TERROR IN AMERICA

Why? and What next?

    NOTHING can justify the horrendous and ignominious terrorist attacks against the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington on September 11th. Nothing on earth. These depraved acts were not just attacks on America, they were crimes against humanity.
    America and the world watched helplessly as the frightful drama played itself out on live television. First there was an explosion in one of the towers of the World Trade Center (at first many people thought it was just that, an explosion); then the sickening sight of a commercial jetliner flying straight into the second tower. Then another jetliner flying into the side of the Pentagon. Then the collapse of the towers, one after the other, in an apocalyptic inferno of fire, smoke and dust.

    Thousands have died, and almost all of them were innocent - just ordinary people going about their ordinary work on an ordinary day. Most were Americans, including hundreds from the emergency services; but among the innocent victims there were also hundreds of Britons and hundreds of Germans, as well as Israelis, Arabs, and people from many other countries. There were Christians and Moslems, there were atheists, and there were probably Hindus and Buddhists. There were Catholics and Protestants, and probably Sunnis and Shiites, there were Aryans, Africans Asians and Amerindians, a broad spectrum of people from different backgrounds, different countries, different beliefs. For most, their only reason to die was that they happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Most of them were in New York, that most cosmopolitan of cities, in the World Trade Center, that most cosmopolitan of workplaces.
    A shaken George W Bush went on television to reassure Americans. "These acts of mass murder were intended to frighten our nation into chaos and retreat," he said. "But they have failed. Our country is strong. A great people has been moved to defend a great nation. Terrorist attacks can shake the foundations of our biggest buildings, but they cannot touch the foundation of America."
    Doubtless, as president of a deeply wounded nation, Bush had no alternative but to use words of this sort: but even as he said them, many Americans knew that what he was saying was not true. America may not have been in retreat, but it was in chaos. With all air traffic halted throughout the USA, and all borders closed, with all television stations broadcasting non-stop images and commentary on the devastation, ordinary life in America was effectively put on hold. The foundation of America - including a popular belief in American invincibility - was sorely wounded.
    The terrorists responsible for this horrendous acts HAD succeeded. Though they died, they had NOT failed. Even if one of the four hijacked aircraft crashed far from its target, thanks to the heroic actions of some of its passengers, the other three succeeded, leading to the images of Armageddon that we have now seen again and again. Sorry Mr. Bush, those who organized and committed these acts of barbarity are or were fanatics, and fanatics do not judge success according to our own rational standards. For those who organized and carried out this orgasm of destruction, this was no failure - this was a devastating success. For them, death in action was a first class ticket to Allah's high table; or, put into American imagery, it was like winning the Superbowl, the World Series, the Las Vegas jackpot and all the Oscars with the same team on the same night. No American retaliation can change that.

THE WHY

NOTHING can justify the horrendous and ignominious terrorist attacks - but a lot can explain them.
    Millions of pages will be written in the weeks to come, "explaining" why so many people had to die on that clear September morning. But in truth, the fundamental answer is short and clear.
    The attacks took place because in many ways the United States has singularly failed in its role as the world's most powerful nation.

THE FAILURE OF AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY

While millions of people the world over still dream of America, there are other millions for whom the USA has come to be seen as the world's bully-boy, a mightily powerful nation whose only interest in the outside world is its own interest - not the interest of the world as a whole, and certainly not the interest of the world's poorer nations.

Though there are people all over the world who hate the USA, it is in the Middle East that the largest numbers of such people can be found. America's Middle East policy has come to be seen by most ordinary Arabs as being pro-Israel and anti-Arab; and since the arrival in power of Ariel Sharon in Israel and George Bush in the USA, the situation has deteriorated. For many Islamic militants, Israel and the USA are now the same enemy.

It need not have happened like this; America need not have given millions of people a reason to think of it as an enemy, but once again it has done so, as it did in Vietnam in the 1960's, and in Latin America in the 1970's.

Rather like militant Islamic movements today, US policy from the 50's to the 80's was in part fueled by fanaticism - in this case a fanatical fear of Communism. In the fifties, it produced the witch hunts of the McCarthy era; later, it led to US support for "democratic" but utterly corrupt regimes in Africa, Asia and South America.

    Though these policies were successful in the long term, insofar as they perhaps helped the downfall of communism, they failed terribly in other ways. Policies designed to contain communism had secondary effects - in particular they contributed to the development of a vast swell of anti-American sentiment among people and nations that were, or felt, oppressed by the regimes and countries that America supported.
    The most bitter irony of it all is the fact that the C.I.A. initially supported Islamic militantism, as an ally in the fight against communism; indeed America actually armed and trained the supporters of Ousama Bin Laden, when they were fighting the Soviet aggressor in Afghanistan.
    Today, in the Middle East, America is SEEN to be supporting Israeli aggression, in the same way as - in the supposed name of democracy - it earlier supported many corrupt regimes in places as far apart as Viet Nam and Guatemala. It does not actually matter whether, in truth, the USA really supports Zionist expansionists or not; when it comes to shaping people's minds, it is not objective reality that counts, but subjective perceptions of reality.
    In spite of Vietnam, in spite of Panama, America's foreign policy makers do not seem to have learned the lessons of history.

American Democracy

    In most respects, the USA is a country about which its people can be justly proud; in many ways, it is an example for others to follow. But not in all ways.
    America has a lot to learn, and in particular it has to learn to respect the rest of the world. It also has to learn that many people in other parts of the world do not share Americans' views of their nation's virtue.

    George Bush and others played heavily on the words "democracy"; and it is certain that the USA is one of the more democratic nations in the world. But Americans' justified pride in their own democracy must not leave them blind to its failings, particularly in times of national crisis. As many Americans themselves know, and millions of people throughout the world also know, America's democracy has many serious malfunctions, and justice - American style - is by no means perfect.

    George Bush is president of the USA, even though more people voted for Al Gore. How democratic or just is that?
    As recent court cases and books have frequently demonstrated, the difference between being found guilty or innocent in a US court often depends not on objective justice, but on who can afford the best lawyers. Sometimes access to justice and the nature of punishment seems to depend largely on the color of a person's skin. Large numbers of Americans recognize this: but how democratic or just is it?
    In the developed world, the USA is the country with the greatest disparity in living standards, wealth and health between the richest 20% of the population and the poorest 20%. How democratic or just is that?
    Among developed countries, the USA alone has refused to sign the Kyoto Protocol on Global Warming, in spite of the fact that the USA is by far the world's largest polluter. In international terms, how just  is that?
    America, with 4.5% of the world's population, consumes over 24% of the world's energy, is the world's largest importer of energy, and seems determined to get more. How just  is that?
    Just weeks ago, the USA walked out of the UN conference on racism, in South Africa. How democratic was that?

    Some Americans will claim that none of the above examples have anything to do with the ideal of "democracy": but by doing so, they just illustrate the fact that "democracy" is not always interpreted by different people in the same way; just like the old saying that "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter".

    One day, perhaps, the USA will manage to regild its image throughout the world, to convince most people on our planet that as well as being the world's richest nation, it is really the world's greatest nation, a country where justice is incorruptible and accessible to all. Perhaps one day those who now imagine that the USA is "the great Satan", will change their minds; but this will not happen unless the USA changes its image. The country which invented the idea of "marketing" has an enormous task of rebranding to accomplish.

THE WAR ON TERRORISM

    George Bush has promised an all-out war against terrorism: but terrorism will not be vanquished unless there is also an all-out determination by the USA to remove not just terrorism, but the CAUSES of terrorism, one of the principal of which is America's reputation in some parts of the world. Only once people have no real or perceived reason to hate America will the risk of terrorism go away.
    BUT UNTIL these changes occur, and are seen to occur, the USA will continue to inspire fanatical opposition and visceral hatred in some people in other parts of the world, whose personal, religious or national interests are contrary to those of America. Most of these people will be content to shout slogans, burn flags, and perhaps throw petrol bombs. A few, however, will follow in the footsteps of Bin Laden, and seek vengeance in frightening forms. Neither the CIA, nor the FBI, nor the US Army, nor the Marines, nor helicopter gunships nor cruise missiles nor electronic surveillance will be able to guarantee that they will not succeed again.
    Next time, the consequences could be far worse.
    Imagine: one day in June 201?, an innocent-looking freighter, with a cargo of containers from Dubai, ties up alongside a quay on the Hudson River. It is another ordinary day .......

Copyright Andrew Rossiter 2001
All rights reserved.

WORDS:
all out: total - alongside: beside - Aryan: person with white skin - borders: international frontiers - broad spectrum: wide variety - bully: a person who uses strength against people weaker than himself - cargo: the objects carried in a freight ship, plane or truck - counts: is important - disparity: difference - depraved pronounced [di'preivd]: criminally mad - downfall: fall - freighter: cargo ship - fueled by: strengthened by - go about: take part in, do - guilty: culpable - had no alternative but to: could not do anything else except - happened to be: were by chance - helplessly: being unable to help - Hudson River: the river beside New York - ignominious: unworthy, degrading - inferno: fire, hell - insofar as: since, because - invincibility: superiority, power - irony (pronounced ['aironi]: a result that is the opposite of that which was intended - lawyer: advocate, attorney, legal advisor - malfunction: something that does not function properly - mighty: strong - Moslem: follower of Islam - need not have: did not have to - occur: take place, happen - only once: not until, not before (note the subject/verb inversion that follows in the main clause after these three expressions) - perception: the manner in which something is seen - petrol bomb: molotov cocktail - put on hold: temporarily stop, pause - rebrand: change an image - regild: make something look good again - retaliation: reply, response - retreat: go backwards - seek (sought, sought): look for - shape people's minds: form people's opinions - sorely: badly - Sunnis and Shiites: two types of Muslims - Superbowl: the American Football championship - swell: surge, movement - target: objective - throughout: in all - utterly: totally - vanquish: conquer - visceral: deep-felt, profound - walk out of: quit - witch hunts: a witch hunt is when a group of people look for other people to persecute because of their opinions - World Series: a baseball championship - wounded pronounced [wu:ndid]: hurt, damaged .

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