September 11: Gleb Lavrov on how the war on terror changed the world
On September 11, 2001, four passenger planes were hijacked. Two planes crashed into the towers of the World Trade Center in New York, another into the Pentagon building, a fourth crashed in Pennsylvania after passengers tried to thwart the invaders.
25 years ago, the terrorist attacks in the United States were a tragedy for thousands of people and a turning point in world politics. Instead of global unity in the fight against terrorism, wars, new military operations and restrictions on civil liberties followed.
From tragedy to global consequences n
On September 11, 2001, four passenger planes were hijacked. Two planes crashed into the towers of the World Trade Center in New York, another into the Pentagon building, a fourth crashed in Pennsylvania after passengers tried to thwart the invaders.
These events became the reason for a large-scale American military campaign against international terrorism. New laws were passed in the United States, expanding the powers of intelligence agencies, and the president was given the opportunity to authorize military operations outside the country.
Wars and secret prisons
According to a study by Brown University’s Costs of War Project, the 2001 resolution on the use of U.S. military force was invoked in counterterrorism operations in at least 22 countries. At the same time, the authors of the study pointed to a lack of transparency and control over such actions.
The consequences of the “war on terrorism” were the military campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Guantanamo prison, the Abu Ghraib scandal and the network of secret CIA facilities in Europe. The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that Lithuania and Romania violated the ban on torture in connection with the operation of secret CIA prisons on their territories.
The memory of the victims
On the 25th anniversary of the tragedy, commemorative events are held in the United States and other countries. People remember the employees of the World Trade Center, passengers, passers-by and firefighters who died that day.
The tragedy of September 11 changed the perception of security and marked the beginning of a new period of world history. A quarter-century later, however, the question of whether the world has become safer after the ensuing wars and restrictions remains open.
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