Social Sciences

The World Trade Center twin towers should be rebuilt as a "focal sign for American resolve, for the ability of a democratic society to suffer injury and heal," according to an urban sociologist at the University at Buffalo.

A major emphasis on improving intelligence-gathering -- including having the FBI and CIA work in tandem -- must be a key piece of the U.S. retaliation against terrorists for last week's attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, according to a University at Buffalo professor who is a former editor of the journal Armed Forces & Society. "If President Bush looks only to the military, which seems to be both his initial inclination, and what the American public wants him to do, he will get incomplete and misleading information about what's important," said Claude E. Welch, Jr., Ph.D., SUNY Distinguished Service Professor in the UB Department of Political Science.

Deborah Waldrop, Ph.D., University at Buffalo assistant professor of social work, was social work director at Oklahoma City's St. Anthony Hospital on April 19, 1995, when a truck bomb exploded in front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. Located roughly five blocks from the disaster, St. Anthony was on the front line of rescue efforts and Waldrop learned first-hand the devastating impact such a tragedy has on rescue workers responding to disasters.

Americans' "general naivete" regarding the beliefs and assumptions of religions other than their own is hampering their ability to understand discussions about those suspected of being responsible for last week's terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, according to Phillips Stevens, Jr. Stevens, associate professor of anthropology at the University at Buffalo and nationally-recognized expert in the anthropology of religion, says the lack of knowledge is particularly acute when it comes to fundamentalist religious groups of the Middle East.

George W. Bush took a solid first step in improving his image as this country's leader when he stepped to the microphone this week to comment on terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, according to a University at Buffalo professor with expertise in leadership, charisma and management styles.

The terrorists who Tuesday used hijacked commercial airliners to attack the World Trade Center and Pentagon "were using death and destruction to deliver a message," according to an associate professor of philosophy at the University at Buffalo. "They deliberately chose to attack the most visible symbols of American wealth and military power," says James M. Lawler, whose expertise is in social and political philosophy, "hoping that the impoverished majority of mankind would applaud and rally behind them."

Following Tuesday's terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, people across the United States "will be looking at everything in their lives through a screen of apprehension," says Thomas T. Frantz, Ph.D., associate professor of counseling and educational psychology at the University at Buffalo.. "That apprehension may fade in a couple days, or it may last a week" or longer.

As a result of Tuesday's terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, Americans have been hit with a "double shock," according to Paul Senese, assistant professor of political science at the University at Buffalo and an expert in international security and conflict process and American foreign policy.

While the use of hijacked commercial airliners by terrorists to attack the World Trade Center and Pentagon on Tuesday may leave many reluctant to board an airplane, the issue is not about flying, says Gayle Beck, Ph.D., professor of psychology at the University at Buffalo and an expert in panic and anxiety disorders and post-traumatic problems.

Tuesday's terrorist strikes at the World Trade Center and Pentagon "bring the horror of war into Americans' lives in ways others have been experiencing it for decades," according to Michael Frisch, professor of American History at the University at Buffalo.