The Chickens Come Home to
Roost
by John
Keller
I’m
watching the dust from the World Trade Center buildings settle and
the Pentagon burn, while the White House is evacuated. The FAA has
grounded all flights, as it now appears that three domestic
commercial airliners were hijacked and crashed into these buildings,
and possibly one other plane crashed before finding its target. What
else could have happened but a well organized terrorist
attack?
From
here the script is set. The pundits on TV have already mentioned
Osama bin Laden. Retired General Wesley Clark maneuvered into his
favorite position, full frontal camera, and announced that only
Ossama bin Laden had the resources to co-ordinate such an attack.
Newt Gingrich repeated basically the same thing. George Bush has
promised that the government will hunt the terrorists down and
punish them. "Terrorism against our nation will not stand." Huh?
Sadly, terrorism already did stand, the World Trade Centers did not,
and the terrorists most directly responsible are already dead.
Back
to the TV where the anchor goes on about the previous bombing of the
World Trade Centers, the bombing of the USS Cole, Oklahoma City, and
the bombing of our African Embassies. Tomorrow the calls for a
national day of mourning will begin. Somewhere in this formula of
terrorism, mourning, Tomahawk-revenge, repeat, the news-media are
failing to connect the dots. Where and why did the cycle begin? Why
do people hate the United States enough to come here and try to
wreck the maximum amount of death and destruction possible? Why,
why, why?
Terrorism gets its name from the type of attack designed to
generate the maximum amount of terror. The terrorists responsible
for these attacks understood psychology well, and used it to maximum
advantage as they planned their attack. They also had a reason for
choosing the targets they did. Lets start with the targets, The
World Trade Center Towers and the Pentagon.
The
World Trade Centers, besides the Statue of Liberty and the Empire
State Building were two of the most widely recognized buildings in
New York. They stood at the edge of the financial district, right on
Wall Street. They were the two largest symbols of American global
corporatism in New York City. They were also crammed full of people,
with approximately 50,000 civilians working in the two every day.
The terrorist messages, intentional or not, are fivefold. First,
civilians are not safe; they are fair game. Second, a highly secure
building in the middle of America’s financial capital is not safe;
therefore, no office building in any city is safe. The result:
office buildings in New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Boston,
Washington, and other cities emptied within hours of the attacks.
The UN and all government buildings in Washington were evacuated.
Third, the airlines are not safe. The terrorists hijacked at least 4
planes, from four different airports, and two different airlines.
Fourth, the terrorists attacked the symbol of International finance.
Why? Fifth, the United States military is despised by whoever did
this.
The
method of attack, and the timing tells us these terrorists had
coldly calculated how to cause the greatest amount of grief for
America. The flights were all domestic flights. The departure and
arrival cities for the flights may have been only coincidental to
the terrorist goal of hijacking the largest jets, but I don’t think
this was the case. It’s easier to study a single airport for
security weaknesses, get your people hired on the inside, and get
weapons through, than it is to hijack planes from Boston,
Washington, and Newark. That means security at three separate major
airports was compromised. With end route cities in San Francisco,
Los Angeles, Newark, Washington, and Boston, people across the
entire U.S. have lost loved ones as a result of these attacks.
As of this writing, a group with the name "Palestine" in it
is the only one to claim responsibility for attacks. Why would a
group of Palestinians claim responsibility for the attack? Why would
Palestinians be so happy about the attacks? Why would the
terrorists attack military / government and banking targets? Could
it be that Palestinian terrorists perceive the United States to
favor Israel in the current Intafada. New York is renowned for its
large Jewish population, and banking is considered a historically
Jewish profession. I think the picture is becoming a little bit
clearer. Maybe that’s why the World Trade Centers were targeted in
New York City. Don’t get me wrong, they made good terrorist targets
for logistical reasons alone: sheer height, the amount of media
coverage in New York City, and the timing of the attack ensured that
cameras would capture the murders and mahem, broadcasting live to an
audience of millions.
Chalmers
Johnson has theory. He calls it blow-back. It’s simple really.
When a big strong country uses its military or money to push around
a smaller country, the smaller country can only fight back via
terrorism. And provoked enough, the smaller country will fight back.
The Pentagon folks call it asymmetrical war, as in, the two sides
are not even. Our side has nukes, aircraft carriers, fighters,
tanks, Tomahawks, and is considering missle defense. The other side
has a minimum of 4 suicidal hijackers pilots, 12 suicidal hijackers
with any kind of gun, some friends in airport security, maintenance,
catering, or baggage, an agreed upon date, time, and target list,
and enough money to buy a few dozen plane tickets.
When
Nikolay Soltys or Joseph Ferguson goes on a murder spree in
California, we shake our heads and dismiss it as the doings of a
lunatic. When at least a dozen people carry out coordinated suicide
terrorist attacks on specific targets in the United States,
something besides, or perhaps in addition to, insanity is at work.
What could stir and feed such a profound hatred? Dismiss the
"jealous of America" idea. Jealousy is the petty hatred of
small-minded gossips and pickpockets.
I
think that seeing members of your family killed by armaments
supplied by the United States, bought with money supplied by the
United States, and used with the support of the United States just
might do it. If the cycle went on long enough, perhaps for years,
hatred could set it. So the question is, who would do this? Here’s a
partial list of countries the United States has recently (in the
last 10 years) bombed, invaded, supported overthrow of the
government, or supplied arms to one side in a war: Palestine, Iraq,
Macedonia, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, and Sudan. China is an honorary
member of the list, because of its embassy bombing, which was
probably intentional. Well, we have the usual suspects, and we can
bet that a terrorist from any of those countries will see this
attack on the U.S. as retaliation for our bombing of their home
soil.
It’s
ironic that the initial response is to look to the military for
protection after the damage is done, when military involvement
around the world was probably the cause. It’s ironic to hear calls
to hunt down and punish those responsible, when they already paid
with their lives. The evil masterminds remain, and given the success
of this attack, they will have legions of new fanatics, ready to
die. Even if we eliminate those at the top of the organization, more
will take their place. Why?
Will
we learn anything in the aftermath of this attack? The lessons seem
clear enough: follow an isolationist foreign policy. Stop selling
weapons and supplying monetary aid to foreign countries, period.
Stop meddling in the internal politics of foreign countries, period.
How much longer will we blindly support Israel, when it may have
cost us thousands of lives instead of billions of dollars? How many
more dead Americans do we need before we realize that our military
is seen as an occupation force when viewed with foreign eyes, from
foreign shores? Bring them home. How many more civilian lives will
it take before we realize our government cannot protect us from
harm, when it creates millions who hate us abroad? How much more
destruction will be wrecked on American soil before we realize that
this is a faint reflection of the destruction we have wrecked on
Iraq and Yugoslavia?
The
list of countries we have antagonized is long. The names of the dead
in those countries run into the hundreds of thousands, if not
millions. If we do not change our ways, September 11, 2001 will be
remembered as the first in a long string of the worst. I pray that
it will be the turning point in the way we deal with the world. I
pray that it will be the last, worst attack on the people of the
United States. In his Gettysburg address, Lincoln said "that we here
highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain". Let us
resolve to understand why our countrymen were killed, that their
deaths may not be in vain.
September 12, 2001
John Keller lives in Atlanta, Georgia.
Copyright © 2001
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