Download The Cold War Part II and Beyond (from Digital History Hypertext) A

The Cold War Part II and Beyond (from Digital
History Hypertext)
A New American Role in the World
In his inaugural address in 1961, John Kennedy stated that America would "pay any price,
bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, or oppose any foe to assure the
survival and the success of liberty." But by 1973, in the wake of the Vietnam War, American
foreign policymakers regarded Kennedy's stirring pledge as unrealistic. The Vietnam War
offered a lesson about the limits of American power. It underscored the need to distinguish
between vital national interests and peripheral interests and to balance America's military
commitments with its available resources. Above all, the Vietnam War appeared to illustrate
the dangers of obsessive anti-communism. Such a policy failed to recognize that the world
was becoming more complex, that power blocs were shifting, and that the interests of
Communist countries and the United States could sometimes overlap. Too often, American
policy seemed to have driven nationalists and reformers into Communist hands and to have
led the United States to support corrupt, unpopular, authoritarian regimes. The great
challenge facing American foreign policymakers was how to preserve the nation's
international prestige and influence in the face of declining defense budgets and mounting
congressional opposition to direct overseas intervention.
Détente
As president, Richard Nixon radically redefined America's relationship with its two foremost
adversaries, China and the Soviet Union. In a remarkable turnabout from his record of
staunch anti-communism, Nixon opened relations with China and began strategic arms
limitation talks with the Soviet Union. The goal of détente (the easing of tensions between
nations) was to continue to resist and deter Soviet adventurism while striving for "more
constructive relations" with the Communist world.
Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger believed that it was necessary to curb the arms race,
improve great-power relationships, and learn to coexist with Communist regimes. The Nixon
administration sought to use the Chinese and Soviet need for Western trade and technology
as a way to extract foreign policy concessions.
Recognizing that one of the legacies of Vietnam was reluctance on the part of the American
public to risk overseas interventions, Nixon and Kissinger also sought to build up regional
powers that shared American strategic interests, most notably China, Iran, and Saudi
Arabia.
By the late 1970s, an increasing number of Americans believed that the Soviet hard-liners
viewed détente as a mere tactic to lull the West into relaxing its vigilance. Soviet
Communist Party Chief Leonid Brezhnev reinforced this view, boasting of gains that his
country had made at the United States's expense--in Vietnam, Angola, Cambodia, Ethiopia,
and Laos.
An alarming Soviet arms buildup contributed to the sense that détente was not working. By
1975, the Soviet Union had 50 percent more intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) than
the United States, three times as many army personnel, three times as many attack
submarines, and four times as many tanks. The United States continued to have a powerful
strategic deterrent, holding a 9,000 to 3,200 advantage in deliverable nuclear bombs and
warheads. But the arms gap between the countries was narrowing.
Foreign Policy Triumphs
In the Middle East, President Carter achieved his greatest diplomatic success by negotiating
peace between Egypt and Israel. Since the founding of Israel in 1948, Egypt's foreign policy
had been built around destroying the Jewish state. In 1977, Anwar el-Sadat, the practical
and farsighted leader of Egypt, decided to seek peace with Israel. It was an act of rare
political courage, as Sadat risked alienating Egypt from the rest of the Arab world without a
firm commitment for a peace treaty with Israel.
Although both countries wanted peace, major obstacles had to be overcome. Sadat wanted
Israel to retreat from the West Bank of the Jordan River and from the Golan Heights (which
it had taken from Jordan in the 1967 war), to recognize the Palestine Liberation
Organization (PLO), to provide a homeland for the Palestinians, to relinquish its unilateral
hold on the city of Jerusalem, and to return the Sinai to Egypt. Such conditions were
unacceptable to Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, who refused to consider recognition
of the PLO or the return of the West Bank. By the end of 1977, Sadat's peace mission had
run aground.
Jimmy Carter broke the deadlock by inviting both men to Camp David, the presidential
retreat in Maryland, for face-to-face talks. For two weeks in September 1978, they
hammered out peace accords. Although several important issues were left unresolved,
Begin did agree to return the Sinai to Egypt. In return, Egypt promised to recognize Israel,
and as a result, became a staunch U.S. ally. For Carter it was a proud moment.
Unfortunately, the rest of the Arab Middle East denounced the Camp David accords, and in
1981, Sadat paid for his vision with his life when anti-Israeli Egyptian soldiers assassinated
him.
In 1978, Carter also pushed the Panama Canal Treaty through the Senate, which provided
for the return of the Canal Zone to Panama and improved the image of the United States in
Latin America. One year later, he extended diplomatic recognition to the People's Republic
of China. Carter's successes in the international arena, however, would soon be
overshadowed by the greatest challenge of his presidency--the Iran hostage crisis.
No Islands of Stability
Tragically, American foreign policy has historically supported many countries that hold
power through murder, torture, and other violations of human rights--practices that are an
affront to basic American values. During the presidency of Jimmy Carter, the United States
began to show a growing regard for the human rights practices of its allies. Carter was
convinced that American foreign policy should embody the country's basic moral beliefs. In
1977, Congress began to require reports on human rights conditions in countries receiving
American aid.
Iran has been one of the most frequently cited nations accused of practicing torture.
Estimates of the number of political prisoners in Iran ranged from 25,000 to 100,000. It was
widely believed that most of them had been tortured by SAVAK, the secret police.
Since the end of World War II, Iran had been a valuable friend of the United States in the
troubled Middle East. In 1953, the CIA had worked to ensure the power of the young shah,
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. During the next 25 years, the shah often repaid the debt. He
allowed the United States to establish electronic listening posts in Northern Iran along the
border of the Soviet Union, and during the 1973-1974 Arab oil embargo, he continued to
sell oil to the United States. The shah also bought arms from the United States, helping to
ease the American balance of payments problem. Few world leaders were more loyal to the
United States.
Like his predecessors, President Carter was willing to overlook the shah's violations of
human rights. Carter visited Iran in late December 1977 to demonstrate American support.
He applauded Iran as "an island of stability in one of the most troubled areas of the world"
and praised Mohammad Reza as a great leader who had won "the respect and the
admiration and love" of his people.
The shah was indeed popular among wealthy Iranians, but in the slums of Teheran and in
rural, poverty stricken villages, there was little respect, admiration, or love for his regime.
Led by a fundamentalist Islamic clergy and emboldened by want, the masses of Iranians
turned against the shah and his Westernization policies. In early fall of 1978, the
revolutionary surges in Iran gained force. The shah, who had once seemed so powerful and
secure, was paralyzed by indecision, alternating between ruthless suppression and attempts
to liberalize his regime. In Washington, Carter also vacillated, uncertain whether to stand
firmly behind the shah or to cut his losses and prepare to deal with a new government in
Iran.
In January 1979, the shah fled to Egypt. Exiled religious leader, Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini,
returned to Iran, preaching the doctrine that the United States was the "Great Satan"
behind the shah. Relations between the United States and the new Iranian government
were terrible, but Iranian officials warned that they would become infinitely worse if the
shah were granted asylum. Nevertheless, Carter permitted the shah to enter the United
States for treatment of lymphoma. The reaction in Iran was severe.
On November 4, 1979, Iranian supporters of Khomeini invaded the American embassy in
Teheran and captured 66 Americans, 13 of whom were freed several weeks later. The rest
were held hostage for 444 days and were the objects of intense political interest and media
coverage.
Carter was helpless. Because Iran was not a stable country in any recognizable sense, its
government was not susceptible to pressure. Iran's demands--the return of the shah to Iran
and the admission of U.S. guilt in supporting the shah--were unacceptable. Carter devoted
far too much attention to the almost insoluble problem. The hostages stayed in the public
spotlight, in part, because Carter kept them there.
Carter's foreign policy problems mounted in December 1979, when the Soviet Union sent
tanks into Afghanistan. In response, the Carter administration embargoed grain and hightechnology exports to the Soviet Union and boycotted the 1980 Olympics in Moscow (the
Soviet Union gradually withdrew its troops a decade later).
As public disapproval of the president's handling of the Iran crisis increased, some Carter
advisers advocated the use of force to free the hostages. At first Carter disagreed, but
eventually, he authorized a rescue attempt. It failed, and Carter's position became even
worse. Negotiations finally brought the hostages' release, but they also brought humiliation
to Carter. The hostages were held until minutes after Ronald Reagan, Carter's successor,
had taken the oath of office as president.
When Carter left office in January 1981, many Americans judged his presidency a failure.
Instead of being remembered for the good he accomplished for the Middle East at Camp
David, he was remembered for what he failed to accomplish. The Iranian hostage crisis had
become emblematic of the perception that America's role in the world had declined.
The Reagan Doctrine
During the early years of the Reagan presidency, Cold War tensions between the Soviet
Union and the United States intensified. Reagan entered office deeply suspicious of the
Soviet Union. Reagan described the Soviet Union as "an evil empire" and called for a spacebased missile defense system, derided by critics as "Star Wars."
Reagan and his advisers tended to view every regional conflict through a Cold War lens.
Nowhere was this truer than in the Western Hemisphere, where he was determined to
prevent Communist takeovers. In October 1983, Prime Minister Maurice Bishop of Grenada,
a small island nation in the Caribbean, was assassinated and a more radical Marxist
government took power. Afterwards, Soviet money and Cuban troops came to Grenada.
When they began constructing an airfield capable of landing large military aircraft, the
Reagan administration decided to remove the Communists and restore a pro-American
regime. On October 25, U.S. troops invaded Grenada, killed or captured 750 Cuban soldiers,
and established a new government. The invasion sent a clear message throughout the
region that the Reagan administration would not tolerate communism in its hemisphere.
In his 1985 state of the union address, President Reagan pledged his support for antiCommunist revolutions in what would become known as the "Reagan Doctrine." In
Afghanistan, the United States was already providing aid to anti-Soviet freedom fighters,
ultimately, helping to force Soviet troops to withdraw. It was in Nicaragua, however, that
the doctrine received its most controversial application.
In 1979, Nicaraguans revolted against the corrupt Somoza regime. A new junta took power
dominated by young Marxists known as Sandinistas. The Sandinistas insisted that they
favored free elections, non-alignment, and a mixed economy; but once in power, they
postponed elections, forced opposition leaders into exile, and turned to the Soviet bloc for
arms and advisers. For the Reagan administration, Nicaragua looked "like another Cuba," a
Communist state that threatened the security of its Central American neighbors.
In his first months in office, President Reagan approved covert training of anti-Sandinista
rebels (called "contras"). While the contras waged war on the Sandinistas from camps in
Honduras, the CIA provided assistance. In 1984, Congress ordered an end to all covert aid
to the contras.
The Reagan administration circumvented Congress by soliciting contributions for the contras
from private individuals and from foreign governments seeking U.S. favor. The president
also permitted the sale of arms to Iran, with profits diverted to the contras. The arms sale
and transfer of funds to the contras were handled surreptitiously through the CIA
intelligence network, apparently with the full support of CIA Director William Casey.
Exposure of the Iran-Contra affair in late 1986 provoked a major congressional
investigation. The scandal seriously weakened the influence of the president. The American
preoccupation with Nicaragua began to subside in 1987, after President Oscar Arias Sanches
of Costa Rica proposed a regional peace plan. In national elections in 1990, the Nicaraguan
opposition routed the Sandinistas, bringing an end to ten turbulent years of Sandinista rule.
A Remarkable Ideological Turnaround
In 1982, 75-year-old Soviet party leader Leonid Brezhnev died. Growing stagnation,
corruption, and a huge military buildup had marked his regime. Initially, the post-Brezhnev
era seemed to offer little change in U.S.-Soviet relations. KGB leader Yuri Andropov
succeeded Brezhnev, but died after only 15 months in power. Another Brezhnev loyalist,
Konstantin Chernenko, who died just a year later, replaced him. In 1985, Soviet party
leadership passed to Mikhail S. Gorbachev, a 54-year-old agricultural specialist with little
formal experience in foreign affairs. Gorbachev pledged to continue the policies of his
predecessors.
Within weeks, however, Gorbachev called for sweeping political liberalization (glasnost) and
economic reform (perestroika). He allowed wider freedom of press, assembly, travel, and
religion. He persuaded the Communist party leadership to end its monopoly on power;
created the Soviet Union's first working legislature; allowed the first nationwide competitive
elections in 1989; and freed hundreds of political prisoners. In an effort to boost the
sagging Soviet economy, he legalized small private business cooperatives, relaxed laws
prohibiting land ownership, and approved foreign investment within the Soviet Union.
In foreign affairs, Gorbachev completely reshaped world politics. He cut the Soviet defense
budget, withdrew Soviet troops from Afghanistan and Eastern Europe, allowed a unified
Germany to become a member of NATO, and agreed with the United States to destroy
short-range and medium-range nuclear weapons. Most dramatically, Gorbachev actively
promoted the democratization of former satellite nations in Eastern Europe. For his
accomplishments in defusing Cold War tensions, he was awarded the 1990 Nobel Peace
Prize.
The Collapse of Communism
For 40 years, Communist Party leaders in Eastern Europe had ruled confidently. Each year
their countries fell further behind the West; yet, they remained secure in the knowledge
that the Soviet Union, backed by the Red Army, would always send in the tanks when the
forces for change became too great. But they had not bargained on a liberal Soviet leader
like Mikhail Gorbachev.
As Gorbachev moved toward reform within the Soviet Union and détente with the West, he
pushed the conservative regimes of Eastern Europe outside his protective umbrella. By the
end of 1989, the Berlin Wall had been smashed. All across Eastern Europe, citizens took to
the streets, overthrowing 40 years of Communist rule. Like a series of falling dominos,
Communist parties in Poland, East Germany, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Romania, and
Bulgaria fell from power.
Gorbachev, who had wanted to reform communism, may not have anticipated the swift
swing toward democracy in Eastern Europe. Nor had he fully foreseen the impact that
democracy in Eastern Europe would have on the Soviet Union. By 1990, leaders of several
Soviet republics began to demand independence or greater autonomy within the Soviet
Union.
Gorbachev had to balance the growing demand for radical political change within the Soviet
Union with the demand by Communist hardliners. The hardliners demanded that he contain
the new democratic currents and turn back the clock. Faced with dangerous political
opposition from the right and the left and with economic failure throughout the Soviet
Union, Gorbachev tried to satisfy everyone and, in the process, satisfied no one.
In 1990, following the example of Eastern Europe, the three Baltic states of Lithuania,
Latvia, and Estonia announced their independence, and other Soviet republics demanded
greater sovereignty. Nine of the 15 Soviet republics agreed to sign a new union treaty,
granting far greater freedom and autonomy to individual republics. But in August 1991,
before the treaty could be signed, conservative Communists tried to oust Gorbachev in a
coup d'etat. Boris Yeltsin, the President of the Russian Republic, and his supporters defeated
the coup, undermining support for the Communist Party. Gorbachev fell from power. The
Soviet Union ended its existence in December 1991, when Russia and most other republics
formed the Commonwealth of Independent States.
The Persian Gulf War
At 2 a.m., August 2, 1990, some 80,000 Iraqi troops invaded and occupied Kuwait, a small,
oil-rich emirate on the Persian Gulf. This event touched off the first major international crisis
of the post-Cold War era. Iraq's leader, Saddam Hussein, justified the invasion on the
grounds that Kuwait, which he accused of intentionally depressing world oil prices, was a
historic part of Iraq.
Iraq's invasion caught the United States off guard. The Hussein regime was a brutal military
dictatorship that ruled by secret police and used poison gas against Iranians, Kurds, and
Shiite Muslims. During the 1970s and 1980s, the United States--and Britain, France, the
Soviet Union, and West Germany--sold Iraq an awesome arsenal that included missiles,
tanks, and the equipment needed to produce biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons.
During Baghdad's eight-year-long war with Iran, the United States, which opposed the
growth of Muslim fundamentalist extremism, tilted toward Iraq.
On August 6, 1990, President Bush dramatically declared, "This aggression will not stand."
With Iraqi forces poised near the Saudi Arabian border, the Bush administration dispatched
180,000 troops to protect the Saudi kingdom. In a sharp departure from American foreign
policy during the Reagan presidency, Bush also organized an international coalition against
Iraq. He convinced Turkey and Syria to close Iraqi oil pipelines, won Soviet support for an
arms embargo, and established a multi-national army to protect Saudi Arabia. In the United
Nations, the administration succeeded in persuading the Security Council to adopt a series
of resolutions condemning the Iraqi invasion, demanding restoration of the Kuwaiti
government, and imposing an economic blockade.
Bush's decision to resist Iraqi aggression reflected the president's assessment of vital
national interests. Iraq's invasion gave Saddam Hussein direct control over a significant
portion of the world's oil supply. It disrupted the Middle East balance of power and placed
Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf emirates in jeopardy. Iraq's 545,000-man army
threatened the security of such valuable U.S. allies as Egypt and Israel.
In November 1990, the crisis took a dramatic turn. President Bush doubled the size of
American forces deployed in the Persian Gulf, a sign that the administration was prepared to
eject Iraq from Kuwait by force. The president went to the United Nations for a resolution
permitting the use of force against Iraq if it did not withdraw by January 15, 1991. After a
heated debate, Congress also gave the president authority to wage war.
President Bush's decision to liberate Kuwait was an enormous political and military gamble.
The Iraqi army, the world's fourth largest, was equipped with Exocet missiles, top-of-theline Soviet T-72 tanks, and long-range artillery capable of firing nerve gas. But after a
month of allied bombing, the coalition forces had achieved air supremacy; had destroyed
thousands of Iraqi tanks and artillery pieces, supply routes and communications lines, and
command-and-control bunkers; plus, had limited Iraq's ability to produce nuclear, chemical,
and biological weapons. Iraqi troop morale suffered so badly under the bombing that an
estimated 30 percent of Baghdad's forces deserted before the ground campaign started.
The allied ground campaign relied on deception, mobility, and overwhelming air superiority
to defeat the larger Iraqi army. The allied strategy was to mislead the Iraqis into believing
that the allied attack would occur along the Kuwaiti coastline and Kuwait's border with Saudi
Arabia. Meanwhile, General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, American commander of the coalition
forces, shifted more than 300,000 American, British, and French troops into western Saudi
Arabia, allowing them to strike deep into Iraq. Only 100 hours after the ground campaign
started, the war ended. Saddam Hussein remained in power, but his ability to control events
in the region was dramatically curtailed. The Persian Gulf conflict was the most popular U.S.
war since World War II. It restored American confidence in its position as the world's sole
superpower and helped to exorcise the ghost of Vietnam that had haunted American foreign
policy debates for nearly two decades. The doubt, drift, and demoralization that began with
the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal appeared to have ended.
September 11, 2001
Osama bin Laden was born in 1957 to a Yemeni bricklayer. He was one of the youngest of
nearly fifty children. Bin Laden grew up in Saudi Arabia, where his father founded a
construction firm that would become the largest in the desert kingdom. He inherited millions
of dollars after his father’s death and graduated from one of the kingdom’s leading
universities with a degree in civil engineering.
In 1979, bin Laden left Saudi Arabia to assist Muslims in Afghanistan in expelling the Soviet
army, which was trying to support a communist government in the country by raising
money and recruits. During the mid-1980s, bin Laden built roads, tunnels, and bunkers in
Afghanistan.
Although the U.S. had helped him and his fellow warriors expel the Soviets from
Afghanistan, bin Laden would turn against the United States. He was furious about the
deployment of American troops in Saudi Arabia--the birthplace of the Prophet Muhammad
and home of the two holiest Muslim shrines--that had been sent to protect the oil-rich
kingdom from an Iraqi invasion. He was also angry about U.S. support for Israel and the
American role in enforcing an economic embargo against Iraq. His goal was to remove
American forces from his Saudi homeland, destroy the Jewish state in Israel, and defeat
pro-Western dictatorships around the Middle East.
By 1998, bin Laden had formed a terrorist network called Al-Qaeda, which in Arabic means
“the base.” He also provided training camps, financing, planning, recruitment, and other
support services for fighters seeking to strike at the United States.
American officials believe bin Laden's associates operate in over 40 countries--in Europe and
North America, as well as in the Middle East and Asia. U.S. government officials believe bin
Laden was involved in at least four major terrorist attacks against the United States’
interests prior to the September 11, 2001 attack: the 1993 World Trade Center bombing;
the 1996 killing of 19 U.S. soldiers in Saudi Arabia; the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in
Kenya and Tanzania; and the 2000 attack on the USS Cole at a port in Yemen, in which 17
U.S. sailors were killed.
Al-Qaeda viewed the U.S. responses to these attacks as half-hearted. In 1998, in retaliation
for the bombings of the U.S. embassies in Africa, American cruise missiles struck a network
of terrorist compounds in Afghanistan and a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan. The
pharmaceutical plant target was mistakenly believed to have been producing chemicals for
use in nerve gas.
The September 11th Attacks
On September 11th, hijackers turned commercial airlines into missiles and attacked key
symbols of American economic and military might. These hideous attacks leveled the World
Trade Center towers in New York, destroyed part of the Pentagon, and left Americans in a
mood similar to that which the country experienced after the devastating Japanese attack
on the American fleet at Pearl Harbor in 1941.
The succession of horrors began at 8:45 a.m., when American Airlines Flight 11, carrying 92
people from Boston to Los Angeles, crashed into the World Trade Center's north tower.
Eighteen minutes later, United Airlines Flight 175, carrying 65 people, also bound for Los
Angeles from Boston, struck the World Trade Center's south tower. At 9:40 a.m., American
Airlines Flight 77, flying from Washington, D.C., to Los Angeles and carrying 64 people
aboard, crashed into the Pentagon. At 10 a.m., United Airlines Flight 93, flying from
Newark, N.J., to San Francisco, crashed 80 miles southeast of Pittsburgh. Passengers
onboard the airliner, having heard about the attacks on New York and Washington, D.C.,
apparently stormed the airplane’s cockpit and prevented the hijackers from attacking the
nation’s capital.
Millions of television viewers watched in utter horror. At 9:50 a.m., the World Trade
Center's south tower collapsed. At 10:29 a.m., the World Trade Center's north tower also
collapsed.
More than 3,000 innocent civilians and rescue workers perished as a result of these acts of
terror. This was about the same number of Americans who died on June 6, 1944, during the
D-Day invasion of Nazi-occupied France. This was nearly as many as the 3,620 American-the largest number of Americans to die in combat on a single day--who died at the Civil War
battle of Antietam on September 17, 1862. More Americans died in two hours on September
11th than died in the War of 1812, the Spanish American War, or the Gulf War.
The U.S. Response
The U.S. response to the September 11th attacks was immediate and forceful. Over a
period of just three days, Congress voted to spend $40 billion for recovery. Then, like his
father in the period before the Persian Gulf War, George W. Bush organized an international
coalition against Al-Qaeda and the Taliban government in Afghanistan that supported it. He
persuaded Pakistan, which had been the main sponsor of Afghanistan’s Taliban government,
to support the United States diplomatically and logistically.
On October 7, 2001, in retaliation for the September 11th attacks, a U.S.-led coalition
launched an attack against targets in Afghanistan--the beginning of what President Bush
has promised would be a long campaign against terrorist groups and the states that support
them. The American strategy in Afghanistan involved using American air power and ground
targeting to support the Northern Alliance, the major indigenous force opposing the Taliban.
Later, U.S. and British forces coordinated ground operations against Al-Qaeda and the
Taliban.
Afghanistan's rugged terrain, extremes of weather extremes, and veteran guerilla-style
fighters presented a serious challenge to the American military. But the effective use of
laser-guided missiles, cluster bombs, 2,000-pound Daisy Cutter bombs, unmanned drones,
and U.S. and British Special Forces, in conjunction with indigenous Afghani forces,
succeeded in overthrowing the Taliban government. However, some members of Al-Qaeda
and the Taliban apparently escaped into isolated regions along the Afghanistan-Pakistan
border. Between 1,000 and 1,300 Afghani civilians were killed.
Civil Liberties and National Security: Trying to Strike a Balance
The war on terror has forced the nation to toughen its national security. Following the
horrifying events of September 11, 2001, more than 1,000 people, mainly Arab and Muslim
men suspected of having information about terrorism, were detained by the federal
government. These detainees were held without charges, and their names and whereabouts
were largely kept secret.
In the wake of the September 11th attacks, Congress enacted legislation that gave law
enforcement agencies broader authority to wiretap suspects and to monitor online
communication. Congress also expanded the government’s authority to detain or deport
aliens who associate with members of terrorist organizations. It also authorized greater
intelligence sharing among the FBI, the CIA, the Immigration and Naturalization Service,
and local law enforcement agencies.
President Bush responded to the attacks by proposing a cabinet-level Department of
Homeland Security. Homeland Security would help to prevent terrorist attacks within the
United States, reduce the country's vulnerability to terrorism, and minimize the damage and
recovery from attacks that do occur. The new department would be responsible for
promoting border security, responding to chemical, biological, and radiological attacks, and
utilizing information analysis.
Arab Americans and Muslim Americans
In the immediate aftermath of the September 11th attacks, some Americans directed their
anger at Arab Americans, Muslims, and South Asians. In a suburb in Phoenix, Arizona, an
Indian immigrant who practiced the Sikh faith was murdered in a hate crime. So, too, was a
Pakistani grocer in Dallas, Texas. In Irving, Texas, bullets were fired into an Islamic
community center. Some 300 protestors tried to storm a Chicago-area mosque. Near
Detroit, Michigan, an Islamic school had to close down because of daily bomb threats.
”Those who directed their anger against Arab Americans and Muslims should be ashamed,”
President Bush declared. "Muslim Americans make an incredibly valuable contribution to our
country," he said. "They need to be treated with respect." Today, there are approximately 3
million Arab Americans in the United States. About a third live in California, Michigan, and
New York.
Arab Americans belong to many different religions. While most are Muslims, many are
Catholics, Orthodox Christians, Jews, or Druze. Prominent political figures of Arab descent
include Ralph Nader, former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, and former Secretary
of Health and Human Services Donna Shalala.
According to a poll conducted by the Pew Memorial Trusts, approximately two-fifths of the
nation’s approximately 7 million Muslim Americans were born in the United States, with the
rest coming from 80 other countries. About 32 percent are South Asian, 26 percent are
Arab, 20 percent African American, 7 percent African, and 14 percent report some other
background. About a fifth are converts to Islam.
The Meaning of September 11th
The September 11th attacks dramatically altered the way the United States looked at itself
and the world. The attacks produced a surge of patriotism and national unity and pride.
However, the terrorist strikes also fostered a new sense of vulnerability.