ABSTRACT
The terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 left Americans with a myriad of powerful emotions – anxiety, fear, sorrow, despair, and incandescent rage. Among these emotions, scholars argue that fear represents the common baseline for comprehending the complex aftermath of 9/11 (Barkun 2003; Berry 2001; Louis 2002). That fear was caused by extraordinary images of indiscriminate violence – planes crashing into buildings, skyscrapers in flames, men and women leaping to their deaths, and landmark structures collapsing to the ground as panicked crowds ran for safety amid a whirlwind of dust and debris. This vivid imagery demonstrated that the point of terrorism is fear. And fear, in turn, would define the very fabric of subsequent responses.
