[Mr_love_monkey]

Someone once said that the price of freedom is eternal vigilance, and sadly this is true.
After 9/11 nothing can ever be the same again, and it's wrong to think otherwise - when you have an event that shocking, how can people look at things in the same way again? - of course people are going to be scared of groups of middle eastern men - it doesn't make it right, but it's going to happen. If you're out one night, and you get sent on by a group of chinese youths, and they kick seven types of snot out of you, are you not going to be scared next time you see a group of chinese youths in the street? - of course you are, it's natural, the same happens if you get set on by a group of white youths - it doesn't make it right, and you probably makes you borderline racist, depending on who the attackers are - but the 'types' of people that hurt you are what you remember, so you can be aware of them next time.

As Earl of Bronze said, most of america knows very little about the outside world, they don't understand that their foreign policy is pretty much to blame for what happened - all they understand is that a group of people hurt them, hurt them pretty badly - and now they are scared of those groups.