After the September eleven attacks, the United States has suffered gravely the consequences of this terrorist act. These consequences can be divided into tree main scenarios: the change in national security measures, the political party change inside of Congress, and the support for republican aims. From these three scenarios we can analyze the important effects that the terrorist attacks have had internally in the United States.

The national security measures have been invigorated due to their failure in 9-11. The government has implemented a color code which is made public everyday. Inside this code the risks to the national security are measured according to the probability of a terrorist attack happening. Furthermore, the borders have been reinforced, making it even more difficult for trade to happen and thus reducing the immigration quotas.

Before the terrorist attacks, President Bush had been negotiating an immigration agreement with Mexican president Vicente Fox, in which two million undocumented Mexicans in the US would be given legal status. Bush found the immigration reform as an opportunity to gain support or legitimation from the Latino community in the United States. Even Collin Powell and Attorney General Ashcroft, had recommended this program. All negotiations were halted with the attacks and the immigration quotas from all countries have been reduced significantly, by more than 20% from 2000 to 2001. It is not clear how these attacks will have a long term effect on immigration policies, but for the moment there are none.

Another important change has been the new role taken by the government to protect the national security. With this role the US government has given itself the power to infiltrate people’s lives and look for any terrorist links. This infiltration includes the tapping of phone lines, the access to personal email, among others. This measure truly violates the rights of citizens. Another violation of rights has taken place inside the Middle Eastern community.

This violation is reflected by the American government’s initiative to register adult males residing in the US. This registration makes it mandatory for all Middle Eastern males, from a list of countries, to register with Immigration and Naturalization Services, because they are considered to pose a risk to the nation. <1> During this process of registration, many men have been detained. After this happened, civil rights groups are supervising the registrations in order to prevent any violation from happening. This is necessary because the list of countries has been expanded.

Even more dramatically has been the numerous detentions of Middle Eastern men, who have been held by the police with no apparent reason. Many have been denied the most basic rights during their “proceedings.” Guantanamo Bay in Cuba is an exceptional case in which many possible terrorists are held without any basic rights. These men are held against their will without formal charges and the accessibility to a lawyer. In the US there have been legislation and budget reforms in order to continue to arrest people all over the world who are suspected of being involved in terrorist links. Some of these reforms include the freezing of bank accounts suspected to be used by terrorists.

After the 9-11 the United States faces new challenges in terms of defense. <2> One of the driving fears that the Bush administration has alleged as justifications to fight a war on terror is the likelihood that massive destruction weapons are produced or may fall in hands of fundamentalist and anti-American regimes. Although, so far this has proved to be wrong, as shown with the Iraqi case, US indeed has proven to be vulnerable at home; thus, the reasoning is that the least threat the country faces the better. As George Quester states : “If one is going to reinforce the back door, does this suggest that the front door should not be made as strong as possible?” Meaning that, although worldwide the US is aiming to overthrow and change pro-terrorist governments there is also a need to do some work at home; such as: identifying weak spots and developing counteraction methods against terrorist groups; investing on new home security armament and forces, meaning higher tax polices; a tighter control on financial institutions in order to detect money flows from illegal activities to terrorist organizations; <3> maintaining a closer surveillance of terrorist cells and seeking to infiltrate agents; probably keeping a more accurate track on immigrants and suspicious citizens; and other considerations possibly regarding civil liberties as it is discussed on chapter “9-11 Social Consequences. Liberty to be. New civic compromise” , among others. These are just some of the considerations that are needed to be taken in account for achieving a successful outcome in the fight against terror, the task is not a minor given the fact that in nearly 60 countries worldwide there are terrorist groups operating. <4>

Nevertheless, increase in security measures both domestically and abroad, are according to some authors an invitation for terrorist groups to escalate the attacks, even if these acts will tend to be less frequent, the causalities and effects will be intended to be greater than they have been in the past.

All these preventive security acts we have seen reflect “The New McCarthyism” according to Professor David Cole. He says that the government has “substituted administrative processes for criminal justice to make it easier to round up suspects, and to ignore the protections the Constitution affords criminal defendants”. <5>

The political change inside of Congress and the support for republican aims are related. First during the 2003 elections, the GOP (the Grand Old Party or Republicans) took control of both chambers of Congress. This is very significant because the executive and the legislative are controlled by the same party. This significant structural change is due to the republican election campaign.

The Democrats (Dems) lost public support because they seemed more indecisive when it came the time to make significant decisions. The Dems decided to focus their campaign in the need to better the economy and the criticism of republican’s policies during the last years. Meanwhile the Republicans continued with a campaign that reflected the new and the traditional. The new was the pressure to continue to fight the war on terrorism, while the traditional was the well-known republican tax cuts. <6>

This change is very important because it reflects the rise of a conservative wave sponsored by the republicans. Furthermore this change is in part due to the role of the mass media, especially news channels. During this elections right-wing news makers increased their audience, that being the case of Fox News Channel. This Murdoch owned channel recently became the most viewed news channel inside the United States. This is very significant because it means that people are tuning in to media that blatantly supports most of the republican’s actions and criticizes all of the democrat’s policies.

With this change we will soon see how the republican’s policies are taken into effect, as well as the president’s aims. In order to see a different political wave we will have to wait and see the outcome of the upcoming presidential elections in 2004, in which the democrats can regain their position or the republicans can strengthen it. It is necessary to keep in mind that without the terrorist attacks, the Bush administration wouldn’t have gained so much support and the republicans would have had a harder time in winning the elections.

Notes:

<1> Cfr. Nagourney, Adam, “Bush´s support strong despite tax cut”, CNN.COM, May 9, 2003. (www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/fedagencies/jan/jun02/eye_5-30.html)

<2> Along with these change within US objective there are some authors that state that US likelihood to loose restriction of the use of military force is likely to occur. (Mandelbaum, Michael. Op. Cit., p. 273)

<3> The above-mentioned governments have developed an investor-perpetrator relationship with terrorist groups in which they both finance or allow terrorist groups to be benefited from incomes form arms sales or especially drug trafficking. (Cfr. Lebistone, Marvin. “Terrorism an & countering terrorism, year 2002”. Bonn: Military Technology, Vol. 26, December 2002).

<4> Lebistone, Marvin, Op. Cit.

<5> Cfr. Dean, John W, “Hearing transcripts invaluable after charges of 'new McCarthyism'”, CNN.COM, May 9, 2003.(www.cnn.com/2003/LAW/05/09/findlaw.analysis.dena.mccarthy/index.html)

<6> Cfr. Nagourney, Adam. “Bush’s support strong despite tax cut.” CNN.COM, May 9, 2003. (www.cnn.com/2003/US/05/14/nyt.nagourneey/index.html)