History UsefulNotes / TheWarOnTerror

Even with Ba'athist Iraq gone and Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State largely weakened, state sponsors of terrorism remain a continuing global concern. From the Axis of Evil (a notion that George Bush's government used more than twenty years ago to mobilize the American population to support the War on Terror), there is two nations that are still on the US list of State Sponsors of Terrorism: UsefulNotes/{{Iran}} and UsefulNotes/NorthKorea. Both nations have received allegations of supporting terrorist organizations and fomenting anti-Western sentiment, while the former has directly formed alliances with Hezbollah, Houthis and Hamas in the face of proxy wars against Saudi Arabia and Israel.\\\

Even with Ba'athist Iraq gone and Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State largely weakened, state sponsors of terrorism remain a continuing global concern. Of the Axis of Evil (a notion that George Bush's government used more than twenty years ago to mobilize the American population to support the War on Terror), there is two nations that are still on the US list of State Sponsors of Terrorism: UsefulNotes/{{Iran}} and UsefulNotes/NorthKorea. Both nations have received allegations of supporting terrorist organizations and fomenting anti-Western sentiment, while the former has directly formed alliances with Hezbollah, Houthis and Hamas in the face of proxy wars against Saudi Arabia and Israel.\\\

Terror attacks occur on-and-off in the West, and the political topography of the West is changing as a response. Western governments have taken on a decidedly more authoritarian bent than before, upping their surveillance and law enforcement measures at the cost of civil liberties. Right-wing politics is surging in the West largely as a response to Islamist extremism and the perceived failure of traditional left and moderately-right governments to take meaningful action against it. A number of hyper-nationalist extremists have taken things even further, by carrying out violence and mass killings against Muslims and other out-groups. Time will tell if this surge is permanent or not.\\\

As for the Middle East, the wars generated by this conflict are ceaseless, but the nature of the conflict has changed dramatically. Many conflicts are now simply proxy wars for the various parties, with the Syrian Civil War largely being a US, Saudi Arabia vs. Turkey vs. Russia and Iran proxy conflict and Yemen being an obvious Saudi Arabia vs. Iran proxy conflict.\\\

The hijackers took control of four commercial flights which had taken off from the Eastern United States, bound for California. Their general procedure was to produce small knives or box cutters which they'd smuggled on their persons, subdue the other passengers with the help of mace or pepper spray, take over the cockpit, and announce something to the effect of, "We have a bomb. Do not resist, and nobody will get hurt." The hijacker pilots turned off the transponders, causing air traffic control to lose track of the planes. Interception was unlikely even after the first plane hit: the air traffic controllers, unsure of whether the hijackings were real or an elaborate hoax, took too long to notify the Air Force; the Air Force bases were too far away for their fighters to make it in time; and without their transponders to locate them, the hijacked planes had disappeared into a big sky full of other planes, as if they were needles in a haystack. Even if the planes were found and intercepted, the possibility of them being able to do anything was somewhat of a moot point; the amount of hoops it would have taken to authorize arming a plane with live ordinance over the continental United States, let alone authorizing the shootdown of a civilian airliner and the knowing deaths of all innocents associated would have made it practically impossible to take decisive action before the terrorists either reached their targets or reacted to the pursuit of military aircraft.\\\

The hijackers took control of four commercial flights which had taken off from the Eastern United States, bound for California. Their general procedure was to produce small knives or box cutters which they'd smuggled on their persons, subdue the other passengers with the help of mace or pepper spray, take over the cockpit, and announce something to the effect of, "We have a bomb. Do not resist, and nobody will get hurt." The hijacker pilots turned off the transponders, causing air traffic control to lose track of the planes. Interception was unlikely even after the first plane hit: the air traffic controllers, unsure of whether the hijackings were real or an elaborate hoax, took too long to notify the Air Force; the Air Force bases were too far away for their fighters to make it in time; and without their transponders to locate them, the hijacked planes had disappeared into a big sky full of other planes, as if they were needles in a haystack. Even if the planes were found and intercepted, the possibility of them being able to do anything was somewhat of a moot point; the amount of hoops it would have taken to authorize arming a plane with live ordinance over the continental United States, let alone authorizing the shootdown of a civilian airliner and the knowing deaths of all innocents associated would have made it practically impossible to do before the terrorists either reached their targets or reacted to the pursuit of military aircraft.\\\

The hijackers took control of four commercial flights which had taken off from the Eastern United States, bound for California. Their general procedure was to produce small knives or box cutters which they'd smuggled on their persons, subdue the other passengers with the help of mace or pepper spray, take over the cockpit, and announce something to the effect of, "We have a bomb. Do not resist, and nobody will get hurt." The hijacker pilots turned off the transponders, causing air traffic control to lose track of the planes. Interception was unlikely even after the first plane hit: the air traffic controllers, unsure of whether the hijackings were real or an elaborate hoax, took too long to notify the Air Force; the Air Force bases were too far away for their fighters to make it in time; and without their transponders to locate them, the hijacked planes had disappeared into a big sky full of other planes, as if they were needles in a haystack.\\\

In less than two hours, the world was changed forever. 2,973 people (not including the 19 hijackers) were killed directly as a result of the attack[[note]]many more if you consider the impact of the clean-up conditions on the health of the workers[[/note]] and one of America's greatest symbols was destroyed. The psychological impact of 9/11 around the world cannot be overstated.\\\

[[caption-width-right:350:And that's why the US needs to have a better military and security.]]

** Iraqi President UsefulNotes/SaddamHussein was a prominent antagonist on the series for years, to the point of being one of the first characters to have an ongoing personal arc. Notably, his first appearance as a villain was back in 1998, decades into his controversial presidency, but before the actual start of the War. When he dies, he goes to Hell and gets involved in a romantically abusive entanglement with Satan, [[BigDamnMovie wherein they conspire to take over the world]]. The latter cuts it off and kills him, but he comes back[[note]]Where else was he gonna go? Detroit?[[/note]] and continued to manipulate the healing Satan, at which point he punishes him [[FateWorseThanDeath by sending to him Heaven]]. By the time the War started in RealLife, his subsequent appearances fall closer in line with real conflicts, like his apparently building weapons of mass destruction or his capture by the Canadian government.

** In the second episode, we have a scene where Dinah Madani and Sam Stein converse about the War on Terror and its affect on people of Middle-Eastern descent, like Dinah herself. Even more importantly, they're having this conversation while walking around the reflecting pools at the 9/11 Memorial.

* ''Series/PowerRangersWildForce'', which began principal photography a few months after 9/11, uses the slogan "united we roar". It's a fairly likely reference to the slogan "united we stand", which became a popular symbol of solidarity after the attacks. (It should ne noted [[Series/PowerRangersTimeForce the previous season]] had to be [[EditedForSyndication hastily edited]] [[TooSoon because of 9/11]], especially awkward given the BigBad, Ransik, was outright called a terrorist.)

* ''Film/ThreeHundred'' sparked an enormous amount of controversy from all corners of politics on release because of its plot involving asymmetrical warfare, swarthy Mediterraneans, Freedom,™ extremely stylized history, and even disagreement about its [[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotSymbolic real subject matter]] between co-creators. Not least of its problems is that some people are still very fussy about the historical figures it portrays, and Greece and Turkey are still going at it.

* In ''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfKorra'', Tarrlok's treatment of non-benders is similar to this, as he at one point issues a curfew forcing the non-benders to remain in their houses, under the justification that any one of them coulld be working for the Equalists.

[[caption-width-right:350:Tuesday, September 11, 2001; the end of the familiar.]]

--------

Despite this, the Bush administration started to drum up domestic support for an invasion, leading the majority of Americans to believe that Saddam had Weapons of Mass Destruction ([=WMDs=]). In October of 2002, Congress authorized the use of military action against Iraq. The Secretary of State, Collin Powell, gave a speech to the UN showing the evidence for [=WMDs=] in Iraq and Saddam's ties to Al Qaeda, both of which were later discovered to be lies, based on an unreliable asset of the CIA.\\\

Meanwhile, in the year 2000, the USS ''Cole'' was attacked while refueling in Aden, UsefulNotes/{{Yemen}}. A group of insurgents had sailed up next to the ship and planted C4, causing an explosion that killed 17 American sailors. The attack really put Al Qaeda on the radar, both for Americans and for many Sunni Muslim radicals, who saw it as dealing a great blow towards Western imperialism. Meanwhile, in the summer of 2001, the terrorist cells in American began taking transcontinental flights, in order to understand the procedures of the flight attendants and determine when would be the opportune moment to strike. As summer started winding down, they moved towards their start positions in Boston, Newark, and Dulles.\\\

The attack would have major consequences for Americans domestically, as it led to a massive expansion of government power, particularly in surveillance. Hate crimes against American Muslims also increased, and other groups such as Sikhs, Hindus, and non-Muslim brown people were affected, up to, and including, being murdered,[[note]]One example being Balbir Singh Sodhi[[/note]] due to their resemblance to stereotypes of Muslims. To this day, the social and political ramifications of the attack are still being felt.

* ''Literature/FamilyTreeSeries'': 9/11 occurs during Georgie's fifth day of first grade, shaking up her school day. Her father works in NYC; her grandmother, aunt, and uncle live there; and her best friend and next door neighbor Leslie Jordan's father works in the Twin Towers. Everyone in Georgie's family is okay but Francie, who still hasn't faced her own paranoia, insists that they move the whole family to Maine rather than stay in Princeton. [[spoiler:Leslie's father dies, and Leslie's family moves away in June to Colorado before Georgie moves to Maine.]]