It's quite unlikely that Canada in the north or Mexico in the south could ever launch an attack on the United States. If those countries were ever to try, the United States, the total defense expenditures of which exceeds the sum of the next 20 countries following it and which has an army of 2.5 million soldiers, could easily repel such attacks. The threat of intercontinental missile attacks is also a very weak possibility, particularly after the collapse of the Soviet Union. So the United States was situated in a fully protected and secure land where no county could gather forces to attack it. Americans had a strong belief that they had an invincible power and absolutely protected land; it would never be possible for any threat on earth to be directed at them. Such was the power of this belief that they had begun developing fantasies and came to expect an attack from space. One of the few reasons the space culture developed so much in the United States is the country's thought of building itself a future, as it doesn't have an ancient history or civilization like the Chinese, Indian, Babylonian-Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Greek or Islamic ones.
Popular culture and the film industry often present the possibility of an attack that could be launched against America by creatures that live in the depths of the space, and about which we know next to nothing. Americans either set about conquering space, or aliens obsessed with dominating the Earth attack. These aliens are depicted as "creatures." They have highly advanced weapons and technology; they come out of nowhere and attempt to occupy the planet. As a matter of fact, the United States occupied by these extraterrestrial creatures is at the same time "the world." When you say "the world," it means "the United States." Ultimately only the United States can protect the world from those creatures. The American president acts as the king of the globe; he consults and discusses with his advisors and bureaucrats and makes the ultimate decisions on behalf of the world.
In addition to attacks from space, it's only Americans who can take real measures against cosmic disasters that could lead the world toward absolute termination. Like in the film "Deep Impact, it's only American success and genius that could save the world at the last moment from an absolute disaster.
What is underlined by all these scripts is this: from the viewpoint of Americans, who would never relinquish their patronage of the world, the space creatures are "the other." Their job is to inflict all sorts of evil things upon humanity and they want to gain ascendancy over the Earth. There is not one single good-willed or human-friendly alien. Now that the world is faced with such an imminent threat and only Americans can protect the world from these villains, no power can stand in the way of the United States and should never attempt to do so. The Sept. 11 attacks shattered this judgment, whoever orchestrated the attacks. A power came from somewhere and hit the United States right in the heart.
However the results of the Sept. 11 attacks are not limited to only this. While the United States was completely focused on a likely attack from space and had assumed the position of the savior of the world, a very earthly attack was directed against it. So who were those mortal earthlings that attacked America? They established the target right after the attacks: Muslims. After overcoming the short-lived shock, Americans suddenly ascribed all the atrocities, evil deeds and anticipated attacks on Muslims, who were now established by the United State as offenders and terrorists. Muslims are ugly, repulsive and hostile like aliens. In this way, the evil aliens "otherized" by popular culture were replaced overnight with Muslims. And so all the "otherizing" processes were directed against Islam. The fear fictionalized and accumulated over aliens has been transformed into "Islamophobia." This is a fictional fear and the entire West is being frightened with this fiction.
