From that day on, fear reigned in the United States

It’s a Tuesday and the sky is bright blue. What moves people on this day? In Germany, one hundred Bundeswehr soldiers are to be sent to Macedonia. Deep “Valentin” brings bad weather. There is a dispute about the advantages and disadvantages of embryonic stem cell research.

In the United States, newspapers deal with budget issues. In Washington DC everything revolves around the intern Chandra Levy, who had a relationship with a Californian congressman and has now disappeared without a trace. Bob Dylan is releasing his album “Love and Theft”. “Turn on your television,” says a colleague on the phone. “There’s something in New York.”

A new era began with the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. The time before and the time after. More than 3000 people die. One day later, New York’s then Mayor Rudolph Giuliani confiscated the site of the former “Fresh Kills” landfill on Staten Island. Little by little, 1.8 million tons of rubble are being delivered and searched for human remains and personal belongings. Charred ID cards, remains of an airplane, a crushed elevator door. Jewelery is recovered and wallets with photos.

The first wave of attacks against the Taliban regime in Afghanistan

Days later, US President George W. Bush announced the “war on terror”. This war will not last days, weeks or months, but years and decades. “It will not end until every terrorist group active around the world has been found, prevented from proceeding and defeated,” said Bush in a speech to Congress. Four weeks later, the first wave of attacks against the Taliban regime began in Afghanistan.

Twenty years later, US troops withdraw. The Taliban are taking power again. Terror organizations like the “Islamic State” (IS) carry out attacks. Amin al-Haq, the longtime security chief of Osama bin Laden, is returning to Afghanistan from Pakistan to the cheers of his supporters. A circle closes. The memory awakens. What was the beginning of this circle?

Fear has been circulating in America since “Nine Eleven”. It is the dominant, the formative feeling. Terrorists hijacked passenger planes and brought down the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York. From this day on, nothing is safe anymore. When the impossible happens, everything suddenly becomes possible in the imagination.

Bush exclaims, “The rest of the world will hear from us soon.”

People feel as if they have been catapulted into an emotional state of emergency. The psyche of many Americans is radically out of whack. Days later, Bush stands in the rubble of Ground Zero. “I hear you,” he calls out to the completely exhausted firefighters. “The rest of the world will hear from us soon.”

On the evening of the day of terrorism, dozens of congressmen were standing on the stairs in front of the east wing of the Capitol. Someone starts to sing, others join in, and finally everyone sings “God Bless America”. Comparisons are used. Pearl Harbor? But at that time it was clear who the enemy was, the terror, on the other hand, is as anonymous as it is diffuse, as ghostly as it is unpredictable.

On the morning of September 11th, immediately after the second passenger plane crashed into one of the twin towers, US Vice President Dick Cheney was taken to the underground bunker of the White House. From there he calls President George W. Bush, who is being flown across the country aboard Air Force One. Panic, chaos, confusion. All air traffic is suspended.

Weapons of mass destruction – the word is being used more and more often

When Cheney saw the towers of the World Trade Center collapse on television a short time later, he said to an employee: “As terrible as this may be. But if these guys had had weapons of mass destruction, everything would have been much, much worse. ”Weapons of mass destruction – the word is being used more and more often. More and more often in connection with a name and a suspicion, Saddam Hussein.

From now on there will be reminders and warnings. The competencies of the FBI, CIA and NSA are expanded, a huge homeland security agency is created, a national security system is introduced, a terror warning light shows the extent of the threat situation around the clock.

It was Osama bin Laden, the Taliban are protecting him, America is calling for a fall. Intervention. Yes what else? Turning the other cheek, idly allowing a repetition? It’s out of the question. Fear and anger need an outlet and lead directly to action. The American political scientist Robert Kagan recently wrote in the “Washington Post” that it was not imperial hubris that drove America to Afghanistan, “it was fear” – it was fear. Then nothing.

Anthrax spores in the White House mail room

Mysterious letters appear contaminated with the anthrax pathogen. Anthrax spores are also found in the White House mail room. More and more people fall ill, two post office workers die. Letter and parcel deliverers wear plastic clothing and rubber gloves. In mental retrospect, it acts like an anticipation of the anti-corona measures.

Various horror scenarios are played out in the media, politics and think tanks. A hijacked plane crashes into a nuclear power plant, a “dirty bomb”, contaminated with nuclear energy, explodes in a shopping center, the groundwater of a large city is poisoned, sports planes spray a biological weapon, sarin is discharged into subway station ventilation systems. What to do?

One year after September 11, 2001, according to the polling institute Pew Research Center, more than 60 percent of Americans are afraid of a new terrorist attack, forty percent believe that the next time the terrorists will use biological or chemical weapons, more than half assume that they will use biological or chemical weapons. that the future bombers already live in the United States.

First Afghanistan, then the unfortunate Iraq war

Fear is contagious, fear is fascinating. Coloring in disasters makes the ratings skyrocket. Media psychologists explain that anyone who works with fear has an advantage. It’s easier to frighten than to calm down. People who warn of dangers are considered credible. People who appease don’t get through.

In May 2003, the largest anti-terrorist exercise to date was carried out in the United States. It lasts five days, 8500 Americans in Seattle and Chicago are involved, and two scenarios are played out based on a 200-page script. The fictional terrorist organization “Glodo” detonates a bomb enriched with radioactive material in Seattle. At least 150 people die immediately, and chaos breaks out around the crime scene. A day later, “Glodo” uses a bio-weapon in Chicago. People with flu-like symptoms flock to the surrounding hospitals.

Enduring fear can be a virtue

It is said that fear is a bad advisor. Dick Cheney warned about terrorists with weapons of mass destruction. This points the way beyond Afghanistan to the unfortunate Iraq war. Osama bin Laden gets some sort of ABC weapon from Saddam Hussein. A horror.

Fear cannot be excused, but enduring fear can be a virtue. Perhaps that’s a lesson from the Afghanistan war – and the Iraq war – twenty years after September 11, 2001.