VỤ tấn CÔNG KHỦNG bố 11 9 và tác ĐỘNG đối với NGÀNH lữ HÀNH và DU LỊCH tại mỹ

The September 11 terrorist attacks into the World Trade towers in New Yorkand the Pentagon in the U.S.. Many industries such as air travel, tourism,insurance, stock trading have had to e

1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 Statement of the problem and the rationale for the study

The United States of America is one of the leading powers in the world economy.However, this nation has been facing with the competition of another growingeconomy, China The economic position of the U.S is being undermined Theeconomic position is established over a long time and determined by many factors.Just before the lower status of the U.S economy, the world witnessed the destructiveterrorist attacks into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in the U.S in 2001.Therefore, the attacks in 2001 might have contributed to lower the U.S economystatus

The September 11 terrorist attacks into the World Trade towers in New Yorkand the Pentagon in the U.S were among the most outstanding events at thebeginning of the 21st century, which aroused an anxiety to the whole world Theseattacks are nowadays the typical events associated with terrorism Terrorism is amatter of politics, which not only concerns with a single country but also to the wholeworld Therefore, there needs to be more investigation into terrorism and the impacts

of the attacks in U.S., typical terrorist attacks Much research has been carried out onthe topic of terrorism and of the September 11 terrorist attacks as they are concerns of

not only the U.S but also the whole world There posed a question of what impacts

have these attacks had on the U.S economy

Before the attacks, US travel and tourism were one of the key components inthe U.S economy due to their contribution to the employment and GDP of the nation.The U.S was also a well known destination for its numerous tourist attractions andvarious magnificent landscapes Therefore, it is said that travel and tourism industriesare among the industries greatly affected by the attacks (Villarreal 2003, p.1) The fear

of terrorism may discourage tourists from visiting the U.S The link between theterrorist attacks and travel and tourism industries performance is, as a matter of fact, an

interesting topic This research is aimed to bring about a better understanding of thecauses of the attacks as well as the consequences on the travel and tourism industries

in the U.S With that purpose, the researcher is intrigued to conduct a study on thetopic “The September 11 terrorist attacks and their impacts on the U.S travel andtourism”

1.2 Aims and research questions

The thesis’s primary aim is to investigate terrorism and the U.S economydevelopment, restricted to the travel and tourism development in the U.S In otherwords, this research is intended to gain knowledge of the causes of the 9/11 terroristattacks and the impacts on travel and tourism development In brief, these objectiveswere specified in the following research questions

1.1 Why did the September 11 terrorist attacks happen?

1.2 What are the impacts of the September 11 terrorist attacks on the U.S traveland tourism?

1.3 Scope of the study

The terrorists attacks killed nearly 3,000 people including civilians, firefightersand policemen, destroyed two buildings of the World Trade Center, which causedanxiety and terror among public Many industries such as air travel, tourism,insurance, stock trading have had to encounter difficulty as the fear of flight resultedfrom the terrorist attacks exemplified in the 9/11 attacks The relation between the 9/11terrorist attacks and the status of the U.S economy is still a great concern of manypeople Due to limited time and limited subject for a bachelor thesis, the researchfocuses on the relation between the September 11th terrorist attacks and travel andtourism development, which plays an important part in contributing to the annual GDP

in the U.S through U.S domestic arrivals and international arrivals to the U.S TheSeptember 11th terrorist attacks’ impacts on the U.S travel and tourism will beexamined in terms of employment, output and arrivals after the attacks

1.4 Significance of the study

The completion of this research will be useful for different purposes First, itwill provide a closer look into the causes of the attacks from different viewpoints.Therefore, it will be useful for an appropriate public response to terrorist attacks.Second, the economic impacts of the terrorist attacks on travel and tourism industrieswill help to bring about better knowledge of travel and tourism’s vulnerability level toterrorist attacks Therefore, it also points out the importance to find appropriatemeasures to minimize the impacts and enhance the potential of U.S travel and tourism

by supporting the industries, encouraging travel and tourism and promote U.S traveland tourism abroad In addition, it also suggests that it is important to prevent terroristattacks and at the same time avoid creating obstacles to travel and tourism Finally, thisresearch will serve as a reference for researchers interested in studying the U.S traveland tourism or the terrorist attacks and their impacts in the field of Country Studies

1.5 Methodology

This research is carried out with secondary research method (also known asdesk research) The research will collect relevant data from various reliable sourcesincluding primary research, articles from reliable websites, magazines, books, journals

In the next step, the information achieved will be synthesized, analyzed, compared,contrasted and evaluated Then, the conclusion for each research question will bedrawn from the analysis of the researcher

1.6 Organization of the paper

1 Introduction (background of the study, research question/matter, research method,significance of the study, main contents of the study)

2 Chapter 1: Background

3 Chapter 2: The causes of the September 11th terrorist attacks

4 Chapter 3: The impacts on U.S travel and tourism industries

5 Conclusion

2 CHAPTER I: BACKGROUND

2.1 Terrorism

There have been many different definitions of terrorism, and it still seems to be

a concept of debate The difficulty in defining terrorism is because of the fact that noindividual or group voluntarily uses that word to describe themselves There aredifferent definitions from different viewpoints

According to Townshend (2002, p.3), the U.S defines terrorism as “thecalculated use or threat of violence to inculcate fear, intended to coerce or intimidategovernment or society” and the UK defines it as “the use or threat, for the purpose ofadvancing a political, religious or ideological course of action, of serious violenceagainst any person or property” Carlile (2007, p.9) said that Australia has a definition

of terrorism similar to that of the UK in the Security Legislation Amendment (Terrorism) Act 2002, in which terrorism is defined as “an action to advance a political, religious or ideological cause and with the intention of coercing the government or intimidating the public.” In the “Definition of terrorism” by Ruby

(2002), the author reviewed different definitions of terrorism Accordingly, since 1983,the U.S Department of State (2000, as cited in Ruby, 2002) has defined terrorism byTitle 22 of the United States Code, Section 2656f(d) Besides, in the first part of

Department’s Patterns of Global Terrorism, terrorism is defined as “politically

motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups orclandestine agents, usually intended to influence an audience.” Kaplan (1981, p.37)believed that terrorism aims at creating an extremely “fearful state of mind” This

fearful state aimed at an “audience” who may have no relationship to the victims.

Similarly, Oots (1990, p 145) stated that to “create extreme fear and/or inducing effects in a target audience larger than the immediate victims” is the purpose

anxiety-of terrorism According to Tiefenbrun (2003), “in December l999, the United NationsGeneral Assembly adopted by consensus the text of a draft of the InternationalConvention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism in which terrorism wasindirectly defined:

Criminal acts intended or calculated to provoke a state of terror in the generalpublic, a group of persons or particular persons for political purposes are in anycircumstances unjustifiable, whatever the considerations of a political,philosophical, ideological, racial, ethnic, religious or other nature, that may beinvoked to justify them (p.384)

It can be clearly seen that according to the U.N, the motivation or the causedoes not justify terrorism From the above definitions, the term terrorism can beunderstood as planned violent action that may be related to politics, religion, ideology

to cause terror and fear among the public

With a more critical view, Taylor (1988, cited in Ruby 2002) focused on threeperspectives used in determining whether or not an act is terrorism With the firstperspective, legal perspective, an act is considered terrorism only if it is illegal.However, the determination whether an act is terrorism under this perspective depends

on which government is interpreting Two governments, therefore, may view the sameincident differently As for moral perspective, an act is considered to be terrorism only

if it had no moral justification Jihad, for example, is done by some Middle Easternand Central Asian peoples against evil in the world Jihad literally means struggle oreffort The word Jihad is used by Muslims to describe three kinds of struggle: “Abeliever's internal struggle to live out the Muslim faith as well as possible”, “Thestruggle to build a good Muslim society” or “Holy war: the struggle to defend Islam,with force if necessary” Many Muslims believe that the main meaning of Jihad is thespiritual struggle, but the interpretation of Jihad as military struggle with many

references to Islamic writing can not be denied (Jihad 2009) The governments and

groups who engage in it believe that politically motivated violence againstnoncombatants in the name of Jihad is considered morally justified and not terrorism.The use of a legal or moral perspective in interpreting terrorism can result in differentviewpoints on the same act That is the reason why Osama Bin Laden and hisfollowers honored Jihads and never considered their action terrorism With thebehavioral perspective, terrorism is defined only by the behaviors involved, not thelaws or morality of those doing the defining From this perspective, the same

conclusions can be drawn as to whether or not a particular act is terrorism (Jihad2009; Ruby 2002, pp.9-14)

In conclusion, there is no universal definition of terrorism Each country ororganization has its own definition from its own perspective The act that is consideredterrorism by one country may not be considered terrorism by another country.However, the definition that is widely known is the one defined in U.S laws In thisresearch, the definition of the U.S Department of State will be referred to for theconcept terrorism

2.2 Travel and tourism in the U.S before 9/11

Wikerson (2003) has provided an overview of the U.S travel and tourism interms of measurement of travel and tourism, its importance and the historicalperformance until 2001 through the article named “Travel and Tourism: AnOverlooked Industry in the U.S and Tenth District”

The definition of travel and tourism used in this research is the one by theBureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), which is “the economic activity generated insidethe United States by ‘visitors’ of all types—for business and pleasure, by residents andnonresidents alike—and outside the United States by U.S residents” (Kass & Okubo

2000, p.8)

The measurement of tourism is done step by step as there is no specific industrycalled travel and tourism To measure travel and tourism’s importance, BEA needs todetermine which commodities visitors typically buy and the industries producing theseitems The BEA counts the share of output and employment in an industry for traveland tourism based on the products purchased by visitors In his article, Wikerson statesthat the basic measure of travel and tourism is in hotels, air travel, andamusement/recreation because of the very high contributions to travel and tourism.Other measures of travel and tourism activity may include restaurants, car rentalagencies, and public transit The basic measurement does not include these industriesbecause of their very small contribution to travel and tourism (Wikerson, 2003)

Travel and tourism is clearly an important industry in the United States.According to the BEA, total domestic tourism demand in 1997 was approximately

$408 billion, more than 70 percent of which was for leisure travel A study by GlobalInsight found that travel and tourism accounted for 4.0 percent of total output in thenation’s top 100 metropolitan areas in 2000 The estimates of Travel IndustryAssociation of America (TIA) show that travel expenditures in the United States were

$591 million in 2000 before falling to $555 million in 2001 (Wikerson 2003, p.48)

As regards employment, the basic travel and tourism industries accounted for3.6 percent of total U.S employment in 2000, up from 3.3 percent in 1990 Theseshares are similar to those in the BEA’s satellite accounts for 1997 (3.5 percent of totalemployment) and the Global Insight study (4.2 percent) Travel and tourism’s share ofemployment varies considerably across states The highest shares are found in Nevada(27.7 percent) and Hawaii (12.3 percent), while the lowest shares are in Alabama (1.8percent) and Arkansas (2.0 percent) (Wikerson 2003, p.49)

Travel and tourism has grown steadily over the last half of the 20th centuryexcept for some years as in Chart 1 During the economic recessions in the 1950s and1960s and the 1990-91 recession, travel and tourism output still grew faster than theoverall economy and kept rising However in 2001-2002, real output fell by more than5% in 2001, though real GDP and real per capita disposable income rose slightly Realtourism-related sales dropped by 2% in 2002 whereas national output and incomesincreased slightly according to the BEA’s travel and tourism satellite accounts(Wilkerson 2003) This may imply that some factors besides recession have impactedthe industry In this case, the suggested important factor is the 9/11 attacks on the U.S

In conclusion, the U.S travel and tourism industries have grown rather consistentlyover time before 2001

Chart 1 Annual real growth in the U.S Output(Wilkerson 2003, p.50)

2.3 Political Context regarding U.S policies in the Middle East

It is necessary to consider the political context with regards to the U.S policies

n the Middle East because the September 11th terrorist attacks on the U.S were carriedout by terrorists from the Middle East This fact posed a question of relation betweenthe attacks and the influence of the U.S policies in the Middle East There is noconsistent view of the U.S foreign policies in the Middle East from differentviewpoints

According to Dalacoura (2010, p.59), the democracy is an important aspect ofthe discussion about U.S foreign policies in the Middle East During the Cold War and

in the 1990s, the 3 most important objectives of the U.S was containing the SovietUnion, securing petroleum supplies and ensuring the survival of Israel The U.S.needed Israel as an ally in the region during the war against Soviet Union

According to Dalacoura (2010), when the Cold War ended, the two Bill Clintonadministrations (1993 – 2001) focused on democracy and human rights issues abroad

She stated that the Leahy Amendment to the Defense Appropriations Act (1998) andthe Religious Persecution Act (1998) were enacted with the purpose to ‘mainstream’human rights and democracy in US foreign policy Attention to women’s and laborrights and that democracy and development were interdependent were the cover of the

US approach Dalacoura (2010, p.60) interpreted “democratic peace theory” by the U.S with the meaning that “democratizing Arab regimes was seen as the means of

securing peace in the conflict-ridden region of the Middle East” She explained

“democratic peace theory” in more details: “Democratizing the Palestinian Authority

in particular would be a way of achieving peace with Israel and resolving the region’smost long-standing conflict” This means that the U.S needed to democratize Arabregimes, including Palestinian Authority to promote democracy However, Dalacoura(2010) said that the U.S prioritized stability, the oil supply and other economicinterests, not the democracy and human rights concerns Therefore, democracypromotion during this period remained limited from her perspective

From a different perspective, Sharp (2010) in his report “U.S ForeignAssistance to the Middle East: Historical Background, Recent Trends, and the FY2011Request” sees the U.S vital role of supporting Israel to gain peaceful relation,protecting petroleum supplies and fighting against terrorism In general, the U.S.presence at the Middle East is for democracy promotion

Prados (2001) in his report “Middle East: Attitudes toward the United States”shows that popular attitudes among Arabs and other Muslims in the Middle East wereunfavorable towards the United States In this region, the U.S globalization wasgenerally blamed for the region’s bad economic status The U.S society was perceived

by many as unfriendly to Islamic beliefs and values while many other MiddleEasterners were in favor of the democratic principles and economic opportunities ofthe United States The act of deploying armed forces in the Middle East, particularlySaudi Arabia (where Islam’s holiest cites are located), also created opposition TheU.S containment policies were attributed to continued sufferings of the Iraqi people

Besides, the U.S policy support of Israel has been considered being the main cause ofArab and Muslim resentment whereas the U.S believed that it has tried to solve theArab-Israeli conflict The U.S role in supporting regimes that are regarded asoppressive, corrupt, or un-Islamic cause Arabs and other Muslims to feel aversiontowards the U.S (Prados 2001)

It is difficult to say which opinion on the political context regarding U.S.foreign policies in the Middle East is true because different opinions stem fromdifferent perspectives The American civilians might not have paid much attention toU.S foreign policies in the U.S They might only have believed in what their leaderssaid and supported democracy promotion which their leaders said was limited in theMiddle East Therefore, they might encourage promoting human rights there and agreewith the U.S government Meanwhile, the followers and supporters of Osama BinLaden might trust in his ideology to release Muslims from plight, fight against enemiesincluding the U.S who were thought to impose misery on Muslims, supportunfavorable regimes and invade their holly sites Those who support Osama Bin Ladenmight have fallen so deep into religion conflicts and cultural clashes that they might beready to devote their lives for what they considered the freedom of their people Fromthe perspectives of the U.S leaders and Osama Bin Laden, they might have had otherreasons for the opposition to each other From a different perspective, the outsidersmight look at the economic side of the conflict, especially benefits from oil, andbelieve that all other viewpoints on the conflicts are just excuses

The supporters of economic conflict hypothesis may pose a question as to whatU.S gained from carrying military actions in the Middle East, and they may believethat if there was no benefit in carrying military actions there, the U.S would not havespent any money on military operations in the Middle East This hypothesisemphasizes the U.S interest in oil in the Middle East However, the hypotheses ofcultural and religion clashes all may be possible though cultural clashes can hardlylead to military attacks which can cause thousands of casualties The hypothesis of

religion clashes are more likely to cause wars or military actions especially in thecountries where rules of religion are also the political rules such as in Middle Eastcountries and the faithful there are believed to devote their lives for their belief Inbrief, these hypotheses are built from different perspectives There is hardly enoughevidence to say which are the truth and which are the excuses for the conflicts in theMiddle East Viewpoints based on religion conflicts and economic interest, however,are more possible to explain military operations than cultural clash approach to theconflicts in the Middle East

3 CHAPTER 2: THE CAUSES OF 9/11 TERRORIST ATTACKS

Happening in the U.S., targeting at the World Trade Tower and The Pentagon,the attacks left the questions to ponder why the target was the U.S The leader of AlQaeda, Osama Bin Laden and his followers are all Muslims It is intriguing to identifywhether there is any connection between Islam and the desperate attacks on U.S.targets That the attacks causing tremendous influence on mostly civilians throughonly a small number of participants has made it difficult to understand what the realcauses of this terrorist attacks are.

3.1 Place, time and participants

The terrorist attacks ended up in the area of the World Trade Towers, thePentagon and a field in Pennsylvania Comprising of 7 buildings, the World TradeCenter complex was located in Lower Manhattan, New York City, United States The

1 World Trade Center (also called the North Tower) and 2 World Trade Center (or theSouth Tower) were known as Twin Towers The other 5 buildings surrounding theTwin Towers were 3 World Trade Center, 4 World Trade Center, 5 World Trade Center,

6 World Trade Center and 7 World Trade Center The Twin Towers were the two tallestand most spacious buildings in the World Trade Center complex which had had theirconstruction completed at different time (table 1) (Fernandez 2002, p.7) About 35,000people and 430 companies had their office space in the Twin Towers and roughly70,000 commuters and tourists came there daily There were between 16,400 and18,000 people in the WTC complex at the time of the attacks on the Twins Tower

(FAQ about 9/11, 2012) The other attack target, the Pentagon, is the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense, located in Arlington County, Virginia (The 9/11 Commission Report 2004, p.1; The 9/11 Commission Report Executive Summary

2004, p.1)

Table 1 World Trade Center Buildings

(Fernandez 2002, p.7)

On the Tuesday morning of September the 11th 2001, four planes were hijacked

to carry out the attacks American Airlines Flight 11 from Boston, Massachusettsbound for Los Angeles, California and United Airlines Flight 175 also bound for LosAngeles from Boston crashed into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in NewYork City Within nearly two hours, the Twin Towers collapsed The other one,American Airlines Flight 77 bound for Los Angeles from Washington, D C wascrashed into the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia The fourth plane, United AirlinesFlight 93 flying toward San Francisco, California from Newark, New Jersey aiming at

Capitol, crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania (The 9/11 Commission Report 2004,

pp.32-33)

As reported in the 9/11 commission report, the attacks took place on themorning of September 11, 2001 At 8:46 an airliner carrying 10,000 gallons of jet fuelflied into the North Tower of the World Trade Center To continue, at 9:03, a secondairliner plowed into the South Tower The Twin Towers both collapsed when it wasnearly 10:30 At 9:37 of the same morning, the third airliner crashed into the westernside of the Pentagon At 10:03, the fourth airliner crashed in a field in Shanksville,Pennsylvania because it was forced to change direction by passengers as they knew

this was a hijack It had targeted at the United States Capitol or the White House (The 9/11 Commission Report 2004, pp.14-33; The 9/11 Commission Report Executive Summary 2004, p.1)

According to the 9/11 commission report, the participants or hijackers in theterrorist attacks were found to be 19 young male Arabs acting according to thecommand from headquarter in Afghanistan Mohamed Atta, an Egyptian pilot andhijacker, was the tactical leader of 9/11 attacks’ plot The hijackers were the members

of al Qaeda, a group whose leader was Usama Bin Ladin who was also called Usamabin Laden or Osama Bin Laden because there is no universal rule to transliterateArabic words and names into English Al Qaeda was an international Islamistextremist terrorist network formed to overthrow governments in the Middle East and

in the Muslim world in general, which do not strictly enforce political and social orderaccording to religion law The network was provided with sanctuary by the regime

Taliban, an Islamic group that ruled Afghanistan (FAQ about 9/11 2012; The 9/11 Commission Report 2004, pp.47- 436; The 9/11 Commission Report Executive Summary 2005, p.2)

The targeted objectives, WTC complex and the Pentagon are all symbols ofworld trade and economic globalization and the military superpower of the U.S Thetargets suggested that terrorists chose the WTC targets where tens of thousands ofpeople from hundreds of countries worked to attain wide-spread effects on U.S.citizens and warn other people all over the world Besides the attacks aimed at thePentagon suggested that the terrorists tried to fight against the U.S military power andtried to demonstrate that the U.S was by no means invulnerable to attacks fromoutside Therefore, it is not difficult to understand why the WTC complex and thePentagon were chosen to be the targets of the attacks

3.2 The human and material loss

The estimates of life losses varied between different times and different sourcesaround nearly 3000 life losses It is estimated that more than 2,600 people died at theWorld Trade Center; 125 people died at the Pentagon and 256 died on the four

hijacked planes (The 9/11 Commission Report executive summary 2004, p.2) The

number of human toll can hardly be exactly counted Thousands of bodies could not beidentified and others were not reported The following are the estimates of deaths fromdifferent sources and at various time periods

Table 2 Estimates of deaths from different sources

2,617 1/25/02 Death certificates at DOH Office of Vital Records

2,823 5/30/02 Wall Street Journal

2,775 9/03/02 Associated Press

(Who was Killed in the 9/11/01 Attack on New York City, 2007)

Not only civilians but hundreds of firefighters and police officers also were the

victims of the attacks on the World Trade Center complex According to USA TODAY,

479 of the people who died had their duty in public service including firefighters orpolice officers More specifically, 121 firefighters were estimated to die in the North

Tower when it collapsed by The Times (Who was Killed in the 9/11/01 Attack on New York City, 2007)

The direct material losses were estimated around over $20 billion Capitallosses in buildings and infrastructure was worth 21.6 $billion (Nanto, 2004, p.CRS-2).According to Grossi (2009, p.9), the property destroyed in and around the WTCcomplex was found to be worth $22.7 billion Bram et al (2009, cited in Blomberg &

Rose 2011, p.6) gave the same estimate for the place’s cleaning-up, the replacement ofdestroyed buildings’ in WTC and the repair of damaged infrastructures and buildings.According to Wray (2008, cited in Rose, 2011, p.6), the estimate “to replace thebuildings, infrastructure and other amenities" by the New York City’s Comptroller'sOffice was $22 billion These estimates only covered the expenditure for directmaterial loss, not including the cost for insurance and anti-terrorist initiatives.

The deaths of nearly 3,000 civilians including hundreds of public personnel andthe direct material losses up to around $22 billion proved the devastation of the attacksthat had never been seen in the U.S history That the WTC complex with hundreds ofcompanies and tens of thousands of people incurred high life losses also meantimpacts on trade In addition to the economic impacts, such high life losses mighthighly possible have left strong psychological impacts on firstly the victims’ familiesand relatives, then the U.S citizens and finally people in other parts of the world also.These impacts may also suggest the objectives that the terrorists targeted at

3.3 The causes of the attacks

The leader of the U.S explained the attacks quite different from that of theleader of the terrorists It is not easy to say which the real causes were People outsidefrom the attacks from another perspective may give other explanation for the attacks.There has not been universally agreed causes of the 9/11 terrorist attacks

3.3.1 The causes of the attacks according to the U.S leaders

No victim on September the 11th could imagine that they would be attacked bysuicide plane piloted by the Islamic extremist terrorists At this time, the U.S leadersneeded to reassure U.S citizens as soon as possible The cause of the attacks given atthat time was expressed through President George W Bush’s Speech to the Nationbefore a Joint Session of Congress on September the 20th in 2001 as follows:

Americans are asking, “Why do they hate us?” They hate what they see righthere in this chamber: a democratically elected government Their leaders are self-

appointed They hate our freedoms: our freedom of religion, our freedom ofspeech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other (Bush,

2001, cited in Davis & Silver, 2004, p.1)

These explanations are based on the differences between the U.S and the MiddleEast in politics, religion and values However, this answer is not persuasive enoughbecause it is difficult to imagine suicide attacks just because of the differences Thehatred for these differences between 2 faraway countries could hardly culminate insuicide attacks with sophisticated planning and huge finance support targeting at somany people There will be hardly any benefit in return for these attacks if the cause isthe hatred for differences only However, these differences can be a possible factorcontributing to these terrorist attacks President George W Bush gave this reason withthe purpose of reassuring the U.S citizens through a possible cause that could notaffect the image of U.S leaders and policies, and pointed out the differences inpolitics, religions and culture of the terrorists He might have thought of other motivesfor the attacks in his minds, the motives given by Osama Bin Laden or the real cause

of the attacks However, in the politics, it is not always better to tell the truth.Intelligence agencies are the proofs that certain political information must be keptconfidential for each country or there are certain political secrets that one country tries

to hide from other countries Whether President George W Bush knew the true causes

of the attacks or not, he needed to give a reason that relieved the public’s mind, avoidthe conflict between the government and the people as well as win the public’sresentment towards the terrorists

3.3.2 The causes of the attack according to Osama bin Laden

In contrast to the reason given by the U.S president at that time, Osama BinLaden in his statements did not mention the differences between his country and theU.S Instead, he emphasized the U.S position against the Palestine and the Muslims inPalestine, the U.S occupation of holy sites in the Middle East and support for Israel asthe causes of the attacks One of his warnings to retaliate the U.S was as follows:

Your position against Muslims in Palestine is despicable and disgraceful

America has no shame…We believe that the worst thieves in the world todayand the worst terrorists are the Americans Nothing could stop you exceptperhaps retaliation in kind We do not have to differentiate between military orcivilian As far as we are concerned, they are all targets, and this is what thefatwah says…The fatwah is general (comprehensive) and it includes all thosewho participate in, or help the Jewish occupiers in killing Muslims (Osama BinLaden 1998, cited in Berner, 2007a, p.77)

Osama Bin Laden also described the plight of the Muslims in Palestine as follows:

For over half a century, Muslims in Palestine have been slaughtered andassaulted and robbed of their honor and of their property Their houses havebeen blasted, their crops destroyed And the strange thing is that any act ontheir part to avenge themselves or to lift the injustice befalling them causesgreat agitation in the United Nations which hastens to call for an emergencymeeting only to convict the victim and to censure the wronged and thetyrannized whose children have been killed and whose crops have beendestroyed and whose farms have been pulverized (Osama Bin Laden, 1998, ascited in Berner, 2007a, p.71)

He stated that jihad against the U.S is carried in order to “liberate” Al-Aksa Mosqueand the Holy Ka'aba Islamic shrines, two holy sites in the Middle East He stated:

The International Islamic Front for Jihad against the U.S and Israel has issued acrystal-clear fatwa calling on the Islamic nation to carry on jihad aimed atliberating holy sites The nation of Muhammad has responded to this appeal Ifthe instigation for jihad against the Jews and the Americans in order to liberateAl-Aksa Mosque and the Holy Ka'aba Islamic shrines in the Middle East isconsidered a crime, then let history be a witness that I am a criminal (OsamaBin Laden, 1999, cited in Isaacs, 2006, p.74)

Osama Bin Laden also mentioned the purpose of continuing attacks on the U.S Hesaid these attacks would be carried until the U.S retreated from the Arabian Peninsulaand stopped supporting Israel

We swore that America wouldn't live in security until we live it truly inPalestine This showed the reality of America, which puts Israel's interest aboveits own people's interest America won't get out of this crisis until it gets out ofthe Arabian Peninsula, and until it stops its support of Israel (Osama BinLaden, 2001, cited in Berner, 2007b, p.80)

Osama Bin Laden accused the U.S leader of concealing the truth about the cause ofthe attacks from the U.S citizens and repeated the motives for the attacks which hesaid lied in the U.S policies in the Middle East as in the statements:

the Mujahideen saw the black gang of thugs in the White House hiding theTruth, and their stupid and foolish leader, who is elected and supported by hispeople, denying reality and proclaiming that we (the Mujahideen) were strikingthem because we were jealous of them (the Americans), whereas the reality isthat we are striking them because of their evil and injustice in the whole of theIslamic World, especially in Iraq and Palestine and their occupation of the Land

of the Two Holy Sanctuaries (Osama Bin Laden, 2003, cited in Berner, 2007c,p.79)

In brief, from what Osama Bin Laden officially stated, the purpose of theSeptember the 11th terrorist attacks that could be drawn was to require the U.S toleave the two holy sites in the Middle East and stop support for Israel This purposecould be dear cause of attacks that has been officially stated This reason seems quitelogical and appropriate from the perspective of terrorists However, the attacks on theTwins Towers, with no attempt to differentiate between military forces and civilians,could hardly justify the purpose of liberating their land The terrorist attacks seemmore like taking revenge instead of trying to liberate their land because the terrorcaused by the attacks could hardly force the U.S to leave their intervention in theMiddle East The impacts of the attacks on U.S military actions could be in oppositedirections of retreating from the Middle East or taking revenge on the terrorists group

3.3.3 The other possible causes of the attacks

One popular blame for 9/11 terrorist attacks is put on religion only The factthat the terrorists were jihadists taking control of the planes and playing a part in theattacks causes explanation related to religions that can hardly be dismissed Dawkins(2001, cited in Pilat, 2009) stated that the courage that arose from religion was theforce that had driven the attacks in his article:

Religion is also, of course, the underlying source of the divisiveness in theMiddle East which motivated the use of this deadly weapon in the first place…

To fill a world with religion, or religions of the Abrahamic kind, is like litteringthe streets with loaded guns Do not be surprised if they are used ( p.8)

Religion can raise the courage in the faithful to an extent that they can readilydevote their life for their belief The suicide attacks done by Jihadists, which was thecase of 9/11 attacks, may only be seen among Muslims Therefore, religion obviously

is a possible cause of the attacks

Another suggested cause of the attacks is the opposition to the globalization Bythis reason the attacks are considered the expression of resentment towardglobalization In this light, the terrorists cannot accept the socially, politically,economically and culturally interdependent world Rushdie (2001, cited in Pilat, 2009,p.11) said of the terrorists as follows:

Such people are against, to offer just a brief list, freedom of speech, a party political system, universal adult suffrage, accountable government, Jews, homosexuals, women’s rights, pluralism, secularism, short skirts, dancing, beardlessness, evolution theory, sex

multi-Globalization is seen negative to many factors including social progress,literacy, cultural autonomy, diversity, gender, equality, environment and the cause ofpoverty etc In some places, globalization is considered the “engine of social progress”with a bad influence on traditional politics and religion The 9/11 attacks are thereforeconsidered the rejection of the market capitalism, shared values and democracy in theglobalization process (Pilat 2009, p.12) In the region where religion has ruled thecountry for a long time such as in the Middle East, this explanation for the attacks alsoseems to be possible The terrorists might have wanted to preserve their politicalregimes with the domination of religion and their resistance to globalization could beunderstandable

The cause that is not often officially stated may be related to the oil supply inthe Middle East As introduced in the political context regarding U.S policies in thisregion, Dalacoura (2010) said that the U.S prioritized stability, the oil supply andother economic interests, not the democracy and human rights concerns in the Middle

East This may cause the terrorist groups to try to get the U.S away from the economicinterests of the region by the only way that they could do, threatening the U.S bysuicide attacks It is possible that they could not afford to fight against the U.S.military on the front, so they took terrorist attacks on U.S homeland The cause may

be around the benefits of oil supply in the region

In conclusion, there is no universal cause of the attacks found Viewpoints fromdifferent perspectives make it difficult to identify the true cause That the causes stated

by U.S authority differ from those stated by the terrorist leaders is quite reasonable forpolitical purposes Besides the causes may differ when viewed from politics, religionand economics perspectives The true causes may be concealed from the public ascertain information may not be revealed on political arena While the U.S leaderspointed out to the clash of culture, the leader of the terrorist group brought upconsequences of U.S military activities on their homeland Other countries, observingthe attacks from the outside, may note the religious cause and pay attention to thecauses related to economic benefits to find the reason for what happened in the MiddleEast and the terrorist attacks inside the U.S border

When the causes of the attacks are still in debate, there may not be an onlycause of the attacks It is also possible that combinations of all or some political,religious and economic factors might have contributed to the terrorist attacks on theU.S in 2001 The terrorist might have resented life in the U.S which contradicted thelife complying with religious rules in Muslim countries in the Middle East and desired

to build a world of Muslims Besides, they might have fought for oil supply in theMiddle East and resisted globalization or the influence of the U.S at the same time.However, the suggested explanations could hardly be tested and more time andevidence would be needed for more detailed explanation

4 CHAPTER 3 THE IMPACTS ON U.S TRAVEL AND TOURISM

The September 11th terrorist attacks disrupted economic activities whendestroying the two world trade tower buildings The impacts on a specific field, thetravel and tourism industries, will be examined in this research in terms ofemployment, output and international travelers to the U.S as well as U.S travelers

4.1 Employment in travel and tourism in the U.S.

4.1.1 An overview of the employment in 2001

Figure 1: U.S unemployment rate (Ito & Lee, 2005, p.83)

The U.S unemployment rate tended to decrease from the mid-1990s until 2001.Since 2001, especially after the attacks of terrorists in September, the unemploymentrate began to rise This trend may imply that the September 11th terrorist attacks werethe major factors contributing to the raising unemployment rate in the U.S economyafterwards The lower employment rate might be contributed by the employmentdecrease in some industries including travel and tourism industries The attacks taken

by airplanes might affect the psychology of travelers and cause fear of traveling,especially traveling by airplane and therefore might reduce travelers in great volume.The contraction in air transportation may entail slump in, for example, hotel and

lodging As a result, that the contraction in profits requires employers in travel andtourism industries to cut jobs and lower employment rate in travel and tourism relatedindustries to survive was inevitable The GDP growth and unemployment rate in theU.S from 1999 to the second quarter of 2002 are recorded as in table 2.

Table 2: Economic indicators (Makinen, 2002, p.CRS-8)

The time of the attacks may be the mark for changes in unemployment rategrowth The unemployment rate showed a downward trend in 1999-2000 period with a0.2% decrease Since 2001, the trend changed its direction Though the unemploymentrates in the first, second and third quarter of the year increased, they could notcompare with the increase in unemployment rate in the fourth quarter following theattacks In the fourth quarter of 2001, there has been a dramatic increase in theunemployment rate by 0.8% from 4.9% to 5.6% This unemployment rate remained inthe first quarter of 2002 and continued to increase in the second quarter of that year

There may be other factor determining the unemployment rate, but theSeptember 11th attacks were the key factor in explaining rising unemployment rate inthe U.S On March 26, in the first quarter of 2001, the National Bureau of EconomicResearch stated that an economic downturn had started in March, 2001 (Makinen

2002, p.CRS-8) The revised GDP accounts for 1999-2001 by the CommerceDepartment shows that the GDP decrease begun in the first quarter, proving that theU.S economy had been in a recession nearly 6 months before the attacks One maysay that it is impossible to differentiate between the impact portion of the attacks and

that of the economic recession However, from the time of the attacks, theunemployment rate sudden increased by an outstanding rate Therefore, this sharpincrease was largely contributed by the attacks The unemployment rate in the NewYork City, where the 9/11 attacks occurred, rose even higher than that of the U.S Fromthe very second quarter of 2001 to third quarter of the same year (including the time ofthe attacks), the unemployment rate immediately rose by 1.1% from 5.2% to 6.3%compared to the rise of 0.2%, 0.3% and 0.3% of three preceding quarters This sharpemployment decrease at the place where the attacks had happened is the immediatelyand clearly seen consequence of the attacks.

4.1.2 Employment in travel and tourism industries since 2001

Table 4 Employment in industries related to travel and tourism.

(Villarreal 2003, p.CRS-6)

Immediately after the attacks, employment in U.S travel and tourism relatedindustries showed an obvious downward trend The employment of the industries in