I would suggest studying military history and strategic studies.
9/11 was not a "catastrophic and catalyzing event - like a new Pearl Harbor" as it is used in the context of Rebuilding America's Defenses.
First, Pearl Harbor was militarily catastrophic - the destruction of the U.S. battleship fleet. This led to a transformation out of necessity of U.S. naval tactics which emphasized the aircraft carrier and the submarine - a revolution at the time, and their predominance has continued to this day. 9/11, although certainly catastrophic in terms of loss of life or economic impact, has had zero effect on military tactics, doctrine, organization or strategic thought. All the elements of defense transformation would have occurred absent 9/11 - and in fact were occurring. Shinseki began the transformation of the Army in 1999. This was on the tail of Lind's "Fourth Generation Warfare" concept coming out in 1989, the "Revolution in Military Affairs" concept evolving in the early 1990's, the focus on information operations, cyberspace, etc. dating from the mid-1990's. Do your research.
Second, Pearl Harbor mobilized the industrial base of the United States to support the war effort in WWII - not merely mobilized the political will of the people. The argument that 9/11 similarly mobilized the industrial base is a weak one - I do not think you can find a concrete fact to support that claim. The vast majority of Americans live their lives untouched by the efforts of their military in the GWOT; the same can not be said of Americans during WWII. (Discussions of mobilizing the industrial base were big during the Soviet era, quieted down slightly at the end of the Cold War, and now crop up occasionally in discussions about China.)
Pearl Harbor was an event that drove military transformation due to the catastrophic effect it had on naval forces, and to the mobilizing effect it had on the industrial base to contribute to the war effort. That is what the PNAC document was referring to. 9/11, on the other hand, has not driven military transformation at all (read strategic documents from early 1990's to 1999), and has not mobilized the U.S. industrial base in a manner similar to WWII.