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CounterPunch
January
2, 2003
Why 9-11 and Why Now?
by M. SHAHID ALAM
If the attacks of September 11, 2001 are indeed
'unique,' without precedent in the long history of Western contacts
with the 'lesser breeds', it is important that we make an effort
to understand why they happened, why now, and what they say about
our world?
There are several claims to 'uniqueness'
that a historian might advance when discussing the terrorist
attacks of September 11, 2001. If we accept the officially sanctioned
definition of terrorism, which restricts the term to violence
directed against civilians by non-state actors, the attacks of
September 11 gain a unique place in history by their deadly human
toll, some three thousand lives. We do not know of another 'terrorist'
act which even begins to approach the human toll of September
11, 2001. On the other hand, these attacks pales into insignificance
when compared to the worst terrorist acts perpetrated by states,
not excluding United States, over the past five hundred years.
A second claim to 'uniqueness' might
rest on the methods employed by the perpetrators of these attacks.
The terrorists of September 11 had not employed guns, explosives,
bombs or missiles. Instead, they had flown four civilian jets
into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. The only weapons they
wielded were box-cutters: this and their determination to die
with their victims. One German composer, carried away by the
power of the moment, described the self-immolation of these terrorists
as "the greatest work of art ever." Later, retracting,
he described the destruction as "Lucifer's greatest work
of art." [1]
The third claim of 'uniqueness' came
from President Bush. In his first address after September 11
to the members of Congress, he pointed out that "Americans
have known wars--but for the past 136 years, they have been wars
on foreign soil, except for one Sunday in 1941. Americans have
known the casualties of war--but not at the center of a great
city on a peaceful morning." [2] The President was defining
the horror of September 11 to Americans in terms of their history.
It was Noam Chomsky who dared to analyze
September 11 dialectically. The attacks of September 11 were
a "terrible terrorist atrocity," but it is not their
"scale" which made them unique. September 11 was "not
unique in scale, by any means." "What's unique about
it, is the victims. This is the first time in hundreds of years
that what we call the West--Europe and its offshoots--have been
subjected to the kinds of atrocities that they carry out all
the time in other countries and that is unique. The guns are
pointed in the other direction for the first time." [3]
Arundhati Roy, the Indian writer and activist, captured this
dialectic in a striking metaphor. The attacks of September 11
"were a monstrous calling card from a world gone horribly
wrong." [4]
Starting in 1492, the guns of the West
have been pointed incessantly outward. For more than five hundred
years, the steel of the Western sword, lance, gun and bomb have
been planted in the bones and flesh of Africans, Australians,
Asians and native Americans. For more than five hundred years,
Western power has divided the world into two unequal moieties,
one planted on top of the other, one rising as the other sinks,
one battening as the other sickens. Over five hundred years,
entire continents were devastated, societies overthrown, their
civilizations denigrated, their peoples decimated, herded into
slavery and stranded without dignity. All this was the product
of a new dynamic that welded power and capital, states and markets,
in a cumulative dynamic that eventually brought the whole world
within its grasp, giving birth to unequal development, the inequalities
growing cumulatively. It was a process that could not be overthrown
once it had been set in motion.
And so for five hundred years, European
arms and capital advanced while the rest of the world retreated,
vacating their political, economic and cultural space before
the surge of Western power. It must be acknowledged, however,
that they never retreated without a fight; they fought against
constantly increasing odds; they hid in ambush after every defeat;
they stole the weapons of their enemies; they plotted and mobilized
for the next battle. Occasionally, they stalled the advance of
Western arms; occasionally, they even won a few stunning victories.
And, starting in the 1940s, they won back some breathing space.
But never in all these years did the
victims succeed in attacking the aggressors on their home turf,
in their fortified playgrounds, inside the lavish retreats where
they enjoyed the spoils of their victories. Not once in all these
years could the victims carry their resistance inside the citadel
of the invaders. Though many peoples were crushed over these
dim centuries, though many were driven into extinction, though
many more were sold into slavery, though proud empires were laid
waste, though ancient cultures were cast aside, not once could
the victims breach the bastions, scale the citadels of Western
power. Not once could the millions of Americans, Africans and
Asians, whose lives were trapped in fear for centuries, bring
fear to the homes of their tormentors. Inside their homes, the
captains of plunder were safe, beyond the reach of the wrath
and the retribution of their countless victims.
Never, that is, till September 11, 2001.
On this fateful day, the 'victims' had scaled the citadel of
Western power, they had breached the impenetrable defense shield
of the world's greatest power, they had cut through its security
perimeter, and visited destruction inside its inner sanctum--they
had desecrated the holy of holies. The terrorists had attacked
two American icons--of financial and military power.
Do these attacks mark a turning of the
tide? Do they mark the beginning of a new form of guerilla warfare,
one that will be fought on the home turf of United States? Did
these attacks result from some new vulnerability created by changing
technologies, the new connectivity between continents, or the
new globalization? Were these attacks allowed to happen? Are
they a new 'Operation Northwoods' executed surreptitiously by
some cabal in the centers of power? Or are they merely flukes,
a one-time disaster, the result of a lapse in the defenses of
the world's greatest power?
There are questions too about the attackers,
their identity and their motives. Did they, in some sense, represent
America's victims in the Congo, Vietnam, Cambodia, Nicaragua,
El-Salvador, Algeria, Afghanistan and Iraq? Had they acted out
of sympathy for the victims of United States and Israel in Palestine?
Are they announcing their revulsion against the immorality of
a world grown so unequal it supports a rising trade in body parts?
Are they Jehadists acting out of an atavistic faith which seeks
to revive its glory by the force of arms? Or are they nihilists,
rebels, madmen, deranged by the frenetic progress of modernity,
by genetic modification, terminator seeds, surrogate motherhood,
designer children, stem-cell research, and human cloning?
The answers to these questions-and many
more like these-could have filled the pages of the America's
storied newspapers and magazines for many months. But the writers
on these pages serve corporate masters; they find thrill and
see glory in America's overseas conquests; they think no sacrifice
of foreign lives too high for the preservation of America's most
paltry interests; they sanctify the crimes of an apartheid, expansionist,
colonial-settler state; they can discover few virtues, little
worth preserving outside the borders of their own great country.
America's mass media ensure that no thought ever enters the minds
of Americans which can compromise the interests of corporate
America. This great enterprise-the manufacturing of lies-is led
by the likes of Thomas Friedman, William Saffire, Marvin Kalb,
Charles Krauthammer, Daniel Pipes and Billy Kristol. America's
mass media are strictly off limits for independent spirits like
Noam Chomsky, Edward Said, Alexander Cockburn, Jeff St. Clair,
Cornel West, Norman Solomon and Salim Muwakkil.
Is September 11 then a fluke, a contrived
event, a shard from the past, history catching up with the amorality
of power, the result of a new dynamic created by globalization
and a new connectivity? Or should we accept the official answer,
and see the hijackers of September 11 only as evil men,
cold-blooded murderers, acting out of malicious spite, products
of a failing civilization? Do we have the right to think, to
evaluate, to empathize, to imagine, to choose? Do we dare to
escape from the machinery that manufactures consent?
In the world of social dynamics, few
events are so simple that they can be traced back definitively
to a single cause, as if we were examining not a social phenomenon
but a disease that is carried by a single vector, a single malevolent
life form that could then be destroyed with antibiotics. Should
we ignore the complexity of the real world, the layers of causation,
the interconnections amongst humans--even between tormentors
and their victims--and reach for convenient answers, answers
that exonerate us, answers that invert reality, even transforming
villains into heroes, tormentors into victims? Sadly, that is
what our media and academia do, because they are beholden to
money and power.
We might assert, quite accurately, that
September 11 happened because of skyscrapers: the attacks would
never have occurred if the 'monstrous' Twin Towers did not exist.
If our media were dominated by interests inimical to tall buildings--for
reasons of aesthetics, economics, or politics--this is the explanation
that would have prevailed. The solution too would have been simple:
level America's skyline. We would have created a wrecker's paradise,
a boom for demolition companies.
Alternatively, we might claim that the
culprits were the passenger jets. Who could deny that these objects
were the implements of war chosen by the hijackers? The hijackers
had used no cluster bombs, no cruise missiles, no daisy-cutters;
they had simply turned these behemoths into massive weapons.
"Ban commercial air travel," the cry could have gone
up. In fact, this solution did make sense in the immediate aftermath
of the attacks, when we grounded all commercial flights for a
few days. It was a sensible thing to do. But if the anti-airline
lobbies had been powerful we would have grounded them permanently,
and gone back to traveling the old-fashioned way--by ships and
trains.
It is appropriate, however, that the
search into the causes of September 11 began with the
perpetrators of these attacks. Very quickly the nineteen dead
hijackers were identified: we learned they were young, male,
Arab and Islamic. Once this identification had been made, a great
deal of the surmise, analysis, investigation and response turned
on the Arab-Islamic ethnicity of the hijackers. For many commentators,
especially those with Zionist proclivities or evangelical vocations,
this singular fact contained all the answers. They trotted out
their ready-made answers. The hijackers were messengers of death
from the Arab-Islamic hell. For years, these fiends had brought
death to innocent Israelis. And now they have directed their
terror against the free, democratic and Christian West itself.
Their hatred of the West has no political causes, no political
grievances, no history: it springs from their race, their ethos,
and their devilish, war-mongering creed.
This line of thinking led to some quick
solutions. Ann Coulter, contributing editor of National Review
Online, proposed that "We should invade their countries,
kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity." [5]
The solution appeared eminently logical. Since Islam is the source
of terrorism, exorcise Islam-exterminate the Muslims or convert
them to Christianity. That done, we can have peace and goodwill
on earth. As outlandish as this sounds, it would appear that
the United States has been moving in this general direction since
September 11. We did invade Afghanistan though, despite our best
efforts, failed to kill their leaders. We are getting ready to
repeat this in Iraq and, depending on how things go there, we
are planning to send our conquering armies into Iran, Saudi Arabia
and Egypt. After that, the sky is the limit.
There was another solution that we began
implementing right after September 11. It is a solution in which
we have long experience: racial profiling. Once again, the solution
appeared logical. All nineteen hijackers were young Arab men.
If we could get tough on them, keep tabs on them, track them,
screen them at the border, arrest them on suspicion, abridge
their civil rights, we could sleep in peace. This might just
work if the terrorists are only capable of repeating September
11. What if the team Al-Qaida is recruiting even now includes
Italian, Greek, Hispanic or Chinese Muslims? Should we extend
racial profiling to these new groups? How will this affect our
project of globalization?
Why did corporate and official America-the
America projected by our mass media-respond to September 11 by
reverting to old stereotypes? We are the Christian knights in
shining armor, once again slaying the dragons that had dared
to breathe fire over our cities. Once again, we are battling
the slovenly Arabs, the violent Muslims, the fanatic Orientals.
At the dawn of the twenty-first century, the world's most advanced
country is mobilizing for the modern world's first civilizational
war. If this war unfolds according to plans--and when the plans
begin to unravel--the memory of the Crusades might pale in comparison.
That was a local war fought in a tiny corner of the Islamic world.
Already this new war is being fought on a broader front that
includes Afghanistan, Palestine, Iraq and Philippines. And it
threatens to be a great deal more deadly.
In the 1990s, following the collapse
of Soviet Union, two visions competed to shape America's dominance
in the world. The first was the project of globalization. It
strove to open up world markets to American capital, every corner
of the world, including the Third World and the former communist
countries. In the past, Britain had achieved this through force
of arms, but even so it was incomplete. Now United States could
do a great deal more, without waging too many wars, without creating
a formal empire. The power it wielded over its allies, over financial
markets exercised, in part, through the IMF and World Bank
its control over military hardware, its leadership in cutting-edge
technologies, its power to set the rules ensured that it could
open up virtually every corner of the world, as never before,
to free entry and exit of American capital. This was the vision
that dominated throughout the 1990s. The alternative vision,
a hawkish vision, of an imperial America that would pursue American
interests more aggressively, through the expansion of America's
military might, and through more frequent wars, had for the time
been pushed aside.
But the hawks would not have to wait
for long. They were aided by globalization itself, or rather
its contradictions. As the new globalization deepened poverty
in the Core and Periphery, as it threatened the environment,
as it transferred jobs out of the Core countries, as it augmented
the power of Corporations, it produced a new countervailing force:
an anti-globalization movement. Driven by the same connectivity
that was driving globalization, anti-globalization became global.
By the late 1990s, it posed a serious challenge to the corporate
elites and their globalization project. At its edges the movement
contained radical tendencies. Anti-globalization had to be contained.
Another expansionist movement was running
into trouble, at about the same time. In May 2000, the Israelis
beat a hasty retreat from South Lebanon, changing the mood of
the Palestinian resistance, and forcing Arafat to reject the
Bantustans offered by Israelis in July 2000. Three months later,
the second Intifada was born. Almost instantly, the Zionists
switched to their second option that entailed massive ethnic
cleansing in the West Bank and perhaps Israel itself. This called
for a clash of civilizations. It would be safe to drive out the
Palestinians only under the fog of a major war between United
States and Islam.
A third force was also brewing in the
United States. It was the force of the religious right, the Christian
Coalition: they harked back to the letter of the Bible, they
read the old prophecies into modern history, their world view
was Manichean--all who opposed them were evil--they were mostly
Southerners and racists, they wanted America to become a Crusading
force, they were viciously opposed to Islam. Most significantly,
they were plotting to take over the Republican Party. And in
2000, they were already a major force in the Presidential election.
In the meanwhile, the neoconservative
hawks plotted. In a "Statement of Principles," announced
in June 1997, they laid out plans for an American Century, an
imperial century that would "increase defense spending significantly,"
"shape circumstances before crises emerge," "meet
threats before they become dire," and "challenge regimes
hostile to our interests and values." [6] In another document,
published in September 2000, these neoconservatives worry that
the "process of transformation" they wanted to effect
"is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and
catalyzing event--like a new Pearl Harbor." [7]
Could September 11 have been that "catastrophic
and catalyzing event like a new Pearl Harbor" that
the neoconservative hawks had almost wished for? Was it serendipity,
conspiracy, kismet, the inevitable escalation in a clash of civilizations,
the symptom of a crisis in the relations between the Core and
Periphery perhaps, all of the above--that threw this spanner
in the wheels of the world?
Whatever the forces that engineered September
11, this much is clear. It was seized precipitately by the quartet
of forces just described the neoconservative hawks, Corporate
America, the Zionists, and the Christian Coalition to launch
their project of a new American Century, to proclaim endless
wars, to seize the profits from the Arab oil fields, to shrink
and downsize Islam, to make the world safe for American interests,
and to create a hegemony that would last forever. Do we indeed
stand at the dawn of a new American Century, whose birth threatens
the world with wars, blood, grime, but also promises to deliver
profits never dreamed of before?
A hundred years from now, standing in
front of the grand monuments raised to commemorate this grand
American century, what will Americans think of Osama bin Laden?
Will they remember this malevolent genius as the midwife, facilitating
the birth of the new American Century? On the other hand, if
this project runs into trouble, if it produces blood and grime
but no profits, who shall we blame for the human toll of this
terrible catastrophe? We can of course blame Osama. Or we can
blame the cold hearts, minds cowed by fear, grasping cupidity
and a terrible tribalism that delivered mankind, gagged and bound,
into the power of the neoconservative Juggernaut.
M. Shahid Alam
is Professor of Economics at Northeastern University. His recent
book, Poverty From The Wealth Of Nations, was published
by Palgrave (2000). He may be reached at m.alam@neu.edu.
References:
[1] www.loper.org/~george/trends/2001/Sep/29.html
and
www.
stockhausen.org/message_from_karlheinz.html.
[2] www.guardian.co.uk/Print/0,3858,4261868,00.html.
[3] www.vcn.bc.ca/redeye/interviews/chomsky.html.
[4] www.guardian.co.uk/Print/0,3858,4266289,00.html.
[5] www.nationalreview.com/coulter/coulter091301.shtml
[6] The words in quotes are from the
"The Statement of Principles" singed by the major neoconservatives,
including Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Elliot Abrams, Paul Wolfowitz,
Norman Podhoretz, I. Lewis Libby and Eliot Cohen. See www.
newamericancentury.org/statementofprinciples.htm
[7] http://www.fpif.org/papers/02men/box1_body.html
Copyright: M. Shahid Alam.
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