Deep Blade Archive
Cutting through the machinations and
effects of the U.S. empire
Why?
Examining the roots of the
September 11, 2001 terror attack on the United States
There is no doubt that we Americans are
generous, gentle, peace-loving people who certainly did not
deserve the destruction inflicted upon us last Tuesday. The
airline hijackings and subsequent destruction in New York and
Washington D.C. were among the most sickening, heartbreaking
things I have ever seen. There has not been one waking moment
since these events that I have not been praying for all of the
people and families affected, the men and women performing
Police, Fire and Rescue work, and every soul in the entire
world who must live with the burden that other members of our
own species are ready to kill, destroy, and be killed in such
vile acts.
Naturally, our first reaction is that we
want those responsible punished. And they should be punished.
But I have a great deal of fear that the U.S. will retaliate,
blindly, with actions that would put us on the same disgusting
moral level of terrorism of the hijackers. If we as a generous,
free, peace-loving people, want justice, there should be
justice, not just vengeance. This is no time for blind
patriotism that could become the justification for the killing
of innocents in the manner of the hijackers. Justice must be
calm and measured in a fair Court of Law. Justice must involve
not only punishment of perpetrators, but also an examination of
the conditions giving those perpetrators the passions they
possess lest such attacks will happen again. We must ask and
answer fully—Why?
What follows is a conversation every
American who wants to know why this happened should begin to
have. Though there is no public proof at this point, I will
assume that the hijackers belonged to some ultra-radical group
formed by extreme elements within popular movements in the
Middle East. In no way do I suggest that all members of these
societies and movements support this kind of violence. In fact
few of them do. But the perpetrators of Tuesday's attack
probably have their roots in these movements.
To understand how the hijackers could
resort to something so extreme, Americans must do something
that is very difficult for us. We must imagine ourselves in the
lives of the vast majority of people in the Arab world who have
little wealth, little control of their own lives, and their
core beliefs under assault from the airwaves and all around
them every day. U.S. President George W. Bush has it wrong. He
says the perpetrators of these crimes "can't stand
freedom." Wrong. There is nothing they want more than
freedom-freedom of religion, freedom from cultural domination,
freedom to live, freedom to work and be paid a fair wage, and,
very importantly, freedom to enjoy the wealth and resources of
their homelands. In essence they want the same freedoms that
Americans enjoy.
They see Israel as an occupying power,
sustained with billions of dollars of aid and military
assistance from the United States. After all, Israel's arrival
as a nation was accompanied by the eviction of hundreds of
thousands of Arabs from their homes, losses exacerbated in the
1967 war and since through a series of wars, massacres, and the
expansion of Israeli settlements.
But the existence of Israel, or even the
influx of Western culture do not alone explain the depth and
intensity of anger towards America that is felt by Arab
populations in the Middle East. The real source of this anger,
well understood by U.S. leaders, and evident to every person
living in the Middle East, is that America is busily extracting
the energy resources and wealth of these lands while leaving
the vast majority of the population destitute.
The US relationship with Israel, and
other states of the Middle East is based on control of the oil.
The US, Israel, and Saudi Arabia form a tight nexus of
authoritarian political control (including terror, provision of
military hardware, etc.) that the region's populations are not
able to resist, except through acts of skulking violence by
quasi-secret groups. In his book from the 1980s, Towards a New
Cold War, Noam Chomsky examines the early documents, State
Department and national security memoranda from the 40s and
50s, that established the US policy persisting to this day.
These documents are full of references to "the most
stupendous energy reserves that the world has ever known",
how popular resistance cannot be allowed to be an obstacle to
extracting "our oil," and how we must expect
"jealousy" of the wealth these extractions will
bring. By the end of the last century, the US giant had
formed a global financial and trading system in its own
interest, ditched treaties and international law it finds
inconvenient, and put troops in every corner of the globe to
enforce its claim on world resources.
Herein lie the root causes of the
September 11, 2001 attacks. From the hijackers point of view,
they were conducting a war made of decades of American
exploitation of their homelands. The symbolism and irony of the
attacks are palpable, but will be lost on most
Americans—the seat of global capitalism has been brought
down by a couple of airliners depositing burning loads of
capitalism's fuel. In fact, they must see their actions as not
dissimilar from America's own when it bombed large buildings in
Sudan, Yugoslavia, and Iraq in recent years. This should cause
us to rethink these decades of policy. How long can we extract
and burn the world's wealth and resources, backed by a powerful
war-making machine, before the chickens come home to roost?
There doesn't seem to be any public
insight into these matters emanating amongst our leaders,
Democrat or Republican. It's all about this innocent, shining
beacon of freedom and financial enlightenment being ruthlessly
attacked by madmen. The message is for us to pull together,
wave the flag, and get ready for war against the madmen.
Because they are madmen, it's okay to blow up anyone who is
perceived to look like them. Our leaders and their $40 billion
appropriation of Social Security funds to fight fire with fire
are irresponsible. They should be calming us rather than
inciting us. We become our enemy. Violence begets violence. We
learn this in church and history bears it out.
Their terrorists will find they have
gained nothing except perverse symbolism. Our terrorists will
inspire more attacks by their terrorists. The US will flail
with its big guns and make everything worse than it was. Where
will it stop? It could be pretty damn bad, especially if things
go nuclear. I pray that our country has the right conversation
about these events, but I fear there will be more destruction
and many more whys? to answer.
Eric T. Olson
September 14, 2001
September 14, 2001
Americans cannot ignore what
their government does abroad
by Seumas Milne
Thursday September 13, 2001
Nearly two days after the horrific
suicide attacks on civilian workers in New York and Washington,
it has become painfully clear that most Americans simply don't
get it. From the president to passersby on the streets, the
message seems to be the same: this is an inexplicable assault
on freedom and democracy, which must be answered with
overwhelming force - just as soon as someone can construct a
credible account of who was actually responsible....the rest is archived at The Guardian
911 Archive
Archive of 2003 War Resources
Archive of 1991 Gulf War Articles
911 Archive
