Understanding September 11

The images we have repeatedly seen on television and in newspapers depict the tears, the horror and the anger of millions of American people in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on Tuesday, September 11.  Many are echoing the famous words of FDR that this will go down as a Adate which will live in infamy@ and as the current generation=s APearl Harbor.@  Most Americans are calling for an all-out attack - fully two-thirds on one survey believing we should bomb the country responsible even if innocent people are killed, or words to that effect.  Certainly one cannot escape these images and the tough words coming from all sectors of American society.  Perhaps now we may know what millions of other citizens in the mostly poor Third World nations have experienced over and over. 

Few are asking the questions that need to be asked, however.  One simple question should lead all others: AWhy?@  More specifically, why would someone commit such a horrible act?  Oh, sure, we are asking this question, but we don=t want to know the truth.  Jack Nicholson said it best in the closing scene of AA Few Good Men@ with his immortal words, AYou can=t handle the truth.@  We Americans want simplistic answers to complex questions.  So the standard answer to the question of Awhy@ is simply AThese are evil people.@  End of discussion.

Of course, one could do some simple probing into history - the history of our own government and what it has done in the name of Ademocracy@ or Aprotecting the national interests.@  Just a cursory look at the number of times we have supported military dictatorships in foreign lands - with arms, military advisors, etc., - all backed by the CIA and the State Department.  Look into places like Nicaragua (the Contra scandal), Guatemala, El Salvador, Chile, Indonesia and especially East Timor, the Sudan, Kosovo, Iraq and many others.  Literally millions of innocent citizens have been tortured and killed during these U.S. Government-backed forays into Apreserving democracy.@  In just East Timor alone, an estimated 200,000 were killed out of a population of around 600,000 - proportionately one of the worst cases of genocide ever. And guess who supported their killers?  Yes, that=s right, the good old USA (who supplied arms to the Indonesian military, after we helped General Suharto overthrow the existing government).

The list goes on and on.  Make no mistake.  This was a horrible crime perpetrated against the American people.  As usual, the majority of the victims were completely innocent.  Just as most of the victims of America=s foreign policy over the past half century have been innocent.  Many Third World citizens, deprived of even the most basic of human needs, have routinely witnessed what we witnessed this past week.  To them it is a way of life.  Incidentally, there is a strong direct correlation between U.S. foreign aid and the extent to which the recipient nations practice torture and other human rights violations.

How should we react to what has happened?  The consensus is for us to attack with the full might of the U.S. military.  And the patriotic fervor is rampant, with flag-waving and slogans abounding (sales of flags and similar patriotic symbols are incredible).  One interesting suggestion came from Knight Kiplinger  (from the famous Kiplinger Newsletter) who suggested on National Public Radio September 13 that citizens should not sit on their wallet but go out and be good consumers - in other words, go buy something to stir up the economy.

Or we can take another approach.  We can try to understand why this happened by, first, trying to Aenter the minds of the likely perpetrators,@ in the words of Noam Chomsky.  In a statement published on the Internet, via Z Magazine=s website, Chomsky quotes journalist Robert Fisk who said that this is not merely a Awar of democracy versus terror...It is also about American missiles smashing into Palestinian homes and US helicopters firing missiles into a Lebanese ambulance in 1996 and American shells crashing into a village called Qana and about a Lebanese militia paid and uniformed by America=s Israeli ally hacking and raping and murdering their way through refugee camps.@

Are we now reaping what we have sown for all these years?  And are we now going to really try to probe the deep roots of the problem?  Not likely, I fear.  After all, war is good for the economy.  Moreover, Asecurity@ will be beefed up big time, and in the process adding more profits to the already huge Acrime control industry@ (we already spend more than $150 billion each year just on the criminal justice system, and this number does not include a huge, multibillion dollar private security industry).  Fat chance this will make Americans safer - it may make us feel safe, however, since this is part of the huge propaganda system already in place.  We already know how efficient the airport security measures are!  Tests show about an 80% failure rate.  No wonder an estimated 18 terrorists easily got on board four jetliners carrying knives and who knows what else!  And they were no doubt asked the standard, idiotic question AHas anyone other than yourself had access to your luggage.@