The Long Lasting Outcomes Of 9/11 Twin Towers Attack

In 1993, Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, made an attempt to bomb the Twin towers. During this attempt Yousef had one of his partners drive a van full of explosives into the garage that was under the Twin Towers. Many of the steel support structures in the nearby area of the bomb had failed, but it did not severely damage the skyscrapers. As a result, only six people were killed versus the thousands that Yousef had planned to kill. In a computer that Yousef left behind, there were plans that included a plot to kill Pope John Paul II and he had plan to bomb 15 American airplanes within a 48-hour time frame. On Yousef’s flight back to the United States, he reportedly admitted to a Secret Service agent that he had directed the Trade Center attack from the beginning and had even claimed to set the fuse that exploded the 1,200-pound bomb. His only regret, the agent quoted Yousef saying, was that the tower did not collapse into its twin as he had planned for it to which is what would have caused thousands of deaths. In 1997 Yousef was found guilty and was sentenced to life in prison In 1998, U.S. embassy’s in Kenya and Tanzania were bombed so investigators started to suspect that Yousef had a connection with Osama bin Laden, the leader of the Islamic extreme group, al Qaeda. It was never proven as to weather or not bin Laden had any connections to the 1993 bombing but on September 11, 2001, two al Qaeda terrorist groups had finished the job that Yousef had originally started.

On September 11, 2001, a Tuesday morning, al Qaeda militants hijacked four airplanes from east coast airports that were heading to California due to the full tanks of jet fuel to achieve suicide attacks against their targets within the United States. Two of the planes were flown into the twin towers of the World Trade Center Complex in New York City, the first plane, flight 11, striking the North tower at 8:46 am and the second plane, flight 175, striking the South tower at 9:03 am. Another plane, flight 77, flew into the Pentagon, the military headquarters located in Washington D.C at 9:45 a.m. and the fourth plane, remembered as Flight 93, landed in a field in Pennsylvania at 10:10 a.m. Passengers aboard the plane learned about what had happened in New York City and Washington D.C. from cellphones and Airfone calls due to the planes delayed departure. A group of passengers planned to attack the hijackers, knowing the plane was not going to be returning to the airport. During the attack it is thought that the cockpit was attacked by a fire extinguisher causing the plane to loose control. Its intended target remains unknown but is suspected to being head to the White House, Camp David, or possible nuclear power plants along east coast. After burning for 56 minutes, the south tower collapsed at 9:59 a.m. and the north tower collapsed at 10:28 a.m. after burning for one hour and 42 minutes leaving a cloud of dust and debride. After the events of 9/11 the Federal Aviation Administration grounded all flights that were to fly over the United States or that were coming to the United States for the first time in United States history. There were 5,500 commercial and private flights that had been guided to different airports in Canada and in the United States of the next two and a half hour.

Flights did not resume again until Thursday and only reopened for airports that met strict security guidelines. Nearly 3,000 people were killed and almost 10,000 people were injured during the events of 9/11. At the World Trade Center 2,763 died, 343 were firefighters and 23 were police officers that were working to evacuate the upper floors of the towers. Only six people survived once the towers had collapsed. At the Pentagon, 189 were killed and on Flight 93, all 44 passengers were killed. I picked this event because this event has had a major impact on my life from the day that it had happened. My father joined United States Army when I was born so he was away a lot of my life being deployed and with all the training the military requires until I was around five years old. When he got out we finally got to be a family. When September 11th happened, my dad was no longer active duty but, he was in his inactive reserve period which means if there is ever a draft they would take all active duty personnel, all active reservist, and the inactive reservist before drafting. I remember being eight years old sitting in my second grade class room and the teachers wheeling in the televisions that were on carts to watch what was going on. My mom was so afraid that my dad would have to go back that she came and got us out of school so our family would be together. Thankfully, my dad never had to go back. Another way 9/11 has an effect on my life is because of my high school boyfriend, now husband. He joined the Marine Corps in 2010, right after he graduated high school. In August of 2012 he was deployed to Afghanistan where he was stationed for seven months. This of course was any 17-year-old girls worst nightmare. On September 14, 2012, that nightmare became real. A heavily armed Taliban with about 15 insurgents, dressed in Army uniforms attacked Camp Bastions airfield. Two Marines were killed and eight were wounded.

The flight line that was attacked is where my husband was working at the time of the attack. When it happened, the military shut down their Internet, which was the only contact they had home, due to military personnel possibly leaking information. Communication remained shut down until the families of those killed had been notified by the Marine Corp and not stuff posted on the internet. At the time, all anybody has was what the news was reporting and all that we knew is that some were killed and some were wounded so we were left wondering and praying that Cory, was not one of them. If I could change the events of 9/11, 9/11 never would have happened. Too many families lost their loved ones on that day and many sacrificed their lives for many years after wards due to all of the on going wars around the world. Airport security increased, which is not a bad thing, but it now takes much longer to get through security and to get to you gate. One is required to have a boarding pass or “ticket” to even attempt to go through security. Too off set all the cost of the added security, the passengers are paying extra fees. Immigration and tourisms dropped in 2002. The number of tourist from Pakistan dropped nearly 70 percent and immigration visas dropped more than 40 percent. Between 2001 and 2010 deportations rose 104 percent.

I would travel in time and just delete this war all together because this individual event has done more lasting harm beyond the immediate death toll than any other war. This tragic event has had a big impact on economy, societies conditions and our political systems. Had 9/11 been stopped, I believe the economy and perceptions of the country would be completely different. After the bombing attempt in 1993, I would have closed the boarder to the United States then until stricter and more extensive background checks could be done. In stead of opening the United States boarders to “refugees” I would have helped the refugees by setting up United States military protected camps up that heavily armed troops would stand guard at so that the innocent civilians could not be harmed by the radical Islamic groups since they were even killing their own women and children. This may have been more cost efficient for the United States as well rather then all the money that it had cost for the twin towers clean up, the repairs to the city, the cost the families paid to loose loved ones, the cost of all the supplies for 15 plus years at war and the growing number of deaths because of the war.

I would also make it so that bin Laden was easier to find so that he could have been captured. I would lock him in a prison cell for the rest of his life with no communication with the outside world so that he could not contact his “friends” to continue to make terrorist plans on the United States. The ramifications of this would mean that American military personnel would still have to go over seas and some still possibly loose their lives but, maybe not as many would have. Another ramification of closed boarders may have meant that American citizens would not be able to travel out side of the United States for a while. The positive things that could have came out of this is that the almost 3,000 people who were killed on 9/11 would not have lost their lives. 9/11 had the biggest debt impact in the economy as well causing a debt crisis so without 9/11 the economy would not be in as much debt in which could mean more benefits for veterans and the elderly. Airline travel would still have its irritating factors, but greatly intrusive security screening might not be one of them. Without 9/11 America or more specifically, New York, would not have as many post traumatic stress, mental health disorders.