The 9/11 terror attack that occurred in America remains memorable to many people in the world. Terrorism is termed an act of attack by a group of individuals to a particular society, with the main aim of threatening or rather causing a sense of fear to the target community.
The forms of attacks always have very great impacts to the targeted community, thus distorting every ongoing activity. Moreover, whenever a terrorist event occurs, it acts as an alert to the target community, as well as others, about their preparedness to counteract a disaster.
Hence, one or more lessons can easily be drawn from a former attack and it would be crucial to help counteract a future occurrence of another attack, or even assist in preparedness of the community for action during similar future attacks.
This discussion is aimed at investigating the 9/11 attacks’ occurrence. Additionally, it will help to establish some of the lessons that were learned from the terror attacks. It is also essential to note that the intelligence community that learned the lessons has taken and applied such lessons in other recent attacks, as well as other attempted attacks.
Therefore, it will be crucial to find out how the community has applied these lessons, to either prevent or counteract any other similar attacks and whether they have learned to relate well with one another, as well as whether they have succeeded in their endeavors (Wysong, 2007).
The 9/11 terror attacks
The great and massive attacks by terrorists who targeted the world trade center occurred in the morning of September 11 in the year 2001. The attack not only affected the Americans, but also, the whole world, causing a lot of fear. It was suspected to have taken the form of Al-Qaeda terrorist attacks in the sense that the Al-Qaeda group had not always been in good terms with the Americans.
The report of the investigations conducted by the Newborn research personnel (Griffin, 2009) indicated that there had been prior plans by the terrorist group on the procedure of attacking the United States, including her capital city.
The terrorists hijacked four passenger Jet airliners that were meant for commercial services and crashed them at various destinations; the first and second jets crashed on the north and south towers of the world trade center respectively, thee third crashed on pentagon house, and the fourth jet targeted the White House (Griffin, 2009).
According to Bodden (2007), the attacks remain fresh in the minds of many people, more so due to the fact that many lives were lost, which included civilians and military officials. Therefore, the 9/11 attacks left a legacy that all Americans have in mind up to date.
Moreover, several reasons were behind the attacks on the United States by the terrorists. One, the attackers were angered by the availability of the U.S military group in Saudi Arabia, which was a devastating factor to the Al-Qaeda. Again, the terrorists were against the support that the United States gave to the Israelites, thus plotted a conspiracy.
Moreover, the al-Qaeda was suspicious about America’s participation in the sanction against the Iraqis. Nevertheless, this terror attack played a major role since the Americans learned various lessons from which future prevention or counteraction ideas can be drawn (Bodden, 2007).
Lessons learned from the 9/11 terror attacks
The 9/11 attacks have taught the Americans, as well as all other people in the world vital lessons. A countless number of lessons can be outlined from the 9/11, but some of them have been deemed more crucial, since their implications can be used as sources of strategies for counteracting attacks.
First, the Americans learned that unity is strength. The nineteen hijackers from the Al-Qaeda group might seem too few to hijack four jets, but they possessed immense skills that allowed them to terrorize the whole state, leading to loss of many lives.
In addition, they were all united by a common spirit while attacking a country that had several states operating independently. Thus, the lesson learned in this event is that oneness or togetherness among states and citizens would be vital in order to counteract any future attack.
Secondly, they realized that security plays a major role in a country; in this case, tight security before the occurrence of the attack would have allowed the detection of the schemed attacks early enough.
Security would be ensured in terms of personnel as well as other security devices that would detect any passenger holding an illegal firearm in the planes (Wysong, 2007).
Moreover, according to Posner (2005), Americans learned that massive immigration with no set strict policies would also be a source of such troubles, since the attackers must have come into the country peacefully to fulfill their motives.
Furthermore, communication is very important among people living together, since it is easier for people to make alerts early enough. Therefore, embracing modern and advanced communication technology is vital for security of the country, more so when such technology is accessible to all people.
More important, they realized that offices or administration blocks of a particular institution should not be centralized, instead, they should be separated and housed in different locations; this is after realizing that some organizations were left without any references after the collapse of the trade centre (Posner, 2005).
Application of the lessons from 9/11 to the recent terror attacks by the intelligence community
Due to the implications of the 9/11 terror attack, the intelligence community has taken the lessons learned from it seriously, and embarked on utilizing them in the recent attacks successfully.
The result of this is the detection of various attempted attacks and thwarting them before they actually happen, thus the reason why America has not experienced another terrible attack.
The first step that was taken by the intelligence community entailed uniting all the United States communities regardless of their residence states. This was a crucial step to overcome internal conflict such that, if any state suspects the occurrence of an attack, it would inform the others and all would unite to overcome the threats (Dixon and Stern, 2004).
Secondly, since security is deemed as an important factor that can overcome a disaster, the intelligence is always very alert. Security is not only ensured by those in the military grounds but also by all citizens, wherever they are.
In other words, involvement of all people in security matters plays a crucial role in supplementing the structural security plans.
In the recent years, aircraft security has also been ensured, including the installation of new facilities that are able to detect any form of a weapon that the passengers are in possession of before they board the flights (Posner, 2005).
On the other hand, many states always support immigration from one country to another. Recently, tight policies that govern immigration have been put forward by the government in all states to discourage illegal immigration.
These policies involve ensuring that all immigrants have valid and legal documents, as well as ensuring that the immigrants have are approved by the state for the purpose of reference in the event an attach occurs. More so, the community embraced the idea of modern global communication.
In this case, communication structures and devices have been improved, a factor that has contributed to terrorists being detected even before they perform their mission.
There have been rampant cases whereby terrorists have been nabbed while attempting to make good their intentions, a sign of success by the intelligence community from the lessons learned from the 9/11 attacks.
Furthermore, the intelligence community has been offering advice to large companies, dissuading them from consolidating their administration blocks in one building for the sake of their security.
Thus, the intelligence community has been able to succeed in applying the lessons learned from the 9/11 attacks into the recent fight against terrorism, since no such a serious attack has been reported since the 9/11, only the attempted ones where terror victims have been seized but rescued successfully (Jet magazine 2003).
Conclusion
The occurrence of the 9/11 terror attacks is recorded in history as one that claimed the most lives and caused catastrophic damages. It shook the hearts of many people around the world. At the same time, it contributed to the intelligence community grasping a lot, thus looking for ways to counteract a future attack.
This is in addition to realizing the best structures that should be put in place for the sake of ensuring security to the people. Moreover, the lessons learned from the attacks have been successfully utilized in various recently attempted terrorist attacks. Thus, the 9/11 attack is one factor that has played a great role in the lives of the Americans (Jet magazine 2003).
References
Bodden, V. (2007). The 9/11 Terror Attacks. Minnesota: The Creative Company publishers.
Dixon, L. and Stern, R. (2004). Compensation for losses from the 9/11 attacks. CA: Rand Corporation publishers.
Griffin, D. (2009). The mysterious collapse of World Trade Center 7: why the final official report about 9/11 is unscientific and false. Massachusetts: Interlink Books publishers.
Jet magazine. (2003). The weekly source of African American political and entertainment news. Vol. 104, No. 14. Johnson Publishing Company.
Posner, R. (2005). Preventing surprise attacks: intelligence reform in the wake of 9/11. Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield publishers.
Wysong, J (2007). Eleven lessons learned from 9/11. Web.