Terrorism
Everything was normal on September 10, 2001. It was a regular day, just like the one before it, and the one before that one as well. All was good. Birds were chirping, kids were playing games, nipples were perky and… well, you get the drift. Everything was great. No-one had any idea that the world was about to change in the most horrible fashion imaginable.
On September 12, 2001, the world was a vastly different landscape – it was a landscape of fear and sadness, a landscape of anger and sorrow, and a landscape of uncertainty and a desire for revenge. The terrorist attacks on the United States on 9/11 were the most frightening visions that anyone could possibly imagine. It was not only an attack on the USA, but an attack on all western nations who embrace the warmth of freedom.
On September 10, 2001, no-one really batted an eyelid at the concept of terrorism. People remembered the WTC bombing from a few years before, and no-one could have forgotten Timothy McVeigh and his horrific actions in Oklahoma City also. But nobody was fearful or worried about terrorism. 9/11 changed all of that.
Between the events of 9/11 and this day, people are still very scared of terrorism. While it’s true that there is a reason to be fearful, what has happened to western nations over the last few years has become the embracing of paranoia. People are scared shitless, which is no surprise after the attacks on the WTC and the Pentagon – but that is not the only reason. I believe that people are scared shitless for two reasons.
The first reason is media hype and/or propaganda. Ever since 9/11, the media have taken the terror ball and rolled with it. The reporting of terrorism is, of course, newsworthy – but many networks still continue to overplay their reporting of the issue – to the point that it doesn’t really inform people, it scares them until they shit their intestines.
The second reason people are scared is because (and this is really just my theory) their leaders clearly have no idea what they’re doing, nor do they have any idea on how to “fight the war on terror”. Actions by world leaders over the last few years, especially with relation to terrorism, has become almost a joke.
Don’t get me wrong – I am not discounting many of the great things that our leaders have done over the last three years or so. Having increased security at airports, to me, was never an inconvenience, but a necessary and welcome change to help prevent terrorism. The 9/11 Commission, which concluded its report this year, was also a necessary and welcome development. Going into Afghanistan was a justifiable step forward in the fight against terrorism.
But there’s so much more that can be done. Let me explain.
Terrorism did not begin on September 11, 2001. It was a very real and growing threat well before then. I’m not talking about things like the Oklahoma City bombing and the WTC bombing… I’m referring to incidents well before these times.
Before I moved to the United States, I was up late one night in Australia watching a documentary about terrorist incidents in the lead up to September 11. It was basically a historical perspective of terrorist incidents that had occurred over the last 20 – 30 years or so. A majority of the incidents were all tied to violent fundamentalists from the Middle East.
There were two things that stood out to me like a huge wake-up call while watching that documentary. The first was, after all these incidents, we should have seen something like this coming.
The other thing that stood out to me was a comment by one expert who was interviewed in the show. He basically said, and I am paraphrasing here, a majority of the acts by terrorists are horrible and unforgivable acts, but their reasons and concerns that caused them to do their act are 90% valid reasons.
This guy wasn’t saying, “Hey let’s forgive the terrorism because these bastards have good reasons”. His reasoning was that there is ALWAYS a direct cause for the creation of terrorism – and the best way to prevent terrorism is to target those problems and issues by proactively and positively working on them. In other words, ensure that there are no reasons for terrorists to kill people.
While this does sound like an unrealistic thing to do, it does make sense. It is a basic philosophy of learning about one’s enemy. Why are they doing this to us? What’s their motivation? Let’s find out WHY and let’s try and fix the issue so that it doesn’t provide further motivation for these people to hurt us and our families.
Again, the philosophy is sound, but it still seems unrealistic, doesn’t it? It almost sounds like doing such a thing would be giving the terrorists exactly what they want. But that’s really not the case.
Let’s explore the concept a little further. In nearly every terrorist incident that has happened against Western interests over the last 30 years, each terrorist leader has given numerous reasons for their actions. & the one thing that keeps popping up in these reasoning is the issue of Israel and Palestine.
Israel and Palestine have been at it for years. Palestinian suicide bombers have killed many Israeli citizens, and the Israelis have also slaughtered many Palestinians. These people are constantly killing each other, and it’s been going on for decades. This mindless slaughter, by both sides, has been a constant reasoning behind many terrorist attacks on Western interests. Why? Because of the Westerners action (and/or inaction) that have either contributed to or not solved the senseless killings.
Step number one in fighting terrorism is not dropping MOABs. Step one should be taking this issue between Israel and Palestine and solving it once and for all. What needs to happen is a unified body should go in there and literally stand between the leaders of Israel and Palestine and literally tell them to “cut the shit”.
Someone should go in there and say “Israel, you’re killing the Palestinian kids. Palestine, you’re contributing to the terrorist problem because of your actions and killing of Israelis. Enough is enough. Let’s stop this – you are killing each other”. It will probably never happen – but it should. A peaceful resolution between the two would be a helpful step in preventing further terrorism.
Step number two also has to do with looking into our past, and is also somewhat to some of the recommendations made by the 9/11 Commission: Intelligence in western nations. Back during the Cold War, intelligence was of extreme importance. So much so, that funding directed to it was never questioned – it was always considered an essential part of defense.
But as time dwindled into the 1980′s, funding began to be cut in Intelligence agencies. After the Cold War, it was cut even further. While it was clear that the new regional concern was the Middle East due to the dramatic growth of terrorist groups, funding continued to be cut – even to the point that the CIA had only a small amount of Arab-speaking agents.
The same could be said of ASIO (Australia), British Intelligence, the FBI and so on. Funding was cut. This was what left New York and Washington pretty defenseless on that shocking day in 2001.
When such funding is cut at such a constant rate over so many years, intelligence gathering suffers. & while there is evidence that the CIA knew that Osama bin Laden was planning something big (they reported as much to President Bush in August 2001), they lacked the specific evidence needed to help stop such an attack from occurring.
The other main problem – particularly in the USA – was the lack of effective communication and collaborative work done between the CIA, the FBI, the INS and every other three-initialed agency you can think of. Not to mention all of them being bogged down by the repetition of bureaucratic paperwork also.
The whole purpose behind having Intelligence agencies is for prevention, rather than for defense. Prevention, as they say, is better than cure.
Firstly, funding needs to be improved in all these agencies. Not just in the United States, but in its allied nations as well. One would have thought this would have been one of the first things that would have been done after 9/11… but as we saw with the Iraq Pre-Intelligence, this probably isn’t the case.
Adequate funding would see these agencies develop the teams and develop the skills needed to prevent terrorism in the future. Just placing all of them under the banner of “Homeland Security” just isn’t enough. More needs to be done.
A method of effective communication across agencies within one nation, and also across many nations, is clearly needed also. The inablility to communicate between each other was very clear on 9/11, and this needs to be curbed. Processing and paperwork must also be streamlined. You would think, in this day and age of digital technology, there would be quicker and easier ways of reporting data, findings and processing information. This isn’t happening – for example, I had to fill out one document at least 5 different times on different occasions during my transition of moving from Australia to the USA – and my move here happened after Sept 11.
The third step in preventing terrorism is to stop giving the bastards reasons for hurting us. The prison abuse scandal in Iraq, even going into Iraq to begin with, the situation with the prisoners in Guantanamo Bay and many more things are providing terrorists with reasons and motivations not only to hurt us, but to improve and enhance their methods and organization.
Finally, there are two more things that the government can and must do. Catch that bastard Bin Laden; and act on EVERY recommendation made by the 9/11 commission.
This TrukbloG may be coming across as a slam on all of the actions or inactions of governments over the last few years. It is true that many good things have happened. I’ve just learned that Australian Prime Minister John Howard is formulating a plan to establish an elite counterterrorism police force, made up of Australian Federal Police, that will aid in preventing and fighting terrorism, not just in Australia, but in that region of the world (Indonesia, New Zealand etc) in general. That is a very smart move.
But even though there’s been many good things, I also look at some things we’ve done over the last couple of years that haven’t been the best moves. Going into Iraq is one major reasoning behind this. While it is great that Saddam is in power, we’ve still found no WMDs, and there is no link between Saddam’s Iraq and Bin Laden’s al Qaeda. So how is going into Iraq going to benefit our fight against terrorism?
I think many people (including many supporters of President Bush, Prime Minister Blair and Prime Minister Howard) have been asking that question as well. & I think that is why so many people are still paranoid about terrorism. Yes, it is a very real threat… but has enough been done to help keep us all safe?
Or will it take another 9/11 to make our leaders ask this question themselves?
I hope to God that it doesn’t… and I hope that things will get better as time moves forward.
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