After the September 11th attacks: A Short Guide and Timeline of the Foreign Policy Actions Taken post 9/11

While most adult Americans remember vividly where they were on the day of the attacks, feeling those same emotions and fears 13 years later, many are a bit uncertain about the events that came afterward.  This is especially so for those that have only recently entered adulthood.  As a Political Science Professor, I find that a high percentage of my students are confused about which country was invaded as a direct result of the attacks and which came later, but was indirectly related to this horrific slaughter of 3,000 Americans. Knowing where these countries are on a map is a whole other challenge.  Here are the facts:

Who attacked us?

Al-Qaeda, a terrorist organization led by Osama bin Laden, organized and carried out the attacks from their base in Afghanistan.  The U.S. invaded Afghanistan in order to hunt down al-Qaeda and its leader bin Laden, but also to overthrow the Taliban, the group brutally ruling the country.  The Taliban, are an extremist Islamic group, like al-Qaeda, that took control of Afghanistan by force in the 1990s.  While both are violent and extremist, the Taliban and al-Qaeda have different reasons for existing.  Al-Qaeda is an organization bent on terrorizing the U.S. and our supporters in an effort to change policy in Arab countries and the U.S.  The Taliban are isolated to Afghanistan and operated as a ruling regime.  The Taliban are a local group that overthrew the government in Afghanistan in order to install a theocracy.  The Taliban's efforts do not extend beyond Afghanistan's borders, unlike the efforts of al-Qaeda.  This is why the U.S. deals with the two groups differently.  Because the Taliban and al-Qaeda share a vision, the Taliban gave refuge and support to al-Qaeda beginning in the late 1990s, allowing them to train and hideout in the country.  The U.S.'s secondary goal to hunting al-Qaeda was to overthrow the brutal Taliban regime and support the creation of a democratically elected government.  The U.S., and now the democratically elected Afghan government, continues to this day to fight remnants of the Taliban who are attempting to reassert control over the country.  Under the Obama administration in 2011, bin Laden was found and killed while hiding out in neighboring Pakistan.  The fight against al-Qaeda continues, but unlike with the Taliban, it is a global fight as this group and its members can relocate just about anywhere.

Remember Daniel Pearl: Beheading of One of Our Journalist Brings Back the Memory of September 11th

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This week the nation learned that one of our journalists had been beheaded by a brutal group known as ISIS (also ISIL), a name referencing the goal of this group to establish an Islamic state over in the Middle East that includes Iraq and Syria.  They have made successes in Iraq and Syria; although our recent air strikes and military aid to the Kurdish forces have rolled back some of the group’s advances in Iraq.    This beheading of an American journalist and the capturing of the murder on video for the world to see is not the first occurrence of an extreme and violent group using this sort of tactic on an innocent civilian to influence U.S. policy and to put terror in the hearts and minds of Americans. 

This time, the victim is James Foley. This group has another American journalist in captivity, Stephen Sotloff, age 31 that was also captured while working as a journalist oversees.  Right now, it appears as though rescuing Sotloff from the same fate is quite tricky as any known attempt to rescue him will likely lead to his immediate execution.  This situation, however, is still unfolding, so the United States’ options remain to be seen. 

  

ISIS is not al-Qaeda and ISIS has not committed a terrorist attack against the United States.  So why does this incident bring back memories of the attacks on September 11, 2001?  Some may have forgotten, while others, such as my students, were too young to remember details in the events leading up to and after 9/11.  One such event was the killing of a captured American journalist.  This brutal and grotesque murder was committed by a- Qaeda about 6 months after 9/11.  Like the James Foley killing, the American journalist was beheaded, and the beheading was captured on video and shared with the world.  In the first few months of 2002, Daniel Pearl, a reporter with the Wall Street Journal, was captured in Pakistan while investigating a possible connection between a fumbled attempt to bomb an airplane here in the U.S. and al-Qaeda.  Pearl was forced to make statements and then beheaded by a prominent operative of al-Qaeda who has since been capture, tried and hung.  The circumstances of Daniel Pearl’s death and the fight of his wife, Marianne Pearl, to get to the bottom of his capture and murder became the subject of a book, A Mighty Heart, and movie starring Angelina Jolie.