9/11 Case Study

Hanyue Luo

Paper 3

Rhet105

Instructor: Mary Lindsey

April 3rd, 2011

9/11, this three-number combination has been known more than the emergency call number since 2001. On the morning of September 11th, 2001, terrorists hijacked four airplanes which later hit the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington D.C.. This tragedy has directly led to the war between the United States and Afghanistan, a country in Middle East whose regime the government of U.S. thinks is responsible for the 911 event, as well as the war in Iraq. Initiated by former President George W. Bush, the Afghanistan war announced the beginning of worldwide war on terror. And the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are still ongoing now. However, people hold different views on the righteousness of the wars. The author of “Reflections on Foreign Policy: 9/11 and the War on Terror” and the author of another article in Wall Street Journal “the 9/11 Presidency” both illustrate the unpleasant influence resulted in the Mideast area. However, while the author of the first article holds the opinion that the foreign policy is a total mistake because there is no clear evidence linking the 9/11 attack to Middle East, the author of the second article has focused on the bright side of President Bush’s policy. He believes that the U.S. is doing the right thing fighting for terrorism, and that thanks to Mr.Bush’s post-9/11 willingness to act decisively and at the risk of his own popularity, Americans are safer today than on September 10,2001.

The main reason the two author have contradiction is because they disagree on the purpose of the change of policy. The first author thinks that it is unfair to launch wars when no sufficient evidence exists. Therefore the war in the Middle East is likely to be a