Effects Of George Bush Bullhorn Speech

On September 9, 2001 the World Trade Center in New York City was struck by two hijacked airplanes. There were two other planes that had been hijacked by al- Qaeda terrorists, all with the intent of suicide attacks. One of the planes was flown into the Pentagon in Washington D.C., while the other crashed in a field in Pennsylvania. It was the biggest terrorist attack the United States had ever experienced with over 3,000 combined casualties. These attacks produced profound and durable changes that were felt throughout the country as well as the world. It caused George W. Bush, the president at the time, to officially start the War on Terror, and led to increased security and paranoia surrounding airports and Middle Eastern countries and citizens.
In a visit to the rubble of the World Trade Center, George Bush picks up a bullhorn and gives a speech to a crowd of rescue workers, in which he says: “I can hear you, the rest of world hears you, and the people who brought these buildings down will hear all of us soon” (Bush Bullhorn Speech). In this he vows to bring on a War on Terror, an act of revenge that would do more harm than good. While this two minute speech was exactly what the American people needed in that moment, “The US public mood at the time was understandably full of anger and vengeance as well as shock and disbelief, it also [reflected] badly on US society that voices for more measured and appropriately calculated responses could be drowned out” (Sha). People were angry and scared and wanted something to be done and a war seemed like the plausible thing to do. But the war was not successful. Thousands of Middle Eastern civilians were killed during the war, and no American seemed to care. It was eventually a war that neither side would win, when it ended thirteen years later with president Obama calling U.S. troops from the Middle
While 9/11 prompted the War on Terror, it also was the start of increased racism and discrimination of Muslims and those from Middle Eastern descent. Ever since then, Muslims had been unfairly stereotyped as radical Islamists and terrorists. This issue was magnified during the 2016 election season when Donald Trump showed open racism towards Muslims, and even more recently with the passage of the travel ban of Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen. This shows how the effects from the War on Terror were durable. Racism stemming from the War on Terror has affected thousands of American Muslims and Middle Eastern Muslims and citizens, and the fact that the War on Terror took place over seas and affected so many people makes it more historically significant for the world than any other effect of the 9/11 attacks or even the attacks