ABSTRACT
Covering the events of 2001, this chapter considers the media reporting of 9/11 and of the invasion-phase of the Afghan War. It provides a political background to the events, traces how they unfolded and considers the west’s military and media response. The chapter demonstrates that 9/11 represented both a physical and a symbolic attack upon the USA. It explores the west’s invasion of Afghanistan and its replication of a model of top-down media coverage and evaluates the success of this first campaign in the ‘war on terror’ at eradicating the physical threat to the US and reversing the symbolic defeat of 9/11.
