%20evidence%20may%20be%20presented.&text=Depositions%20enable%20a%20party%20to,will%20say%20at%20the%20trial.">discovery of information</a> about what happened to the defendants during the years they were detained at CIA “black sites” – secret overseas prisons in which U.S. agents interrogated suspects.</p>
<p>The defense lawyers want access to all information the government possesses about their clients’ abusive treatment by the CIA, including granular details about their torture. They insist it is necessary to provide effective legal counsel.</p>
<p>The demand is especially pertinent in a capital case, but information about a defendant’s treatment in pretrial custody is legally relevant in any criminal case. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Chairs line an empty courtoom." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/422749/original/file-20210922-23-11tu9gu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/422749/original/file-20210922-23-11tu9gu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/422749/original/file-20210922-23-11tu9gu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/422749/original/file-20210922-23-11tu9gu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/422749/original/file-20210922-23-11tu9gu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/422749/original/file-20210922-23-11tu9gu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/422749/original/file-20210922-23-11tu9gu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Long spells of inactivity inside the U.S. military courtroom at Guantanamo Bay.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/the-united-states-military-courtroom-is-seen-at-camp-news-photo/171665926?adppopup=true">Joe Raedle/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The prosecution argues that documents containing the full details about the CIA’s now-defunct Rendition, Detention and Interrogation (RDI) program are too sensitive to share, even with lawyers with top-secret security clearances. The CIA’s secrets, as <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/government-secrecy-torture-stymied-9-11-terror-prosecution/">one prosecutor explained</a>, are “the most highly classified information that the government has … It’s extremely important that we protect that information.” </p>
<p>Instead of original CIA materials, prosecutors have provided about 21,000 pages of summaries and substitutions that obscure specific dates and locations and mask the identities of agents and contractors. </p>
<p>The CIA, which controls information about its operations and dictates what prosecutors can provide to the defense in discovery, has <a href="https://www.justsecurity.org/77835/nuremberg-prosecutor-says-guantanamo-military-commissions-dont-measure-up/">no institutional interest in due process or fair trials</a>, only in maintaining its secrets. </p>
<p>The prosecution, meanwhile, counters defense demands for more information by insisting that this trial is about the defendants’ roles in the crime of 9/11, and what happened to them afterward is unrelated to their involvement in these events.</p>
<p>“The CIA is not on trial,” said <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/05/us/politics/guantanamo-trials-torture.html">prosecutor Jeffrey Groharing</a>.</p>
<h2>No ‘after torture’</h2>
<p>Since September 2019, many of the hearings have been devoted to defense efforts to persuade the judge to exclude evidence the government wants to use at trial, namely statements the defendants gave to FBI agents who interrogated them in 2007, five months after they were transferred from the black sites. The government referred to the agents as “clean teams” because they had no hand in the CIA’s torture program.</p>
<p>The prosecution maintains that because the FBI interrogators used lawful methods rather than coercion when questioning the defendants, these statements should be admissible in court. The defense has called witnesses, including the two architects of the CIA torture program, <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/08/17/544183178/psychologists-behind-cia-enhanced-interrogation-program-settle-detainees-lawsuit">James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen</a>, who <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/20/us/politics/911-trial-psychologists.html">testified in January 2020</a>. The Defense teams are making the case that there is no “after torture” for victims, and therefore the FBI statements are tainted by their past torture and should be dismissed – in legal terms – as “fruit of the poisonous tree.” </p>
<p>From my perspective, the pretrial logjam could largely be resolved if the government made a choice: If the priority is to protect
the CIA’s secrets, the death penalty should be taken off the table and plea bargain negotiations for life sentences should begin. If the death penalty remains a priority, the defense should be given access to all the information they seek, including, for example, the full <a href="https://www.jadaliyya.com/Details/43339/Connections-Episode-15-The-Lasting-Legacies-of-US-Torture">Senate Select Committee on Intelligence’s report about the CIA’s rendition program</a>.</p>
<p>Although this case garners sporadic media attention, it deserves greater public interest because the stakes are so high. No one can predict when the 9/11 trial will finally begin, let alone how this case will end, but one thing should be clear: an important chapter in the history of the U.S. in the 21st century is being written in the high-security courtroom in Guantanamo.</p>
<p>[<em>Over 110,000 readers rely on The Conversation’s newsletter to understand the world.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=100Ksignup">Sign up today</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/168422/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lisa Hajjar does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A scholar who has visited Guantanamo 11 times to observe legal proceedings in the 9/11 terrorism case explains why the conflict continues to delay the case going to trial.Lisa Hajjar, Professor of Sociology, University of California, Santa BarbaraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1673532021-09-08T20:12:45Z2021-09-08T20:12:45Z9/11 conspiracy theories debunked: 20 years later, engineering experts explain how the twin towers collapsed<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/419912/original/file-20210908-7120-1nfd6c7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=19%2C26%2C4346%2C2900&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Roberto Robanne/AP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The collapse of the World Trade Center has been subject to intense public scrutiny over the 20 years, since the centre’s twin towers were struck by aircraft hijacked by terrorists. Both collapsed within two hours of impact, prompting several investigations and spawning a variety of conspiracy theories. </p>
<p>Construction on the World Trade Center 1 (the North Tower) and World Trade Center 2 (the South Tower) began in the 1960s. They were constructed from steel and concrete, using a design that was groundbreaking at the time. Most high-rise buildings since have used a similar structure.</p>
<p>The investigatory reports into the events of September 11, 2001 were undertaken by the <a href="https://www.fema.gov/pdf/library/fema403_ch2.pdf">US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)</a> and the <a href="https://www.nist.gov/el/final-reports-nist-world-trade-center-disaster-investigation">National Institute of Standards and Technology</a>. </p>
<p>FEMA’s report was published in 2002. This was followed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s three-year investigation, funded by the US Federal Government and published in 2005.</p>
<p>Some conspiracy theorists seized on the fact the NIST investigation was funded by the federal government — believing the government itself had caused the twin towers’ collapse, or was aware it would happen and deliberately didn’t act.</p>
<p>While there have been critics of both reports (and the investigations behind them weren’t flawless) — their explanation for the buildings’ collapse is widely accepted. They conclude it was not caused by direct impact by the aircraft, or the use of explosives, but by fires that burned inside the buildings after impact.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/419934/original/file-20210908-18-1d6m7vf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Fire and rescue workers search through the rubble of the World Trade Centrr" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/419934/original/file-20210908-18-1d6m7vf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/419934/original/file-20210908-18-1d6m7vf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419934/original/file-20210908-18-1d6m7vf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419934/original/file-20210908-18-1d6m7vf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419934/original/file-20210908-18-1d6m7vf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419934/original/file-20210908-18-1d6m7vf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419934/original/file-20210908-18-1d6m7vf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Fire and rescue workers search through the rubble of the World Trade Center in New York on 13 September 2001. On 11 September 2001, two aircrafts were flown into the centre’s twin towers, causing both to collapse.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">BETH A. KEISER/EPA</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Why did the towers collapse as they did?</h2>
<p>Some have questioned why the buildings did not “topple over” after being struck side-on by aircraft. But the answer becomes clear once you consider the details. </p>
<p>Aircraft are made from lightweight materials, such as aluminium. If you compare the mass of an aircraft with that of a skyscraper more than 400 metres tall and built from steel and concrete, it makes sense the building would not topple over.</p>
<p>The towers would have been more than 1,000 times the mass of the aircraft, and <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11837-001-0003-1">designed to resist</a> steady wind loads more than 30 times the aircrafts’ weight.</p>
<p>That said, the aircraft did dislodge fireproofing material within the towers, which was coated on the steel columns and on the steel floor trusses (underneath concrete slabs). The lack of fireproofing left the steel unprotected.</p>
<p>As such, the impact also structurally <a href="https://www.nist.gov/el/final-reports-nist-world-trade-center-disaster-investigation">damaged</a> the supporting steel columns. When a few columns become damaged, the load they carry is transferred to other columns. This is why both towers withstood the initial impacts and didn’t collapse immediately.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/9-11-the-controversial-story-of-the-remains-of-the-world-trade-center-167481">9/11: the controversial story of the remains of the World Trade Center</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Progressive collapse</h2>
<p>The fact that the towers withstood initial impacts also spawned one of the most common conspiracy theories surrounding 9/11: that a bomb or explosives must have been detonated somewhere within the buildings. </p>
<p>These theories have developed from video footage showing the towers rapidly collapsing downwards some time after impact, similar to a controlled demolition. But it is possible for them to have collapsed this way without explosives. </p>
<p>It was fire that caused this. And the fire is believed to have come from the burning of remaining aircraft fuel. </p>
<p>According to the FEMA report, fire within the buildings caused thermal expansion of the floors in a horizontal and outwards direction, pushing against the rigid steel columns — which deflected to an extent but resisted further movement.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/419729/original/file-20210907-17-ceifdd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/419729/original/file-20210907-17-ceifdd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419729/original/file-20210907-17-ceifdd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419729/original/file-20210907-17-ceifdd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419729/original/file-20210907-17-ceifdd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=488&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419729/original/file-20210907-17-ceifdd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=488&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419729/original/file-20210907-17-ceifdd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=488&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">This figure shows the expansion of floor slabs and framing which likely happened as a result of the fires.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">FEMA / https://www.fema.gov/pdf/library/fema403_ch2.pdf</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>With the columns resisting movement, there was nowhere else for the concrete floors to expand to. This led to an increased buildup of stress in the sagging floors, until the floor framing and connections gave in. </p>
<p>The floors’ failure pulled the columns back inwards, eventually leading to them buckling, and the floors collapsing. The collapsing floors then fell on more floors below, leading to a progressive collapse.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/419730/original/file-20210907-15-n8yw7s.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/419730/original/file-20210907-15-n8yw7s.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419730/original/file-20210907-15-n8yw7s.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419730/original/file-20210907-15-n8yw7s.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419730/original/file-20210907-15-n8yw7s.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=491&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419730/original/file-20210907-15-n8yw7s.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=491&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419730/original/file-20210907-15-n8yw7s.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=491&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The buckling of columns initiated by floor failure.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">FEMA / https://www.fema.gov/pdf/library/fema403_ch2.pdf</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This explanation, documented in the official reports, is widely accepted by experts as the cause of the twin towers’ collapse. It is <a href="https://www.nist.gov/el/final-reports-nist-world-trade-center-disaster-investigation">understood</a> the South Tower collapsed sooner because it suffered more damage from the initial aircraft impact, which also dislodged more fireproofing material. </p>
<p>The debris from the collapse of the North Tower set at least ten floors alight in the nearby World Trade Center 7 building, or “Building 7”, which also <a href="https://www.nist.gov/publications/final-report-collapse-world-trade-center-building-7-federal-building-and-fire-safety-0">collapsed</a> about seven hours later. </p>
<p>While there are different theories regarding how the progressive collapse of Building 7 was initiated, there is <a href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/data/UQ_9f81895/P003_UQ9f81895_Paper21.pdf?dsi_version=87e49663794e5734a13be9924e57b0a7&Expires=1631067602&Key-Pair-Id=APKAJKNBJ4MJBJNC6NLQ&Signature=BFjdytaaDOoZ4UkNnYkXUS5J5CZrVXDG0C%7E39s6s3ljwVyI8yeiKjFSWIbVMrPxD2J%7EYfBgk8AMGWZ2NfJCyn4EOn2KpKGZ8wY-eJXXLmwU3hRbIBGl9sFTIOwNIAuAgPjMPQtIJS6K9vRxvasOJpXnSWZYNc67UOKSZJ84HPu7es-4DcQPn18AmHVq6oBDaCjeIlWZmx9v05H8CaOi9VaT%7EHPxJR0J46QXyL4w72BoU287X58Z3n6wB5cyeeULUL7zIwQo0HLLofLKfyam5zaKDXghQNVTtwEfaX5l7pj2zVedjbpZiaNQ6KZcR7pO%7EXuCwmaRM0QgrU-GK2q4pCg">consensus among investigators</a> fire was the primary cause of failure.</p>
<p>Both official reports made a range of fire safety recommendations for other high-rise buildings, including to improve evacuation and emergency response. In 2007, the National Institute of Standards and Technology also published a <a href="https://www.nist.gov/publications/best-practices-reducing-potential-progressive-collapse-buildings">best practice guide</a> recommending solutions to reduce risk of progressive collapse.</p>
<h2>What does this mean for high-rise buildings?</h2>
<p>Before 9/11, progressive collapse wasn’t well understood by engineers. The disaster highlighted the importance of having a “global view” of fire safety for a building, as opposed to focusing on individual elements. </p>
<p>There have since been changes to building codes and standards on improving the structural performance of buildings on fire, as well as opportunities to escape (such as added stairwell requirements).</p>
<p>At the same time, the collapse of the twin towers demonstrated the very real dangers of fire in high-rise buildings. In the decades since the World Trade Center was designed, buildings have become taller and more complex, as societies demand sustainable and cost-effective housing in large cities.</p>
<p>Some 86 of the current <a href="https://www.skyscrapercenter.com/buildings">100 tallest</a> buildings in the world were built after 9/11. This has coincided with a significant increase in building façade fires globally, which have <a href="https://www.koreascience.or.kr/article/JAKO201809355933912.page">gone up sevenfold</a> in the past three decades.</p>
<p>This can be partly attributed to the wide use of flammable cladding. It is marketed as an innovative, cost-effective and sustainable material, yet it has shown significant shortcomings in terms of fire safety — as witnessed in the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-40301289">2017 Grenfell Disaster</a>. </p>
<p>The Grenfell fire (and similar cladding fires) are proof that fire safety in tall buildings is still a problem. And as structures get taller and more complex, with new and innovative designs and materials, questions around fire safety will only become more difficult to answer.</p>
<p>The events of 9/11 may have been challenging to foresee, but the fires that led to the towers’ collapse could have been better prepared for.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/cladding-fire-risks-have-been-known-for-years-lives-depend-on-acting-now-with-no-more-delays-111186">Cladding fire risks have been known for years. Lives depend on acting now, with no more delays</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/167353/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Oswald has received funding from various organisations including the Association of Researchers in Construction Management and the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute. He is affiliated with The Institute of Civil Engineers acting as a journal Associate Editor.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Erica Kuligowski currently receives funding from the National Institute of Standards and Technology's (NIST) Measurement Science and Engineering Grants Program (as a subcontractor). She is affiliated with the Society of Fire Protection Engineers (SFPE) as a Section Editor for their Handbook of Fire Protection Engineering (Human Behaviour Section) and as a member of the Board of Governors for the SFPE Foundation. Also, from 2002 to 2020, Erica worked as a research engineer and social scientist in the Engineering Laboratory of the National Institute of Standards and Technology. While at NIST, Erica worked on NIST's Technical Investigation of the 2001 WTC Disaster as a team member of Project 7: Occupant Behavior, Egress, and Emergency Communications.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kate Nguyen receives funding from the Australian Research Council and other government/industry-funded programs. She is a member of the Society of Fire Safety, Engineers Australia. The view and opinion that she has in this article is her personal view and does not represent her employer's opinion. </span></em></p>The World Trade Center buildings were built to withstand wind loads more than 30 times the aircrafts’ weight.David Oswald, Senior Lecturer in Construction, RMIT UniversityErica Kuligowski, Vice-Chancellor's Senior Research Fellow, RMIT UniversityKate Nguyen, Senior Lecturer, ARC DECRA Fellow and Victoria Fellow, RMIT UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1669362021-09-08T12:25:06Z2021-09-08T12:25:06ZWhat schools teach about 9/11 and the war on terror<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/419381/original/file-20210904-17-1ephsq7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C16%2C5476%2C3653&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A survey of U.S. history teachers found they teach about 9/11 primarily on the date of the anniversary. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/wilson-high-school-student-allen-simon-a-cadet-in-the-jrotc-news-photo/1272002008">Ben Hasty/MediaNews Group/Reading Eagle via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The phrase “<a href="https://www.911memorial.org/20th-anniversary/inspire/never-forget-fund">Never Forget</a>” is often associated with the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. But what does this phrase mean for U.S. students who are too young to remember? What are they being asked to never forget? </p>
<p>As <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=s1AAji4AAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">education researchers</a> in <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=vzraNsoAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">curriculum and instruction</a>, we have studied since 2002 how the events of 9/11 and the global war on terror are integrated into secondary level U.S. classrooms and curricula. What we have found is a relatively <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00377996.2011.585551">consistent narrative</a> that focuses on 9/11 as an unprecedented and shocking attack, the heroism of the firefighters and other first responders and a global community that stood behind the U.S. in its pursuit of terrorists. </p>
<p>This narrative <a href="https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781475818116/Reassessing-the-Social-Studies-Curriculum-Promoting-Critical-Civic-Engagement-in-a-Politically-Polarized-Post-9-11-World">is in official curricula</a>, such as textbooks and state standards, as well as in many of the most popular materials teachers report using, <a href="https://doi.org/10.29173/css26">such as documentary films</a>.</p>
<p>While honoring the victims and helping a new generation understand the significance of these events are important, we believe there are inherent risks in teaching a simple nationalistic narrative of heroism and evil.</p>
<h2>Annual commemoration</h2>
<p>In our <a href="https://minds.wisconsin.edu/handle/1793/79305">survey of 1,047 U.S. secondary teachers</a> conducted in late 2018, we found that the majority of the history teachers tend to teach about 9/11 primarily on the date of the anniversary each year. </p>
<p>Based on the topics being taught, teaching materials and their descriptions of lessons, the instruction emphasizes commemoration of the attacks and victims. Teachers also attempt to help students who were not alive on 9/11 to understand the experience of those who witnessed the events on TV that day. They report sharing their own recollections, showing news or documentary footage of the attacks, and focusing on the details of the day and events that followed.</p>
<p>The surveyed teachers view 9/11 as significant – and believe that teaching it honors the goal to never forget. However, they described the challenge of making time for discussing these events when the standards for their class do not necessarily include them, or include 9/11-related topics only at the end of the school year. As a result, the lessons are often limited to one class session on or near the anniversary. It is also taught out of historical context given that the anniversary arrives at the beginning of the school year and most U.S. history courses start in either the 1400s or the post-U.S. Civil War era. </p>
<h2>Risks of a simple narrative</h2>
<p>Teaching 9/11 as a memorializing event on the anniversary also generally avoids deeper inquiry into the historic U.S. role in the Middle East and Afghanistan. This includes, for example, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1988/04/18/world/arming-afghan-guerrillas-a-huge-effort-led-by-us.html">arming mujahedeen fighters</a> against the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1992/01/26/world/us-secretly-gave-aid-to-iraq-early-in-its-war-against-iran.html">aiding Iraqi President Saddam Hussein</a> in the war against Iran also in the ‘80s. </p>
<p>A more in-depth approach, on the other hand, could explore how U.S. actions contributed to the <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/network/alqaeda/indictment.html">formation of al-Qaida</a>, which <a href="https://www.state.gov/1993-world-trade-center-bombing/">bombed the World Trade Center in 1993</a> and later carried out <a href="https://www.fbi.gov/history/famous-cases/east-african-embassy-bombings">attacks on U.S. embassies</a> in East Africa as well as on the <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2013/09/18/world/meast/uss-cole-bombing-fast-facts/index.html">USS Cole</a>, a Navy ship fueling in Yemen, in the years leading up to 9/11. </p>
<p>Simplistic narratives do not help students reflect on the many controversial decisions made by the U.S. and their allies after 9/11, such as using embellished evidence to <a href="https://www.rand.org/blog/2013/03/the-invasion-of-iraq-a-balance-sheet.html">justify the invasion of Iraq in 2003</a>. </p>
<p>And they potentially reinforce <a href="https://www.doi.org/10.29173/assert15">political rhetoric that paints Muslims as potential terrorists</a> and ignore the <a href="https://www.911memorial.org/learn/students-and-teachers/lesson-plans/muslims-america-after-911-part-ii">xenophobic attacks against Muslim Americans</a> after the 9/11 attacks. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Teenager adjusts her hijab in mirror" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/419878/original/file-20210907-12-1bscstp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/419878/original/file-20210907-12-1bscstp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419878/original/file-20210907-12-1bscstp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419878/original/file-20210907-12-1bscstp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419878/original/file-20210907-12-1bscstp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=513&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419878/original/file-20210907-12-1bscstp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=513&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419878/original/file-20210907-12-1bscstp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=513&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Lessons can include the perspective of Muslim Americans who experienced discrimination and xenophobic attacks in the aftermath of 9/11.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/Sept11MuslimsInAmerica/8cfc90d9e90d4a1c93e273dcd13510d3">Jessie Wardarsk/AP</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Generational differences among teachers</h2>
<p>Many teachers, however, do engage students in the complexities of these events. Middle school teachers report including 9/11 as part of their discussion of Islam in a world religions unit; world history teachers describe placing it in the context of the modern Middle East. </p>
<p>For U.S. history courses organized chronologically and using widely available textbooks, the move to standardized curricula and testing in many U.S. states can make it <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00220272.2018.1473496">difficult to incorporate current events</a> in meaningful ways. Teachers tell us they feel there is no room or time to deviate. Many end their course in the 1980s or rush through final decades superficially. Some get creative and tie 9/11 to other terror attacks like the <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/19th-century/haymarket-riot">1886 bombing of a labor protest in Haymarket Square</a> in Chicago.</p>
<p>Younger teachers in particular reported different goals for their students that go beyond commemoration or a focus on the shocking nature of the events of the day. They want young people to recognize how the events and policies that followed 9/11 impacted daily life in ways they might not realize. This reflects their own experience, which was less a vivid memory of the day of the attacks but perhaps constant reminders of the color-coded <a href="https://www.dhs.gov/homeland-security-advisory-system">terrorism threat levels</a> issued by the Department of Homeland Security from 2002 to 2011. They want students to understand the recent evacuation of U.S. personnel from Afghanistan in relation to both 9/11 and the U.S. role in Afghanistan in the 1980s. Or to examine provisions of the <a href="https://www.justice.gov/archive/ll/highlights.htm">USA Patriot Act</a> of 2001, which allowed greater surveillance of U.S. citizens.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Afghan nationals disembark from a US air force aircraft after an evacuation flight from Kabul" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/419880/original/file-20210907-14-8g8m09.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/419880/original/file-20210907-14-8g8m09.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=371&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419880/original/file-20210907-14-8g8m09.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=371&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419880/original/file-20210907-14-8g8m09.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=371&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419880/original/file-20210907-14-8g8m09.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419880/original/file-20210907-14-8g8m09.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419880/original/file-20210907-14-8g8m09.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Younger teachers in particular want students to understand how 9/11 relates to current events like the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/refugees-disembark-from-a-us-air-force-aircraft-after-an-news-photo/1234971225">Cristina Quicler/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Learning from 9/11</h2>
<p>If the goal of teaching history is to develop citizens who use knowledge of the past to understand the present and inform future decisions, educators need to help students learn from 9/11 and the war on terror, and not just about them. This means going beyond the facts of the day and the <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/G/bo20832188.html">collective memory aspects</a> to also engage in inquiry into why they happened and how the U.S. and other nations reacted. </p>
<p>Teachers can use news footage from that day to commemorate and as a starting point for student inquiry. Students could question why Osama bin Laden’s image was presented <a href="https://doi.org/10.29173/css26">within an hour and a half</a> of the first plane hitting the World Trade Center, and <a href="https://doi.org/10.29173/css26">how U.S. experts knew</a> he was hiding in Afghanistan. They can explore the <a href="https://www.intelligence.gov/publics-daily-brief/presidents-daily-brief">President’s Daily Brief</a> from <a href="https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB116/index.htm">Aug. 6, 2001</a>, which highlighted the threat of bin Laden planning an attack on the U.S., or the <a href="https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP94T00885R000100230015-8.pdf">CIA memo</a> from the late 1980s that outlined the dangers of abandoning the mujahedeen. </p>
<p>Many <a href="https://teaching911beyondtwenty.wisc.edu">updated resources</a> are available for teachers to draw from for lessons on 9/11. These resources include the perspectives of veterans, Afghan and Iraqi interpreters and refugees, Muslim and Sikh Americans and others not often included. </p>
<p>To “Never Forget” for students today may start with teaching them about aspects of 9/11 that seem to have been overlooked, erased or forgotten.</p>
<p>[<em>The Conversation’s Politics + Society editors pick need-to-know stories.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/politics-weekly-74/?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=politics-need-to-know">Sign up for Politics Weekly</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/166936/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jeremy Stoddard receives funding from the September 11th Education Trust, William & Mary, and the University of Wisconsin - Madison for the research referenced in this article. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Diana Hess does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks is an opportunity for teachers to focus less on recreating the day and more on what students can learn from it, two curriculum experts argue.Jeremy Stoddard, Professor of Curriculum & Instruction, University of Wisconsin-MadisonDiana Hess, Professor of Curriculum & Instruction and Dean of the School of Education, University of Wisconsin-MadisonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1668762021-09-03T14:01:10Z2021-09-03T14:01:10ZAt the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, ancient Greece and Rome can tell us a lot about the links between collective trauma and going to war<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/419140/original/file-20210902-14-g183ch.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=31%2C22%2C2964%2C1845&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">America's political leaders rushed the nation into war just weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, just like ancient Greeks and Romans did in response to similar traumatic events.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/secretary-of-defense-donald-rumsfeld-addresses-members-of-news-photo/1862297?adppopup=true">David Hume Kennerly/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>On the outskirts of Grapevine, Texas, a town about 5 miles northwest of the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, there’s a <a href="https://www.grapevinetexasusa.com/listing/9-11-flight-crew-memorial/101/">memorial dedicated to the 33 airline flight crew members</a> who lost their lives in the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. When I stumbled upon the monument several years ago with my family, I experienced contrary emotions: sadness inspired by the memorial’s stark figures, mixed with anger over how the attacks quickly became a pretext for U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.</p>
<p>Now, as U.S. soldiers <a href="https://theconversation.com/calculating-the-costs-of-the-afghanistan-war-in-lives-dollars-and-years-164588">leave behind uncertainty and violence in Afghanistan</a>, I look back on America’s past 20 years with two sets of eyes.</p>
<p>As the first-year graduate student who stood smoking a cigarette in <a href="https://www.911memorial.org/911-faqs">Washington Square Park at 8:45 a.m. on Sept. 11, 2001</a> – less than a mile from the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers and where the sound of the jet engines’ final roar mixed in with a Tuesday morning’s bustle – I feel visceral sorrow and remorse. </p>
<p>Today, as a scholar of Greek literature who <a href="https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501752346/the-many-minded-man/">studies narrative and memory</a>, I see how this collective trauma shaped U.S. actions and has affected Americans’ vision of their identities and shared history – a feedback loop that is reflected in the myths and histories of ancient Greece.</p>
<p>Twenty years is still recent history for many, so memories of the 9/11 attacks may still be too raw to easily reflect on and learn from. That’s why looking for parallels in ancient stories of destruction and loss can help in understanding how shared trauma can shape the stories a nation tells itself, and the decisions that get made in response.</p>
<h2>What is “collective trauma”?</h2>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01441">Collective trauma</a> is a term that describes the shared experience of and reactions to a traumatic event by a group of people. That group may be as small as a few people or as large as a whole society.</p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-pain-of-9-11-still-stays-with-a-generation-64725">The 9/11 attacks shattered collective American confidence</a> in its safety and sense of place in the world. America’s collective efforts to learn to live with that trauma partly explain why there is a Sept. 11 memorial in a Texas town thousands of miles from where the attacks took place. It also demonstrates that collective tragedies can shape the world views of individuals who were not present at the event.</p>
<p>The traumatized group may go through <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/brief-treatment/mhi028">shared stages of grief</a>, from disbelief to anger. The further the group gets from the traumatizing event itself, the closer it moves to <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/journal/humanities/special_issues/social_memory">social memory</a>, a concept historians use to describe how groups of people come to share a consistent story about past events. This narrative can be manipulated to reflect or enforce values in the present.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Maria Antonia Fernandez-Lopez touches an original steel beam from one of the twin towers of the World Trade Center to commemorate the 14th anniversary of 9/11 at the Frank Hotchkin Memorial Training Center in Los Angeles." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/419138/original/file-20210902-16-1q7uc75.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C1%2C1020%2C717&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/419138/original/file-20210902-16-1q7uc75.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419138/original/file-20210902-16-1q7uc75.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419138/original/file-20210902-16-1q7uc75.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419138/original/file-20210902-16-1q7uc75.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=531&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419138/original/file-20210902-16-1q7uc75.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=531&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419138/original/file-20210902-16-1q7uc75.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=531&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Americans’ collective trauma over the Sept. 11 attacks is reflected in memorials located near and far from where they took place.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/Sept11AnniversaryCalifornia/3645cedf0859466da483020e813a5917">Nick Ut/AP Photo</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>My studies of ancient Greek history suggest to me that this is what happened in the U.S. after the attacks. There are myths and histories of the ancient world that describe how, in the wake of the destruction of cities, societies created cultural memories that helped them find reasons for rushing into war. These episodes have parallels to the U.S. in the early 21st century.</p>
<h2>Reshaping history via stories</h2>
<p>In the spring of 2002, I attended a New York University conference called “<a href="https://as.nyu.edu/content/nyu-as/as/departments/ancientstudies/conferences-and-colloquia0.html">Saving the City</a>,” where speakers were asked to consider such stories. One of the histories we focused on involved Athens after the Persian army invaded Greece – for a second time – in 480 B.C. and burned the temples, groves and homes of the Athenians. The attack was in part vengeance for a past military loss, and also a punishment for Athens’ meddling in Persian affairs in Asia Minor. As with New York on Sept. 11, the attackers targeted an icon: the first version of the Athenian Parthenon.</p>
<p>In the wake of this collective trauma, as the scholar <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=38lYWBAAAAAJ&hl=en">Bernd Steinbock argues</a>, <a href="https://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2013/2013.11.57/">narratives of city destruction became popular in Athenian storytelling and art</a>. In some of these stories, cities that had committed offenses against the gods then suffered at the hands of international armies that formed to set them right.</p>
<p>Athenians told one another these stories as they raised troops and a navy to harry the Persians in Asia Minor. Athenian political rhetoric was shaped by the specter of Persian invasion and the threat of re-invasion, the glory of victory and the casting of Athens as a force for freedom and justice in the world. This rhetoric justified imperial expansion, violence and eventually the murder and <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/4435410">enslavement of the city’s own allies.</a>.</p>
<p>That led to the <a href="https://historycooperative.org/the-peloponnesian-war-athens-vs-sparta/">Peloponnesian War</a>, a destructive 27-year conflict with Sparta that ended with Athens being conquered again in 404 B.C.</p>
<h2>Rhetoric and calls to arms</h2>
<p>In 2001, Americans were still in the early days of their collective trauma when talk pivoted to the rhetoric of war. Analogies were made to shared cultural or national stories from the past: The terrorists were “<a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2001/US/09/16/gen.bush.terrorism/">evil-doers</a>,” President George W. Bush said soon after the attacks, and fighting them was “a new crusade.” September 11 was the “<a href="https://www.denverpost.com/2016/12/06/the-parallels-and-differences-between-pearl-harbor-and-911/">Pearl Harbor</a>” that made it OK to invade Afghanistan.</p>
<p>By early 2002, Bush was telling the nation that Iran, Iraq and North Korea – the “<a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2019/01/29/bush-axis-of-evil-2002-1127725">axis of evil</a>” – were threats to the United States, although they had not been implicated in the Sept. 11 attacks. His administration would soon use its claim that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction <a href="https://americandiplomacy.web.unc.edu/2003/08/weapons-of-mass-destruction-and-tonkin-gulf/">as a “Gulf of Tonkin”</a> moment to justify the U.S. invasion of Iraq – a reference to the 1964 event that spurred greater American military involvement in the Vietnam War.</p>
<p>As I listened to this sort of political rhetoric at the time, the language of Greek myth and poetry helped me understand how political speech capitalizes on memory to create shared realities and justify use of violence. I spent that first year of graduate school in New York City studying the <a href="https://www.proquest.com/openview/80469baf9c07c3ea8dfcf70da888631d/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=18750">language and politics</a> in Homer’s epic, the “Iliad.” The story’s “thousand ships” from different cities sailing east, with a bumbling fool at their head, to punish the Trojans seemed an awful lot like the fractious “<a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/europe/11/20/prague.bush.nato/">coalition of the willing</a>” – Bush’s term for the military alliance he assembled to invade and occupy Iraq.</p>
<p>[<em>3 media outlets, 1 religion newsletter.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/this-week-in-religion-76/?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=religion-3-in-1">Get stories from The Conversation, AP and RNS.</a>]</p>
<h2>Collective trauma and imperialism</h2>
<p>Rome provides another example from ancient history of the relationship between collective trauma and justifications for imperial pursuits. </p>
<p>The city of <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/j.ctt1ppxrv">Rome fought and won its first war</a> with the powerful city of Carthage – located in what is today Tunisia – between 264-241 B.C., and its second between 218-201 B.C. Rome then imposed a hefty war indemnity on Carthage, which helped it acquire territories that laid the foundation for a <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt183pb5x.6">pan-Mediterranean empire</a>. </p>
<p>These two victories ended any significant threat that Carthage may have posed, but Roman culture remained obsessed with war. According to the military leader and author <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/archaeology/.premium-remains-found-by-pompeii-really-are-pliny-the-elder-new-tests-indicate-1.8439072">Pliny the Elder</a>, the statesman Cato the Elder used to shout “<a href="http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:latinLit:phi0978.phi001.perseus-eng1:15.20">I think Carthage must be destroyed</a>” at every meeting of the Roman Senate. Rome went on to fight a third war with Carthage, besieging and destroying the city between 149-146 B.C.</p>
<p>I can’t think of this anecdote without remembering how <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/28/books/review/to-start-a-war-robert-draper.html">Bush agitated for invading Iraq</a> over 10 years after his father’s invasion of the country. Or that just a handful of years after Bush’s 2002 “axis of evil” speech, a presidential candidate sang “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7s5pT3Rris">bomb bomb Iran</a>” to the tune of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qV873dFNQFI">a Beach Boys pop hit</a>.</p>
<p>These and other accounts from ancient Greece and Rome suggest that over history, collective trauma has often created an opportunity for leaders to use social memory – a culture’s shared stories – to create justifications for lashing out at the world, careless of any new damage it may cause.</p>
<p>As individuals and nations, we don’t act because of what we suffer, but often because of the stories we tell about it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/166876/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joel Christensen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Ancient Athenians and Romans also let shared mass tragedies propel justifications for going to war – even when it wasn’t clear what that violence would solve.Joel Christensen, Professor of Classical Studies, Brandeis UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1623042021-09-01T18:55:09Z2021-09-01T18:55:09Z20 years of ‘forever’ wars have left a toll on US veterans returning to the question: ‘Did you kill?’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/416537/original/file-20210817-18-1ws6h75.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=10%2C41%2C3484%2C2284&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Every soldier has a different story.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/soldier-of-charlie-company-2-508-pir-second-platoon-second-news-photo/103229734?adppopup=true">Yuri Cortez/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Military service members returning from America’s “<a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/49387/the-forever-war-by-dexter-filkins/">forever</a>” wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have often faced deeply personal questions about their experience.</p>
<p>As one veteran explained to me: “I’ve been asked, ‘Have you ever killed anyone in war? Are you messed up at all?’”</p>
<p>“I don’t take offense to any of that because I realize, we went somewhere, we were gone for a couple years, and now we’re back, and now no one knows how to talk to a person.”</p>
<p>This <a href="https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Journals/Military-Review/MR-Book-Reviews/December-2018/Book-Review-006/">sense of estrangement</a> from the rest of the population is, in my experience, common among veterans. I interviewed 30 former military personnel between 2012 and 2018 for “<a href="https://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/potomac-books/9781640120235/">After Combat: True War Stories from Iraq and Afghanistan</a>” – a book I coauthored with retired Army Col. Michael Gibler, who served as an infantry officer for 28 years, including deployments to both Iraq and Afghanistan.</p>
<p>20 years after the 9/11 attacks and the start of the ensuing <a href="https://scholarship.law.duke.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=5902&context=faculty_scholarship">global war on terrorism</a>, I believe that civilians would benefit from hearing veterans’ stories. It can help provide an understanding of the experience of mortality among the men and women who served in America’s name. </p>
<h2>Looking the enemy in the eye</h2>
<p>Neither I nor my co-author asked veterans directly if they had killed, and every person we spoke with had a unique experience of combat. All 30 interviewees, aged between 20 and 55 and from a variety of different backgrounds, were guaranteed anonymity to allow them to talk freely with us about their experiences of killing in combat. Their names have been changed for this article.</p>
<p>Killing in contemporary war rarely has the clarity of combat portrayed in war movies or video games, where the opponent is visible and threatening. In the fictional scenario, it is clear when a life is threatened and how to fight for the survival of oneself or one’s unit. </p>
<p>“People think it’s like ‘Call of Duty,’” one veteran said, referring to the popular video game, or that “it’d be cool to do that.” However, even in a direct engagement, like an ambush, it may not be clear who you are shooting at – it could be a response to a muzzle flash in the distance or laying down covering fire, he explained.</p>
<p>Describing an incident in which three men attacked his unit, one veteran, Beau, recalled the moral clarity he felt while shooting at a visible combatant.</p>
<p>“I know that they’re bad because they’re shooting at me,” he said.</p>
<p>But in other firefights, the situation was less clear, and as Beau explained, “For every innocent person that dies, that’s five more terrorists. I need to get this right.”</p>
<p>Beau said he preferred to look an enemy combatant in the eye, even when his own life was in danger. He indicated that it confirmed his view that these were “bad” people intent on killing him first.</p>
<p>Many recruits like Beau go into combat believing that killing is necessary in conditions of war and believing also that the <a href="https://www.pewforum.org/2001/10/05/just-war-tradition-and-the-new-war-on-terrorism/">wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were militarily and politically justified</a>. But they are still <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0011000016666156?casa_token=iZT8Z12P0lYAAAAA%3Al6Yg0FPyxhJyqp_h8z-1kONaOo0DWhPWUpS_GkS08VioRRfL8a47n4m4NRN27azKGpJmDiTclA60MQM&">changed by having killed</a>.</p>
<p>One soldier shot back from his guard post when under fire from a nearby house. His unit entered the house to find a dead man with a warm rifle. But the guard was discomfited when congratulated on this kill by fellow soldiers. To his comrades, he had acted in self-defense and protected others from the shooter. But even in this situation of militarily justified killing, he felt he had crossed a line by taking a life.</p>
<p>Others expressed guilt for exposing civilians to danger. One veteran spoke of feeling responsible when a young informant was executed after providing crucial information to Americans.</p>
<p>“We found out that the family that was living there told the Taliban that that little boy ratted them out,” Robin recalled. “I found this out two days later, that they executed the little boy that I chose to bring into that compound.” </p>
<h2>‘No monster’</h2>
<p>While some veterans return from having killed in combat without suffering <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-moral-injury-in-veterans-77669">moral injury</a> or <a href="https://www.brainline.org/article/what-are-differences-between-pts-and-ptsd">post-traumatic stress</a>, others suffer enduring <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10926771.2018.1463582?casa_token=AwZTeLQv0WUAAAAA%3ANvDFFytQU71w7O9eTK55AVDXIRgVzH9n2Bn0zYNZDBeppoXPFQw3pQCPRtobjQGNBc6rPTMCSKGlKOI">impacts of killing</a>. Studies have shown that the act of killing in combat can cause “<a href="https://jmvh.org/article/post-traumatic-stress-disorder-and-killing-in-combat-a-review-of-existing-literature/">significant psychological distress</a>” and is associated with <a href="https://militaryfamilieslearningnetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/jclp_22471_Rev2.pdf">elevated risks of PTSD, alcohol abuse</a> and <a href="https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2016/12/405231/killing-war-leaves-veterans-lasting-psychological-scars-study-finds">suicide</a> in veterans.</p>
<p>As former U.S. Army Lt. Col. <a href="https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/lieutenant-colonel-dave-grossman/on-killing/9780316040938/">David Grossman</a> wrote in his book examining the psychological impact of killing, a “dead soldier takes his misery with him, the man who killed him must forever live and die with him.”</p>
<p>Reuben can attest to that. He fired on a vehicle accelerating into an Iraqi checkpoint. As the vehicle approached the checkpoint, he shot into and stopped the advancing automobile. Approaching it to investigate, the unit saw he had killed the driver. But he had also “splattered his head all over the driver’s child. Six years old. He was sitting in the passenger seat. The fifty caliber does a number on the human body. The man’s head was just gone. It was everywhere.”</p>
<p>Reuben has ruminated over that moment for many years, trying to reconcile how he had followed the standard protocol but with horrific results – and trying to convince himself, as he told us, that he is not a monster.</p>
<p>Most civilians will never <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15229303/">carry the burden of mortality that Reuben bears</a>.</p>
<p>As the 20th anniversary of the <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/9-11-to-today-ways-we-have-changed">terrorist attacks of 9/11</a> and the inception of America’s global war on terror approached, the Biden administration withdrew the last remaining troops from Afghanistan. The military members returning from this conflict, and that in Iraq, will not all be traumatized by combat experience, and not all soldiers who deploy have killed. But those who have enter a moral space very few of us share or even particularly understand.</p>
<p>[<em>Get the best of The Conversation, every weekend.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/weekly-highlights-61?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=weeklybest">Sign up for our weekly newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/162304/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marian Eide does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The act of killing in combat is associated with heightened risks of PTSD and suicide. A scholar interviewed 30 veterans about their common experiences.Marian Eide, Professor of English and Women's & Gender Studies, Texas A&M UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1645882021-09-01T12:07:44Z2021-09-01T12:07:44ZCalculating the costs of the Afghanistan War in lives, dollars and years<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/418456/original/file-20210830-15-1wfwsc0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C33%2C4493%2C2964&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Heading for the exit.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/member-of-the-afghan-police-and-us-soldiers-leave-a-school-news-photo/495500609?adppopup=true">Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The U.S. invaded Afghanistan in late 2001 to destroy al-Qaida, remove the Taliban from power and remake the nation. On Aug. 30, 2021, the <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/india/rockets-fired-kabul-airport-us-troops-race-complete-evacuation-2021-08-30/">U.S. completed a pullout of troops</a> from Afghanistan, providing an uncertain punctuation mark to two decades of conflict.</p>
<p>For the past 11 years I have closely followed the post-9/11 conflicts for the <a href="https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/">Costs of War Project</a>, an initiative that brings together more than 50 scholars, physicians and legal and human rights experts to provide an account of the human, economic, budgetary and political costs and consequences of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.</p>
<p>Of course, by themselves figures can never give a complete picture of what happened and what it means, but they can help put this war in perspective.</p>
<p>The 20 numbers highlighted below, some drawn from figures released on Sept. 1, 2021, by the Costs of War Project, help tell the story of the Afghanistan War.</p>
<h2>From 2001 to 2021</h2>
<p>On Sept. 18, 2001, the U.S. House of Representatives voted <strong><a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/107-2001/h342">420-1</a></strong> and the Senate <strong><a href="https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=107&session=1&vote=00281">98-0</a></strong> to <a href="https://www.congress.gov/107/plaws/publ40/PLAW-107publ40.pdf">authorize</a> the United States to go to war, not just in Afghanistan, but in an open-ended commitment against “those responsible for the recent attacks launched against the United States.” U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee of California cast the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2021/08/17/barbara-lee-afghanistan-vote/">only vote opposed</a> to the war.</p>
<p>In other words, the U.S. Congress took <strong><a href="https://www.congress.gov/107/plaws/publ40/PLAW-107publ40.pdf">7 days</a></strong> after the 9/11 attacks to deliberate on and authorize the war.</p>
<p>At <strong><a href="https://www.timeanddate.com/date/durationresult.html?m1=10&d1=7&y1=2001&m2=08&d2=31&y2=2021">7,262 days</a></strong> from the first attack on Afghanistan to the final troop pullout, Afghanistan is said to be the U.S.’s longest war. But it isn’t – the U.S. has <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/why-korean-war-never-technically-ended">not officially ended the Korean War</a>. And U.S. operations in Vietnam, which began in the mid-1950s and included the declared war from 1965-1975, also rival Afghanistan in longevity.</p>
<p>U.S. President <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nation/specials/attacked/transcripts/bushaddress_092001.html">George W. Bush told</a> members of Congress in a joint session on Sept. 20, 2001 that the war would be global, overt, covert and could last a very long time.</p>
<p>“Our war on terror begins with al-Qaida, but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated. … Americans should not expect one battle, but a lengthy campaign, unlike any other we have ever seen,” <a href="https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010920-8.html">he said</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="President George W. Bush addressing US troops." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/418462/original/file-20210830-13-1wrt01x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/418462/original/file-20210830-13-1wrt01x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418462/original/file-20210830-13-1wrt01x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418462/original/file-20210830-13-1wrt01x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418462/original/file-20210830-13-1wrt01x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418462/original/file-20210830-13-1wrt01x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418462/original/file-20210830-13-1wrt01x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">President George W. Bush speaks to soldiers from the 10th Mountain Division at Fort Drum.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/president-george-w-bush-speaks-to-soliders-from-the-10th-news-photo/525617790?adppopup=true">Brooks Kraft LLC/Corbis via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The U.S. started bombing Afghanistan a few weeks later. The Taliban surrendered in Kandahar on Dec. 9, 2001. The U.S. began to fight them again in earnest in March 2002. In April 2002, President Bush promised to help bring “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/18/world/a-nation-challenged-the-president-bush-sets-role-for-us-in-afghan-rebuilding.html">true peace</a>” to Afghanistan: “Peace will be achieved by helping Afghanistan develop its own stable government. Peace will be achieved by helping Afghanistan train and develop its own national army. And peace will be achieved through an education system for boys and girls which works.” </p>
<p>The global war on terror was not confined to operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The U.S. now has counterterrorism operations in <strong><a href="https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/papers/2021/USCounterterrorismOperations">85 countries</a></strong>.</p>
<h2>The human cost</h2>
<p>Most Afghans alive today were not born when the U.S. war began. The median age in Afghanistan is just <strong><a href="https://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/afghanistan-population">18.4 years old</a></strong>. Including their country’s war with the Soviet Union from 1979 to 1989 and civil war in the 1990s, most Afghans have lived under nearly continuous war. </p>
<p>There are, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, <strong><a href="https://www.bls.gov/news.release/vet.htm#cps_veterans.f.1.">980,000 U.S. Afghanistan war veterans</a></strong>. Of these men and women, <strong><a href="https://www.bls.gov/news.release/vet.htm#cps_veterans.f.1.">507,000 served in both Afghanistan and Iraq</a></strong>.</p>
<p>As of mid-August 2021, <strong><a href="https://www.defense.gov/casualty.pdf">20,722</a></strong> members of the U.S. military had been wounded in action in Afghanistan, not including the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/08/26/afghanistan-kabul-taliban-live-updates/">18 who were injured</a> in the attack by ISIS-K outside the airport in Kabul on Aug. 26, 2021.</p>
<p>Of the veterans who were injured and lost a limb in the post-9/11 wars, many lost <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23192067/">more than one</a>. According to <a href="https://www.health.mil/News/Articles/2021/08/09/Since-Gulf-War-Advanced-Prosthetic-Technology-Saves-Lives-Careers">Dr. Paul Pasquina</a> of the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, of these veterans, “About 40% to 60% also sustained a brain injury. Because of some of the lessons learned and the innovations that have taken place on the battlefield … we were taking care of service members who in previous conflicts would have died.”</p>
<p>In fact, because of advances in trauma care, more than <a href="https://www.pennmedicine.org/news/news-releases/2020/july/us-military-has-improved-mortality-since-world-war-ii-but-there-have-been-some-alarming-exceptions"><strong>90%</strong></a> of all soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq who were injured in the field survived. Many of the seriously injured <a href="https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamasurgery/article-abstract/2729451">survived wounds</a> that in the past might have killed them.</p>
<p>In all, <strong><a href="https://www.defense.gov/casualty.pdf.">2,455 U.S. service members</a></strong> were killed in the Afghanistan War. The figure includes 13 U.S. troops who were killed by ISIS-K in the Kabul airport attack on Aug. 26, 2021.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="The casket of a US soldier is seen through a doorway during a full military honors burial ceremony" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/418458/original/file-20210830-26-k50cwk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/418458/original/file-20210830-26-k50cwk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418458/original/file-20210830-26-k50cwk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418458/original/file-20210830-26-k50cwk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418458/original/file-20210830-26-k50cwk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418458/original/file-20210830-26-k50cwk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418458/original/file-20210830-26-k50cwk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A burial for one of 2,455 U.S. troops who died in
Afghanistan.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Olivier Douliery/AFP via Getty Images</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>U.S. deaths in Operation Enduring Freedom also include 130 service members who died in other locations besides Afghanistan, including Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Jordan, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Philippines, Seychelles, Sudan, Tajikistan, Turkey, Uzbekistan and Yemen.</p>
<p>The U.S. has paid <strong><a href="https://militarypay.defense.gov/Benefits/Death-Gratuity/#:%7E:text=The%20death%20gratuity%20program%20provides,of%20the%20cause%20of%20death.">US$100,000 in a “death gratuity</a>”</strong> to the survivors of each of the service members killed in the Afghanistan war, totaling <strong>$245.5 million</strong>. </p>
<p><strong>More than <a href="https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/figures">46,000 civilians have been killed</a></strong> by all sides in the Afghanistan conflict. These are the direct deaths from bombs, bullets, blasts and fire. <a href="https://unama.unmissions.org/protection-of-civilians-reports">Thousands more have been injured</a>, according to the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan.</p>
<p>And while the number of Afghans leaving the country has increased in <a href="https://theconversation.com/where-do-afghanistans-refugees-go-166316">recent weeks</a>, more than <strong><a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-58283177">2.2 million displaced Afghans</a></strong> were living in Iran and Pakistan at the end of 2020. The United Nations Refugee Agency reported in late August 2021 that since the start of that year, <a href="https://data2.unhcr.org/en/documents/details/88385">more than 558,000</a> people have been internally displaced, having fled their homes to escape violence. </p>
<p>According to the <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/07/1095922">United Nations</a>, in 2021 about a third of people remaining in Afghanistan are malnourished. <strong><a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/07/1095922">About half of all children under 5 years old</a></strong> experience malnutrition.</p>
<p>The human toll also includes the hundreds of Pakistani civilians who were killed in <strong><a href="https://www.newamerica.org/international-security/reports/americas-counterterrorism-wars/the-drone-war-in-pakistan">more than 400 U.S. drone strikes</a></strong> since 2004. Those strikes happened as the U.S. sought to kill Taliban and al-Qaida leaders who fled and sheltered there in late 2001 after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. Pakistani civilians have also been killed in crossfire during fighting between militants and the Pakistani military.</p>
<h2>The financial cost</h2>
<p>In terms of the federal budget, Congress has allocated a bit over <strong>$1 trillion</strong> to the Department of Defense for the Afghanistan War. But all told, the Afghanistan War has cost much more than that. Including the Department of Defense spending, more than <a href="https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/figures/2021/BudgetaryCosts"><strong>$2.3 trillion</strong></a> has been spent so far, including increases to the Pentagon’s base military budget due to the fighting, State Department spending to reconstruct and democratize Afghanistan and train its military, interest on borrowing to pay for the war, and spending for veterans in the Veteran Affairs system.</p>
<p>The total costs so far for all post-9/11 war veterans’ disability and medical care costs are about <strong>$465 billion</strong> through fiscal 2022. And this doesn’t include the future costs of all the post-9/11 veterans’ medical and disability care, which <a href="https://scholar.harvard.edu/lbilmes/home">Harvard University scholar Linda Bilmes</a> <a href="https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/papers/2021/CareforVeterans">estimates</a> will likely add about $2 trillion to the overall cost of care for veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars between now and 2050.</p>
<p>The war in Afghanistan, like many other wars before it, began with optimistic assessments of a quick victory and the promise to rebuild at war’s end. Despite Bush’s warning of a lengthy campaign, few thought then that would mean decades. But 20 years later, the U.S is still counting the costs. </p>
<p><em>Editor’s note: This article was updated on Sept. 1, 2021 to correct the total death gratuity paid to survivors of service members killed in the Afghanistan war to $245.5 million.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/164588/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Neta C. Crawford receives funding from the Carnegie Corporation of New York. She is co-director of the Costs of War Project based at Brown University.</span></em></p>Following the completion of the US troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, Neta Crawford, the co-director of the Costs of War Project, reflects on 7,268 days of American involvement in the conflict.Neta C. Crawford, Professor of Political Science and Department Chair, Boston UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1657192021-08-31T12:28:42Z2021-08-31T12:28:42ZLessons about 9/11 often provoke harassment of Muslim students<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/418438/original/file-20210830-21-1p6zfzl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Muslim students report being teased and harassed when schools focus on 9/11.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/muslim-teenage-girl-thinking-for-travel-royalty-free-image/1136157808?adppopup=true">Jasmin Merdan</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Near the start of each school year, many U.S. schools <a href="https://time.com/5672103/9-11-history-curriculum/">wrestle with how to teach about 9/11</a> – the <a href="https://www.history.com/news/deadliest-events-united-states">deadliest foreign attack ever on American soil</a>.</p>
<p>In interviews I conducted recently in the <a href="https://code.dccouncil.us/dc/council/code/sections/2-1105.html">Washington, D.C., metropolitan area</a> – one of three places <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-57698668">where hijacked planes crashed</a> on Sept. 11, 2001 – I found that Muslim students are often subjected to ridicule and blame for the 9/11 attacks.</p>
<p>“Even if they’re joking around, they’ll say ‘terrorist’ and stuff like that,” one student told me. “That used to trigger me a lot.”</p>
<p>Another student told me: “9/11, every single year, is so awkward. The administrators would be like ‘On this fateful day, this happened’… then the Muslim jokes would come up, like ‘Don’t blow us up.’ When I was younger it bothered me, but now I’m just desensitized to it.”</p>
<p>“There’s so much tension, just being even this color and then being a Muslim, period,” yet another student told me. “It’s really strange, like, you feel it, they’re not saying it … ’You don’t understand this question because you’re Muslim,‘ which is the strangest thing, but it’s definitely the tension that these teachers give off sometimes.”</p>
<p>These students are among the 55 Muslim students, ages 12 to 21, whom I interviewed in the Greater Washington, D.C., area from 2019 through 2021 about their experiences in school during <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00377996.2011.585551">classroom lessons</a> about 9/11. Their experience is part of a larger pattern of Muslim students being <a href="https://www.ispu.org/american-muslim-poll-2020-amid-pandemic-and-protest/#summary">targeted and bullied in U.S. schools</a>.</p>
<h2>Increase in harassment</h2>
<p>A 2020 poll found that <a href="https://www.ispu.org/american-muslim-poll-2020-amid-pandemic-and-protest/#summary">51% of American Muslim families</a> reported that their children experienced religious-based bullying – insults or physical assaults – in school. That’s nearly twice the rate reported by parents among the general public, the same poll found. Perhaps more disturbingly, <a href="https://www.ispu.org/american-muslim-poll-2020-amid-pandemic-and-protest/#summary">30%</a> of those incidents reportedly involved a teacher or school official – the same people whom students ought to be able to turn to for support.</p>
<h2>Effects on learning</h2>
<p>When Muslim students experience these kinds of challenges at school, it is associated with <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/ajcp.12238">higher levels of psychological distress</a>. Students can <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/290495197_Race_and_belonging_in_school_How_anticipated_and_experienced_belonging_affect_choice_persistence_and_performance">learn better</a> when educators foster a sense of emotional safety and belonging.</p>
<p>Observers might conclude that it’s no big deal when students merely <a href="https://doi.org/10.18848/2327-0136/CGP/v28i01/45-57">subject their Muslim classmates to jokes</a> – that the teasing is all in good humor and a normal part of high school.</p>
<p>My research – which is ongoing and unpublished – suggests that this sort of cavalier attitude can be found among teachers and administrators. A few students in my study noticed their teachers would dismiss their concerns or make excuses for students who teased Muslim students about 9/11 by suggesting the other student “didn’t mean it” or “was misunderstood.”</p>
<p>But calling Muslim students “terrorists” or telling them “don’t blow us up” repeats deeply ingrained <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0002716203588001011">stereotypes that vilify</a> Muslims as prone to extremist violence and should be considered <a href="https://islamophobiaisracism.wordpress.com/">anti-Muslim racism</a>, I believe. </p>
<h2>Opposition from the top</h2>
<p>Beyond having their concerns about harassment dismissed, Muslim students sometimes must deal with school administrators who block their efforts to form identity groups. For instance, a 2018 study found that at a high school where the principal suspended meetings for a Muslim Student Association, Muslim students felt as if their school was “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1108/JEA-01-2018-0009">characterized by exclusion and racialized surveillance</a>.” Muslim students also report that their commitment to <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv11smkkj">democratic values</a> is often called into question.</p>
<p>Despite the animosity that Muslim students face, scholars who specialize in Muslim student issues, such as <a href="https://www.dom.edu/directory/suhad-tabahi">Suhad Tabahi</a> and <a href="https://www.bu.edu/ssw/lecturers-mahlet-meshesha-and-dr-layla-khayr-join-bussw/">Layla Khayr</a>, argue that schools can do more to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/cs/cdaa033">combat anti-Muslim racism</a>.</p>
<p>Much of that work can be done in the classroom – and school-based 9/11 observances and lessons represent a prime opportunity.</p>
<p>As a teacher trainer who partly works in developing <a href="https://www.contemporaryislam.org/9-11-teaching.html">culturally responsive 9/11 teaching resources</a>, I offer three strategies educators can use to reenvision how they deal with the 9/11 attacks and their aftermath.</p>
<h2>1. Teach culturally diverse stories</h2>
<p>Although it’s common for people to recall how “<a href="https://www.history.com/topics/21st-century/9-11-attacks">Islamic extremists</a>” carried out the 9/11 attacks, it’s also true that Muslim immigrants, such as Mohammed Salman Hamdani, lost their lives serving as <a href="https://storycorps.org/stories/talat-hamdani-and-armeen-hamdani/">first responders</a>. Those stories can help counterbalance the negative sentiments that arise from Muslim-blaming narratives that sometimes accompany lessons about 9/11.</p>
<h2>2. Examine the social and political effects of 9/11</h2>
<p>Teach students how immigration policies became <a href="https://www.americanbar.org/groups/crsj/publications/human_rights_magazine_home/human_rights_vol38_2011/human_rights_winter2011/9-11_transformation_of_us_immigration_law_policy/">linked to national security</a>. Introduce students to how 9/11 gave rise to the <a href="https://www.justice.gov/archive/ll/highlights.htm">USA Patriot Act</a>, which authorized the broad use of federal surveillance to counter violent extremism, led to the formation of the <a href="https://www.dhs.gov/history">Department of Homeland Security</a> and informed the so-called “<a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/01/20/proclamation-ending-discriminatory-bans-on-entry-to-the-united-states/">Muslim ban</a>.”</p>
<p>Discuss how 9/11 led to <a href="https://scholars.org/contribution/targeting-muslim-americans-name-national-security">“no-fly” lists</a> and disproportionately affected the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/aeq.12136">surveillance</a> of Muslim Americans. Recount how the <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/21st-century/war-on-terror-timeline">wars</a> in Afghanistan and <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3689022">Iraq</a> were linked to 9/11.</p>
<p>Show students how Muslims, and <a href="https://storycorps.org/stories/remembering-balbir-singh-sodhi-sikh-man-killed-in-post-911-hate-crime/">people assumed to be Muslim</a>, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-islam-idUSKBN16T1TL">feared for their personal safety</a> because of all the backlash that followed 9/11.</p>
<p>This can help students better understand contemporary events, such as why <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/americans-prepare-to-welcome-thousands-of-afghan-refugees-even-as-political-rhetoric-heats-up/ar-AANxFS6?ocid=uxbndlbing">Afghan refugees</a> are coming to America, or why <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/dhs-potential-terrorism-threats-911-anniversary/">airport security</a> increases around Sept. 11 each year.</p>
<h2>3. Keep students safe</h2>
<p>As the United States prepares for <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/dhs-potential-terrorism-threats-911-anniversary/">potential terror threats</a> on the anniversary of 9/11, educators bear a responsibility to maintain a safe learning environment. Teachers should pay attention to the conversations between students to ensure that they are not repeating harmful words and actions that target Muslims. </p>
<p>Respond to students who express fear for their personal safety. Educators should consult their state’s <a href="https://www.stopbullying.gov/resources/laws">anti-bullying policies</a> to get up to speed on how to handle harassment.</p>
<p>But by offering a broader perspective of 9/11 and its aftermath, educators can create a safer learning experience for students as they reflect on 9/11 and how it forever changed Americans’ lives.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/165719/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Amaarah DeCuir does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Comments made during class discussions about 9/11 often put Muslim students on edge, according to a researcher who interviewed 55 Muslim students in and around the nation’s capital.Amaarah DeCuir, Professorial Lecturer of Education, American UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1590532021-04-15T07:02:07Z2021-04-15T07:02:07ZAs the US plans its Afghan troop withdrawal, what was it all for?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395199/original/file-20210415-22-17lxt23.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">David Goldman/AP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Unlike most US presidents, Joe Biden did not come to the White House with many fixed ideological positions. He did, however, come with fixed values. Chief among them is understanding how US policies impact working American families.</p>
<p>In his nearly half century of experience in and around Washington, Biden was known to ask any staffers using <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/16/us/politics/biden-administration-executive-action-legislation.html">academic or elitist language</a> to </p>
<blockquote>
<p>pick up your phone, call your mother, read her what you just told me […] If she understands, we can keep talking.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The debate about the nearly 20-year US presence in Afghanistan has challenged three prior US presidents — George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump. Yet Biden, as the first US president in 40 years to have had a child who served in combat, sees things differently.</p>
<p>There undoubtedly remains a strategic argument — albeit shared by increasingly fewer Americans — for <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/afghanistan/2021-04-14/taliban-are-ready-exploit-americas-exit">maintaining a US presence in Afghanistan</a>. Namely, that it would continue to prevent terrorists from once again making safe haven there. </p>
<p>But Biden’s <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-04-15/us-president-joe-biden-afghan-withdrawal-plans/100070934">announcement</a> that he would withdraw the remaining US troops by September essentially meant he saw no way of making the parent of another soldier killed in Afghanistan understand such an argument. As he <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/video/us/politics/100000007709880/biden-speech-afghanistan.html">said</a>,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Our reasons for remaining in Afghanistan have become increasingly unclear. </p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395200/original/file-20210415-15-vt2otr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395200/original/file-20210415-15-vt2otr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395200/original/file-20210415-15-vt2otr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395200/original/file-20210415-15-vt2otr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395200/original/file-20210415-15-vt2otr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395200/original/file-20210415-15-vt2otr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395200/original/file-20210415-15-vt2otr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Biden said it is ‘time for America’s troops to come home’.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Andrew Harnik / POOL/EPA</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Shifting US support for the war</h2>
<p>Today, most Americans agree with him. </p>
<p>When the longest war in American history began, <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2002/04/17/americans-and-europeans-differ-widely-on-foreign-policy-issues/">83%</a> of Americans were in favour of it. But by 2019, 41% of Americans simply <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-myth-of-war-weary-americans-11606863481?reflink=desktopwebshare_twitter">had no opinion</a> on whether the US had accomplished its goals in Afghanistan.</p>
<p>Perhaps clearer than the US rationale for maintaining troops in Afghanistan is the fact Americans are dramatically less concerned about terrorism than they were 20 years ago. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395204/original/file-20210415-17-1p3d8wp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395204/original/file-20210415-17-1p3d8wp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395204/original/file-20210415-17-1p3d8wp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395204/original/file-20210415-17-1p3d8wp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395204/original/file-20210415-17-1p3d8wp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395204/original/file-20210415-17-1p3d8wp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395204/original/file-20210415-17-1p3d8wp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A woman embracing her husband after his return from a deployment to Afghanistan in 2014.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">David Goldman/AP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>One month after the September 11, 2001, attacks, <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2010/12/02/despite-years-of-terror-scares-publics-concerns-remain-fairly-steady/">71%</a> of Americans said they were worried about a terror attack. </p>
<p>But by July 2020, terrorism <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/07/14/as-the-u-s-copes-with-multiple-crises-partisans-disagree-sharply-on-severity-of-problems-facing-the-nation/">ranked last</a> in a list of ten issues that Americans deemed to be a “very big problem in the country today.” Climate change, violent crime, unemployment, government ethics, and racial injustice were all deemed more important.</p>
<p>And in February of this year, Americans were asked what of <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2021/02/24/majority-of-americans-confident-in-bidens-handling-of-foreign-policy-as-term-begins/pp_2021-02-24_foreign-policy_00-04/">20 options</a> should be given “top priority” as a long-range foreign policy goal. The top-ranked priority, with 75% in support, was “protecting the jobs of American workers”. </p>
<p>The very last one? “Promoting democracy in other nations”, at just 20%.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/us-postpones-afghanistan-troop-withdrawal-in-hopes-of-sustaining-peace-process-5-essential-reads-158935">US postpones Afghanistan troop withdrawal in hopes of sustaining peace process: 5 essential reads</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>What was it all for?</h2>
<p>The rationale for maintaining US troops in Afghanistan was not only unclear to most Americans, it also became unclear to a growing number of US veterans. In late 2019, <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-myth-of-war-weary-americans-11606863481">44% of veterans</a> said they supported US troop reductions from Afghanistan — compared to just 33% of the general public.</p>
<p>As Biden reminded the world in his announcement, the US invaded Afghanistan to root out al-Qaeda and prevent future terror attacks on the US. He posited the death of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Osama-bin-Laden">Osama bin Laden</a> and the degradation of al-Qaeda were evidence of success on that front. </p>
<p>But both of those were accomplished a decade ago — leading Biden to wonder what had been accomplished since then, and what could be accomplished in the future.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395201/original/file-20210415-19-g2zytm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395201/original/file-20210415-19-g2zytm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395201/original/file-20210415-19-g2zytm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395201/original/file-20210415-19-g2zytm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395201/original/file-20210415-19-g2zytm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395201/original/file-20210415-19-g2zytm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395201/original/file-20210415-19-g2zytm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">More than 2,400 American service members were killed in Afghanistan and more than 20,000 were wounded.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Massoud Hossaini/AP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>More than a decade ago, the Obama administration <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00457WTC6/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1">fiercely debated</a> the merits of decreasing the US troop presence in Afghanistan. Around that time, a US Marine colonel who did multiple deployments to the region reflected to me about the many Marines he lost there and the parents he consoled. He asked a simple question: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>What exactly am I supposed to tell these mothers that their sons died for? </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Ultimately, the withdrawal of US troops has led veterans and non-veterans alike to ask another question that <a href="https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1988-05-16-mn-1908-story.html">others</a> have asked <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/afghanistan/2001-11-01/afghanistan-graveyard-empires">in the past</a>: What was it all for?</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/for-the-afghan-peace-talks-to-succeed-a-ceasefire-is-the-next-and-perhaps-toughest-step-forward-152610">For the Afghan peace talks to succeed, a ceasefire is the next — and perhaps toughest — step forward</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>It remains unclear if the more than <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/04/14/remarks-by-president-biden-on-the-way-forward-in-afghanistan/">2,400 US troop and personnel deaths</a>, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/12/09/world/middleeast/afghanistan-war-cost.html">US$2 trillion</a> and 20 years achieved anything truly lasting on the ground in Afghanistan. </p>
<p>Yet, perhaps the greatest legacy from the US war in Afghanistan should not be something the US gained, but instead what it lost — unbridled confidence in and dependence on US hard power.</p>
<p>Such humility and restraint may be exactly what is needed for the challenge the Biden administration wants to focus on most, and is perhaps most relevant to the American working family: rebuilding at home.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/159053/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jared Mondschein does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>As President Joe Biden said on announcing the US troop withdrawal by September, ‘our reasons for remaining in Afghanistan have become increasingly unclear’.Jared Mondschein, Senior Advisor, US Studies Centre, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1468542020-10-27T04:05:18Z2020-10-27T04:05:18ZWho will Muslim Americans vote for in the US elections?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365383/original/file-20201026-19-1anyf8l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Muslims are a small minority in the United States, but they may have a significant influence on the US elections. Muslim Americans, however, are often torn between the anti-Muslim rhetoric and xenophobia of President Donald Trump and the perception that Democrats undermine <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/cros.12416">public morality</a> on social issues.</p>
<p>According to a 2017 <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/01/03/new-estimates-show-u-s-muslim-population-continues-to-grow/">estimate by Pew Research Center</a>, 3.45 million Muslims reside in the US, which is 1.1% of the total population. While this may seem small, Pew estimates Muslims will surpass the Jewish population by 2040 to become the second-largest religious bloc after Christians. </p>
<p>Muslim Americans mainly live in large cities. About 58% <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/01/03/new-estimates-show-u-s-muslim-population-continues-to-grow/">were born overseas</a>. Another 18% were born in America to one or more parents who are first-generation migrants. About a quarter (24%) of Muslim Americans are considered native to the US. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.pewforum.org/2017/07/26/demographic-portrait-of-muslim-americans/">Muslim Americans</a> are one of the most ethnically and racially diverse groups in the United States. A large segment (41%) of Muslims identify as white, almost one-third (28%) are Asian (including South Asian), one-fifth (20%) are Black and about 8% are Hispanic.</p>
<h2>Muslim voters face a conundrum on policies</h2>
<p>The demographic diversity of Muslim Americans translates to a unique profile when it comes to policies. On moral and social issues, Muslims are closer to the conservative Republican Party, but on matters of cultural and religious diversity they are more in tune with the more liberal Democratic Party.</p>
<p>According to a <a href="https://religionunplugged.com/news/2020/9/14/understanding-the-american-muslim-vote">congressional electoral survey</a>, 18% of Muslim Americans identified themselves as conservative, 51% as moderate and the remaining 31% as liberal. </p>
<p>The same survey found 88% of Muslims support tighter controls on guns compared to 96% for Democrat voters as a whole.</p>
<p>A <a href="https://religionnews.com/2020/10/01/poll-muslim-american-support-for-trump-rises-but-most-plan-to-vote-for-biden/">March 2020 poll</a> by the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding (ISPU) showed 65% of Muslims support the Black Lives Matter movement, the highest support of all religious groups in US. </p>
<p>The same poll found almost half of Muslim voters supported alliances with religious liberty advocates. <a href="https://www.voanews.com/2020-usa-votes/muslim-americans-could-determine-whether-trump-or-biden-wins-michigan">Muslim Americans also expect</a> to be treated with respect and be accepted as part and parcel of American nation. The Democratic Party is more likely to meet this expectation.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365438/original/file-20201026-15-1d1tzzo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365438/original/file-20201026-15-1d1tzzo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365438/original/file-20201026-15-1d1tzzo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365438/original/file-20201026-15-1d1tzzo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365438/original/file-20201026-15-1d1tzzo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365438/original/file-20201026-15-1d1tzzo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365438/original/file-20201026-15-1d1tzzo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Like the rest of the population, Muslim Americans expect to be treated with respect by the country’s leaders.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>On the other hand, <a href="https://religionnews.com/2020/10/01/poll-muslim-american-support-for-trump-rises-but-most-plan-to-vote-for-biden/">Muslim Americans</a> do not support LGBTQ activism (55%) and are more likely than Jews and Catholics to support alliances with opponents of abortion. Muslims also see Trump as a better prospect for the economy.</p>
<p>So, Muslims view Republicans as hostile to Muslims on racial grounds, but see Democrats as hostile to Islamic morality and family <a href="https://onlinelibrary-wiley-com.ezproxy.csu.edu.au/doi/pdfdirect/10.1111/cros.12416">values</a>. </p>
<p>Such a position causes electoral dissonance in Muslim voters. This conundrum is partly responsible for the lower electoral registration and turnout among Muslim Americans. </p>
<p>As of <a href="https://religionnews.com/2020/10/01/poll-muslim-american-support-for-trump-rises-but-most-plan-to-vote-for-biden/">March 2020</a>, 78% of Muslims eligible for voting were registered to vote. Of those who are registered, 81% said they would show up on the election day. This is significantly lower than for other religious groups, such as evangelicals (92%) and Catholics (91%).</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/trump-has-changed-america-by-making-everything-about-politics-and-politics-all-about-himself-146839">Trump has changed America by making everything about politics, and politics all about himself</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Shifting patterns in Muslim voting</h2>
<p>Over the past 20 years, Muslim Americans’ party preferences have shifted markedly. Prior to the terrorist attacks of September 11 2001, an estimated 80% of non-African-American Muslims were Republican voters, while the majority of African-American Muslims <a href="https://onlinelibrary-wiley-com.ezproxy.csu.edu.au/doi/pdfdirect/10.1111/cros.12416">voted for the Democratic candidate Al Gore</a>.</p>
<p>This voting pattern changed in the post-September 11 era, when George W. Bush’s administration and the Republican Party spearheaded the “<a href="https://www.history.com/topics/21st-century/war-on-terror-timeline">war on terror</a>”. </p>
<p>The rhetoric of the war on terror, intrusive surveillance of Muslims under the <a href="https://www.ispu.org/the-usa-patriot-act-impact-on-the-arab-and-muslim-american-community/">Patriot Act</a> and military campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq have created a noticeable anti-Muslim atmosphere in the US. Muslims perceived the war on terror to be a war on Islam and Muslims. As a consequence, the Muslim American <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/cros.12416">vote for Bush</a> plummeted to a mere 7% in the 2004 elections. </p>
<p>A significant shift by Muslim voters to the Democrats culminated in the support for Barack Obama in the 2008 elections. The same trend continued with <a href="https://religionunplugged.com/news/2020/9/14/understanding-the-american-muslim-vote">Muslims overwhelmingly voting</a> for Democrats in the 2016 elections, with 82% of votes going to Hillary Clinton. By <a href="https://religionunplugged.com/news/2020/9/14/understanding-the-american-muslim-vote">2018</a>, Muslim support for the Republican Party was only 10%. </p>
<p>The March 2020 <a href="https://religionnews.com/2020/10/01/poll-muslim-american-support-for-trump-rises-but-most-plan-to-vote-for-biden/">ISPU poll</a>, however, found Muslim American voter support for Trump had increased to 30%, as Muslim voters believed Trump to be a good manager of the economy and unwilling to take part in Middle East wars.</p>
<p>Interestingly, the same ISPU poll showed 31% of white Muslims supported Trump as opposed to 8% of Black and Arab Muslims and 6% of Asian Muslims.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365684/original/file-20201027-23-36c0fm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365684/original/file-20201027-23-36c0fm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365684/original/file-20201027-23-36c0fm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365684/original/file-20201027-23-36c0fm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365684/original/file-20201027-23-36c0fm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365684/original/file-20201027-23-36c0fm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365684/original/file-20201027-23-36c0fm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Muslim American support for the Republican Party plummeted after the ‘war on terror’ began.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It is unclear if Trump’s poor handling of the pandemic has caused a decline in Muslim support for Trump. But two other actions of his still concern Muslim voters.</p>
<p>The first is the 2017 <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-protecting-nation-foreign-terrorist-entry-united-states-2/">Executive Order 13769</a> that banned Muslims from seven countries – Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Iran, Yemen, Libya and Somalia – from entering the United States on grounds that these states were supporting terrorism. The order also indefinitely suspended entry to the US for all Syrian refugees.</p>
<p>The executive order came to be known as the “<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-38781302">Muslim ban</a>” and was criticised for targeting Muslims “because of their faith”. The ban had a huge impact on the freedom of travel for many Muslim Americans who were not citizens. </p>
<p>The second was the 2018 <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-israel-diplomacy-jerusalem-explai-idUSKBN1I811N">move of the US embassy</a> in Israel to Jerusalem, in effect recognising Jerusalem as a Jewish capital. This infuriated Palestinians and Muslims around the world. </p>
<p>Yet Joe Biden is not a default choice for Muslim voters either. <a href="https://www.voanews.com/2020-usa-votes/muslim-americans-could-determine-whether-trump-or-biden-wins-michigan">Muslim Americans expect</a> Biden to make promises to review the “the watchlist” if elected. This is the US government’s terrorist screening database, which contains the names of individuals barred from boarding commercial flights. Many Muslims feel the policy unfairly targets innocent Muslims. While George Bush introduced the policy, it was extensively applied under the Obama-Biden administration.</p>
<p>Avoidance by both candidates of <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/independentpremium/voices/us-presidential-race-biden-trump-debate-middle-east-b1307876.html?utm_content=Echobox&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1603620942">Middle East issues</a> in the current campaign and in the presidential debates is another concerning factor for Muslim voters. They have been left unclear where the candidates stand on important foreign policy matters.</p>
<p>These concerns are likely to lead to a significant “<a href="https://www.voanews.com/2020-usa-votes/muslim-americans-could-determine-whether-trump-or-biden-wins-michigan">Biden or no vote</a>” or choice of a third-party candidate among Muslims voters. </p>
<p>This is important as the Muslim turnout could determine the outcomes in the marginal swing states of Florida, Ohio, Virginia and particularly <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/pennsylvania-michigan-and-wisconsin-still-hold-the-keys-to-2020/2020/10/24/328358d2-1612-11eb-ba42-ec6a580836ed_story.html">Michigan</a>. The estimated <a href="https://religionunplugged.com/news/2020/9/14/understanding-the-american-muslim-vote">Muslim population in Michigan</a> is 3%. This margin is enough to determine the result for the state where Trump edged Hillary Clinton by 0.23% of the vote in 2016. </p>
<p>A large Muslim turnout and support for Joe Biden may be enough to switch the colour of swing states such as Michigan to blue and hand the White House to the Democrats in the 2020 presidential election.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-might-a-trump-presidency-mean-for-muslims-and-the-muslim-world-68662">What might a Trump presidency mean for Muslims and the Muslim world?</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/146854/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mehmet Ozalp is affiliated with Islamic Sciences and Research Academy of Australia. </span></em></p>A large voter turnout among Muslim Americans may be enough to turn some of the swing states to the Democratic candidate in the 2020 election.Mehmet Ozalp, Associate Professor in Islamic Studies, Director of The Centre for Islamic Studies and Civilisation and Executive Member of Public and Contextual Theology, Charles Sturt UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1459142020-09-10T21:12:41Z2020-09-10T21:12:41Z19 years after 9/11, Americans continue to fear foreign extremists and underplay the dangers of domestic terrorism<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/357512/original/file-20200910-14-1vqlypw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=67%2C71%2C2847%2C1670&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A visitor looks at the faces of some of the victims of the Oklahoma City bombing at the Oklahoma National Memorial museum in Oklahoma City.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/visitor-looks-at-the-faces-of-some-of-the-victims-of-the-news-photo/1316440?adppopup=true">Joe Raedle/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>On a Tuesday morning in September 2001, the American experience with terrorism was fundamentally altered. Two thousand, nine hundred and ninety-six people were killed as the direct result of attacks in New York, Washington, D.C. and Pennsylvania. Thousands more, including many first responders, later lost their lives to <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/2016/09/16/9-11-death-toll-rising-496214.html">health complications</a> from working at or being near Ground Zero.</p>
<p>Nineteen years later, Americans’ ideas of what terrorism is remain tied to that morning.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://fas.org/irp/offdocs/911comm.html">9/11 attacks were perpetrated</a> by al-Qaida terrorists. They resulted in nearly 18 times more deaths than America’s second most devastating terrorist attack – <a href="https://www.fbi.gov/history/famous-cases/oklahoma-city-bombing">the Oklahoma City bombing</a> that occurred 15 years earlier. That intense loss of life has meant that the 9/11 attacks have come to symbolize terrorism for many Americans. </p>
<p>But focusing solely on Islamist extremism groups like al-Qaida when investigating, researching and developing counterterrorism policies does not necessarily align with what the numbers tell us. Homegrown far-right extremism also poses a persistent and lethal threat to the lives and well-being of Americans. This risk is often underestimated because of the devastating impact of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. </p>
<h2>By the numbers</h2>
<p>Historically, the United States has been home to adherents of many types of extremist ideologies. Our 15 years of research shows the two current most prominent threats are motivated by Islamist extremism and far-right extremism.</p>
<p>To help assess these threats, the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice have in the past funded our work with the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/09546553.2012.713229">Extremist Crime Database</a>, collecting data on crimes committed by ideologically motivated extremists in the U.S. Our analyses of that data are published in peer-viewed journals and on the website for the <a href="http://start.umd.edu/publications?combine=ECDB&year%5Bvalue%5D%5Byear%5D=">National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism & Responses to Terrorism</a>. </p>
<p>The ECDB includes data on ideologically motivated homicides committed by both Islamist extremists and far-right extremists going back more than 25 years. </p>
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<p>Between 1990 and 2019, the ECDB identified 47 events in the U.S. motivated by Islamist extremism that killed 154 people. When you include 9/11 as a singular event, those numbers jump dramatically to 48 homicide events and 3,150 people killed. </p>
<p>The database also identified 217 homicide events motivated by far-right extremism, with 345 killed. And when you include the Oklahoma City bombing, it rises to 218 homicide events and 513 killed.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/357509/original/file-20200910-16-1ltiriy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=75%2C46%2C3803%2C2460&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/357509/original/file-20200910-16-1ltiriy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=75%2C46%2C3803%2C2460&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/357509/original/file-20200910-16-1ltiriy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357509/original/file-20200910-16-1ltiriy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357509/original/file-20200910-16-1ltiriy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357509/original/file-20200910-16-1ltiriy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357509/original/file-20200910-16-1ltiriy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357509/original/file-20200910-16-1ltiriy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Armed members of the far-right Proud Boys groups on Sept. 5, 2020 in Vancouver, Washington.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/armed-members-of-the-far-right-proud-boys-groups-stand-news-photo/1228364682?adppopup=true">Nathan Howard/Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>The locations of violent extremist activity also differ by ideology. Our data show that between 1990 and 2019, most Islamist extremist attacks occurred in the American South (51%), and most far-right extremist attacks occurred in the West (36.7%). Both forms of violence were least likely to occur in the Midwest, with no incidents committed by Islamist extremists and 25 events committed by far-right extremists (11.5%).</p>
<p>Our research has also identified violent Islamist extremist plots against 333 targets that were either foiled or failed between 2001 and 2019. Many of the same Islamist extremists are responsible for plotting against multiple targets simultaneously. On average, 18 various sites in the United States are targeted every year, with civilians and military personnel ranking as the most likely to be targeted, and New York City and Washington D.C. ranking as the cities most likely to be targeted. The FBI was responsible for thwarting two-thirds of the Islamist extremist plots identified by the ECDB during this time frame. </p>
<p>We are still in the process of compiling similar data on far-right plots. Although data collection is only about 75% percent complete for failed and foiled extreme far-right plots, we have already identified over 800 violent far-right extremist targets between the same time period, making clear that the absolute numbers are much higher.</p>
<h2>Motives and methods</h2>
<p>There are also differences in demographics, motives and methods for different types of extremists. For instance, guns continue to be the weapon of choice in approximately 74.5% of Islamist extremist homicides and in only 54.6% of far-right extremist homicides. We attribute these differences to far-right extremists using forms of violence that include beating or stabbing victims to death.</p>
<p>We have also found that suicide missions are not unique to Islamist extremists.</p>
<p>From 1990 to 2019, we identified ten suicide missions in which at least one person was killed connected to Islamist extremism, including the 9/11 attacks as one event. In contrast, there were 16 suicide missions committed by far-right extremists.</p>
<p>Our analyses found that compared to Islamist extremists, far-right extremists were significantly more likely to be economically deprived, have served in the military and are more involved in the the extremist movement. Far-right extremists were also significantly more likely to be less educated, single, young and to have participated in training by a group associated with their extremist ideology.</p>
<h2>Threat to law enforcement and military</h2>
<p>Terrorists associated with Islamist extremism and far-right extremist ideologies do not only attack civilians. They also pose a deadly threat to law enforcement and military personnel. During the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, 72 law enforcement officers and 55 military personnel were killed by members of Al-Qaida. On April 19, 1995, 13 law enforcement officers and four military personnel were killed when the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building was bombed by an anti-government far-right extremist in Oklahoma City.</p>
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<p>Apart from these two events, Islamist extremists are responsible for the murders of 21 military personnel in four incidents, and eight law enforcement officers were killed in six incidents between 1990 and 2019. Far-right extremists have murdered 59 law enforcement officers in 48 incidents, but have never directly targeted military personnel.</p>
<p>Far-right extremists, who typically harbor anti-government sentiments, have a higher likelihood of escalating routine law enforcement contacts into fatal encounters. These homicides pose unique challenges to local law enforcement officers who are disproportionately targeted by the far right.</p>
<h2>Moving forward</h2>
<p>The events of 9/11 will continue to skew both our real and perceived risks of violent extremism in the United States. To focus solely on Islamist extremism is to ignore the number of murders perpetrated by the extreme far right and their place in a constantly changing threat environment. At the same time, to focus solely on far-right extremism is to ignore the extraordinary lethality of Islamist extremist attacks. </p>
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<p>Some experts have even warned that there is <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1057610X.2010.514698">potential for collaboration</a> between these extremist movements. Our own <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1057610X.2010.514698">survey research</a> suggests this is a concern of law enforcement.</p>
<p>Focusing on national counterterrorism efforts against both Islamist extremism and far-right extremism acknowledges that there are differences between these two violent movements. Focusing solely on one, while ignoring the other, will increase the risk of domestic terrorism and future acts of violence.</p>
<p>Both ideologies continue to pose real threats to all Americans. Evidence shows far-right violent extremism poses a particular threat to law enforcement and racial, ethnic, religious and other minorities. Islamist violent extremism is a specific danger to military members, law enforcement, certain minorities, and society at large. It remains imperative to support policies, programs and research aimed at countering all forms of violent extremism.</p>
<p><em>This article is based on <a href="https://theconversation.com/threats-of-violent-islamist-and-far-right-extremism-what-does-the-research-say-72781">one that originally ran on Feb. 21, 2017</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/145914/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jeff Gruenewald receives funding from the National Institute of Justice. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joshua D. Freilich receives funding from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the National Institute of Justice (NIJ). </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Steven Chermak receives funding from the National Institute of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brent Klein receives funding from the National Institute of Justice. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>William Parkin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Sept. 11 bombings killed almost 3,000 Americans. But if you exclude that unique event for the last two decades of terrorist activity, a different picture of US vulnerability appears.Jeff Gruenewald, Associate Professor and Director of the Terrorism Research Center, University of ArkansasJoshua D. Freilich, Professor of Criminal Justice, City University of New YorkSteven Chermak, Professor of Criminal Justice, Michigan State UniversityWilliam Parkin, Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice, Seattle UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/834032017-09-11T00:40:28Z2017-09-11T00:40:28ZWhy al-Qaida is still strong 16 years after 9/11<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/185372/original/file-20170910-32266-1d74lu1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Manhattan on Sept. 11, 2001</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Daniel Hulshizer</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Sixteen years ago, on September 11, 2001, al-Qaida conducted the most destructive terrorist attack in history. </p>
<p>An unprecedented onslaught from the U.S. followed. <a href="https://www.state.gov/documents/organization/20177.pdf">One-third of al-Qaida’s leadership</a> was killed or captured in the following year. The group lost its safe haven in <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/369161-2001-03-27-afghanistan-an-incubator-for.html">Afghanistan</a>, including its extensive <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/369179-2003-06-20-afghanistan-camps-central-to-11.html">training</a> infrastructure there. Its surviving members were on the run or in hiding. Though it took nearly 10 years, the <a href="https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2011/05/02/osama-bin-laden-dead">U.S. succeeded in killing</a> al-Qaida’s founding leader, Osama bin Laden. Since 2014, al-Qaida has been <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/06/30/world/meast/isis-overshadows-al-qaeda/index.html">overshadowed</a> by its former ally al-Qaida in Iraq, now calling itself the Islamic State.</p>
<p>In other words, al-Qaida should not have survived the 16 years since 9/11. </p>
<p>So why has it?</p>
<h2>The ties that bind</h2>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/185373/original/file-20170910-32284-1inb4i7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/185373/original/file-20170910-32284-1inb4i7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/185373/original/file-20170910-32284-1inb4i7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=332&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185373/original/file-20170910-32284-1inb4i7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=332&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185373/original/file-20170910-32284-1inb4i7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=332&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185373/original/file-20170910-32284-1inb4i7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185373/original/file-20170910-32284-1inb4i7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185373/original/file-20170910-32284-1inb4i7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">A fighter from the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front holds his group flag in front of the governor building in Idlib province, north Syria.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Mideast-Syria-Rebel-Stronghold/a0a4575fd95745aaa885d982face6f7c/2/0">Twitter/via AP</a></span>
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<p>Much of the credit goes to al-Qaida’s extraordinary ability to both form alliances and sustain them over time and under pressure.</p>
<p>In my forthcoming book “Alliances for Terror,” I examine why a small number of groups, such as al-Qaida and IS, emerge as desirable partners and succeed at developing alliance networks. </p>
<p>Understanding terrorist alliances is critical because terrorist organizations with allies are <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228192307_Allying_to_Kill">more lethal</a>, <a href="https://academic.oup.com/isq/article-abstract/58/2/336/2963248/Terrorist-Group-Cooperation-and-Longevity1?redirectedFrom=fulltext">survive longer</a> and are more apt to seek <a href="http://www.start.umd.edu/publication/connections-can-be-toxic-terrorist-organizational-factors-and-pursuit-cbrn-weapons">weapons of mass destruction</a>. Though terrorist partnerships face numerous <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09546553.2014.993466">hurdles</a> and severing al-Qaida’s alliances has been a U.S. objective for <a href="https://www.cia.gov/news-information/cia-the-war-on-terrorism/Counter_Terrorism_Strategy.pdf">over a decade</a>, the fact is that these counterterrorism efforts have failed.</p>
<p>It was allies that enabled al-Qaida to survive the immediate aftermath of 9/11. The Afghan Taliban stood by al-Qaida after the attack, <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/taliban-wont-turn-over-bin-laden/">refusing to surrender bin Laden</a> and thereby precipitating the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. Fleeing, al-Qaida was able to turn to allies in Pakistan to hide its operatives and punish the Pakistani government for capitulating to U.S. pressure to crackdown on the group.</p>
<p>It was alliances that helped al-Qaida continue to terrorize. In October 2002, for example, al-Qaida’s ally in Southeast Asia, Jemaah Islamiyah, struck a <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-19881138">bar and a nightclub in Bali</a>, killing more than 200 and injuring more than 200 more, to brutally commemorate the first anniversary of 9/11.</p>
<p>And it was alliances that allowed al-Qaida to project viability. With the “prestige” that came with conducting 9/11, al-Qaida was able to forge more of them and indeed create affiliate alliances in which partners adopted its name and pledged allegiance to bin Laden.</p>
<p>Al-Qaida’s first and most notorious affiliate alliance, <a href="https://2001-2009.state.gov/p/nea/rls/31694.htm">al-Qaida in Iraq,</a> was formed in 2004 with Jordanian jihadist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Using the standing he accrued through his role in the insurgency in Iraq, Zarqawi then helped al-Qaida acquire its second affiliate in 2006, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/01/world/africa/01transcript-droukdal.html?mcubz=0">al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb</a>. Then, in 2009, al-Qaida designated its branch in Yemen and Saudi Arabia <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-11483095">as al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula</a>. Its alliances spanned the Middle East and helped it to project power, despite the U.S. war on terrorism. </p>
<h2>A lower profile</h2>
<p>While al-Qaida still sought affiliates, by 2010, it modified how its alliances work. </p>
<p>Al-Qaida forged an alliance with al-Shabaab in Somalia, but did not publicly announce it or ask al-Shabaab to change its name. Bin Laden <a href="https://ctc.usma.edu/posts/letter-from-usama-bin-laden-to-mukhtar-abu-al-zubayr-original-language-2">justified</a> to al-Shabaab’s leader the shift to a less visible form of alliance as a way to prevent an increase in counterterrorism pressure or a loss of funds from the Arabian Peninsula. He privately expressed <a href="http://www.jihadica.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/SOCOM-2012-0000009-Trans.pdf">concerns</a> that al-Qaida’s name “reduces the feeling of Muslims that we belong to them, and allows the enemies to claim deceptively that they are not at war with Islam.” Bin Laden’s deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, saw the move as bin Laden capitulating to members of al-Qaida who worried about “<a href="https://ctc.usma.edu/posts/letter-to-azmarai-english-translation-2">inflating the size and the growth of al-Qaida</a>.” After bin Laden’s death, Zawahiri <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/al-qaeda-allied-somali-terror-group-al-shabaab/story?id=15548647">publicly announced</a> al-Qaida’s alliance with al-Shabaab, though al-Shabaab still did not adopt al-Qaida’s name.</p>
<p>Though al-Qaida’s alliance arrangements have varied, these relationships have helped it to survive the loss of its founding leader in 2011 and the ascent of a far less capable leader. <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2002/09/16/the-man-behind-bin-laden">Zawahiri’s</a> rise to the helm of the group was the consequence of an alliance, specifically between his original Egyptian group, al-Jihad, and al-Qaida. The alliance culminated in a merger in 2001, with Zawahiri becoming bin Laden’s deputy and successor.</p>
<p>However, Zawahiri lacks bin Laden’s cachet or diplomatic savvy. He is a better deputy than a leader. His <a href="https://archive.org/stream/710588-translation-of-ayman-al-zawahiris-letter/710588-translation-of-ayman-al-zawahiris-letter_djvu.txt">poor handling</a> of the strife between jihadist group al-Nusra in Syria and its parent organization, the Islamic State in Iraq (previously al-Qaida in Iraq and now IS), led to the alliance <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1057610X.2017.1373895">rupture</a> between al-Qaida and its affiliate in Iraq.</p>
<p>Though al-Qaida had an acrimonious break with IS, it gained al-Nusra as an affiliate in the central conflict in the Sunni jihadist movement: Syria. As was the case with al-Shabaab, this alliance with al-Nusra did not include a rebranding and was initially kept secret. In addition, al-Nusra subsequently changed its name, an effort to gain <a href="https://www.rand.org/blog/2017/03/al-qaeda-in-syria-can-change-its-name-but-not-its-stripes.html">more legitimacy within the conflict in Syria by publicly distancing</a> itself from al-Qaida, though seemingly with al-Qaida’s <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/middle-east/2016-08-28/rebranding-terror">consent</a>. </p>
<p>Al-Qaida has not acquired another affiliate since the alliance rupture and rise of IS as a rival in 2014. It organized existing members into a new branch, <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-29056668">al-Qaida in the Indian subcontinent</a>, that year. The branch in South Asia reflected al-Qaida’s success at expanding beyond its predominantly Arab base, particularly in <a href="http://carnegieendowment.org/2013/10/22/going-native-pakistanization-of-al-qaeda-pub-53382">Pakistan</a>.</p>
<p>Critically, with the exception of IS, al-Qaida’s alliances have been resilient over time. This is true despite ample reasons for its partners to abandon ties, such as the heightened counterterrorism pressure that comes with affiliation to al-Qaida; the death of its charismatic leader; and the Islamic State’s efforts to <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2015/03/isil-eyes-east-africa-foments-division-150322130940108.html">court</a> al-Qaida allies. Even the Afghan Taliban remains unwilling to sever ties, even though doing so would eliminate one of the major reasons that the United States will not withdraw from the “forever war” in Afghanistan. </p>
<p>There is a window now for the U.S. to damage al-Qaida’s alliances: It has a weak leader and major rival. But that window may be closing as the Islamic State’s so-called caliphate <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/22/europe/isis-2-0/index.html">crumbles</a> and al-Qaida grooms <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/bin-ladens-son-steps-into-fathers-shoes-as-al-qaeda-attempts-a-comeback/2017/05/27/0c89ffc0-4198-11e7-9869-bac8b446820a_story.html">bin Laden’s son</a> as its future leader.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/83403/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tricia Bacon worked for the U.S. Department of State from 2003-2013. </span></em></p>An unprecedented onslaught from the US hasn’t destroyed the terrorist organization. What is the secret of its resilience?Tricia Bacon, Assistant Professor of Justice, Law & Criminology, American University School of Public AffairsLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/731122017-02-17T02:00:43Z2017-02-17T02:00:43ZWith Comey gone, how can Congress investigate Russia, Trump and the 2016 election?<p>Now that James Comey has been <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/05/10/james-comey-fired-ousted-fbi-director-learned-was-fired-from-tv.html">fired</a> as FBI director, how will the U.S. conduct a fair and accurate investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election and links with President Donald Trump’s campaign?</p>
<p>U.S. congressional leaders on both sides of the aisle are discussing options.</p>
<p>Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and other Democrats have called for a <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/09/comey-firing-congress-reaction-238180">special prosecutor</a> to be appointed. </p>
<p>House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi has called for the creation of <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/09/politics/congress-reacts-james-comey-firing/">an independent commission</a>. Justin Amash, a Republican leader of the House Freedom Caucus, said he is <a href="http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/332659-gop-lawmaker-calls-for-independent-commission-on-russia-after-comeys">considering that option</a>. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, Republican Senator John McCain has urged the formation of a <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2017/05/09/mccain-comey-firing-confirms-need-for-select-committee-to-investigate-russias-election-meddling/">select congressional committee</a>.</p>
<p>Each of these alternatives may seem reasonable, but there are key differences between them. My <a href="http://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/politics-international-relations/international-relations-and-international-organisations/terrorism-and-national-security-reform-how-commissions-can-drive-change-during-crises?format=PB&isbn=9780521173070">research</a> on more than 50 government investigations reveals that independent commissions, like the one Pelosi is advocating for, are more likely than regular or select congressional committees to achieve consensus about controversial events.</p>
<p>A congressional investigation into Russian activities and ties to Trump’s advisers is likely to be riven by partisan discord. An independent commission has greater potential to generate a widely agreed-upon understanding of Russian misbehavior.</p>
<p>At a time when Congress is sharply polarized along partisan lines, congressional investigations tend to become microcosms of that polarization. This is all the more true when an investigation involves an issue about which the president is vulnerable to political embarrassment or attack.</p>
<h2>How a congressional probe might unfold</h2>
<p>The Senate Intelligence Committee, responsible for overseeing intelligence matters, is characterized by more bipartisanship than most congressional committees. It possesses a highly professional staff that works together well across party lines. Its leaders – Republican Sen. Richard Burr and Democratic Sen. Mark Warner – have <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/top-senate-republican-blunt-says-congress-should-probe-flynn-situation/2017/02/14/8abbcad4-f2d5-11e6-a9b0-ecee7ce475fc_story.html?utm_term=.93d733c7494d">expressed</a> a willingness to cooperate in investigating issues related to Russia.</p>
<p>But sharp divisions are likely to emerge between Democrats and Republicans on the committee when they face decisions such as whether to require Trump campaign advisers to testify under oath, or demand that relevant records be turned over to the committee. The same goes for drawing conclusions about the motivations behind Russia’s interference, or the nature of ties between Russia and Trump’s aides. Such issues could run the risk of undermining the credibility of Trump’s election – thereby weakening the Republican Party’s hold on power.</p>
<p>This could result in the issuance of majority and minority committee reports. This happened with congressional reports in 2012 on the Central Intelligence Agency’s treatment of <a href="http://www.feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/senate-intelligence-committee-study-on-cia-detention-and-interrogation-program">detainees</a> and in 2016 on events related to the attack in Benghazi, Libya that killed four <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/benghazi-committee-releases-final-report/story?id=40171034">Americans</a>. Such competing reports would fuel the perpetuation of distinct Republican and Democratic narratives about Russia’s role in the 2016 election. </p>
<p>The same outcome would likely result from an investigation by a select congressional committee, since select committees are also composed of lawmakers from both parties.</p>
<h2>Investigations of the 9/11 attack</h2>
<p>The congressional response to the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attack illustrates the tendency of partisanship to infect investigations into events that could call into question the president’s standing. </p>
<p>In 2002, the House and Senate intelligence committees conducted a joint investigation of matters related to the attack. This probe, known as the <a href="https://fas.org/irp/congress/2002_rpt/911rept.pdf">joint inquiry</a>, uncovered important information about government lapses that made it easier for Al-Qaida operatives to enter the United States and hijack four airplanes. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/157229/original/image-20170216-32706-ushrt8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/157229/original/image-20170216-32706-ushrt8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=286&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/157229/original/image-20170216-32706-ushrt8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=286&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/157229/original/image-20170216-32706-ushrt8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=286&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/157229/original/image-20170216-32706-ushrt8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=359&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/157229/original/image-20170216-32706-ushrt8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=359&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/157229/original/image-20170216-32706-ushrt8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=359&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Families of of 9/11 victims protest the handling of the investigation of the 9/11 attacks, Oct. 2002.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo, Toyokazu Kosugi</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Yet the joint inquiry’s substantive findings were overshadowed by partisan <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/17/politics/democrats-say-bush-must-give-full-disclosure.html">disagreements</a> over issues such as whether George W. Bush or Bill Clinton bore responsibility for the failure to prevent the attack. Some Republican members of the joint inquiry were also unwilling to support efforts to press the Bush White House for access to key witnesses and documents. The inquiry concluded with the release of a <a href="https://fas.org/irp/congress/2002_rpt/911rept.pdf">majority report</a> that included separate concluding statements from nine inquiry members, some of whom expressed serious disagreement.</p>
<p>Dissatisfaction with this process led Congress and President Bush to approve a law that created the independent <a href="https://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report.pdf">9/11 Commission</a> nine months after the joint inquiry had begun its work. The commission was characterized by strong bipartisanship. None of the 9/11 Commission’s members held public office during their tenure on the commission. </p>
<p>This distance from the partisan environment of Congress gave the commission’s five Republicans and five Democrats the freedom to find common ground. The result was a unanimous report that provided the definitive account of the Sept. 11 attack. However, the delay in creating the commission meant that this account and the commission’s recommendations were not published until 2004, years after the attack.</p>
<p>To be sure, some commissions also fall prey to polarization. I have <a href="http://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/politics-international-relations/international-relations-and-international-organisations/terrorism-and-national-security-reform-how-commissions-can-drive-change-during-crises?format=PB&isbn=9780521173070">found</a> that about one-third of commissions created to investigate national security issues fail to produce unanimous reports. </p>
<p>But even staunch Democrats and Republicans typically place the national interest above partisan considerations when serving on a commission. They have an incentive to do so because their own reputation is at stake.</p>
<p>To create a commission, Congress would need to approve and Trump would need to sign legislation establishing the body. For now, this outcome appears unlikely. For this reason, some Democratic leaders in Congress are focusing instead on ensuring that the intelligence committee’s investigation is <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/top-senate-republican-blunt-says-congress-should-probe-flynn-situation/2017/02/14/8abbcad4-f2d5-11e6-a9b0-ecee7ce475fc_story.html?utm_term=.d749412a1732">robust</a>.</p>
<p>But if the intelligence committee proves unable to conduct a thorough and bipartisan investigation of Russian meddling and Trump’s campaign, pressure will build on America’s leaders to establish a more independent probe. Hanging in the balance could be whether the United States can forge consensus about what happened and how to prevent it from happening again.</p>
<p><em>Editor’s note: An earlier version incorrectly stated the 9/11 “joint inquiry” had released one majority report and seven dissenting statements. The inquiry’s final report included separate statements from nine members of the committee, some of whom expressed serious disagreement.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/73112/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jordan Tama has received funding for this research from the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation.</span></em></p>Research on more than 50 government investigations reveals how partisanship can get in the way of finding answers we all agree on.Jordan Tama, Assistant Professor of International Relations, American University School of International ServiceLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/654602016-11-28T01:26:26Z2016-11-28T01:26:26ZWhy literature matters in debate about race and immigrants<p>The people who voted for Donald Trump did so for a variety of reasons, but chief among them was the sense of their having been economically abandoned for several decades. Trump has promised to restore their economic dignity. That is a laudable goal. </p>
<p>However, through his corrosive campaign rhetoric, Trump has also made it acceptable to speak in hateful ways about many groups of people including Mexicans, Muslims and blacks. These groups are now feeling extremely vulnerable: Their fears are about the safety of their bodies and their lives. </p>
<p>This is anxiety that most white Americans – regardless of their economic status – are insulated from. </p>
<p>In the United States, whiteness confers power and privilege even when undercut by economic destitution. As the nation prepares itself for a Trump presidency, it is important to remember that this power and privilege will intensify. </p>
<p>Feminist Peggy McIntosh enumerated 50 of the things white people can take for granted in her 1988 essay <a href="https://www.deanza.edu/faculty/lewisjulie/White%20Priviledge%20Unpacking%20the%20Invisible%20Knapsack.pdf">“White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack,”</a> including: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“I can criticize our government and talk about how
much I fear its policies and behavior without being seen as
a cultural outsider.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Twenty-eight years later, this, it would seem, is one of the white privileges that <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/10/24/alabama-and-greenville-backlash-anthem-protests-black-students">is not being accorded</a> to the black athletes who have chosen to kneel, sit or raise a fist during the playing of the national anthem before a game. Just consider <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/columnist/nancy-armour/2016/09/25/colin-kaepernick-anthem-protests-backlash-social-media-emails/91076216/">this reader’s email</a> to USA Today and note the ease with which the rage is articulated: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“When these (expletive) take a knee they are spitting in the faces of soldiers … They are spitting on the graves of everyone killed on 9/11.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The commentator’s rage makes no room for the non-violent expression of the athletes’ outrage at the injustice experienced by black males. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.temple.edu/tempress/titles/2118_reg.html">My research</a> on empathy, antipathy and how we perceive those who are unfamiliar makes clear that there has been no meaningful acknowledgment by politicians or the mainstream media of the power and privilege of whiteness. And yet if we as a country want to ensure <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt14jxtd9?Search=yes&resultItemClick=true&searchText=ethical&searchText=morality&searchText=justice&searchText=law&searchText=equal&searchText=protection&searchText=clause&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoAdvancedSearch%3Ff6%3Dall%26amp%3Bf3%3Dall%26amp%3Bed%3D%26amp%3Bacc%3Don%26amp%3Bf0%3Dall%26amp%3Bla%3D%26amp%3Bc4%3DAND%26amp%3Bf5%3Dall%26amp%3Bsd%3D%26amp%3Bf2%3Dall%26amp%3Bq6%3D%26amp%3Bq4%3D%26amp%3Bc5%3DAND%26amp%3Bq1%3Djustice%26amp%3Bpt%3D%26amp%3Bf1%3Dall%26amp%3Bq2%3Dlaw%26amp%3Bq3%3Dequal%2Bprotection%2Bclause%26amp%3Bc2%3DAND%26amp%3Bc3%3DAND%26amp%3Bf4%3Dall%26amp%3Bq5%3D%26amp%3Bisbn%3D%26amp%3Bgroup%3Dnone%26amp%3Bc1%3DAND%26amp%3Bq0%3Dethical%2Bmorality%26amp%3Bc6%3DAND">“equal justice for all”</a> then it is crucial for groups with power to recognize the advantage they have and address that imbalance. </p>
<p>From discussions in my classrooms and from my research, I have learned that there is relative “safety” in using literary texts to practice “what if” scenarios about our own capacity for understanding the <a href="https://monoskop.org/images/a/a6/Sontag_Susan_2003_Regarding_the_Pain_of_Others.pdf">“pain of others”</a> and for recognizing how our power and privilege can contribute to others’ injury, whether that be material, political or emotional. </p>
<h2>White on black justice</h2>
<p>The first literary example I want to use broke ground at the time of its publication by drawing attention to the automatic and unexamined privileges conferred on whiteness. </p>
<p>In Richard Wright’s 1940 novel <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Native-Perennial-Classics-Richard-Wright/dp/006083756X">“Native Son</a>,” the white attorney general tells the prisoner Bigger Thomas, a native of the south side of Chicago: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“I know how you feel, boy. You’re colored, and you feel that you haven’t had a square deal, don’t you? … I know how it feels to walk along the streets like other people, dressed like them, talking like them, and yet excluded for no reason except that you’re black.” </p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/144582/original/image-20161104-27904-c71bb0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/144582/original/image-20161104-27904-c71bb0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=783&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144582/original/image-20161104-27904-c71bb0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=783&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144582/original/image-20161104-27904-c71bb0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=783&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144582/original/image-20161104-27904-c71bb0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=984&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144582/original/image-20161104-27904-c71bb0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=984&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144582/original/image-20161104-27904-c71bb0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=984&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Richard Wright.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Richard_Wright_(escritor).jpg">Farm Security Administration - Office of War Information Photograph Collection, Library of Congress</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Despite the psychological manipulation of the prisoner that this superficial display of empathy demonstrates, even the limited acknowledgment that being black is a frustrating disadvantage is a rare admission. </p>
<p>But here is what the fictional attorney general does not do.</p>
<p>He does not acknowledge the historical and political forces that have created the institutions that automatically give the advantage to people like him. </p>
<p>Juries in the 1940s were entirely composed of white men. That did not, however, strike those in power as being inherently unjust, because white men were deemed capable of being able to weigh the evidence and make fair and unbiased decisions. </p>
<p>“Native Son” sold an astonishing 215,000 copies within three weeks of its publication. Its <a href="http://www.bassettusd.org/cms/lib8/CA01900987/Centricity/Domain/665/Native%20Son%20Novel.pdf">primary impact</a> was that it offered white readers a searing look into the black protagonist’s deep pain and fierce anger. But it did not lead to change, if we are to judge from the housing discrimination in Chicago in the 1940s that created deep and entrenched economic, social and political <a href="http://www.chicagomag.com/city-life/May-2014/The-Case-for-Reparations-and-the-Legacy-of-Discrimination-Against-Probationary-Whites-in-Chicago">segregation.</a> </p>
<p>Several years after its publication, some black readers, most notably novelist James Baldwin, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/01/books/review/james-baldwin-denounced-richard-wrights-native-son-as-a-protest-novel-was-he-right.html?_r=0">were infuriated</a> at what they saw as the two-dimensional portrayal of Bigger’s fury and enraged despair. </p>
<p>Yet, over the years since its publication, “Native Son” has continued to be <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1986/12/07/magazine/on-rereading-native-son.html?pagewanted=all">reassessed and reconsidered</a> – performed on stage in 2014 and re-reviewed in 2015 – so powerful has been its message of systemic and pervasive racism. </p>
<h2>The privilege of being unaware</h2>
<p>Unthinkingness is a central theme in the poem “To the Lady,” by <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poets/detail/mitsuye-yamada">Mitsuye Yamada</a>. </p>
<p>An anonymous woman (we don’t know much about her other than that she is from the group in power) asks about the Japanese-Americans whose loyalty was questioned following the bombing of Pearl Harbor and who were incarcerated in camps: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Why did the Japanese Americans let/ the government put them in/ those camps without protest?” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>She is blissfully unaware of the political context that made it impossible for them to protest. Though <a href="https://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/japanese-relocation">two-thirds</a> of the Japanese-Americans who were incarcerated during World War II were American citizens, they did not have the basic power to demand that their constitutional rights be upheld. They did not have the support of <a href="https://www.pbs.org/thewar/at_home_civil_rights_japanese_american.htm">their neighbors</a>, who were bystanders at best and hostile enemies at worst in this violation of their constitutional rights. </p>
<p>It is the power and privilege of the poem’s lady that offer her the luxury of being unaware of the asymmetry of influence. </p>
<p>It is telling that after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, many Japanese-Americans <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=Yj_aM_lEcZcC&pg=PT117&lpg=PT117&dq=Japanese+American+Citizens+League+solidarity+with+Arab+and+Muslim+Americans+in+2001&source=bl&ots=KBGtPeHkEh&sig=xL9m3FG16cD3tHV3avfV-Z1Up4M&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwidjNbZ_OXPAhXDNT4KHVZBBRsQ6AEILzAD#v=onepage&q=Japanese%20American%20Citizens%20League%20solidarity%20with%20Arab%20and%20Muslim%20Americans%20in%202001&f=false">came forward</a> to offer support to Muslims, Muslim-Americans, and Arab-Americans so that their constitutional rights would not be violated in the same way. </p>
<h2>Refusing to be willfully ignorant</h2>
<p>Studying how power is hidden or revealed, understated or boldly displayed in the two examples above can set us on the path to introspection. </p>
<p>How does one become complicit in ignoring unequal power? What can we carry from literature into life? </p>
<p>Take the following instance in which an individual in a position of power appears to have engaged in introspective analysis and responded with nuance and complexity.</p>
<p>It takes place in an airport, a public space that has increasingly become associated with danger and where different groups of people are in different positions of power. </p>
<p>In a memoir essay by former sports broadcaster Varun Sriram that he submitted for <a href="http://www.sacssny.org/publications/Sudha%20Acharya%20Testimony%20AALR%20v2.1.5%20Fall%202011.pdf">a collection I edited,</a> we learn of his airport experience. </p>
<p>Sriram, a young Indian-American man – looking, as he says, with his unshaven face and brown skin like everybody’s stereotypical image of the “terrorist” – tells how he foolishly left his carry-on bag unattended at an airline gate while he went to purchase a pizza. </p>
<p>A white woman who had been giving him hostile looks summoned a security guard who picked up his bag and left the area. When Sriram returned, he was told by the white woman that she had called the guard. In a panic, he went in pursuit and luckily saw the guard at a distance. </p>
<p>Sriram apologized profusely for his carelessness and politely asked the guard if he could have his bag back. Sriram accurately described the contents of the bag, and the security guard returned it to him. </p>
<p>We will never know the exact reasons that led the guard to make the unusual gesture of returning the bag to Sriram and treating him as harmless rather than as a threat. But in “reading” this incident as one would a literary text, one can readily acknowledge that the guard, despite his obvious power advantage over Sriram, nonetheless appears to have used that advantage to make an empathetic decision.</p>
<h2>Through literature to empathy and righteous outrage</h2>
<p>Like airports, urban streets have been scenes of violence and danger. The merest gesture of a “wrong” move can mean death for an African-American male, as the recent events in Minnesota, Oklahoma and North Carolina have all too sadly revealed. </p>
<p>When we hear <a href="https://trustandjustice.org/resources/intervention/implicit-bias">recommendations</a> for training police officers, what exactly do we want? </p>
<p>I would argue that training must engage the imaginative capacity of those in power. It must lead them to acknowledge their power and privilege, and it must then give them opportunities to exercise their imagination in deepening understanding of themselves and of those individuals and groups over whom they hold this power.</p>
<p>Literature allows for such practice. </p>
<p>In the hands of a skillful facilitator, for example, it is impossible not to be outraged at what one can learn about the stranglehold of white power in an essay like <a href="http://newdeal.feri.org/fwp/fwp03.htm">“The Ethics of Living Jim Crow,”</a> in which novelist Richard Wright shows us how the simple act of riding an elevator as a black busboy in the presence of white men can be fraught with life-threatening danger. </p>
<p>The question to be asked then is how that situation compares to the one on our streets today – nearly 70 years later. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/27/arts/design/art-helps-police-officers-learn-to-look.html">A recent initiative in New York City</a> has police officers visiting the Museum of Modern Art and being trained, through looking at paintings, in how to observe carefully and critically. </p>
<p>That we don’t similarly use literature to enlarge empathetic capacity and evoke righteous outrage is surprising and inexplicable. The times cry out, I would argue, for bold initiatives that bring literature into our courtrooms, banks, town halls, housing offices, police departments, health care centers and political venues to initiate necessary discussions about asymmetrical power and its corrosive impact. It will be particularly imperative in the times ahead.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/65460/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rajini Srikanth does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>If police officers are sent to museums to train observational skills, shouldn’t literary texts be used to teach empathy?Rajini Srikanth, Professor of English, College of Liberal Arts Dean, Honors College, UMass BostonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/646592016-09-12T06:30:19Z2016-09-12T06:30:19ZFifteen years on from 9/11, we calculated the true cost to business<p>The costs of global terrorism on business go beyond the destruction caused in the attacks, to impact the value of brands and supply chains for products, new research shows. It can also give a competitive edge to some companies while destroying others.</p>
<p>In the 15 years since the September 11 terrorist attacks, terrorism and its tragic consequences have become transnational in nature and in impact. Terrorism moved from an unquantifiable uncertainty to a risk, with an ever-increasing frequency that exceeded <a href="https://www.start.umd.edu/gtd/">70,000 attacks within the last 15 years</a>.</p>
<p>Terrorism has also amplified in scale and scope. It claims more human lives and aims to immobilise societies and economies, if we let it. Our research dissects the direct and indirect impacts of terrorism of the past fifteen years.</p>
<p>There have been 5,367 so-called “effective” attacks <a href="https://www.start.umd.edu/gtd/">recorded by the Global Terrorism Database since 2001</a> directly targeting businesses, with or sometimes without loss of human life. This equals, on average, 1.1 terrorist attacks each day on business by what is recorded as global terrorism.</p>
<p>For example, an attack on a Tunisia hotel in the Port El Kantaoui in 2015 was estimated to cost the business <a href="http://business-reporter.co.uk/2015/08/13/tunisia-terrorist-attack-to-cost-tui-up-to-32-million/">about £32 million</a>, and its effects are ongoing. These attacks also impact the local, national, and often international economy. The 2008 terrorism attacks in Mumbai were estimated to have incurred a US$100 million <a href="http://www.asiaecon.org/special_articles/read_sp/12094">negative impact on India’s economy</a> through a loss of business.</p>
<p>The impact of terrorism goes well beyond these figures. It brings a perception of risk and uncertainty that influences consumer behaviour, delays mergers and acquisitions and impacts all stages of the international value chain.</p>
<h2>Value chain impacts</h2>
<p>Value chains, the process where a company adds value to a product through marketing, production and sales in the global fragmentation of its processes, can be severely disrupted by terrorism. For example, following the September 11 terrorist attacks, real GDP in the US shrank in <a href="https://www.oecd.org/daf/inv/corporateresponsibility/36885821.pdf">the third quarter of 2001</a>. Further OECD research has shown production costs from terrorism attacks can amount to 3% of GDP, the equivalent of a small OECD country’s GDP. </p>
<p>In a globalised world companies can move and reconfigure production and most other components of the value chain from one country to another. Corporate investment and contracting tends to migrate to less risky countries and suppliers or partners based there because of terrorism. This is because the costs are higher and the logistics are often more complex, requiring more management, in riskier nations. </p>
<p>Terrorism causes high friction and transactions costs, warehouse risks, disruptions in logistics, costs of border control and governmental regulations and much more. This makes fragmented production across borders more vulnerable. </p>
<p>The price paid by businesses (and society) is vast. <a href="http://www.socsci.uci.edu/%7Emrgarfin/OUP/papers/Enders.pdf">A US Trade estimate report</a> calculated that shipping delays associated with terrorism were equivalent to a tariff rate of 2% by 2006. </p>
<p>If organisations are resilient, appropriately managed and well resourced, terrorism has less impact. Organisations offset shortages and manage disruptions effectively, and diversify the physical movement of goods and labour. </p>
<p>Components may be delivered from various locations; some expatriates are expected to work out of the locations that are adjacent to the target market yet not based there. For example, some firms that operate in <a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1057/s41275-016-0001-2">Afghanistan</a> fly their expatriate workers from Dubai for the working week. </p>
<p>Companies can set up production, assembly and distribution to be structured for resilience through flexible or multiple, mobile options. At a cost, human resources management can also adapt to the challenge through new tools and revised policies. </p>
<h2>Sales, marketing and brands management</h2>
<p>While most parts of those value chain parts are mobile (at least in principle), some are less so. Marketing and sales activities are examples of this.</p>
<p>There is a link between brand performance and macroeconomic phenomena, including financial crises, terrorism and warfare. This includes the perception of a brand by consumers, their engagement with the brand, and the conversation of their interest in the brand to purchasing its products or services. </p>
<p>Our analysis shows the overall value of the top 100 brands in the world fell by a noteworthy 5.59% from 2001 to 2002. US brand value, compared with other international brands, <a href="http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2229662">only recovered by 2007</a><a href="http://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/abs/10.1108/10610420810916344">.</a> </p>
<p>Customers fear uncertainty. Consumers of global brands react to terrorism by going local and avoiding brands originating from the countries where the attacks occur. The consumer is not prepared to pay the premium for such a brand in such contexts.</p>
<p>Local feels safer, though only in the short to medium term. Adapting a brand to account for these reactions from consumers takes time and significant resources. The more global terrorism strikes, the harder it gets. The more resilient the consumer and the brand is, the better.</p>
<p>Because companies are victim to terrorism unwittingly, a move from lean to diversified brand strategies supports resilience. One example is Toyota. Its Land Cruiser SUVs and Hilux pickup brands and products have been prominently used by some terrorist groups, so the company switched to <a href="http://www.autonews.com/article/20151007/GLOBAL/151009869/toyota-responds-to-u.s.-inquiry-over-vehicles-being-used-by-isis">rely on its other brands for revenue growth.</a></p>
<h2>The winners and losers in business</h2>
<p>Terrorism brings advantage to some business sectors. This is apart from the obvious interrelated illegal business including drug dealing, human trafficking and more.</p>
<p>Some corporations have become resilient enough, often through diversification, to get some competitive advantage from their capacity to handle terrorism shocks. These companies can thrive despite (and sometimes within) hostile environments, or to cope with the <a href="http://www.e-elgar.com/shop/terrorism-and-the-international-business-environment">costs of supply chain expansion</a>.</p>
<p>Business increasingly want to set up operations with the ability to shift production. Firms locate into hostile environments to gain knowledge on how to manage people in such contexts. For example, tech companies have entered countries such as South Sudan, Yemen and Afghanistan through direct investment, such as those made by the <a href="http://www.teliacompany.com/en">Swedish telecoms firm TeliaSonera</a>. </p>
<p>Terrorism might shock developed and well-resourced organisations, but it primarily kills the weaker ones. Larger firms are able to assess and manage terrorism as a risk. It has a frequency and increasingly detectable patterns that allow quantifying, studying and modelling. </p>
<p>However, small and medium sized enterprises suffer most, as they are dependent on value chains to function well and include them in the long term. These businesses also <a href="http://www.e-elgar.com/shop/international-business-under-adversity">often have scarce resources</a>. </p>
<p>For example a small to medium enterprise in Malaysia may contribute to a value chain that encompasses product assembly in China and sales in Japan. Businesses like this will often not survive when contracts are limited, or when the company it supplies divests or reduces its orders for the sake of spreading production or assembly to various locations.</p>
<p>Resilience has its price, too: yet it is lesser than that of any other option.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/64659/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gabriele Suder does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The effects of terrorism on businesses are wide ranging but some are learning how to adapt to risk and use it to their competitive advantage.Gabriele Suder, Principal Fellow, Faculty of Business & Economics/Melbourne Business School, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/648382016-09-09T04:35:45Z2016-09-09T04:35:45ZFlashbulb memories of dramatic events aren’t as accurate as believed<p>Where were you on Sept. 11 when you first heard that a plane had hit the North Tower of the World Trade Center? </p>
<p>Many of us may have vivid memories of that day, recalling where we were and what we were doing when we first learned of the attack, perhaps even remembering seemingly irrelevant details. Chances are, that memory isn’t as accurate as you think it is.</p>
<p>This is called a flashbulb memory. Researchers coined the term <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/1978-11559-001">in the 1970s</a> as a metaphor for capturing an entire scene in one moment, from the most important to the most mundane details, and then being able to hold on to that memory indefinitely as if you had a photographic record of it. </p>
<p>Flashbulb memories have intrigued memory researchers like me for a long time. We know that they are a type of autobiographical memory – memories of personally experienced events. Like other autobiographical memories, we think we remember them accurately. In reality, <a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/1109793/the-memory-illusion/">we often don’t</a>. </p>
<p>While we know that flashbulb memories aren’t perfect records, for a long time no one knew if these memories were more accurate than ordinary autobiographical memories. Since flashbulb memories are often formed after sudden, dramatic events, it’s hard to create experiments to test this. </p>
<p>I was a graduate student at Duke University on Sept. 11, 2001. My adviser, David Rubin, and I instantly recognized the opportunity to conduct a study of flashbulb memories in response to the event.</p>
<p>On Sept. 12, we asked our undergraduates about their memories of how they learned about the terrorist attacks, as well as an ordinary autobiographical memory from the preceding weekend. In the months afterward, we were able to follow up with our undergrads to see if and how their memories changed. </p>
<h2>You think you remember it exactly, but you don’t</h2>
<p>While the term “flashbulb memory” was introduced in 1977, the phenomenon was known to researchers well before then. In fact, in 1899 psychologist <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/1412480?origin=crossref">F. W. Colegrove</a> recorded vivid and detailed memories from people about when they learned of President Lincoln’s assassination.</p>
<p>For a long time, researchers argued that flashbulb memories really were a complete and accurate snapshot of events.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/26/us/ulric-neisser-who-reshaped-thinking-on-the-mind-dies-at-83.html">Ulric Neisser</a>, a pioneering cognitive psychologist, drew on a flashbulb memory of his own to suggest that this wasn’t the case in 1982. Here is how he <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=yf1F1c8oAB4C&q=pearl+harbor#v=snippet&q=pearl%20harbor&f=false">described his memory</a> of learning about the attack on Pearl Harbor:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“I recall sitting in the living room of our house – we only lived in that house for one year, but I remember it well – listening to a baseball game on the radio. The game was interrupted by an announcement of the attack, and I rushed upstairs to tell my mother.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Years later, after reading scientific research on flashbulb memories, Neisser realized that this memory <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=7dSaBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA292&lpg=PA292&dq=was+ulric+neisser+listening+to+a+football+game&source=bl&ots=rJNs6uDlD-&sig=NrLX604VXXQ-Uro3E9VIzyLbEEU&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjX0J24noDPAhWJbRQKHalSAoAQ6AEIPDAG#v=onepage&q=was%20ulric%20neisser%20listening%20to%20a%20football%20game&f=false">had to be wrong</a>. Pearl Harbor was attacked on Dec. 7, and there is no baseball on the radio in December. </p>
<p>This realization led him to explore the accuracy of flashbulb memories. </p>
<p>In 1986, Neisser and his collaborator Nicole Harsch <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/1993-97049-001">asked a group of undergraduates</a> to recall how they learned of the Challenger space shuttle disaster the morning after it happened. Much like earlier reports, they found that almost all of the students had detailed memories of “exactly” where they were and what they were doing when they found out about the explosion. </p>
<p>Neisser and Harsch did something that other researchers hadn’t done before. They asked participants to recall the same event a few years later. They found that although everyone still had vivid and complete memories, some of the memories had changed quite remarkably. In fact, <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/1993-97049-001">25 percent of participants</a> reported different memories altogether, such as first describing having learned from a fellow student in class, and years later saying they saw it on a TV news bulletin with their roommate. </p>
<p>This meant that the vividness and confidence that participants had shown were not related to the actual accuracy of their memories.</p>
<p>And the errors that flashbulb memories develops are not random. Our emotions and sense of belonging to a group can color them. For instance, Neisser <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/1987-21000-001">was probably listening to a football game</a> on the radio when he heard about Pearl Harbor. He <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0010027786900375">argued</a> that the switch from football to baseball served to emphasize his personal connection to the “national pastime” at a time when that nation, to which he was an immigrant, had been attacked.</p>
<p>And a 2005 study found that Danes remember the day when Denmark surrendered to Germany in World War II <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15869348">as being colder, cloudier, windier and rainier</a> than it truly was and the day when Denmark was liberated from Germany as being warmer, sunnier, less windy and less rainy than it truly was. </p>
<p>While these studies demonstrate that flashbulb memories aren’t completely accurate, they don’t test whether flashbulb memories are more accurate than memories of everyday events.</p>
<p>That was the question that my colleague and I sought to address in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks.</p>
<h2>Flashbulb memories vs. ordinary memories</h2>
<p>On Sept. 12, David Rubin and I <a href="http://911memory.nyu.edu/abstracts/talarico_rubin.pdf">asked a group of 54 undergraduates questions</a> about how they learned about the attacks. We asked questions about the memory like, “How did you learn the news?” “Where were you?” “What were you doing?” and “Who were you with?” We also asked questions about the feeling of remembering like, “How clearly can you see this event in your mind’s eye?” and “How strongly do you believe that the event actually happened in the way that you are remembering it?”</p>
<p>We also asked participants the same questions about another memorable event from the weekend before the attacks. By doing so, we could directly compare how flashbulb memories and ordinary memories of life events change over time. </p>
<p>We then asked subgroups of our participants the same questions either one week, one month, or seven months later. By recruiting subgroups at each time point, each person only told us about their memories twice, but we were able to observe how memories changed over three distinct time points. </p>
<p>Flashbulb and ordinary autobiographical memories were very consistent over the course of one week. By one month and certainly by seven months, both memories showed fewer consistent details between the two reports. The rate of that forgetting was the same for both types of memories.</p>
<p>We also found that errors, like the introduction of new or contradictory information, were introduced at about the same rate in both types of memories. </p>
<p>So what is the difference between flashbulb memories and autobiographical memories? Our beliefs about those memories. </p>
<p>People believed that their flashbulb memories were more accurate than the ordinary memory we asked them to recount. They felt that they remembered the flashbulb memory more vividly as well. And it’s this difference in perception that makes flashbulb memories so remarkable. </p>
<h2>We believe flashbulb memories are accurate</h2>
<p>So why do we believe that these flashbulb memories are more accurate than other memories? </p>
<p>For our sample of American students, the attacks of 9/11 were highly emotional and dominated not just national discourse but also much of private conversation for days and weeks later. These processes serve to enhance the vividness of our memories and our subjective confidence in those recollections. </p>
<p>Furthermore, by virtue of having these long-lasting and detailed memories of significant events, we can demonstrate and reinforce our membership in these important social groups. In other words, community exhortations to “never forget” serve to maintain memories not just collectively, but individually.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/64838/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jennifer Talarico received her doctoral education at Duke University where she was funded, in part, by a National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate (NDSEG) Fellowship awarded by the Department of Defense and administered by the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE). The work described here was completed during that time.</span></em></p>We may feel like flashbulb memories of dramatic events are more accurate than ordinary memories, but are they really? An experiment begun Sept. 12, 2001 sheds light.Jennifer Talarico, Associate Professor, Psychology, Lafayette College Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/647252016-09-09T04:35:39Z2016-09-09T04:35:39ZHow the pain of 9/11 still stays with a generation<p>The Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks were the worst acts of terrorism on American soil to date. Designed to instill panic and fear, the attacks were unprecedented in terms of their scope, magnitude and impact on the American psyche.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.95.3.709">vast majority (over 60 percent) of Americans watched</a> these attacks occur live on television or saw them replayed over and over again in the days, weeks and years following the attacks.</p>
<p>As we reflect on the anniversary of this tragic event, a question to consider is: How has this event impacted those individuals who are too young to remember a world before 9/11? </p>
<p>As an applied social psychologist, <a href="http://www.danarosegarfin.com/about.html">I study</a> responses to natural and human-caused adversities that impact large segments of the population – also called <a href="http://www.danarosegarfin.com/uploads/3/0/8/5/30858187/vol4_ch29_silver_garfin.pdf">“collective trauma.”</a> My research group at the University of California, Irvine (UCI) has found that such exposures have compounding effects over the course of one’s lifespan. This is particularly relevant for children who have grown up in a post-9/11 society. </p>
<h2>PTSD and Ground Zero</h2>
<p>Many of the outcomes on which my team and I focus involve mental health, such as post-traumatic stress symptoms (PTS) and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). </p>
<p><a href="http://www.ptsd.va.gov/professional/PTSD-overview/dsm5_criteria_ptsd.asp">Post-traumatic stress symptoms</a> include feeling the event is happening again (e.g., flashbacks, nightmares), avoiding situations that remind individuals of the event (e.g., public places, movies about an event), negative feelings and beliefs (e.g., the world is dangerous) or feeling “keyed up” (e.g., difficulty sleeping or concentrating). </p>
<p>In order to meet diagnostic criteria for PTSD, an individual must have been directly exposed to a <a href="http://www.dsm5.org/Pages/Default.aspx">“traumatic event”</a> (e.g., assault, violence, accidental injury). Direct exposure means that an individual (or their loved one) was at or very near the site of the event. It might be somewhat obvious that people directly exposed to a collective trauma like 9/11 might suffer from associated physical and mental health problems. What is less obvious is how people geographically distant from the epicenter or “Ground Zero” might have been impacted.</p>
<p>This is particularly relevant when considering the impact of 9/11 on children and youth across America: Many reside far from the location of the actual attacks and were too young to have experienced or seen the attacks as they occurred. The point is people can <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-006X.76.4.657">experience collective trauma</a> solely through the media and report symptoms that <a href="http://doi.org/10.1002/jts.20289">resemble those typically associated</a> with direct trauma exposure.</p>
<h2>Impact on physical and mental health</h2>
<p>The events of 9/11 ushered in a new era of media coverage of collective trauma, where terrorism and other forms of large-scale violence are transmitted into the daily lives of children and Americans families. </p>
<p>I have been exploring these issues with my collaborators <a href="http://faculty.sites.uci.edu/rsilver/">Roxane Cohen Silver</a> and <a href="http://www.faculty.uci.edu/profile.cfm?faculty_id=5441">E. Alison Holman</a>. My colleagues surveyed a nationally representative sample of over 3,400 Americans shortly after 9/11 and then followed them for three years after the attacks. </p>
<p>In the weeks and months following the 9/11 attacks, media-based exposure was associated with <a href="http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=195281">psychological distress</a>. This included <a href="http://www.ptsd.va.gov/professional/treatment/early/acute-stress-disorder.asp">acute stress</a> (which is similar to PTS but must be experienced in the first month of exposure), post-traumatic stress and ongoing fears and worries about future acts of terrorism (in the months following the attacks). </p>
<p>These harmful effects persisted in the years following 9/11. For example, the team found <a href="http://doi.org/10.1001/archgenpsychiatry.2007.6">measurable impact</a> on the mental and physical health (such as increased risk of heart diseases) of the sample three years after the attacks. Importantly, those who responded with distress in the immediate aftermath were more likely to report subsequent problems as well. </p>
<p>These findings bear close resemblance to research led by psychologist <a href="http://psychiatry.duke.edu/faculty/details/0098909">William Schlenger</a>, whose team found that Americans who reported watching more hours of 9/11 television in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 were more likely to report symptoms resembling PTSD. For example, those who reported watching four to seven hours were almost four times as likely to report such symptoms <a href="http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=195165">compared to those who watched less</a>. </p>
<p>These findings were echoed in work conducted by <a href="https://www.bu.edu/card/profile/michael-w-otto-ph-d/">Michael W. Otto</a>, who also found that more hours of 9/11-related television watching was <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.janxdis.2006.10.008">associated with higher post-traumatic stress symptoms</a> in children under 10 in the first year following the attacks. </p>
<h2>9/11’s impact on children</h2>
<p>However, it is also the case that studies have found the number of children who reported longer-term distress symptoms to be relatively low. Among other factors, children whose parents had low coping abilities or themselves had learning disabilities tended to report higher distress. </p>
<p>For example, my collaborator <a href="http://psych.uncc.edu/people/gil-rivas-virginia">Virginia Gil-Rivas</a>, who <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/jts.20277">studied American adolescents</a> exposed to 9/11 only through the media, found that symptoms of post-traumatic distress decreased in most adolescents at the one-year mark. An important finding of her study was how parental coping abilities and parental availability to discuss the attacks made a difference. </p>
<p>Furthermore, children who had prior mental health problems or learning disabilities <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/jts.20277">tended to be at higher risk for distress symptoms</a>. That could be because children prone to anxiety in general experienced increased <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15374410802148145">feelings of vulnerability</a>. </p>
<p>Despite the <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0024619">number of studies</a> that have followed children over the course of several years, no studies have comprehensively examined the long-term impact of 9/11 on children’s development and adjustment. That is because it is difficult to compare American children who lived through 9/11 with those who did not, since almost every American child was exposed to images of 9/11 at some point in time. </p>
<p>This limits the ability of researchers to examine how children’s lives might have changed over time.</p>
<p>However, some researchers believe that even media-based exposure to collective trauma could likely have a longer-term impact on the <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0024619">attitudes and beliefs</a> of those who grew up in a post-9/11 world. It is possible, for example, that exposure to 9/11 and other acts of terrorism <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-5907.2005.00144.x">has led to fears of perceived threats</a>, political intolerance, prejudice and xenophobia in some American children.</p>
<h2>How 9/11 trauma impacts people today</h2>
<p>Years later, a bigger question is: How does the collective trauma of 9/11 affect people today?</p>
<p>Over the past several years, my team and I have sought to address many of the issues that remained unanswered in the scientific literature after 9/11. We sought to replicate and extend the findings initially produced after 9/11 through an examination of responses to the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, the worst act of terrorism in America since 9/11. </p>
<p>To this end, <a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/111/1/93">we surveyed 4,675 Americans</a>. Our sample was demographically representative, meaning that our sample proportionally matched the U.S. Census data on key indicators such as ethnicity, income, gender and marital status. </p>
<p>This allowed us to make stronger inferences about how “Americans” responded. Within the first two to four weeks of the Boston Marathon bombings, we surveyed our sample about their direct and media-based exposure to the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing and their subsequent psychological responses. </p>
<p>Our study found that as media exposure (a sum of daily hours of Boston Marathon bombing-related television, radio, print, online news and social media coverage) increased, so did <a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/111/1/93">respondents’ acute stress symptoms</a>. This was even after statistically accounting for other variables typically associated with distress responses (such as mental health). </p>
<p>People who reported more than three hours of media exposure had higher probability of reporting high acute stress symptoms than were people who were directly exposed to the bombing. </p>
<p>Then, last year, we <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0956797614561043">sought to explore</a> whether the accumulation of exposure to events like 9/11 and other collective trauma might influence responses to subsequent events like the Boston Marathon bombing.</p>
<p>Once again, we used data from demographically representative samples of people who lived in the New York and Boston metropolitan areas. We assessed people who lived in the New York and Boston areas to facilitate a stronger comparison of direct and media-based exposure to 9/11 and the Boston Marathon bombing: people who lived in New York or Boston were more likely to meet criteria for “trauma exposure.” </p>
<p>This study had two primary, congruent findings. First, people who experienced greater numbers of direct exposure to prior collective trauma (e.g., 9/11, the <a href="http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2012/12/us/sandy-hook-timeline/">Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting</a>, <a href="https://weather.com/storms/hurricane/news/superstorm-sandy-anniversary-20141029">Superstorm Sandy</a>) reported higher acute stress symptoms after the Boston Marathon bombings. </p>
<p>Second, greater amounts of media-based live exposure (i.e., people watched or listened to the event as it occurred on live television, radio, or online streaming) to prior collective trauma were also associated with higher acute stress symptoms after the Boston Marathon bombing.</p>
<p>So greater direct and media-based exposure to prior collective trauma was linked with greater acute stress responses (e.g., anxiety, nightmares, trouble concentrating) after a subsequent event. </p>
<h2>Stay informed, but limit exposure</h2>
<p>Overall, our research indicates that the impact on children growing up post-9/11 likely extends well beyond the physical and mental health effects of exposure – be it direct or media-based. Each tragic incident that individuals witness, even if only through the media, likely has a cumulative effect.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137093/original/image-20160908-25249-lzoe0f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137093/original/image-20160908-25249-lzoe0f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137093/original/image-20160908-25249-lzoe0f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137093/original/image-20160908-25249-lzoe0f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137093/original/image-20160908-25249-lzoe0f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=539&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137093/original/image-20160908-25249-lzoe0f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=539&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137093/original/image-20160908-25249-lzoe0f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=539&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">People are resilient, but they need to be aware of the potential for distress.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/dvids/4990687967/in/photolist-8B1zEg-o9P5QB-2VZDA9-2VVeti-4pB8f-kAHLQX-akD8ep-ame3o6-am4QmR-fnyKvK-hzH1Uo-7p9WEb-am4yyK-oJTDo1-pGWYHT-2VZDxw-hyiVZA-dfu157-am4E6T-am4RxM-hwUCie-am4vHr-am4LZp-5kRRU5-am7p9Q-2VVevH-5kEtCa-am7s3m-am7k4A-am4kh4-am4Ls6-2VZDjs-u2ZEmQ-5JjbsH-7ZMhfx-7841HP-eMkA8Q-6XCcg9-787URG-oQjvQ2-6C1gop-hAMzpN-2VVeDt-am4Txp-am7ax3-bTVtwr-am7Cab-Curwec-am79UG-kGfxc3">DVIDSHUB</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Nevertheless, the positive finding is that <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.59.1.20">most people are resilient</a> in the face of tragedy. In the early years following 9/11, several studies examined <a href="http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-7610.2006.01664.x">how 9/11 impacted children nationally</a>. Like adults, children exposed both directly and through the media tended to be resilient in the early years following the attacks and symptoms generally decreased over time. </p>
<p>Even so, being aware of the potential for distress through media exposure is important. Even small percentages can have large implications for our nation’s physical and mental health. For example, in the case of 9/11, 10 percent of a nationally-representative sample reporting <a href="http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=195281">post-traumatic stress</a> represents <a href="http://www.census.gov/popclock/">32,443,375 Americans</a> with similar symptoms. </p>
<p>So, people should stay informed, but limit repeated exposure to disturbing images, <a href="http://guilfordjournals.com/doi/abs/10.1521/psyc.65.4.289.20240">which can elicit</a> post-traumatic stress and lead to negative psychological and physical health outcomes.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/64725/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dana Rose Garfin receives funding from the National Science Foundation to conduct this research. </span></em></p>Even indirect exposure to the terrorist attacks of September 11 has left profound and deep impact on those too young to remember a world before that.Dana Rose Garfin, Research Scientist, Department of Psychology and Social Behavior, University of California, IrvineLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/641992016-08-25T17:54:13Z2016-08-25T17:54:13ZRebuilding ground zero: How twin mandates of revival and remembrance reshaped Lower Manhattan<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/135555/original/image-20160825-6622-g23kf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Lower Manhattan's new skyline.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">NYC skyline via www.shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>From the beginning, rebuilding ground zero was fraught with strategic consequence, for the city of New York and for the nation.</p>
<p>The original World Trade Center complex, completed in 1973, represented the <a href="http://www.panynj.gov/wtcprogress/history-wtc.html">culmination of a decades-long effort to revitalize</a> the city’s founding center of business. Forty years later, rebuilding those 16 acres reprised history – with new meaning, in a new century, in a new geopolitical context brought forth by 9/11. </p>
<p>The destruction of the massive complex created a rare opportunity for New York City to rethink its long-term economic needs in the downtown area, while sending a message to the world that regardless of whatever al-Qaida terrorists aimed to do, New York City would come back stronger than ever. It was an unparalleled opportunity in the city’s history that otherwise would not have happened.</p>
<p>This opportunity carried with it an unquestionable priority: everlasting remembrance of those who died on that fateful day. September 11 transformed the human meaning of the World Trade Center site. What had been secular was now sacred, a graveyard for nearly 3,000 souls. Those 16 acres, achingly defined by past images of the iconic twin towers anchoring the skyline of lower Manhattan, were now unbearably painful ruins transformed into repositories of memory. </p>
<p>That led to many tough questions: How would the need to commemorate the loss of thousands of lives be accommodated with the need to rebuild an economic future for lower Manhattan? How would the rhetoric of defiance and resilience translate into concrete plans, architectural reality, political decisions, building priorities and economic costs? And who had the power to execute the ideals and ambitions of rebuilding when property rights were split and political power fragmented?</p>
<p>Those are among the many questions I sought to answer in my book “<a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/power-at-ground-zero-9780190607029?cc=us&lang=en&">Power at Ground Zero: Politics, Money and the Remaking of Lower Manhattan</a>” by unraveling the political and economic dynamics behind the controversies and conflicts that shaped the process of rebuilding, including billions in public aid to ensure visible construction progress by the 10-year anniversary. </p>
<p>Five years later, though it’s not yet fully complete, the palpable energy on the site belies the conventional wisdom that delay has been destructive.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/135552/original/image-20160825-6614-15vdyh5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/135552/original/image-20160825-6614-15vdyh5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/135552/original/image-20160825-6614-15vdyh5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/135552/original/image-20160825-6614-15vdyh5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/135552/original/image-20160825-6614-15vdyh5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=556&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/135552/original/image-20160825-6614-15vdyh5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=556&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/135552/original/image-20160825-6614-15vdyh5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=556&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Remembering the victims was an unquestionable priority in the rebuilding of ground zero.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Gary Hack</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Symbolic city building</h2>
<p>I started this research after completing “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Times-Square-Roulette-Remaking-Press/dp/0262692953">Times Square Roulette: Remaking the City Icon</a>.” The successful redevelopment of naughty bawdy West 42nd Street became testimony to the city’s ability to once again think big and execute on an ambitious scale. </p>
<p>Rebuilding the World Trade Center site, however, differed from the Times Square project in two salient ways that complicated the task: The cast of players was much larger, especially on the intergovernmental front, and the emotional overlay of 9/11 created an unprecedented planning condition. If Times Square served as the symbolic soul of the city, the World Trade Center served as the symbolic pulse of its economy – despite the fact that much of downtown’s financial establishment had moved to midtown Manhattan. </p>
<p>As in Times Square, the importance of symbolic politics loomed large at ground zero. And for 15 years, rebuilding ground zero has been the <a href="https://www0.gsb.columbia.edu/mygsb/faculty/research/pubfiles/3587/Politics%20of%20%20Planning.pdf">world’s most visible redevelopment project</a>. </p>
<p>To understand the multiple forces underlying the decision-making, I spent 12 years sourcing hundreds of primary documents, reading through thousands of articles and consulting scores of public testimonies, economic reports, design statements, meeting minutes and other documents. This research is also based on more than 150 interviews with nearly all the players and many others whose involvement or expertise was relevant to unraveling a story in which complexity prevailed at every level: design, emotion, security, governance, control.</p>
<p>While modern city building is often dismissed as cold-hearted and detached from meaning, the opposite was true at ground zero, where every action was infused with symbolic significance and debated with emotional intensity. </p>
<h2>The twin mandate: To rebuild and remember</h2>
<p>The cleanup effort removing 1.5 million tons of debris out of the 70-foot-deep hole of the World Trade Center site was unexpectedly rapid. Its completion in May 2002 marked a profound turning point: It signaled the start of renewal at ground zero – a dual effort to rebuild and remember.</p>
<p>A month later, then-Governor George Pataki made a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/02/nyregion/02REBU.html">surprise announcement</a>, declaring: “We will never build where the towers stood.” From that point forward, the “footprints” became sacred ground, inviolable. A permanent memorial would have to “<a href="http://www.wtcsitememorial.org/pdf/LMDC_Guidelines_english.pdf">make visible the footprints”</a> of the original towers, which meant that commercial redevelopment of the World Trade Center replacing 10 million square feet of office space would have to “<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/31/opinion/turning-to-renewal.html">coexist harmoniously with the memorial itself</a>.”</p>
<p>Whatever was built on the site had to be architecturally ambitious. Simply replacing what was lost or replicating past approaches to city building would constitute a pallid response to human loss and physical destruction of such magnitude. The rebuilding response demanded a big, inspiring, physical presence that embodied the symbolic aspirations of American values.</p>
<p>If these twin mandates – to remember and rebuild – were clear in the minds of public officials, how to achieve them was not. They were competing claims. The terrorist attack created a compelling public interest that trumped prevailing property rights. </p>
<p>Repeatedly, the legal prerogatives of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, as landowner, and Larry Silverstein and his investment partnership, as owners of a 99-year lease on the World Trade Center site <a href="http://nypost.com/2001/07/25/signed-sealed-and-delivered/">executed just six weeks</a> before 9/11, were challenged by the politics of accommodating the twin mandates. Ultimately, the property rights of both stakeholders were amended. The Port Authority and Silverstein <a href="http://www.panynj.gov/corporate-information/foi/13209-WTC.pdf">relinquished</a> development rights on the 4.7-acre memorial quadrant, and responsibility for the development of the commercial office space <a href="https://www.panynj.gov/corporate-information/pdf/092106_minutes.pdf">was realigned</a>. The Port Authority took on development of the iconic One World Trade Center (aka Freedom Tower) and a second tower while Silverstein took responsibility for three additional office towers.</p>
<p>But the process was terribly messy, terribly tangled and, at times, terribly chaotic.</p>
<h2>Many voices: ‘Who’s in control?’</h2>
<p>The decision-making arena was packed with many contending voices: elected officials, government decision-makers, private real estate interests, the families of 9/11 victims, civic leaders, preservationists and the editorial boards of the city’s daily newspapers. There was no powerful rebuilding czar, a modern-day <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wnet/need-to-know/environment/the-legacy-of-robert-moses/16018/">Robert Moses</a>, who could overcome the conflicting imperatives and incessant pressures to “get things done.” </p>
<p>The idea of a master builder was out of fashion. But also there was no overriding governance structure to set priorities among competing building ambitions, clarify the inevitable trade-offs and resolve the inevitable disputes. And that repeatedly gave rise to the question, “Who’s in control?” </p>
<p>The ambiguity of the control issue not only created constant confusion; it weakened the public sector’s position when it came to negotiating the terms of rebuilding with the private leaseholder. When government entities are not united, developers are able to exploit the fissures among government agencies to their advantage.</p>
<p>Tension between the political needs of the public sector and the commercial demands of the private investors permeated conflict after conflict at ground zero. Other tensions constantly simmered throughout the tortuous process of rebuilding: tensions between City Hall and Albany, between the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation and the Port Authority, and between the Port Authority’s two governing sides. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/135543/original/image-20160825-6593-somc7v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/135543/original/image-20160825-6593-somc7v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/135543/original/image-20160825-6593-somc7v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/135543/original/image-20160825-6593-somc7v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/135543/original/image-20160825-6593-somc7v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/135543/original/image-20160825-6593-somc7v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/135543/original/image-20160825-6593-somc7v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Bloomberg beams at a press conference in 2010 after a critical milestone is passed.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Joe Woodhead, Courtesy Silverstein Properties Inc.</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Pivotal factors</h2>
<p>Rebuilding advanced in fits and starts. Public contention, even conflict, had a way of clarifying what would be politically acceptable, and “delay” gave planners and elected officials time to correct plans, reverse decisions and build coalitions of support. </p>
<p>By 2006, the big conflicts over what to build were settled, thanks in part to the eventual acquiescence of those involved, making continuous accommodations and adjustments throughout. By 2008, then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s personal leadership assured the opening of the memorial on the 10th anniversary of 9/11, and by mid-2010, the government entities and Silverstein had found a solution to the money question that had bedeviled progress on the commercial office towers.</p>
<p>Contrary to the narrative of delay that prevailed throughout the many years of controversy, rebuilding the emotionally charged terrain was relatively fast-paced compared with the typical two-decade timeline for big development projects to reach fruition.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/135544/original/image-20160825-6588-bn0elr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/135544/original/image-20160825-6588-bn0elr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/135544/original/image-20160825-6588-bn0elr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1013&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/135544/original/image-20160825-6588-bn0elr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1013&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/135544/original/image-20160825-6588-bn0elr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1013&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/135544/original/image-20160825-6588-bn0elr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1273&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/135544/original/image-20160825-6588-bn0elr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1273&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/135544/original/image-20160825-6588-bn0elr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1273&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">One World Trade (aka Freedom Tower) rises a symbolic 1,776 feet into the sky.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Gary Hack</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Money, a lot of money – US$25.5 billion, by my estimate – made a big difference in the timetable of achievement at ground zero. Billions from the federal government for recovery and rebuilding. Billions from the Port Authority for a grand transportation hub and an architectural icon for Lower Manhattan. Billions in subsidies for the timely development of private commercial office towers. </p>
<p>While there was a time when observers wondered whether anyone would set up shop above the ruins of a terrorist attack, One World Trade Center stands tall at 1,776 feet, anchored by media giant Condé Nast. The other towers are gaining tenants and the 100 retail shops at the complex have been opening, including a two-story Apple store. Nearly two million people have visited the Memorial Museum since it opened in May 2014.</p>
<p>After 15 years, this monumental effort – fraught by ambitions, power struggles, public dismay and constant criticism – stands as a much valued achievement, a statement of political will and public purpose. Many of the revelations here and others in my book are not part of the conventional wisdom about rebuilding.</p>
<p>Lower Manhattan is stronger today than ever before, the result of a constellation of social and economic trends that would not have materialized without the energy and dedication of many and the billions in public funds that made the new World Trade Center a reality.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/64199/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lynne B. Sagalyn received funding for this research from the Russell Sage Foundation; the J. M. Kaplan Foundation (Furthermore grants in publishing); the Regional Plan Association of New York; and Columbia Business School via the dean's office, Robert Berne Research Fund and the Paul Milstein Center for Real Estate. Sagalyn is a board member of the Skyscraper Museum and the Regional Plan Association of New York.</span></em></p>Those involved with the monumental task faced many challenges as they balanced the unquestionable priority of remembrance with the commercial task of recreating an economically vibrant downtown.Lynne B. Sagalyn, Earle W. Kazis and Benjamin Schore Professor Emerita of Real Estate at Columbia Business School, Columbia UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/641972016-08-22T14:39:52Z2016-08-22T14:39:52ZLouisiana’s Cajun Navy shines light on growing value of boat rescuers<p>As we look at the <a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/08/19/490605862/catastrophic-floods-in-louisiana-have-caused-massive-housing-crisis">devastating losses</a> suffered by Louisiana communities from the recent flooding, one of the inspiring aspects to emerge from the disaster are the <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/US/volunteer-cajun-navy-rescues-fellow-community-members-trapped/story?id=41482404">reports</a> of the “Cajun Navy” – everyday residents in their boats checking on and rescuing family, friends, neighbors and even strangers in need. </p>
<p>The efforts of the Cajun Navy, however, are not unusual. Indeed, one consolation of the disaster is the extent to which the informal responses by survivors bolster stressed and overburdened formal response systems. </p>
<p>This type of emergent activity has become an integral component of the disaster environment. Over a half-century of research by the <a href="https://www.drc.udel.edu/">Disaster Research Center</a> at the University of Delaware and other disaster scientists shows how typical it is, in fact, for groups of people to engage in new tasks, work with people they’ve never worked before or both. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"766079203460591616"}"></div></p>
<h2>From Katrina to 9/11</h2>
<p>Disasters, after all, by their very definition signify that some aspects of the more official emergency management system has been overwhelmed. This could be due to poor planning, but it also could be related to the size of the event or some unusual aspect that has taken us by surprise. </p>
<p>Communities in Louisiana know this well and need only recall the tremendous contribution of boat owners after Hurricane Katrina. The Coast Guard, one of the few federal agencies to receive considerable praise after that catastrophe, demonstrated <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2005/sep/8/20050908-090641-4058r/">remarkable skill</a> in working with the ad hoc flotilla of boats <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/remembering-the-cajun-navy-10-years-after-hurricane-katrina/">contributing to rescue operations</a>. But a few years before Katrina, we saw something similar occur in another part of the country to a very different type of disaster.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/135015/original/image-20160822-18714-1phnhnt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/135015/original/image-20160822-18714-1phnhnt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/135015/original/image-20160822-18714-1phnhnt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/135015/original/image-20160822-18714-1phnhnt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/135015/original/image-20160822-18714-1phnhnt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/135015/original/image-20160822-18714-1phnhnt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/135015/original/image-20160822-18714-1phnhnt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/135015/original/image-20160822-18714-1phnhnt.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">During the September 11 attacks in 2001, ferries and private boats were integral to evacuating people from southern Manhattan.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">New York Police Department</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This year marks the 15th anniversary of the September 11th attacks. In 2001, as most people were concentrated on the fires at the Pentagon, the crash in Shanksville, Pennsylvania and the collapse of the Twin Towers, a remarkable and less noticed scene was unfolding along the New York Harbor waterfront. </p>
<p>Mariners from across the harbor <a href="http://www.downtownexpress.com/2016/07/29/armada-of-heroes-the-story-of-the-civilian-led-waterborne-evacuation-of-downtown-on-911/">spontaneously converged</a>, some of their own accord and some in response to a Coast Guard call for all available boats, to <a href="http://www.udel.edu/udaily/2016/june/americas-dunkirk/">provide assistance</a>. Vessels of all sorts succeeded in moving hundreds of thousands of evacuees from around the southern reaches of the island, despite the fact that there was no plan in place for such a mass activity. </p>
<h2>Doing what needs to be done</h2>
<p>In the maritime community, the imperative toward rescue is very strong, and maritime law compels seafarers to provide assistance to vessels in peril. In <a href="http://www.temple.edu/tempress/titles/2211_reg.html">researching boat owners’ response on September 11</a>, we found mariners extended their rescue ethos to provide assistance to evacuees still on land. The Coast Guard demonstrated the same culture of flexibility they later exhibited after Katrina struck.</p>
<p>One of our interviewees described a lead official at the time, “He went with the flow. ‘If you need me I’m here’…It wasn’t like he was trying to play Big Mr. Coast Guard.” That is, what was commendable about the official actions of the Coast Guard, harbor pilots and harbor police is that they recognized the value of the emergent resource around them. They saw people with particular skills working in their areas of expertise, doing things well, and they came to the conclusion the response was better off letting them help. </p>
<p>Not everyone appreciates those contributions as readily as others. Even after the August 2016 flooding, we heard of some <a href="http://www.theadvocate.com/louisiana_flood_2016/article_bbf5263e-6646-11e6-a775-ebda9d5c17ae.html?sr_source=lift_amplify_">initial resistance to volunteer efforts</a>. And yes, sometimes well-meaning volunteer efforts can pose <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2012/nov/03/opinion/la-oe-holguin-veras-hurricane-donations-20121104">serious challenges</a>. But we can’t tout the resilience of community or the value of the “<a href="https://www.fema.gov/whole-community">whole community</a>” in disaster response if we wholesale forbid them from stepping up to rightfully do what needs to be done.</p>
<p>We see that the willingness to “just do what needs to be done” – a phrase that mariners used repeatedly after 9/11 to describe their actions – is not a uniquely Gulf Coast tendency. Nor is it uniquely American. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/134847/original/image-20160819-30406-1rbna8e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/134847/original/image-20160819-30406-1rbna8e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/134847/original/image-20160819-30406-1rbna8e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134847/original/image-20160819-30406-1rbna8e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134847/original/image-20160819-30406-1rbna8e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134847/original/image-20160819-30406-1rbna8e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134847/original/image-20160819-30406-1rbna8e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134847/original/image-20160819-30406-1rbna8e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">During Hurricane Katrina, the U.S. Coast Guard rescued tens of thousands of people, at times using the aid of volunteers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/mcquaid/134941680/in/album-72157600150706195/">mcquaid/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
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<p>Consider the boat operators who spontaneously converged and worked alongside formal responders while a shooter attacked a youth camp on the Norwegian island of Utoya. Like his 9/11 peers, <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/norway/8658437/Norway-shooting-German-tourist-hailed-a-hero-after-saving-30-lives.html">one boat operator described</a> in a Telegraph interview that you “just do what it takes.” </p>
<p>In last week’s flooding, the Cajun Navy did what it takes. But it has also illustrated, yet again, that the success of our formal responses often depends upon latent capacities already present in our communities. </p>
<p>We must be clear: They do not replace the resources required from outside the affected areas or by those we often deem as officials. Citizen capacity does not justify divestment. </p>
<p>In events on the scale of disaster and catastrophe, however, those formal systems will fall short without involving informal responses in a meaningful way. And in some cases, lives will be lost. Although safety and security are critical during a crisis, there is value in the improvised citizen response to disaster.</p>
<h2>Value in planning and improvisation</h2>
<p>Throughout history, frustration with current policies has often led to changes in disaster management. As historian Scott Knowles <a href="http://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/14925.html">pointed out</a>, even the Federal Emergency Management Agency was established in response to a concern that disaster response was too fragmented across agencies. More recently, a focus on the Incident Command System (<a href="https://www.fema.gov/incident-command-system-resources">ICS</a>) has permeated the rhetoric of American emergency management. </p>
<p>ICS, which a formalized management system of organizing resources and tasks, is highly practical in incidents such as wildfires – the type of hazard for which ICS was first developed – and was borne out of the frustrations with incompatible systems across organizations. But our research on the boat evacuation of 9/11, as well as <a href="http://www.degruyter.com/view/j/jhsem.2006.3.3/jhsem.2006.3.3.1252/jhsem.2006.3.3.1252.xml">evaluation by other social scientists</a>, points to how ICS does not deliver a completely uniform compatible system in more decentralized, complex disasters, precisely because of the improvised and emergent activity that can’t be fully structured ahead of time. </p>
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<p>Boat operators on 9/11 did not neatly fit into an ICS system, nor could they have, given the surprise of their involvement. But the reason they were able to do so much was because no one forced them to. Rather, they were able to evolve and fit alongside formal systems in a thoughtful, collaborative and deliberate way. </p>
<p>Although we are sure to eventually hear examples of risks unnecessarily taken, or of errors in judgment, throughout the vast armada of boat operators engaged in rescue operations in flooded Louisiana communities, that shouldn’t let us lose sight of the impressive coordination and collaboration that bolstered this response effort. </p>
<p>We must continue to learn the right lessons from disaster: that there is value of both planning and improvisation in disaster. That although citizens might sometimes make mistakes, they also enable the greatest of responses. That successful disaster response, in part, depends on a willingness of formal responders to acknowledge the capacities of our citizenry, be they mariners or farmers, welders or educators, or something else entirely.</p>
<p>So thank you to the Cajun Navy, and to the rest of those in flood-affected communities drawing on their supplies, equipment and know-how to help their neighbors, to help complete strangers and to keep reminding us of the value of citizenry in disaster response.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/64197/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tricia Wachtendorf receives funding from the National Science Foundation, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Health and Human Services, the University of Delaware Research Foundation, and the State of Delaware.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>James Kendra receives funding from the National Science Foundation, Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the State of Delaware</span></em></p>Improvised rescues, such as boat owners saving people in flooded Louisiana, have become an integral part of federal and state disaster response efforts.Tricia Wachtendorf, Associate Professor of Sociology, Director of Disaster Research Center, University of DelawareJames Kendra, Professor of Public Policy & Administration, University of DelawareLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.