The Events That Led to the 9/11 Crisis in the United States

It is hard to forget the events that took place on September 11, 2001 that shook the United States to its core. Ever since 9/11 happened, the U.S. has gone after the one person who orchestrated and financed the terrorist attack, Osama Bin Laden. The United States also wanted to capture Saddam Hussein, the dictator of Iraq who was also partially responsible for the 9/11 attack. In doing so the U.S. accidentally caused the Iraqi government to fall apart making it necessary to help rebuild it. The United States had a reason and purpose to go to Iraq 7 years ago, but those reasons no longer apply. The United States needed to go to Iraq because our national security was at risk, but now the Iraq war is no longer necessary.

After 9/11 happened in 2001, and the foreign policy of the United States was changing, the Iraq War seemed like a good idea. When the United States’ national security was broken by the terrorist attack of 9/11, everything was at stake. We, as a country, had to rebuild our national security to guarantee nothing like that would ever happen again. To live with the fear that something like 9/11 could happen on any normal day, as it did back in 2001, is one of the worst feelings you could live with. Americans went on living without knowing whether their next day was their last, or the next plane they got one would be overthrown by terrorists. We could not live in peace as a country if we did not do something to prevent another attack as well as put the American people at ease.

Saddam Hussein was the dictator of Iraq for more than 20 years. He was also partially responsible for the 9/11 terrorist attack on our country. For these reasons, the U.S. wanted Hussein captured. Hussein needed to be captured because of his violent tactics of power and connections to Al Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden. Saddam knew of what he did and knew that U.S. forces were after him. When U.S. forces captured Hussein, he was hiding, “in an underground hideout on a farm near his hometown, Tikrit.”

Now that the U.S. has captured Saddam Hussein and killed him in 2006, why are our troops still in Iraq? In our efforts to fight for our national security and kill the men responsible for 9/11, the U.S. did something we never intended to do. We destroyed the Iraqi government. In capturing and killing Saddam Hussein, the U.S. caused the Iraqi government to crumble. It is only fair that “our objective… be to build stable, legitimate states whose own citizens will not seek to destroy [their government]. States that… allow the possibility of changing policy by democratic means,” and that aren’t run by a dictatorship (Feldman, 8). After all, it is in America’s best interest that we try to establish democratic governments around the world so that we don’t have a repeat of the Cold War.

The Cold War was a fight against “the domino effect” of communism spreading throughout countries in the eastern hemisphere. The Iraq War is basically doing the same thing by building a stable government in Iraq so that no dictator can try to take over other countries or even thrive for more power. Our goal is to preserve the future of our nation as well as nation’s around the world. And “the best route to self-preservation,” whether it be America or Iraq, “lies in the creation of states that respect individual liberties, both political and civil” because no government would survive without the simple principles that build the concept of a democracy (Feldman, 8). Democracy is a set of principles and practices set up to protect human freedom. This form of government is the only way to be fair to include all citizens, specifically through elections of positions of power. The reason why it is our responsibility to rebuild the Iraqi government is because we caused the government to fall by killing its dictator, Saddam Hussein. By killing him, the U.S. created a collapse in the entire government when all they wanted was to capture their leader. Now, we have an obligation to stay their further to construct a stable government that the people of Iraq can depend on.

Cite this page