911 A wake-up call!
What is the significance of 911 to you? Well, for one, the death toll at the Twin- towers reads like a list of the representatives sitting in the UNITED NATIONS. If the United Nations building was hit, it would not have produced a more representative and diverse cross-section of the population of the World.
It demonstrates that the perpetrators did not care who were the victims, this is their "collateral damage;" there were Arabs among the dead, and Muslims. What religion promotes the killing of fellow believers, even one? No civilized society can permit this state of affairs, in whatever guise. Of course those who were not directly affected will never feel the impact, felt by those who were. The victims' families have only their private grief. They probably ask "why?" There is no answer, from the terrorists, because their creed is probably, everything is fair in love and war? Even an declared one! Those who were the unfortunate victims, will get very little sympathy from such people. Do we have to feel anguish only if it touched ours? What was sadder was that some people could run into the streets clapping and passing out sweets to celebrate! In the words of a sage, "Ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee".
Even the hardliner leaders of the People's Republic of China, which had been engaged for the last 12 months in a vitriolic propaganda warfare with the Bush administration over the downing of the Chinese fighter plane over Chinese Air space, the deliberate, unwarranted and provocative attack on the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, as part of the American and Nato punishing of the Serbs, the Bush Administration's promoting of Taiwan dissidents and the campaign of the semi-religious Falun Kung movement, could distance itself from its own grouses with the US, and declare solidarity with the Bush administration over the attack. The people of China almost responded in unison.
That is how civilized nations behave!
That in this 21 Century there are still people who think that lives are so disposable, is testimony that we have a long way to go, and that our collective evolution has only been confined to the material advances, and that we are still trapped in our animal roots, mindless hate and vengeance values. In spite of all protestations of godliness, piety, fear of god and the virtues of religion. If it had not been done in the name of religion would have been a mitigation, but it was not to be.
Terrorism is not something new. It has been practiced from the very dawn of human civilization, when the first man took a club, and discovered that it was more than a walking tool. But, apart from the practice of assassinations, non-combatants were not acceptable targets in modern history except under the most cruel regimes. Even the purported ethnic cleansing in the Balkans could not come close to that! But, the perpetrators have never regretted collateral damage. But, the bombing of the Twin-towers leaves no room for collateral damage.
The targets were not un-thought of, they were contemplated! If there was any intention to cause the maximum loss of human lives, the hour of the attack is proof! It could have been done before the office hours, it could have been done at night. In fact, it could have been done (if properly coordinated, if these people are capable of that) after due warning to evacuate, like the practice of the Irish IRA! But, it was not to be!
It is notable, that in this case, no one has come forward to accept responsibility directly for the attacks on the Twin-towers and the Pentagon. (Forget about the French book that there was no 3rd aircraft crashing into the Pentagon. Anyone can write such a stupid book, it just takes a pinch of dishonesty and greed- it sells.) So far those suspected of the dastardly deeds have only expressed satisfaction and vicarious approval for the events, the fact that no organisation or person has dared to come forward and accepted responsibility, nor, claim responsibility, shows that in spite of the "demonstrations" of support, and oblique justifications, the perpetrators know that this is unacceptable in civilized society, and they will be condemned for all time to come, if they dare to come forward. That is a telling aspect, that even the perpetrators prefer to remain "anonymous!" If it is a justifiable act, or even an act of heroism, even a dark achievement of sorts, there should be no reluctance to own up to it, and take your place in the history of mankind, albeit in infamy.
Therefore for a single act of terror un-matched in human history for its callousness, there is no ownership, no authorship or owning up! That is a significant admission of the shame to be attached to it.
One would be tempted to blame the attack on the "hands-off" policies of the new Bush Administration, which was predicated on what has been called, the "ABC" policy! "Anything But Clinton!" That Bush tried to distanced himself from the policy of personal involvement of the Bill Clinton presidency, especially in the last months of the lame-duck Clinton administration, was so blatantly clear and partisan. But, it has returned to bite him! The various miss-steps, one after another as Bush tries to accommodate opposition to his Middle East policies is sufficient testimony of it! One after another "friendly" middle-eastern state has turned against the US, including Kuwait, "et tu Brute!" The country which America shed blood to preserve.
From equating Arafat with the tactics of the Al Quaeda/Taliban axis, and the rhetoric "you are either for us or for terrorism!" Bush has been forced to literally ape Clinton's policy of direct involvement!
But, in truth it would have matter for naught! The planning to bomb the Twin-towers and the Pentagon and probably the White House had gone on well in advance. It was a project in the making! Short of a miracle solution to the Palestine problem, and there is no easy solution to the dispute, the motivation for the attack, if the Ben Ledens are to be believed, included the American "occupation" of Saudi. The "holy land" historically has been a story of pogrom after pogrom throughout its history!
The World is trying very hard to deny that it is a clash of civilizations, but it sure is a pretty imitation of one!
Unless the hotspots of Kashmir-Jammu, Chechnya and others which have a common denominator are neutralized, the events of Palestine may well repeat themselves.