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| | 9/11 was the deadliest attack ever on American soil, and was even deadlier than the attack on Pearl Harbor. President Bush addressed a joint session of Congress and the entire nation, vowing to holding the perpetrators responsible. Quickly blame was assigned to Osama bin Laden, who was in Afghanistan leading the terrorist group "Al Qaeda." Bush demanded that the Taliban, which ruled Afghanistan at the time, expel him from its country. The Taliban refused, and Bush ordered American troops to invade Afghanistan to defeat Al Qaeda and look for bin Laden, who was never found. Terrorists were captured in the process, and included an American later charged with treason and sentenced to 30 years in jail; some terrorists were (and still are) held in Guantanamo Bay. | | 9/11 was the deadliest attack ever on American soil, and was even deadlier than the attack on Pearl Harbor. President Bush addressed a joint session of Congress and the entire nation, vowing to holding the perpetrators responsible. Quickly blame was assigned to Osama bin Laden, who was in Afghanistan leading the terrorist group "Al Qaeda." Bush demanded that the Taliban, which ruled Afghanistan at the time, expel him from its country. The Taliban refused, and Bush ordered American troops to invade Afghanistan to defeat Al Qaeda and look for bin Laden, who was never found. Terrorists were captured in the process, and included an American later charged with treason and sentenced to 30 years in jail; some terrorists were (and still are) held in Guantanamo Bay. |
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| − | Congress quickly passed the Patriot Act of 2001, which authorized extensive phone and email surveillance of Americans possibly connected with terrorism, and authorizes deportation or detention of suspected terrorists. | + | Congress quickly passed the Patriot Act of 2001, which authorized extensive phone and email surveillance of Americans possibly connected with terrorism, and authorizes deportation or detention of suspected terrorists. The internal surveillance and fighting in Afghanistan became known as the "War on Terrorism," which began in 2001 and continues to this day. |
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| | + | More controversial was President Bush's decision to invade Iraq in 2003, after its dictator Saddam Hussein refused to disarm and refused to cooperate with inspections of its nuclear program. Some feared he was developing "weapons of mass destruction," though no hard evidence of that has ever been found. More plausible is that Saddam Hussein was harboring or funding terrorists, and there is no doubt that was brutal to Iraqis themselves. Americans captured Baghdad, Iraq's capital, remarkably quickly, but actually the enemy had gone "underground" and engaged in terrorist attacks ... |
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| | No Child Left Behind Act "2001: Aims to improve public schools by increasing testing, and mandating alternatives when test scores are failing" | | No Child Left Behind Act "2001: Aims to improve public schools by increasing testing, and mandating alternatives when test scores are failing" |
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| | War on Terrorism 2001: War begun after the 9/11 attacks with the intension of ending international terrorism | | War on Terrorism 2001: War begun after the 9/11 attacks with the intension of ending international terrorism |
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| − | Invasion of Afghanistan 2001: Targeted Al-Qaeda members and sought to punish Taliban government for harboring terrorists.
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| | Invasion of Iraq 2003: Saddam Hussein of Iraq fails to disarm; US invades and eventually captures Saddam. | | Invasion of Iraq 2003: Saddam Hussein of Iraq fails to disarm; US invades and eventually captures Saddam. |