Barbara Walters chats with Forward Syria
Swaying between art and seduction
Discussing monetary policy with the man in charge
Where the earth screams in horror
0 - Issue 55
As September 11 enters its 11th year
by Scott C. Davis
Ten years ago on September 11, airline hijackers took control of four airliners. The first two planes brought down the World Trade Center in New York and the third punched a hole in the Pentagon. A fourth hijacked airliner was on its way to Washington, targeting the US Capitol building . . . but it was later than the other hijacked flights and one assumes that it would have been brought down by jet fighters that had scrambled to face the threat.
Perhaps not. The jet fighters flew out to sea, apparently looking for Soviet intruders, forgetting for the moment that the Berlin Wall had fallen twelve years earlier. It is not clear if they would have reversed course in time. The fourth airliner was taken over by passengers who overwhelmed the hijackers, causing the plane to crash into the Pennsylvania countryside.
I'd like to say that September 11 brought out the best in America, that Americans pulled together, joined in common effort, agreed on a response that would capture the high ground from the attackers, and paid for this response with higher taxes and by drafting its young men and women into the military. Shared sacrifice.
I'd like to say that September 11 sparked a Marshal Plan for the Middle East, a broad effort of school building, micro-loans, open trade, opportunities for women, scholarships for Arabs and Muslims to attend US colleges, mentoring in business and governance. OK. Individuals and ngos made efforts. But, looking at the big picture, these things did not happen.
Instead, the US seemed to be working in concert with its attackers. The US was intent on erasing the humiliation of Black Hawk Down, the failed 1993 rescue attempt in Mogadisu. The US wanted the Middle
East to know that we are not afraid to send our young men to fight and die. That we do not mind killing brown-skinned people. It wanted to send a message of Shock and Awe.
Osama bin Laden's crew liked the shape of this conflict. It gave them an identity. (Some argue that "al-Qaeda" as an entity was invented in US courtrooms because of the need for an official organization to charge with the Sept 11 attacks under the RICO statute, designed originally to combat organized crime, and that Osama bin Laden was pleased with the designation and adopted it for his own use). This war showered Osama's crew with publicity. It brought in recruits from all over the Middle East. It put them at the center of the world stage.
I don't have a problem with a national display of toughness. But that's different than a display of stupidity. Sad to say, the US was drawn into a military conflict that its most wrong-headed military and intelligence figures would pursue at the expense of cherished American principles-
-the things that supposedly make the US a beacon in a sometimes dark world.
As the conflict in Iraq dragged on, the US sent the message of its utter incompetence at imperial occupation. And another message of its difficulty in defending against asymmetric military opponents. More damning that these, the US handed to its opponents a narrative of the US motives and involvement in the Muslim world that will undermine US policy in the region for many years.
The Middle East is very young. The thirty percent of the population under twenty-five years of age had had little direct experience with the US. Now, the US demonstrated Osama bin Laden's point: The US got an itch after September 11th and then committed Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo to scratch that itch. The US, in this narrative, elevated the water board to an instrument of foreign policy.
Prior to the US invasion of Afghanistan, an American woman with connections both to the Taliban and US intelligence figure William Colby, urged the US to negotiate with the Taliban and to ask them to make common cause against the 9-11 perpetrators.
Instead, the US invaded, quickly brought down the Taliban, then neglected the country for most of a decade until the Taliban with Pakistani backing could regroup and stalemate US forces . . . in endurance if not in immediate fire power. Now, as the US begins its scheduled withdrawal from Afghanistan, it finds itself putting out feelers and doing what it can to . . . well, to negotiate with the Taliban.
The US media has just completed a couple of weeks of triumphal coverage of September 11th replete with US flags and stories about the brave souls who attempted rescue at the World Trade Center . . . and died in the attempt or survived and now find themselves suffering and incapacitated from the toxics they encountered with no one to help them, as they helped others.
Only Ron Paul, the persistently off kilter Republican presidential candidate from Texas, has been willing to say what men and women in the Arab world would consider to be true. Speaking on September 13 at a Republican debate among presidential candidates, he argued that the September 11th attacks were a response to US occupation of foreign lands. He was roundly booed by the audience.
Scott C. Davis is the author of The Road
from Damascus: A Journey Through
Syria and is founder of Cune Press.
