Abu Ismael
09-09-2007, 10:30 AM
I wrote the below piece last year on the fifth anniversary of the September 11th attacks. Since then not much have changed except the casualties figures, and the basic argument of the article is still valid.
Read it if you have the time and let me know your opinion.
================================================== ========
Variations on September the 11th Theme
In his speech in front of a joint session of congress on September 20th 2001, nine days after the attack, President Bush made the following statement: “The terrorists did what they did because they hate what they see in this room. They hate the freedom and the American way of life.”
Five years and over 100,000 victims later, in Iraq , Afghanistan , Palestine and Lebanon , the Bush Administration has not changed its sinisterly naïve and maliciously simplistic rhetoric. Despite the repeated miserable policy failures and the scandalous systematic field misconduct exhibited by the American political and military strata, President Bush insists, in the good old General Custer style, on ‘staying the course.”
Try with me to imagine nineteen persons willfully committing themselves to death taking 3000 innocent lives along with them in such an extreme dramatic fashion simply because they do not like what goes on under the dome on Capitol Hill. Or is it rather because those nineteen aspired, in their own crooked way, for their people to enjoy the same freedom and liberty that American Administrations have been keen over the years to keep as a domestic commodity and to ensure its continuous burgeoning at the expense of the rest of the world that continues to languish in utter misery? Could it be that those nineteen thought, in their own twisted manner, that they were paying back the powerful but depleted-of-resources North for its perpetual exploitation of the powerless but brimming-with-resources South? Could it be that they sought to correct this cruelly unbalanced relationship by letting the North experience a taste of its own sour medicine?
This is not in any way, shape or form an attempt at justifying what happened on September the 11th as some ultra conservatives may already have hastily and dismissively labeled this discourse. What took place on that dark day in human history is despicable by any standard. This is however an attempt to put this milestone event in its proper context. An event of this magnitude should have sparked widespread soul searching and self critique within the American Administration. Some evidence of that has already manifested itself throughout the American intellectual ranks only to be subjected to brutal smearing campaigns under the pretext of patriotism by the Texas Ranger like elements (no offense to the ball club) that dominate the current administration and its proxy think tanks and media networks. However, those efforts should not give in to despair, for they are the true voice of America that genuinely represents the best interest of the American People.
Alternatively, those elements in the political elite thriving on paranoia and adopting an ignoble self-serving ideology cloaked with high principal have used this event as a spring board to continue to play their own international variations on September the 11th as their predecessors had done in the past way before the 9/11 date became an internationally recognized brand name synonymous with “the killing of innocent civilians in order to achieve political objectives,” more commonly known as terrorism.
The twin towers of the World Trade Center were each 110 stories high. They cost 1.1 billion Dollars to build. Each had a foot print of 4,100 square meters. That is a total of about 900,000 square meters (roughly the equivalent of 4500 homes) that were demolished within a span of two hours causing the horrible death of three thousand innocent victims.
Let us though examine events of a similar magnitude since that date. The BBC reported on January 3rd 2002 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/1740538.stm) that within two months of the military campaign on Afghanistan which commenced less than a month after September the 11th, 3800 civilians had perished. The BBC referred to a research report conducted by Dr. Marc Herold (http://www.cursor.org/stories/civilian_deaths.htm) in which the American academic’s explanation of this very high death toll is “the apparent willingness of U.S. military strategists to fire missiles into and drop bombs upon, heavily populated areas of Afghanistan ." That is the two month variation of September the 11th. Since the beginning of 2002, the American project in Afghanistan has been at best marching in place. All rosy promises about rebuilding the country and restoring security of the people has dissipated in thin air. The situation has even taken a turn for the worse lately with the reappearance of Taliban in the picture while the attrition of the Afghani people continues.
The one month variation of September the 11th took place in Lebanon recently. Amnesty International reported (http://web.amnesty.org/pages/lbn-230806-feature-eng) up to 1,200 Lebanese civilians dead one third of them children, about 4,000 wounded, tens of thousands of homes worth over US $2 billion fully or partially destroyed resulting in over 900,000 displaced citizens, hundreds of bridges, roads, ports and other civilian infrastructure elements worth over US $1.5 billion shattered as a result of the Israeli assault. This of course precludes long term economic and environmental costs. The report underscores research that has pointed to the Israeli policy of “deliberate destruction of Lebanese civilian infrastructure” during the conflict.
So here is a war waged by Israel against civilians and civilian infrastructure with full consent, support and complicity of the American Administration that have resulted in devastating consequences similar in its enormity to Hurricane Katrina. However, the Qana victims don’t get to be profiled on NPR to tell the audience how the last massacre changed their lives and how do their feelings now compare with those about the first massacre ten years ago!!
In Iraq , we have the month in and month out variation. Every month has been a September the 11th for the Iraqis for the last 40 months. Aside from reducing the infrastructure of the country to nearly primitive medieval levels, the web site Iraq Body Count (http://www.iraqbodycount.net/) estimates the dead so far to be between 42,000 and 47,000 a very conservative estimate compared with the British Medical Journal, The Lancet (http://www.zmag.org/lancet.pdf) which had put the number at 100,000 by end of 2004. Nevertheless, one can assert that, for the last forty months, there have been at least one thousand innocent people per month who have fallen victims as a direct result of the illegal American invasion of Iraq . One can not help wonder whether there could be a limit to the unruly desire for hegemony and the repugnant disdainful attitude toward the rest of the world exhibited by the white house war lords.
Then of course you have the perennial Palestinian September the 11th that has been going on and off for nearly 60 years. In its last episode, Al-Aqsa uprising, within a six year period, more than 4000 civilians (http://www.palestinercs.org/crisistables/table_of_figures.htm) have been killed one fourth of them children (http://www.pchrgaza.org/Library/alaqsaintifada.htm), 30,000 injured, 10,000 incarcerated and nearly 5,000 home were destroyed (http://www.pchrgaza.org/Intifada/House_demolitions_stat.htm) either fully or partially leaving 50,000 people without a roof over their heads. Can Huda Ghalia, the teenage girl who witnessed seven of her immediate family being butchered in front of her by an Israeli gunship on Gaza beach a few months ago, expect to be depicted in an Oliver Stone Hollywood movie? Hardly, not even in a mini series on ABC!!
The fact of the matter is that as long as the US will continue to play the hypocritical role of the self proclaimed humane bully in the world the more numerous and vicious its enemies will become. It is the law of nature. It should have come at no surprise that those enemies would eventually start using the same vicious retaliation tactics only manifested in a way that is reflective of their poor PR skills and the humble resources available at their disposal.
In the language of military analysts who often adorn the screens of major American television networks, the jetliners were nothing to those enemies but the poor South’s low tech version of the “cruise missiles and smart bombs,” the nineteen hijackers were simply the disposable “laser/radar/GPRS guides,” the world trade center was the “high value target,” and the 3,000 innocent victims were the “collateral damage.”
In the dirty and inhumane game of “state terrorism” versus “combatants’ terrorism,” Mr. Bush needn’t worry. He is way in front.
Read it if you have the time and let me know your opinion.
================================================== ========
Variations on September the 11th Theme
In his speech in front of a joint session of congress on September 20th 2001, nine days after the attack, President Bush made the following statement: “The terrorists did what they did because they hate what they see in this room. They hate the freedom and the American way of life.”
Five years and over 100,000 victims later, in Iraq , Afghanistan , Palestine and Lebanon , the Bush Administration has not changed its sinisterly naïve and maliciously simplistic rhetoric. Despite the repeated miserable policy failures and the scandalous systematic field misconduct exhibited by the American political and military strata, President Bush insists, in the good old General Custer style, on ‘staying the course.”
Try with me to imagine nineteen persons willfully committing themselves to death taking 3000 innocent lives along with them in such an extreme dramatic fashion simply because they do not like what goes on under the dome on Capitol Hill. Or is it rather because those nineteen aspired, in their own crooked way, for their people to enjoy the same freedom and liberty that American Administrations have been keen over the years to keep as a domestic commodity and to ensure its continuous burgeoning at the expense of the rest of the world that continues to languish in utter misery? Could it be that those nineteen thought, in their own twisted manner, that they were paying back the powerful but depleted-of-resources North for its perpetual exploitation of the powerless but brimming-with-resources South? Could it be that they sought to correct this cruelly unbalanced relationship by letting the North experience a taste of its own sour medicine?
This is not in any way, shape or form an attempt at justifying what happened on September the 11th as some ultra conservatives may already have hastily and dismissively labeled this discourse. What took place on that dark day in human history is despicable by any standard. This is however an attempt to put this milestone event in its proper context. An event of this magnitude should have sparked widespread soul searching and self critique within the American Administration. Some evidence of that has already manifested itself throughout the American intellectual ranks only to be subjected to brutal smearing campaigns under the pretext of patriotism by the Texas Ranger like elements (no offense to the ball club) that dominate the current administration and its proxy think tanks and media networks. However, those efforts should not give in to despair, for they are the true voice of America that genuinely represents the best interest of the American People.
Alternatively, those elements in the political elite thriving on paranoia and adopting an ignoble self-serving ideology cloaked with high principal have used this event as a spring board to continue to play their own international variations on September the 11th as their predecessors had done in the past way before the 9/11 date became an internationally recognized brand name synonymous with “the killing of innocent civilians in order to achieve political objectives,” more commonly known as terrorism.
The twin towers of the World Trade Center were each 110 stories high. They cost 1.1 billion Dollars to build. Each had a foot print of 4,100 square meters. That is a total of about 900,000 square meters (roughly the equivalent of 4500 homes) that were demolished within a span of two hours causing the horrible death of three thousand innocent victims.
Let us though examine events of a similar magnitude since that date. The BBC reported on January 3rd 2002 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/1740538.stm) that within two months of the military campaign on Afghanistan which commenced less than a month after September the 11th, 3800 civilians had perished. The BBC referred to a research report conducted by Dr. Marc Herold (http://www.cursor.org/stories/civilian_deaths.htm) in which the American academic’s explanation of this very high death toll is “the apparent willingness of U.S. military strategists to fire missiles into and drop bombs upon, heavily populated areas of Afghanistan ." That is the two month variation of September the 11th. Since the beginning of 2002, the American project in Afghanistan has been at best marching in place. All rosy promises about rebuilding the country and restoring security of the people has dissipated in thin air. The situation has even taken a turn for the worse lately with the reappearance of Taliban in the picture while the attrition of the Afghani people continues.
The one month variation of September the 11th took place in Lebanon recently. Amnesty International reported (http://web.amnesty.org/pages/lbn-230806-feature-eng) up to 1,200 Lebanese civilians dead one third of them children, about 4,000 wounded, tens of thousands of homes worth over US $2 billion fully or partially destroyed resulting in over 900,000 displaced citizens, hundreds of bridges, roads, ports and other civilian infrastructure elements worth over US $1.5 billion shattered as a result of the Israeli assault. This of course precludes long term economic and environmental costs. The report underscores research that has pointed to the Israeli policy of “deliberate destruction of Lebanese civilian infrastructure” during the conflict.
So here is a war waged by Israel against civilians and civilian infrastructure with full consent, support and complicity of the American Administration that have resulted in devastating consequences similar in its enormity to Hurricane Katrina. However, the Qana victims don’t get to be profiled on NPR to tell the audience how the last massacre changed their lives and how do their feelings now compare with those about the first massacre ten years ago!!
In Iraq , we have the month in and month out variation. Every month has been a September the 11th for the Iraqis for the last 40 months. Aside from reducing the infrastructure of the country to nearly primitive medieval levels, the web site Iraq Body Count (http://www.iraqbodycount.net/) estimates the dead so far to be between 42,000 and 47,000 a very conservative estimate compared with the British Medical Journal, The Lancet (http://www.zmag.org/lancet.pdf) which had put the number at 100,000 by end of 2004. Nevertheless, one can assert that, for the last forty months, there have been at least one thousand innocent people per month who have fallen victims as a direct result of the illegal American invasion of Iraq . One can not help wonder whether there could be a limit to the unruly desire for hegemony and the repugnant disdainful attitude toward the rest of the world exhibited by the white house war lords.
Then of course you have the perennial Palestinian September the 11th that has been going on and off for nearly 60 years. In its last episode, Al-Aqsa uprising, within a six year period, more than 4000 civilians (http://www.palestinercs.org/crisistables/table_of_figures.htm) have been killed one fourth of them children (http://www.pchrgaza.org/Library/alaqsaintifada.htm), 30,000 injured, 10,000 incarcerated and nearly 5,000 home were destroyed (http://www.pchrgaza.org/Intifada/House_demolitions_stat.htm) either fully or partially leaving 50,000 people without a roof over their heads. Can Huda Ghalia, the teenage girl who witnessed seven of her immediate family being butchered in front of her by an Israeli gunship on Gaza beach a few months ago, expect to be depicted in an Oliver Stone Hollywood movie? Hardly, not even in a mini series on ABC!!
The fact of the matter is that as long as the US will continue to play the hypocritical role of the self proclaimed humane bully in the world the more numerous and vicious its enemies will become. It is the law of nature. It should have come at no surprise that those enemies would eventually start using the same vicious retaliation tactics only manifested in a way that is reflective of their poor PR skills and the humble resources available at their disposal.
In the language of military analysts who often adorn the screens of major American television networks, the jetliners were nothing to those enemies but the poor South’s low tech version of the “cruise missiles and smart bombs,” the nineteen hijackers were simply the disposable “laser/radar/GPRS guides,” the world trade center was the “high value target,” and the 3,000 innocent victims were the “collateral damage.”
In the dirty and inhumane game of “state terrorism” versus “combatants’ terrorism,” Mr. Bush needn’t worry. He is way in front.