1 Cibella Jesse Cibella 4/20/07 Dr. Laseranko College Writing II 9/11/01 and Americas Response: Was it Justifiable? Everyone still remembers September 11th like it was yesterday. They know what they were doing and where they were. It is interesting that at that exact time that the first plane hit I was sitting in Band class during homeroom playing the song A Whole New World from the Disney movie Aladdin. Most people were either at school or at work or in transit to one of the two. Either way we all remember exactly where we were when we first heard the news "[...] including GeorgeW. Bush, the President of the United States at the time. On at least three occasions, the President was asked how he heard the news of the attacks. His answers contained substantial inconsistencies and provide a near-perfect example of a false flashbulb memory."(Greenberg1). The president states that he saw the first plane crash into the towers and that is impossible because no one had video of the first plane especially around the time he is claiming to have heard it. In all three accounts there is a slight bit of consistently. In all three the time that he was informed that America was under attack was after the second plane hit the WTC (World Trade Center). One of the conspiracies suggests that the government recorded the entire attack and that was the tape that bush saw. I do not agree with these conspiracies I do not believe that 9/11 was a government plot instead I believe that it was an attack on America. Bush responded to these attacks swiftly and quickly. He called and said ",,Lets get started on this, Bush recalled saying. ,,And get Tommy Franks looking at what it would take to protect
Cibella 2 America by removing Saddam Hussein if we have to. He also asked, Could this be done on a basis that would not be terribly noticeable". (Woodward 2). In the aftermath of the attacks, many U.S. citizens held the view that the attacks had "changed the world forever." The Bush administration declared a war on terrorism, with the stated goals of bringing Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda to justice and preventing the emergence of other terrorist networks. goals These would be accomplished by means including economic and military sanctions against states perceived as harboring terrorists and increasing global surveillance and intelligence sharing. Immediately after the September 11 attacks U.S. officials speculated on possible involvement by Saddam Hussein; although unfounded, the association contributed to public acceptance for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. This attack was senseless in retrospect because Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and there was no real reason to enter Iraq, besides that of finishing his daddies war. The second-biggest operation of the U.S. Global War on Terrorism outside of the United States, and the largest directly connected to terrorism, was the overthrow of the oppressive Taliban rule from Afghanistan, by a U.S.-led coalition. The U.S. was not the only nation to increase its military readiness, with other notable examples being the Philippines and Indonesia, countries that have their own internal conflicts with Islamist terrorism. Because the attacks on the United States were judged to be within the parameters of its charter, NATO declared that Article 5 of the NATO agreement was satisfied on September 12, 2001, making the US war on terrorism the first time since its inception that NATO would actually participate in a "hot" war. Most people say that it was the only reason and I believe that that is wrong and rather just sped up the process because he had the attack on home soil to blame most of it on. I do not think originally
Cibella 3 Bush was justified into going to Iraq in the speed that he did but now that he is there I do think it is justified to keep the troops in Iraq. Even though I do not support the war I do support the troops that are over there and the work that they are doing over there.
Cibella 4 Work Cited
Greenberg, Daniel. "President Bush's false [flashbulb] memory of 9/11/01." Applied Cognitive Psychology 18.3(2004) 363-370. 20 April 2007 <http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdf?vid=9&hid=113&sid=5c0c46fa-5c3f-498db167-0c3897ce313f%40sessionmgr104>. Woodward, Bob. Plan of Attack. 1. Simon& Schuster, 2004.