Christopher Pyne: What changed because of the terrorist attacks on September 11

Twenty years ago, the terror attacks of September 11 brought down the World Trade Centre in New York. The changes are still being felt, writes Christopher Pyne.

The effects of “9/11”, the internationally recognised call sign for the al-Qa’ida terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New York on September 11, 2001, are still resonating today, even on its 20th anniversary.

In that attack, 2753 people were murdered – every one of them ­innocent victims of the crazed mind of Islamist terrorists led by Osama bin Laden.

The World Trade Center was ­destroyed and never rebuilt.

Its site is a permanent memorial to the victims and a reminder of the ­infamy of terrorists who seek to alter the liberal, democratic values by which nations such as the United States of America and Australia are governed, and by which we live.

The attack on the US on September 11, 2001, was more than the ­destruction of the World Trade ­Center in New York.

Around the same time, a plane flew into the Pentagon in Washington DC, killing 184 people.

United Airlines flight 93 was hijacked on its way to San Francisco.

Firefighters and search and rescue workers battle smouldering fires as they search for survivors at the ruins of the World Trade Center in New York. Picture: Andrea Booher / FEMA / AFP / New York City Office of Emergency Management

Some passengers were able to use their mobile phones to discover that the World Trade Center had been ­attacked.

Enough of those brave Americans realised that their own plane had been weaponised, possibly to hit the White House or the US Capitol. They took on the hijackers and the plane crashed in a field in Pennsylvania.

Everyone on board died.

Shockingly, we are able to access the moving testimony of some of the passengers who called their families, texted their friends and called air traffic control to ask for help and, realising their cause was lost, to say goodbye and even recite the Lord’s Prayer with the air traffic controllers.

Emergency services at the base of one of the fallen towers on September 11. Picture: AP / Shawn Baldwin

The 40 innocents who perished on Flight UA 93 selflessly saved an ­unknown number of their fellow ­citizens. Because of 9/11, the US and a Coalition of 23 countries invaded ­Afghanistan.

During the Afghanistan War, known as Operation Enduring Freedom, at least 2414 Americans died, 41 Australians died, 1202 other Coalition combatants died.

Countless Afghans were killed by the Taliban, ISIS, al-Qa’ida and ­myriad other terrorist groups.

While numbers are hard to estimate, at least 45,000 Afghan military personnel died before the most recent Taliban offensive.

Many more terrorists and their sympathisers were killed, but estimates are put at more than 72,000. The true numbers of deaths will never be known.

Osama bin Laden was hunted down and killed.

For the first time in history, the ANZUS Treaty between Australia, New Zealand and the US was invoked by then president George W Bush and prime minister John Howard.

The Taliban regime in Kabul was forced by arms from power in Kabul.

Al-Qa’ida was routed and Afghanistan has not been used as a base for global terrorist headquarters since October 2001, when the Coalition first succeeded in its military aims.

While it’s true that the Coalition’s combat mission was achieved, in only the past month or two, the Taliban is back in control again in Afghanistan.

A man stands in the rubble calling out asking if anyone needs help, after the collapse of the first World Trade Center Tower in New York, September 11. Picture: AFP / Doug Kanter

Last week, they announced the creation of the Islamic Emirate of ­Afghanistan.

It is so long ago now, that many forget that, before 9/11, airport security was rudimentary at best. There was no such thing as X-ray machines for every person entering the departure gates at airports. There were no armed air marshals on every flight.

Before 9/11, travellers used stainless steel cutlery on planes.

If you were confident enough, you could ask the steward to let you visit the pilot in the cockpit and sometimes, especially children, might be allowed to sit in the cockpit for landings.

Now the cockpit is locked with a code. No one comes in or out. If the plane is hijacked, the pilots still ­control the plane.

People who worked in airports such as baggage handlers always had to have security checks, but nothing like the exhaustive processes and checking that happens now.

Before 9/11, if a person failed to board a plane but their luggage was on board that was bad luck for them.

It didn’t necessitate a lengthy delay while their luggage was found, examined for bombs and removed.

Some of these things sound particularly ordinary.

But it is the ordinary that affects every one of our lives.

Just in tourism alone, the terrorists have cost travellers, airlines, airport operators, governments and militaries, trillions of dollars in new ­expenditure across the globe over two decades.

The War on Terror, which was not a war of our choosing, has changed our world entirely. We are less at peace, less relaxed, less trusting and more wary and on edge.

The War on Terror began because of 9/11. While it’s fair to say our military has kept us safe and we are strong, resilient and unbowed, if Osama bin Laden’s goal was to change the way we live our lives, he succeeded.

9/11 didn’t alter our attachment to our values, if anything, it strengthened our resolve, but 20 years on, it still affects the way we live and it changed our world, irrevocably.