September 11th
Hello Internet, my name is John Wessel.
I expect that every mentally competent American citizen is by now well versed in the story of the September 11th terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. The quest I have for you is how many stories of the event do you know? I'm going to talk about 2 and I can think of at least 3 right now. So, when you think to yourself, how many stories can you think of? If you can only think of one then at least one of the stories I'm going to tell you is going to be unfamiliar.
The first story begins at 7:59am when American Airlines flight 11 took off. Fifteen minutes later, terrorists hijacked the plane. Within the next hour, terrorists had hijacked 3 more planes and succeeded in flying 2 into the World Trade Center, 1 into the Pentagon and the 4th crashed into an empty field in Pennsylvania.
Unlike previous hijackings from decades past, the terrorists from Al Qaeda did not want ransom money or to free political prisoners. They were intent on suicide. They were motivated by religious fundamentalism, a belief that through suicide they would martyr themselves and receive heavenly pleasures like 72 virgins.
Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda organization chose to attack the United States because of its position of strength and because of its values: its freedom, its openness, its tolerance, which he found as an anathema to his own extreme, religious, conservative, ideology. Such an extreme ideology made it impossible for civilized people to reason or negotiate with Osama bin Laden or Al Qaeda or his ilk.
On top of that, it was impossible to threaten them because their goal was martyrdom. What threat can you really make? The lamentable but inevitable conclusion is that the only conclusion outside giving up our way of life ourselves was to kill these terrorists.
On top of that, because these terrorists lived with such a warped world view, it was quite hard to predict where the next strike would be. This required an extensive internal spy network and new legislation to make it legal, known as the PATRIOT Act. The compromise of liberty was lamentable but it was necessary to gain safety because without safety, liberty has very little meaning.
This is the mainstream story. Now let's talk about the same event but tell a different story about it. This story begins on February 4th, 1945 in Yalta. Franklin Deleanor Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin were meeting to discuss the shape of the world in the aftermath of World War II. Britain and her empire went into decline while the US and the USSR became ascendant.
Immediate, there became what is known as the Cold War between the United States and the USSR. Each government desired the destruction of the other government but there quickly became a problem. Both sides became armed with a large number of nuclear weapons which ensured that no one could really win a direct war. If one side was ever doing too well in the war the other side would unleash its nuclear weapons, essentially destroying the globe's ability to support human life. It was known as Mutually Assured Destruction.
So, the US and USSR turned to a strategy of attrition or "death by a thousand cuts." They engaged in low-level proxy wars designed to sap the strength of the opponent until they were brought down. In 1979, the USSR invaded Afghanistan in what many call the USSR's Vietnam. Islamic fundamentalists went to Afghanistan to fight off the Russians who they interpreted as infidels on Muslim soil. The United States also rushed into Afghanistan to arm the various fighters opposing the Soviet Union. In essence, the US government's policy was the "enemy of my enemy is my friend." The United States saw Osama bin Laden and his Mujahideen fighters as a pawn in a larger cold war against the Soviet Union. The United States directly armed and funded Osama bin Laden's group and indirectly trained them by funding other organizations which then rendered the training. Once Osama bin Laden and his followers were no longer considered significant in the war, they were cut off from support.
In 1990, Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. The Saudis were afraid that they might be next. Osama bin Laden offered his services of defense to the Saudis, saying that he would protect the fundamentalist Islamic regime in Saudi Arabia from the secular Saddam Hussein.
However, the Saudis rejected his offer and instead invited Americans to defend their country and build military bases. This caused Osama bin Laden to perceive Americans as infidels on Islamic soil the same way that he had seen Russians as infidels on Islamic soil in Afghanistan. He began formulating a plan of attack on the United States with the intent to draw it into a war of attrition with the Muslim would which would ultimately result in the Americans turning tail and pulling their military bases and their imperialist occupation out of the Middle East. The attack ultimately materialized as the hijackings on September 11th.
The passengers on the first 3 flights, while justifiably very scared, did not have reason to believe that death was inevitable. Although there had not been a hijacking in a while, there had been numerous hijackings a few decades ago and most did not result in the deaths of the passengers. Between 1948 and 1957 there were 15 hijackings worldwide. This is according to Wikipedia which references the FAA and the Wall Street Journal. Between 1958 and 1967 it went up to 48. Dropped to 38 in 1968 and then jumped up to 82 hijackings in 1969. In one month, January 1969, 8 aircraft were hijacked and flown to Cuba alone. In these events, the goal was to score political points: to demand prisoners - political prisoners - to be released or to ransom the hostages for financial gain. Some people would die but for the most part hostages would be released or rescued. However, by the time the 4th flight on September 11th had been hijacked, the word began to get out through cell phones and air phones that there had been 3 other hijackings and they had been suicidal. The passengers of Flight 93 organized a vote to determine if they should take back the flight. The vote passed They assaulted the cockpit and the terrorists were either going to lose that fight or had to somehow abort the attack. They chose to crash the airplane ahead of their intended target, which was probably the White House or Capitol Hill.
The conclusions of what US foreign policy should be are quite obvious. The US should avoid getting involved in foreign wars or, if they do, should be prepared for blowback. Being the enemy of my enemy is not sufficient to be my friend. Only trusted allies should be armed, supported, funded and trained or else they might come back to bite the hand that feeds them, especially if they are cut off from the support they have become accustomed to.
On a smaller level, American citizens are not helpless and in fact are quite brave and able to recognize a situation. In fact, in the midst of an emergency, the people took time for due process by organizing and having a vote. Even when the emergency is imminent, as in terrorists have hijacked the plane you're on, there's still time to deal with the situation judiciously. The perception of Americans with regard to terrorism is that terrorists are very likely suicidal and the proper response is to fight them immediately as opposed to waiting and hoping that you will be released or rescued. This has caused a change in perception of the terrorists who understand if they try to take control of an aircraft that the passengers will fight back. This has chilled the plans of any further terrorist attacks because Americans have demonstrated their quick-wittedness and ability to aptly defend themselves. There is no need for a compromise of liberty because Americans have demonstrated how prepared they are to defend that liberty even without any central organization.
So, here we have the same event: the terrorist attacks on September 11th. Yet, there are two very different narratives. Depending on which of these narratives you subscribe to will result in different conclusions about what future behavior should be. If you believe that Osama is a simple mad man who struck out of nowhere then you must launch pre-emptive attacks anywhere hotbeds of terrorism might be. You have to go around the world draining the swamps so you don't get stung by some Islamic fundamentalist mosquito. On the other hand, if you think of Osama bin Laden as an extremist yet having some method to his madness, then the answer is to completely avoid going around the world provoking such unbalanced people. If your story dwells on the terror, on the fear of people dreading the next attack that comes from chaos, for reasons they do not understand then you support an increase of police power and spy power. On the other hand, if your story focuses on the heroic story of regular people in a very stressful situation responding with great courage and the judiciousness to use due process then you should actually be filled with the feeling that this threat can be handled. And, if it can handled so well on the spur of the moment, then with some thinking and planning and reflecting it could be handled so well in the future.
My challenge to you is to become conscious of and to examine and hopefully to improve the archetypes that you use to imagine terrorism. What images and what characters and what setting of the stage comes to your imagination when you hear "terrorism" or "9/11" or "Osama bin Laden" or "Flight 11" or "Flight 93." Try to become conscious of how you formed your narrative. Did you get it from CNN? Did you get it from word of mouth? Did you get it from a church or from your family? Did you get it by watching YouTube videos or listening to podcasts? Reexamining how you think is hard. It involves sometimes letting part of yourself go, part of yourself that had the wrong idea. Ironically, at the very same time that you're improving, you can feel humiliated when you become conscious of your past errors. The key is to take joy that you are becoming a better person in the present and in the future, which is exactly where you are and where you will be.