9/11 five years on

Every blogger and his dog will be writing about the 5th anniversary of 9/11 today,  so why the hell anyone would want to read my ramblings is beyond me.  However, I couldn't let this anniversary pass without saying something.

I must be one of the few people in the UK who missed most of the coverage of 9/11.  When the attacks happened,  I was on the Galapagos Islands which is the next best thing to being in Antarctica or on the Moon.  If Bin Laden had gone for 9/12 instead,  I would have been out in the middle of the Pacific and wouldn't have known anything about it for days.  Having heard rumours about the attacks,  a few of us headed off to the islands' only internet cafe.  It only had five PCs and some Germans had already bagged the first two (funny how they do that, isn't it?), so we grabbed the rest and started trying to get into the overloaded news sites.  Eventually, I got into the BBC web-site and the full horror of what had happened became clear.  For the rest of our trip, we tried to keep up to date using a palm-size short-wave radio. Fifteen of us gathered round it at night while I fiddled about trying to get the World Service, Voice of America or the Dutch World Service which was translated by two Belgians on the boat.  By the time we got back to somewhere with English-language newspapers and TV, much of the initial shock had subsided.

It was replaced by a cold anger and a determination by America and its allies to bring the perpetrators to justice.  I was impressed at the time by the NATO countries' impromptu demonstration of solidarity with the US by invoking Article Five.  For a while it seemed that we had a global consensus against the terrorists.  The attack on the Taliban regime in Afghanistan was supported by most western powers.  Even France contributed troops.

The consensus collapsed over the invasion of Iraq.  At the time I didn't see any link between Iraq and Al-Qaeda so the findings of the Senate Intelligence Committee came as no surprise.  Even if, as Dick Cheney maintains, Al-Zarqawi was making poison bombs in Iraq, it is still unlikely that this was happening under the protection of Saddam.  What is more,  there could be ten Al-Zarqawis making bombs in Iraq now and no-one would know about it.

The jury is still out on whether the US invasion of Iraq will be a success.  I hope it will be but I suspect that the fledgling democracy may be eaten alive by the deep-rooted tribal rivalries in the country.  History will probably judge the invasion of Iraq as one of America's major strategic blunders.  By focusing on Saddam, the US diverted resources away from the pursuit of Al-Qaeda, allowed the Taliban to re-group and removed the major regional rival of Iran, which may turn out to be a more dangerous enemy.

None of which has turned me into an anti-American.  I think Iraq will turn out to be have been a bad decision but I don't believe that America is some kind of evil empire trying to conquer the world.  The differences of opinion between western countries are mere nuances compared to the gulf between us and the dictatorships of the Islamic world. What 9/11 gave us, briefly, was a glimpse of the solidarity that the free world will need if it is to prevail against terrorism and dictatorship.

Americans and Europeans have grown used to being able to fight each other and get away with it.  For the past two hundred years or so, we have been so powerful that we could afford to wage ruinous wars against each other yet still emerge from the rubble more prosperous and powerful than most of the nations of Asia and Africa.  That is changing and changing fast.  China and India will soon eclipse most European countries.  They will probably be followed by other Asian countries.  While India is a democracy, China certainly isn't and shows no signs of becoming one.  There is no guarantee that the world's new powers will adopt the liberal traditions of Europe and America. 

Meanwhile,  militant forms of Islam will continue to present a challenge to western countries' security,  through terrorism, control of the oil supply and their influence over some members of our local Muslim populations.  Both America and Europe will face challenges from dictatorships and terrorists at a time when their relative power in the world is on the wane.  We can no longer afford the luxury of arguing and fighting with each other.  We need to recapture that post 9/11 solidarity and quickly.

So,  while I may have reservations about Iraq,  I'm still, on the whole,  pro-American.  And when the chips are down, I think most Europeans are too.  That instinctive response from the European powers after 9/11 tells us more about where our loyalties lie than any of the bickering about 'L'Abomination Américaine' or 'Old Europe'.  At times like 9/11, you find out who your friends are.  When reality bites,  people in Europe know which side their bread is buttered.  That is why, despite any previous disagreements, most of them came out in support of the USA.

Today will be a tough day for the families of the people killed five years ago.  I would like to think that no-one will have to go through that again but I'm a realist.  We probably haven't seen the last of these attacks but,  if we are to minimise the risk of it happening again on such a scale,  those of us in free and democratic countries need to stand together.  As the editor of Le Monde wrote five years ago - Nous sommes tous Américains.

 

Comments

[Wolfie]

That's a strange kind of asymmetry we have going on there Steve. I was on the trading-floor of a London Investment Bank on 9/11 yet on 7/7 I was in the Galapagos Islands as you were on 9/11. Guess we both take a different kind of holiday.

Agreed on the analysis btw.

[GZ Expat]

The Iraq debate will wage on and on. Many feel as you do that it was a waste of time...others, however, believe that the terror punks have blown an inordinate amount of resources fighting coalition forces in Iraq...weakening them worldwide. Any way you slice it, the war is a long slog. But, again, we were all warned of that at the outset.

Americans will be sad to see Tony Blair go...its funny that Blair is more popular in the USA than at home. He put his neck out there when nobody wanted him to. He's a gutsy politician...and Americans respect that. Just like Bill Clinton...many people didn't like him, but respect him because he was a gutsy politician (and he was more popular in the UK than in the USA!!).

[James G]

Nice one, Steve. Broadly agree with you there (and any disagreement is nuance!)

I keep meaning to post something. My uncle was working 70 feet away from the wreckage at the Pentagon. His bomb-proof windows bubbled in at the shockwave. Even he was, privately, critical of some of the reasoning behind Iraq, but supportive that the Commander-in-Chief and Congress had made a decision to invade Iraq.

I thought/think that Iraq would make a great foothold from which to create a domino effect, not so certain of that reasoning now,but... Whether successful or not, we're there now and we need to clean up our mess as much as we can before we bug out.

I think Iraq has acted as a diversion to postpone many people's realisation of just who the enemy actually and what they are capable of. If the Jihadis weren't in Iraq, they'd probably be at work here (and some of them have been, too.)

[G. Tingey]

Islam is the problem.

It is (literally, no metaphor) a pure, unreformed dark-ages religion.

There are several solutions, none pleasant, and all involving a lot of killing.

The trouble is, that doing nothing is even worse.

[Rastaman]

Iraq isn't a democracy. Just having some elections isn't adequate criteria. They have already made it clear that their constitution will be based on Sharia law. Oops! There goes the old democracy.

The US lost its military bases in Saudi Arabia and needed a place to go to set up shop again in the Middle East. About then, Saddam made a deal with the Chinese for Iraqs oil. That lit the fuse. Once Saddam was out of power, the contract with the Chinese was null and void. Which is why the Chinese have been so pissy ever since.

Win or lose in Iraq, the military bases we've established there are now permanent. The US will never leave Iraq. Watch and see.

Everything else you may read about why the US is in Iraq is probably a lie.

Thanks for your expression of feeling for my countrys loss on September 11, 2001, Steve. There's a lot we don't agree on. It's good we agree on that.

Rastaman
www.islamanazi.com

[Steve]

Rasta, I'd like to discuss why you think the US is really in Iraq but I'm just off to the US for a fewdays so I don't have time.

Thanks for your comment anyway. Lets pick this up when iget back.

[Hellpig]

The religion of peace aka the cult of satan was manifested from the delusions suffered from epilepsy,Muhammad the bloodthirsty child raping false prophet was the spawn of satan,his followers are simpleminded and uneducated chattle...The quran is a how to guide for thieves rapists and murderers.....21st century and Muslims still reside in the 7th century they bow to the black meteorite five times a day.....these primitive goatfuckers do not deserve the right to walk the civilized world.

People of Planet Earth the time is now stand up and send these followers of the child raping false prophet to hell to be with their master Muhammad(May pigs piss on his rotting corpse) where they can watch him suck the pig shit from allahs dick

NUKE MECCA!!

[Enlightenment]

One thing that struck me as odd in the days after 9/11 was Bush saying "We will not tolerate conspiracy theories [regarding 9/11]". Sure enough there have been some wacky conspiracy theories surrounding the events of that day. The most far-fetched and patently ridiculous one that I've ever heard goes like this: Nineteen hijackers who claimed to be devout Muslims but yet were so un-Muslim as to be getting drunk all the time, doing cocaine and frequenting strip clubs decided to hijack four airliners and fly them into buildings in the northeastern U.S., the area of the country that is the most thick with fighter bases. After leaving a Koran on a barstool at a strip bar after getting shitfaced drunk on the night before, then writing a suicide note/inspirational letter that sounded like it was written by someone with next to no knowledge of Islam, they went to bed and got up the next morning hung over and carried out their devious plan. Nevermind the fact that of the four "pilots" among them there was not a one that could handle a Cessna or a Piper Cub let alone fly a jumbo jet, and the one assigned the most difficult task of all, Hani Hanjour, was so laughably incompetent that he was the worst fake "pilot" of the bunch. Nevermind the fact that they received very rudimentary flight training at Pensacola Naval Air Station, making them more likely to have been C.I.A. assets than Islamic fundamentalist terrorists. So on to the airports. These "hijackers" somehow managed to board all four airliners with their tickets, yet not even ONE got his name on any of the flight manifests. So they hijack all four airliners and at this time passengers on United 93 start making a bunch of cell phone calls from 35,000 feet in the air to tell people what was going on. Nevermind the fact that cell phones wouldn't work very well above 4,000 feet, and wouldn't work at ALL above 8,000 feet. But the conspiracy theorists won't let that fact get in the way of a good fantasy. That is one of the little things you "aren't supposed to think about". Nevermind that one of the callers called his mom and said his first and last name, more like he was reading from a list than calling his own mom. Anyway, when these airliners each deviated from their flight plan and didn't respond to ground control, NORAD would any other time have followed standard operating procedure (and did NOT have to be told by F.A.A. that there were hijackings because they were watching the same events unfold on their own radar) which means fighter jets would be scrambled from the nearest base where they were available on standby within a few minutes, just like every other time when airliners stray off course. But of course on 9/11 this didn't happen, not even close. Somehow these "hijackers" must have used magical powers to cause NORAD to stand down, as ridiculous as this sounds because total inaction from the most high-tech and professional Air Force in the world would be necessary to carry out their tasks. So on the most important day in its history the Air Force was totally worthless. Then they had to make one of the airliners look like a smaller plane, because unknown to them the Naudet brothers had a videocamera to capture the only known footage of the North Tower crash, and this footage shows something that is not at all like a jumbo jet, but didn't have to bother with the South Tower jet disguising itself because that was the one we were "supposed to see". Anyway, as for the Pentagon they had to have Hani Hanjour fly his airliner like it was a fighter plane, making a high G-force corkscrew turn that no real airliner can do, in making its descent to strike the Pentagon. But these "hijackers" wanted to make sure Rumsfeld survived so they went out of their way to hit the farthest point in the building from where Rumsfeld and the top brass are located. And this worked out rather well for the military personnel in the Pentagon, since the side that was hit was the part that was under renovation at the time with few military personnel present compared to construction workers. Still more fortuitous for the Pentagon, the side that was hit had just before 9/11 been structurally reinforced to prevent a large fire there from spreading elsewhere in the building. Awful nice of them to pick that part to hit, huh? Then the airliner vaporized itself into nothing but tiny unidentifiable pieces no bigger than a fist, unlike the crash of a real airliner when you will be able to see at least some identifiable parts, like crumpled wings, broken tail section etc. Why, Hani Hanjour the terrible pilot flew that airliner so good that even though he hit the Pentagon on the ground floor the engines didn't even drag the ground!! Imagine that!! Though the airliner vaporized itself on impact it only made a tiny 16 foot hole in the building. Amazing. Meanwhile, though the planes hitting the Twin Towers caused fires small enough for the firefighters to be heard on their radios saying "We just need 2 hoses and we can knock this fire down" attesting to the small size of it, somehow they must have used magical powers from beyond the grave to make this morph into a raging inferno capable of making the steel on all forty-seven main support columns (not to mention the over 100 smaller support columns) soften and buckle, then all fail at once. Hmmm. Then still more magic was used to make the building totally defy physics as well as common sense in having the uppermost floors pass through the remainder of the building as quickly, meaning as effortlessly, as falling through air, a feat that without magic could only be done with explosives. Then exactly 30 minutes later the North Tower collapses in precisely the same freefall physics-defying manner. Incredible. Not to mention the fact that both collapsed at a uniform rate too, not slowing down, which also defies physics because as the uppermost floors crash into and through each successive floor beneath them they would shed more and more energy each time, thus slowing itself down. Common sense tells you this is not possible without either the hijackers' magical powers or explosives. To emphasize their telekinetic prowess, later in the day they made a third building, WTC # 7, collapse also at freefall rate though no plane or any major debris hit it. Amazing guys these magical hijackers. But we know it had to be "Muslim hijackers" the conspiracy theorist will tell you because (now don't laugh) one of their passports was "found" a couple days later near Ground Zero, miraculously "surviving" the fire that we were told incinerated planes, passengers and black boxes, and also "survived" the collapse of the building it was in. When common sense tells you if that were true then they should start making buildings and airliners out of heavy paper and plastic so as to be "indestructable" like that magic passport. The hijackers even used their magical powers to bring at least seven of their number back to life, to appear at american embassies outraged at being blamed for 9/11!! BBC reported on that and it is still online. Nevertheless, they also used magical powers to make the american government look like it was covering something up in the aftermath of this, what with the hasty removal of the steel debris and having it driven to ports in trucks with GPS locators on them, to be shipped overseas to China and India to be melted down. When common sense again tells you that this is paradoxical in that if the steel was so unimportant that they didn't bother saving some for analysis but so important as to require GPS locators on the trucks with one driver losing his job because he stopped to get lunch. Hmmmm. Yes, this whole story smacks of the utmost idiocy and fantastical far-fetched lying, but it is amazingly enough what some people believe. Even now, five years later, the provably false fairy tale of the "nineteen hijackers" is heard repeated again and again, and is accepted without question by so many Americans. Which is itself a testament to the innate psychological cowardice of the American sheeple, i mean people, and their abject willingness to believe something, ANYTHING, no matter how ridiculous in order to avoid facing a scary uncomfortable truth. Time to wake up America.

[Hellpig]

Enlightenment you are a whackjob go spew your anti-american pro-terrorist propaganda elsewhere the world knows what happened the followers of the cult of satan are responsible for 9/11

read book learn the truth
http://www.amazon.com/Debunking-11-Myths-Conspiracy-Theories/dp/158816635X/sr=1-1/qid=1158035323/ref=pd_bbs_1/102-5744496-9573728?ie=UTF8&s=books