When reason takes the back seat (Part 1)
By Hyppolite Pierre
At first I thought like everyone else, that it was an accident. Early in the morning of September 11, 2001, an email alerted me that an airplane had just hit one of the towers of the World Trade Center in New York. Then a few minutes later, someone else confided in me that a second airplane did the same to the second tower of the WTC. It became clear at that point that something was deeply wrong. Eventually after their attack on the Pentagon in Washington DC, we realized that terrorists had just visited us in the United States of America, with dreadful resolve. After all precautions were taken by The United States political Establishment, the assessment of the damages began and is still going on. The fear is now that more than 6,000 people are dead in New York alone, and probably close to 200 in Washington. At first, many in the media were reluctant to accuse the Arabs of involvement in these attacks. They all remembered the Oklahoma city bombing, and didn't want to make the same mistake. This time however, their suspicion was correct. Eventually, the media would repeat it loudly and clearly: the suspected terrorists on the hijacked planes were all Arabs. What is there to do now? What are the ramifications and more importantly, what was their goal?
Manifestation of hatred through symbolism
It was no accident that the hijackers and terrorists decided to attack both the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The World Trade Center is the symbol of American capitalism at its paroxysm. The tall and proud building stood there for the longest, as a point of reference for commerce in the United States and around the world. Virtually every company with a large portfolio has at least an office there. The biggest and perhaps most relevant Stock Exchange around the world runs its courses in the vicinity. Billions and billions of dollars are traded there daily. The World Trade Center was and is indeed the crown jewel of America and its economy. Attacking it is like attacking the very fabric of America, what makes it what it is, the most powerful economy that mankind has ever known.
The Pentagon on the other hand is the symbol of America's might. The economic power of this so powerful nation can only be sustained with a strong military apparatus. It is where some difficult political decisions made especially on the international level, can be sustained. The war in the Balkans for instance, or the Kosovo crisis would not have been resolved despite all the diplomatic efforts, unless and until those decisions could be backed up by some powerful military force to coerce the enemies to accept peace. Attacking the Pentagon was thus like attacking an important membrane of the United States' body of power.
Those messages are surely understood by the officials at the White House, the State Department, and all the other administrative agencies of the American Establishment. This attack was not just an attack of emotionally unstable people. Maybe the hands who directed the planes to both targets were not the most emotionally stable ones. But the masterminds of these acts had a very clear intent. They may have thought that by seriously damaging the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, they would have automatically at least seriously damaged the United States' capacity to retaliate or attack in appropriate cases. They may have also thought that the U.S. would have reacted right away, emotionally, thus justifying their furtherance of terrorist activities. The United States on the contrary decided to wait and assess the situation first, rather than reacting immediately and forcefully. What everyone is asking now, is how and why these terrorist acts were not detected. The reasons are or may be complex and no one is yet privy of reliable information as to why. What seems to be certain at this point is, that Afghanistan is a country that has caused and is still causing major headaches to the West. The logical question becomes, why?
Afghanistan
Afghanistan is a Muslim country located in Southern Asia, near Pakistan and Iran. It is comparatively the size of the state of Texas in the United States, with a population of about 27,000,000 people. It is a very poor country and was invaded by the Soviet Union in 1979. This was the time of the Cold War between the then two giants (the US and the then Soviet Union). That invasion by the Soviets is perhaps where one should start, if trying to understand the present dilemma and all the controversies surrounding Afghanistan.
After the Soviet invasion in 1979, the United States under the leadership of James E. Carter decided not to participate in the summer Olympic Games in Moscow the following year, 1980. When Ronald Reagan came to power in 1981, he made Afghanistan one of his top priorities. There was then an intense campaign in the West, for the Soviets to get out of Afghanistan. The U.S. also decided then to help the Afghan people in their guerilla war against the Soviets. Secret service agents and military personnel from the West trained Afghan guerilla in all sorts of tactics to defeat the Soviets. That country became an important element in the War of the West against Communism.
Finally 10 years later, the Soviet Union left Afghanistan demoralized, their troops badly beaten, and the people's confidence in the Soviet régime not only bruised but severely shaken. Eventually, the Soviet Union collapsed but the régime left in place by the Soviets survived until the Taliban came to power in 1996. They killed the then Afghan leader Najibullah, his body treated in the most crude way, and then established a so-called Islamic republic there. Afghanistan since then, has been an issue to the West, a very serious issue.
The Afghan government of the Taliban is deeply religious, practice a brand of Islamic fundamentalism that encourages them to treat women worse than second class citizens. Those leaders of that new régime were in many instances according to different news reports, collaborating with the West in their fight against the Soviet régime. Incidentally one of them a Saudi citizen Osama Bin Laden, is now accused of either participating or perhaps even masterminding the September 11, 2001, terrorist acts in the U.S.
