Americans remembered 9/11 with moments of silence, readings of victims’ names, volunteer work and other tributes 21 years after the deadliest terror attack on U.S. soil. Victims’ relatives and dignitaries convened at the two other attack sites, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania to pay homage. President Joe Biden participated in a wreath laying ceremony while visiting the Pentagon in Washington.Vice President Kamala Harris and husband Doug Emhoff joined the observance at the National Sept. 11 Memorial in New York.
It wa an attack that killed nearly 3,000 people, spurred a US war on terror worldwide and reconfigured national security policy. It also stirred — for a time — a sense of national pride and unity for many, while subjecting Muslim Americans to years of suspicion and bigotry and engendering debate over the balance between safety and civil liberties. In ways both subtle and plain, the aftermath of 9/11 ripples through American politics and public life to this day.And the attacks have cast a long shadow into the personal lives of thousands of people who survived, responded or lost loved ones, friends and colleagues. Some relativeslament that a nation which came together — to some extent — after the attacks has since splintered apart. So much so that federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies, which were reshaped to focus on international terrorism after 9/11, now see the threat of domestic violent extremism as equally urgent.