Terrorism, then and now: Remembering 9/11
On September 8th last year, the Sun Daily paper published my article entitled “Eradicate root causes of terrorism”. On that piece I marked the 10th anniversary of the said infamous and bloody event.
Tomorrow, the world will once again remember the said horrendous, gory and horrible catastrophe!
For the benefit of our reader, please allow me to share once again my take and views on the whole event:
ON Sunday, the world will mark the 10th anniversary of the infamous Twin Tower attacks that killed thousands of lives. The gruesome events led the United States under President George Bush and its allies dubbed as the coalition of the willing to start formally the "war on terror".
First on their list was to wipe out the Taliban of Afghanistan (which they themselves helped in its formation). The year was 2001. Then, after that they went to Iraq to oust Saddam Hussein (they earlier helped him to consolidate power and subsequently used as a pawn in their war against Iran) who they accused of concealing weapons of mass destruction, which turned out to be the mother of all frauds; because it was revealed that the dictator, despite his arrogance and criminality towards his people, had no capacity to create the weapons he was accused of.
Despite this embarrassing revelation, the coalition of enduring freedom continues its occupation of Baghdad. What follows since the occupation of the "liberators" up to the present is the sectarian violence between the Shi'ite and Sunni Muslims, not to mention the Kurdish restiveness.
On May 1, 2003, Bush declared: "Mission accomplished". Everyday, scores of civilians are dying and American soldiers are dying in the areas they declared as already "pacified" and "peaceful".
While all these horrendous things are happening in Iraq and Afghanistan, at their home front, the US Congress, the various defence agencies, the US State Department, the police and other relevant government agencies were used by Dubya to further amplify his war on terror.
He urged Congress to pass the Patriot Act I and II which restricts the political and civil rights of the citizens. He then used and abused the courts even the highest one to declare his unconstitutional laws constitutional.
Yet, despite their claim for "victory", the terrorists still managed to strike Spain on March 1, 2004 and this gruesome event was followed by another on July 7, 2005 in England. Not included in this list are the bombings and strikes in Pakistan, the Philippines, Indonesia, Australia and the latest which was hit back to back was India; while the recent victim was Norway.
What is the lesson we could draw from the foregoing premises? I will argue that terrorism cannot be defeated by imperialism, by neo-colonialism, not by force (whether it's military or economic, or both) and by equal or superior violence. History has already proven that.
The United States, the United Kingdom and their allies are also guilty of terrorism and violence. They are no different from the criminals that they are claiming to bring to "justice". By doing the same acts of these vultures and creatures of violence and terrorism; they are terrorists and criminals themselves!
The US accused the terrorists of not respecting human rights; yet they cannot admit their own animality and barbarity inside the Abu Gharib prison, where they tortured and humiliated thousands of people, simply by their hunch that those individuals were Saddam loyalists Al Qaeda sympathisers.
The US accused the terrorists of not respecting laws and international conventions. That is true, yet they themselves went to war against Iraq without the sanction of the United Nations Security Council. In fact, what they did was a violation of UN Resolution 1441.
I can go on and on. However, the central point that I would like to drive at is to hammer the irrefutable truth that: the whole world must condemn those 19 criminals who slammed themselves into the Twin Towers. They are terrorists. Plain and simple!
In the same vein that the world must also condemn the US, UK and their allies for their crimes against humanity which they committed in such a large and global scale against the people of Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan. They are terrorists themselves. The Taliban and the US marines are one and the same. In their glorious quest of eliminating each other; it is the civilians and the innocent people who are suffering and dying.
Equally, the whole world must also condemn Pakistan. While, allowing the west to use its territory as a military base, it also harbours Taliban and Al-Qaeda terrorists.
Lastly, the international community must also condemn the Taliban, Al-Qaeda, and all terrorists of whatever breed or type or form; whether they belong to the centre or the right of the political spectrum.
The legacy of 9/11 is for the world to remember those victims of these idiocy, fanaticism, hatred, bigotry, racism and ethnocentrism of man towards his fellow men.
The world must not be duped again by those western powers in their war on terror; their message of liberation and their concept of freedom.
The whole world must study, locate and eradicate the root causes of terrorism and violence. They are poverty, economic slavery, ignorance, apathy, religious fundamentalism, ideological paranoia, and cultural supremacy.
If we as members of the international community do not act to address these global issues and universal problems, our only prerogative would be to pick between the battles of two "terrorist camps"; this so-called "war of civilizations".
We will defeat all kinds of terrorism by humanism, violence by reason, hatred by love, barbarity by humanity.
The choice is ours.
On September 8th last year, the Sun Daily paper published my article entitled “Eradicate root causes of terrorism”. On that piece I marked the 10th anniversary of the said infamous and bloody event.
Tomorrow, the world will once again remember the said horrendous, gory and horrible catastrophe!
For the benefit of our reader, please allow me to share once again my take and views on the whole event:
ON Sunday, the world will mark the 10th anniversary of the infamous Twin Tower attacks that killed thousands of lives. The gruesome events led the United States under President George Bush and its allies dubbed as the coalition of the willing to start formally the "war on terror".
First on their list was to wipe out the Taliban of Afghanistan (which they themselves helped in its formation). The year was 2001. Then, after that they went to Iraq to oust Saddam Hussein (they earlier helped him to consolidate power and subsequently used as a pawn in their war against Iran) who they accused of concealing weapons of mass destruction, which turned out to be the mother of all frauds; because it was revealed that the dictator, despite his arrogance and criminality towards his people, had no capacity to create the weapons he was accused of.
Despite this embarrassing revelation, the coalition of enduring freedom continues its occupation of Baghdad. What follows since the occupation of the "liberators" up to the present is the sectarian violence between the Shi'ite and Sunni Muslims, not to mention the Kurdish restiveness.
On May 1, 2003, Bush declared: "Mission accomplished". Everyday, scores of civilians are dying and American soldiers are dying in the areas they declared as already "pacified" and "peaceful".
While all these horrendous things are happening in Iraq and Afghanistan, at their home front, the US Congress, the various defence agencies, the US State Department, the police and other relevant government agencies were used by Dubya to further amplify his war on terror.
He urged Congress to pass the Patriot Act I and II which restricts the political and civil rights of the citizens. He then used and abused the courts even the highest one to declare his unconstitutional laws constitutional.
Yet, despite their claim for "victory", the terrorists still managed to strike Spain on March 1, 2004 and this gruesome event was followed by another on July 7, 2005 in England. Not included in this list are the bombings and strikes in Pakistan, the Philippines, Indonesia, Australia and the latest which was hit back to back was India; while the recent victim was Norway.
What is the lesson we could draw from the foregoing premises? I will argue that terrorism cannot be defeated by imperialism, by neo-colonialism, not by force (whether it's military or economic, or both) and by equal or superior violence. History has already proven that.
The United States, the United Kingdom and their allies are also guilty of terrorism and violence. They are no different from the criminals that they are claiming to bring to "justice". By doing the same acts of these vultures and creatures of violence and terrorism; they are terrorists and criminals themselves!
The US accused the terrorists of not respecting human rights; yet they cannot admit their own animality and barbarity inside the Abu Gharib prison, where they tortured and humiliated thousands of people, simply by their hunch that those individuals were Saddam loyalists Al Qaeda sympathisers.
The US accused the terrorists of not respecting laws and international conventions. That is true, yet they themselves went to war against Iraq without the sanction of the United Nations Security Council. In fact, what they did was a violation of UN Resolution 1441.
I can go on and on. However, the central point that I would like to drive at is to hammer the irrefutable truth that: the whole world must condemn those 19 criminals who slammed themselves into the Twin Towers. They are terrorists. Plain and simple!
In the same vein that the world must also condemn the US, UK and their allies for their crimes against humanity which they committed in such a large and global scale against the people of Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan. They are terrorists themselves. The Taliban and the US marines are one and the same. In their glorious quest of eliminating each other; it is the civilians and the innocent people who are suffering and dying.
Equally, the whole world must also condemn Pakistan. While, allowing the west to use its territory as a military base, it also harbours Taliban and Al-Qaeda terrorists.
Lastly, the international community must also condemn the Taliban, Al-Qaeda, and all terrorists of whatever breed or type or form; whether they belong to the centre or the right of the political spectrum.
The legacy of 9/11 is for the world to remember those victims of these idiocy, fanaticism, hatred, bigotry, racism and ethnocentrism of man towards his fellow men.
The world must not be duped again by those western powers in their war on terror; their message of liberation and their concept of freedom.
The whole world must study, locate and eradicate the root causes of terrorism and violence. They are poverty, economic slavery, ignorance, apathy, religious fundamentalism, ideological paranoia, and cultural supremacy.
If we as members of the international community do not act to address these global issues and universal problems, our only prerogative would be to pick between the battles of two "terrorist camps"; this so-called "war of civilizations".
We will defeat all kinds of terrorism by humanism, violence by reason, hatred by love, barbarity by humanity.
The choice is ours.