It's time for post-9/11 leadership

Thomas Friedman writes in today's New York Times that it is time for American politics to step out of the scary mindset of 9/11 and move onto "9/12".

Rudy Giuliani presents himself as the 9/11 candidate, after all, he presided over the 11 Sept 2001 attacks upon the World Trade Center when he was mayor of New York. He's still using that tragic event for political fuel for his Republican campaign for the Oval Office. (What's even worse is his political style, but that's a matter for a future post.) As Friedman, with whom I agree almost as often as I disagree, says:

Before 9/11, the world thought America’s slogan was: “Where anything is possible for anybody.” But that is not our global brand anymore. Our government has been exporting fear, not hope: “Give me your tired, your poor and your fingerprints.”

You may think Guantánamo Bay is a prison camp in Cuba for Al Qaeda terrorists. A lot of the world thinks it’s a place we send visitors who don’t give the right answers at immigration. I will not vote for any candidate who is not committed to dismantling Guantánamo Bay and replacing it with a free field hospital for poor Cubans. Guantánamo Bay is the anti-Statue of Liberty.

Too bad Friedman wasn't talking like this when it came time to decide whether or not to invade Iraq (he strongly supported the war), as well as other major ventures in the 'war on terror'. Where was his reasoning then? And why does he now proclaim that "9/11 is over"? What took him so long?

Despite my love-hate relationship with the influential NYT columnist, the points he makes are valid and important for any American to remember as he or she goes to the polls a bit over a year from now.

6 years later: looking back on 9/11

It's been six years since an act that changed modern history and the world as we knew it. Acts of terrorism were committed on the morning of 11 September 2001 in New York, Washington, DC, and, as it turned out, Pennsylvania. Now, I'm sure you have heard this all and have heard it again, but the political and social effects created by 9/11 have been, suffice to say, enormous. It led to the invasion of entire countries, an international 'war' being declared, the decline in popularity of numerous politicians, the death of many civilians and soldiers, and a shift in the perspectives of both the Muslim world and the West.

A poll recently released said that many Americans will do nothing special or different on this day — not even watch the news to see what's going on in the world. Considering their nation's place in the world and their fortunate socioeconomic placement, world events is something many Americans are quite ignorant about. I try not to be one of those ignorant Americans.

I know it sounds cheesy, but in one way or another, 11 September is always a day of reflection for me, a time to remember times past. I remember the morning of 9/11. I had just left the dentist's office after my six month checkup. I turned on the radio and heard that there had been a plane crash, black smoke, New York, World Trade Center. It didn't click in my mind until a little while later. Soon, the towers fell, and the entire world seemed to be in shock. CNN replayed the video for what felt like weeks, immediately a 'war on terror' was declared. I remember how everyone displayed a flag — on their car window, in front of their house, on their clothes. Everyone was soaking in a sea of patriotism that would soon turn into anguish and, for some, war-mongering despair and an opportunistic outlook. Not only did companies capitalize off of that patriotism; politicians did too. I, like most others, went along with President Bush until I realized you cannot fight terrorists by invading nations, implementing poor policies, thus counter-intuitively breeding more terrorism.

Here are some of the posts from In Perspective I've picked out that are especially relevant to this day:

Warping facts and rewriting history: 9/11 conspiracy theories [here]

A tale of two viewpoints [here]

A look back to a moment in history: 9/11 [here]

Course of action: some GWOT recommendations [here]

"Freedom isn't free" [here]

There's a clash of something(s), but what? [here]

Osama Bin Laden can continue his little video messages for all I care. What he should know is that, eventually, he will be brought to justice — in actuality or in principle — for masterminding the killings of thousands of Americans on 9/11, and many more in other horrible incidents. He is one person who will go down in history for what he really is: bigoted, militant, murderous scum. His followers receive just as much sympathy (i.e. none) from me for their 'cause' as their twisted leader.

technorati tags: 9/11, 9-11, september+11

Course of action: some GWOT recommendations

This is the conclusion, for now, of "The War on Terror and the Fire Paradox" blog post series.

So how should America go about its 'war' against terrorism? The root cause of terrorism needs ample understanding, thus helping in the fight, or what could be described as a fight, more against the source of terrorism than its effects. An issue with counterterrorism efforts abroad is that cooperation — if not total coordination — with the local government at the site of the operation is needed, as well as with others who may be affected.

The 9/11 Commission, set up over a year after the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks upon the United States, gave a handful of major recommendations for an American course of action in the global battle against radical Islamic terrorism. "But the enemy is not just "terrorism," some generic evil. This vagueness blurs the strategy. The catastrophic threat at this moment in history is more specific. It is the threat posed by Islamist terrorism — especially the al Qaeda network, its affiliates, and its ideology." (p.362)

The 9/11 Commission Report also states education as a major preventative effort in states susceptible to breeding or attracting terrorism, as is economic development aid (pp.377-379). In addition, the report stresses a positive image of the United States in the Muslim world in order to allow the US to be seen as a legitimate and positive force, and not hinder its operations with governments wishing to help in battling extremism (pp.376-377).

Not only does the transnational flow of terrorists and their radical movements need to be halted, but a helpful combination of good PR (but not propaganda), economic agreements (but not unreasonable concessions), and open-channel diplomacy (but not a free-for-all) should be kept with states suspected of harboring — or even directly or indirectly supporting — terrorism. Countries like Syria, which is a major hub for insurgents entering Iraq, could help in the fight against terrorism if they were not shunned by the US. In Syria's case*, good relations with America could even bring the state further from more devious states like Iran. Lest we forget, terrorism is a problem for other governments too, even 'evil' ones. Most every state in the Middle East and North Africa fears terrorism of the radical Islamic persuasion.

The US cannot fight its war alone either. It needs to be willing to reach out to friends and foes alike, observing the greater good while still keeping on the ethical side of things. Guantanamo Bay does little in helping the war on terrorism, except in political ways for the Bush administration — e.g. when a suspect 'confesses' to some sort of scary-sounding terrorist plot, it raises political support for the White House. Gitmo is a negative symbol in the war on terror and looks bad from close allies like the United Kingdom as well as disgruntled Middle Easterners who already mad enough at America — things like Gitmo may well push them over the edge and radicalize the population, thus playing into the extremists' hands. Not to mention the fact it's a legal and human rights disgrace, an example of how freedom suffers at the hands of those who fight in the name of security (freedom v. security). These extremists resort to big measures to get public opinion on their side; the US is only helping them by providing perfect rallying cries: 'the imperial occupiers, who kill your brothers and bombed your village wish to harm us further', etc.

As Joseph Nye points out in a Foreign Affairs article from May/June 2004, you cannot just use military power in the 'war on terror' — perception matters*, whether in the eyes of allies or enemies. Allies must see the United States' foreign policy as legitimate, other must see it as non-threatening. Anti-Americanism is more serious than some in Washington think, and it’s high time to take actions to limit the resent against America.

References

Ferguson, Niall. Colossus: the Rise and Fall of the American Empire. New York: Penguin, 2004.

Ikenberry, G. John. “America’s Imperial Ambition”. Foreign Affairs Sept/Oct 2002.

Nye, Joseph S., Jr. “The Decline of America's Soft Power: Why Washington Should Worry”. Foreign Affairs May/June 2004.
---. Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics. New York: PublicAffairs, 2005.

United States. National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States. The 9/11 Commission Report. By Thomas H. Kean, et al. New York: W.W. Norton, 2004.
* = a post from this blog

A look back to a moment in history: 9/11

Did political change result from the terrorists, or from the American politicians? After the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks (9/11), Americans defied the terrorists, at least in the way the government wanted, by showing their patriotism — or what the Bush administration defined as 'patriotism' — and continuing their American way of life.

The media followed along, so a virtual political monopoly was instigated. Both major political parties looking to the White House, declaring their unity and support for America, and the fight against the perpetrators of 9/11. After all, the terrorists attacked because they were angry at the US's freedom, right? As soon as the Bush White House noted how easily people could be controlled and manipulated for political capital, the guise of a war on terror was put up.

There’s no vast conspiracy, but the Bush administration did use 9/11 as an excuse for its many following endeavors in fronts in its global war on terrorism (GWOT). The effects of the fire paradox of insurgent terrorism have been around forever, but the policies of the war on terror, which feed into the paradox even more, have not. The so-called war on terror was the result of 9/11.

So what other effects did 9/11 produce? Juan Cole, an expert on Iraq and terrorism, wrote some intriguing ideas in an article entitled "Think Again: 9/11". Cole says 9/11 did not change everything, and "For all their visibility and drama, the 9/11 attacks left untouched many of the underlying forces and persistent tensions that shape international politics."

He says 9/11 was less of a clash of civilizations, and more of a 'clash over policy'. Cole insists, and cites numerous studies, Muslims are fine with the West, with democracy, with the western way of life. In fact, the only lifestyle area where the Muslim world is less fine with is things like homosexuality and liberal sexual lifestyles — the same things American conservatives and evangelicals scorn.

Autonomy and national independence appear to be part of what Muslims mean by “democracy,” and they consider Western interventions in Muslim affairs a betrayal of democratic ideals. September 11 and the American response to it have deepened the rift over policy, but they haven’t created a clash of civilizations.

When asked on whether 'the war on terror has no end', Cole replies "that's the plan":

The Bush administration has defined the struggle vaguely precisely so that it can’t end; George W. Bush clearly enjoys the prerogatives of being a war president. So, the administration has expanded the goals and targets of this war from one group or geographical area to another.
…
After 9/11, the Bush administration transformed the losers in those conflicts [Iraq and Afghanistan] into winners. But the civil wars continue, with the unseated groups now playing the role of insurgents.

Cole concludes: "Al Qaeda may not have fundamentally changed the world on 9/11, but that is no reason to give it a second chance."

Hopefully when or if the next 9/11 comes, the US government will be less haphazard in its foreign policy in response to terrorism, will learn about and — instead of just making it worse — try to get around the fire paradox using alternative methods to fighting terrorism. In addition, hopefully the American people, and, in fact, the people extremists claim to represent, won’t get fooled again.

Juan Cole, by the way, is an expert on Iraq and the Middle East, a professor of history at the University of Michigan, and a blogger. His Iraq- and Mid-East-focused blog is called Informed Comment.

technorati tags: juan+cole, terrorism, 9/11, september+11+terrorist+attackes, history, politics, international

Warping facts and rewriting history: 9/11 conspiracy theories

Even as the American public seem to be getting smarter about politics — albeit slowly — public belief in 9/11 conspiracy theories seems to be on the rise. A partial explanation may be the public’s annoyance with their government, which they could help solve if people took more action in national politics and voted.

These conspiracy theorists think everyone is against them and employ pseudo-fact to support their flawed claims. These people cannot be swayed by verifiable video footage or eyewitness accounts — nothing can stop their irrational conspiracy speculation about what happened on 11 September 2001.

The only 9/11 theory that has any merit is, unsurprisingly, the official version of what happened. Pearl Harbor, no doubt, was also not a conspiracy, but the John F. Kennedy assassination is up for grabs, but no one on either side (official or conspiracy) can garner enough evidence to support their claims.

Yes, there are plenty of accounts to confirm US intelligence services knew of the impending 9/11 attack, but did not take action because of bureaucratic incompetence. Intelligence services did not get the correct data or relay it, and gave the tips of an attack the benefit of the doubt, like what happened with Pearl Harbor (the radar station knew Japanese planes were coming but did not know whether they were Japanese and were not notified to be on the lookout). It was a failure of imagination, as the 9/11 Commission put it, in the US intelligence services. However, they did not ignore data on purpose because they wanted 3,000 people to loose their lives in a massive terrorist strike.

The BBC investigated many conspiracy theories and, eventually, debunked them, including the 9/11 one.

These theories have gotten more media coverage and analysis, some of which has been good, as of late.

A Scripps Howard poll gave some disturbing data:

Thirty-six percent of respondents overall said it is "very likely" or "somewhat likely" that federal officials either participated in the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon or took no action to stop them "because they wanted the United States to go to war in the Middle East."
…
The poll also found that 16 percent of Americans speculate that secretly planted explosives, not burning passenger jets, were the real reason the massive twin towers of the World Trade Center collapsed.

Conspiracy groups for at least two years have also questioned why the World Trade Center collapsed when fires that heavily damaged similar skyscrapers around the world did not cause such destruction. Sixteen percent said it's "very likely" or "somewhat likely" that "the collapse of the twin towers in New York was aided by explosives secretly planted in the two buildings."

Twelve percent suspect the Pentagon was struck by a military cruise missile in 2001 rather than by an airliner captured by terrorists.
…
The level of suspicion of U.S. official involvement in a 9/11 conspiracy was only slightly behind the 40 percent who suspect "officials in the federal government were directly responsible for the assassination of President Kennedy" and the 38 percent who believe "the federal government is withholding proof of the existence of intelligent life from other planets."

A Zogby poll found:

People are completely divided on whether they believe President Bush exploited the 9/11 attacks (44%) or justified an attack on Iraq (44%). Approximately one in ten (11%) is not sure.
…
Close to half (48%) agrees the U.S. government and 9/11 Commission are not covering up anything, yet nearly as many (42%) believe the government and 9/11 Commission are covering up. One in ten (10%) is unsure.

Curiously enough, conservatives, according to this poll, gave the media a negative score in its 9/11 coverage. Why is this so interesting? The media was acting patriotic and very loyal in every way to the Bush administration for the weeks following. The media did not sufficiently do its job in the aftermath of 9/11: they did not question what the government was saying, analyze why the attacks happened, report a lot of important news, or challenge Bush in his exploitation of the attacks. This led to an overall media support of the Iraq war as war critics were drowned out and not put on air nearly as much as talking-point ridden war hawks.

I remember nearly every television channel had a flag design at the bottom of the screen, and there was nonstop talk of the war on terror. Most everyone was following along with the government’s policy, a dangerous thing to do when the people are confused and scared and need facts and rationality now more than ever.

Ignorance is ignoring all true evidence and thinking the evil government was the sole perpetrators of 9/11. You know what, deniers of the terrorist attack on US soil on 11 September 2001, it's all going too far. Some people, myself included, lost friends and relatives in 9/11 and don't need people like the 'Truthers' spreading warped and pseudo-factual conspiracy theory views of historical events when there is plenty of evidence to support the mainstream view! They use architectural evidence like they know anything about the topic; how could explosives blow up the towers then? How could they fall the way they did when it was clearly a structural breach when two of the largest commercial aircrafts in existence (at the time) crashed head on into buildings not designed for high-speed air crashes?!

Enough is enough. I see the loss of rationality is as evident in the 9/11-deniers as it is in the followers of the Bush administration's 'war on terrorism'. Both sides are messing with history and fact in order to advance political, ideological motives. Shame on both the 9/11 exploiters (e.g. Bush) and the 9/11 fact deniers (e.g. Truthers). There is a time for reaping political capital, and there is a time to question and attack the mainstream view of things, but with things like 9/11, either action is a dangerous one leading to a slippery slope of exploiting every terror case and holding a revisionist, paranoid attitude of every event.

Some conspiracy theorists think of their spreading of their false notions as their duty to society; their spreading of ignorance and fallacies only hurts society. On the other hand, the spreading of ignorance and possible fallacies by people who believes everything an authority (e.g. the government) says is also produces a negative impact on society.

We must question things presented to us, but not become paranoid and use the same pseudo-facts politicians may be using. 9/11 conspiracies are just as invalid as Iraq prewar evidence: one came from the conspiracy theorists, the other from the government. Those of us stuck in the middle should never cease from questioning what we see and what we are told, but there is a point where people question too much and form a false reality.

I think at least one thing myself and the radical right-wing can agree on is that these 9/11 conspiracy theorists hold false notions and use unbelievably invalid facts to support their almost non-existant argument that the government of the United States of America was the sole perpetrator of the terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers in New York City, the Pentagon in northern Virginia, and the third, failed, attack (Flight 93) on 11 September 2001.

Just as the conspiracy theorists blame the government, the Bush administration holds the ambiguous general terrorist movement  — as if it were one concrete force — as its scapegoat and poster-child for evil.

technorati tags: 9/11, 9/11+conspiracy, conspiracy+theories, truthers, politics, media, terrorism, september+11th, opinion, arguement, government, bush, news+media, fact, in+the+news, history

A tale of two viewpoints

Throughout this month, I will be posting excerpts of my lengthy paper "The War on Terror and the Fire Paradox", as mentioned in this post. Here is one such excerpt...

From the White House press briefings to the Mujahideen spin machine, there’s one thing both sides have in common, besides exploiting their own people’s fears and insecurities and irrationality: propaganda.

Jihad for the masses: Mujahideen
The following is an article called "Fundamentalism" from a jihadist website of a group who call themselves Harkat-ul-Mujahideen. This Mujahideen group was active at its inception during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan that spurred the Taliban, which the US meddled in, and in the India-Pakistan conflict over Kashmir. The groups advocates jihad and that Muslims do their duty and fight against the menace — whether it be Zionist or western satanic groups.

We are under threat from the Fundamentalists!
The Fundamentalists are a threat to the worldwide peace mission!
We should unite in our efforts against [the] Fundamentalists!
There is no existence of such a thing in Islam called Fundamentalism!
If the wave of Fundamentalism is not stopped,
nobody will be saved from becoming it’s next target.
…
The word terror has been mentioned which is used today as a swear against Muslims. Therefore, those Muslims who have gained Islamic strength are branded as terrorists. What need is there for the Muslims to be ashamed of this swear? Allah (sw) has ordered the Muslims to terrorize their enemies, who are also the enemies of Allah (sw). Whosoever will fulfill this obligation will be classed as a terrorist. So to be a terrorist is a source of blessing and not shame. To cast terror upon the enemies of Allah (sw) is an act of worship and not an act of crime. Muslims should not be hesitant in fulfilling this obligation.
…
In conclusion, Muslims are not being branded as Fundamentalists because of a major change, they are being branded because of returning back to the roots of their Religion and this title is a blessing for the Muslims.

Political statement in the aftermath of terrorist attack
The following is an excerpt from a statement by President George W. Bush following the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and in Pennsylvania on the morning of 11 September 2001.

Good evening. Today, our fellow citizens, our way of life, our very freedom came under attack in a series of deliberate and deadly terrorist acts. The victims were in airplanes, or in their offices; secretaries, businessmen and women, military and federal workers; moms and dads, friends and neighbors. Thousands of lives were suddenly ended by evil, despicable acts of terror.

The pictures of airplanes flying into buildings, fires burning, huge structures collapsing, have filled us with disbelief, terrible sadness, and a quiet, unyielding anger. These acts of mass murder were intended to frighten our nation into chaos and retreat. 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. These acts shattered steel, but they cannot dent the steel of American resolve.

America was targeted for attack because we're the brightest beacon for freedom and opportunity in the world. And no one will keep that light from shining.

See also "Why are we obsessed with terrorism?"

technorati tags: Mujahideen, press, communications, bush, fundamentalism, jihad, 9/11, terrorism, muslim, united+states