Pearl Harbor and WWII VS. 9/11 and the War on Terror.
Death was inevitable as the air crafts descended from the clouds; both on December 7, 1941 and September 11, 2001 -leaving between 2,400 and 3,000 dead in each attack independently (History.com, 2011). Though there were similarities in the number of victims, the events were vastly different. While U.S. presence remained in greater Europe for three years and nine months before liberation occurred, the war on terror that began after the 9/11 attacks has continued for almost ten years and has shown minimal signs of withdrawal (Amarain, 2005). The United States was targeted for simply being American, but World War II was initiated in Germany by a charismatic dictator and helped boost the United States' devastated economy out of the Depression; whereas, the war that began in 2001 was initiated as a means of self-defense against a region that targeted the American people with little provocation and threw the economy into crisis. The United States' response to each attack, however, was pure vengeance.
World War I left Europe in a vulnerable state; the economic and political instability provided a vital platform for Adolf Hitler. The United States was involved in internal political turmoil as well as working to recover from the Depression which left them, for the most part, unimpressed by the situation in Europe. America did not enter World War II until December 8, 1941, a day after the Japanese warplanes bewildered the U.S. people in an attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii (History.com, 2011). The U.S. entry into the current war on terror occurred in a similar fashion after an extremist group known as Al-Qaeda also astounded the American people by absconding with four commercial airliners and successfully derailing them into three of their four intended targets. Though involvement in WWII was mainly an attempt to prevent Hitler from achieving his goals of world domination, the involvement of U.S. forces in the Middle East has ranged in purpose from hunting known Al-Qaeda leader, Osama Bin Laden, to controversies over control of natural resources. The largest contrast between WWII and U.S. presence in the Middle East is the point at which the United States entered each war. WWII had been in full swing for nearly three years before America's leader, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, lead the country to war. After the attacks of 9/11 America's leader, President George W. Bush, declared war on terrorism and initiated conflict in the Middle East.
Thought he political and economic ramifications of each war differed greatly, there were startling comparisons to be made. Steven Alan Carr, Ph.D. (2003) compared 9/11 survivors to those that survived the Nazi Concentration camps of the Holocaust by saying, "like those interned in concentration camps, Americans could not control what had happened to them, but they could control their response to it." Carr goes on to say that each tragedy is essentially independent and not reasonably comparable, "but they were tragedies of distinctly different meaning and magnitudes." The comparison is not between the number dead and the reaction that ensued, but between the impacts of the racially driven nature of the events. While Hitler was working to create the perfect race though, Al-Qaeda's goal was to destroy the American people.
WWII was a devastating war; however, the economy of the United States benefited and was able to recover dramatically from the Depression that had previously crippled a large percentage of American people. Economic response was, in fact, the most dramatically different aspect of the response to the individual attacks of Pearl Harbor and 9/11. After the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks the economy of the United States took a tailspin, having destroyed the Twin Towers of the World Trade Centers, which was the heart of the financial district of downtown Manhattan, NY, but was also home for numerous areas of national and international financial industry.
Each attack was, in some regard, politically motivated, but had vastly different effects on the United States economy. America was blindsided on each occasion by other countries or regions that sought to provoke what has been called, "The Sleeping Giant" (PBS.org, 2003). With on war stimulating the U.S. out of the most desolating economic crisis in the country's history and another catapulting America back into comparable financial devastation, the economic repercussions of war were startlingly different. Through everything the numbers are still startling: over 3,000 dead and 10,000 wounded in the 9/11 attacks, and 2,400 dead and 1,200 injured at Pearl Harbor (History.com, 2011). Each even, 9/11 and Pearl Harbor, will remain emblazoned on American hearts and minds as attacks with devastating death tolls and catastrophic repercussions of war.
Sources:
Amarain. (2005). One big difference between Pearl Harbor/WWII and 9/11.
http://www.lawschooldiscussion.org/index.php?topic=39664.0
History.com/9-11. (2009-2011). 9/11 Attacks.
http://www.history.com/topics/9-11-attacks
History.com/Pear-Harbor. (2009-2011). This Day in History - Dec 7, 1941: Pearl Harbor Bombed.
http://www.hisotry.com/this-day-in-history/pearl-harbor-bombed
History.com/WWII. (2011). World War II.
http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii
PBS.org. (2003). Pearl Harbor
http://www.pbs.org/perilousfight/battlefield/pearl_harbor/
Steven Alan Carr, Ph. D. (2002-2003). American Holocaust.
http://users.ipfw.edu/carr/writing/americanholocaust.htm
Tassava, C.J. (2010). The American Economy during World War II. Economic History Association
Retrieved from http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/tassava.WWII
