September 11, 2001, has been one of the most tragic days not only in the history of America but the world community altogether. While on the one hand, it signified the failure of a number of government agencies, lack of a coordinated approach amongst the world community in dealing with the menace of terrorism, but it showed to the extent the perpetrators of such a heinous crime can go to. Terrorism, the dreaded word, finds some of its threads attached to the ongoing conflicts around the world.
Be it the Middle East conflict, the Kosovo issue, Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Kashmir skirmishes, etc. are some of the examples which bring the issues of terrorism to the fore. Till 9/11 happened, apparently the US didn’t really catch up with the seriousness of the issue. There have been instances like the US embassy bombings in different parts of the world. But such instances were considered mainly as a failure of those nations in safeguarding the interests of the USA, and nobody actually thought that one day, two US commercial flights full of passengers will collide with its own twin towers and result in killing around 3000 citizens of the world.
They were office workers, waiters, police, firemen, moms, dads, friends, and neighbors. Thereafter began an era of hunting for the terrorists and their links. The political, social, and ethical scenario in world affairs too changed the character of the conflicts.
As the efforts are on to nab the culprits of the 9/11 tragedy, signals are coming out that public perception of a sizeable section widely differs from that of the government. Theories have started floating that the tragedy was actually a part of the ploy messed up by some of the government functionaries and the political bosses. It is worthwhile here to mention that similar ‘differing’ theories have been floating in the US society about a number of other issues as well.
Some of the prominent examples are the landing of the human being on the surface of the Moon and killing of the John F Kennedy. These theories suggest that the landing was not a real one, while some of the suspects picked up for the murder of JFK have been termed as mere scapegoats to protect the real culprits. The US is a democratic society with every citizen having the right to express himself or herself. When 9/11 happened there was a sense of shock all around, with people wondering how on earth such an incident can take place in a country that claims to have the state of art intelligence gathering mechanisms, ultra-modern defense equipment, and a government having all the powers to pursue the matter.
Police and some other investigating agencies are of course investigating the case with an angle of a terror plot prepared by some of the terrorist networks and supporting elements spread all around the world. But there, appear to be some apprehensions in the minds of a section of the public, which appear to be in stark contrast to that being taken up by the government. In the case of the 9/11 attacks some of the conspiracy theories suggest that;
- The attacks were not planned by the terrorists of Al-Qaida, but by some of the US politicians in collusion with a couple of government functionaries and the military. This was done to prepare the ground to attack Iraq, an oil-rich nation.
- Some of the Saudi Nationals were hired by the government and made them fly aircraft over the twin towers.
- The passengers on board the aircraft were all government functionaries and they are all alive and still working for the government.
- The aircraft took off from Boston and then landed at secret military bases in the country. From there these aircraft were guided by remote-controlled pilot vehicles before banging them against twin towers.
- Twin towers were destroyed by bombs planted inside the towers and ‘not’ by the aircraft.
- The intelligence inputs of impending attacks by some terrorist organizations, coming out from various government sources were ‘deliberately’ ignored by President Bush and some other top government officials.
- The Pentagon was hit by a cruise missile and not by a commercial jet.
No doubt, such theories also provide a good hunting ground for the security and intelligence agencies to investigate the issue from all angles, but completely sidetracking the issues raised will not help the cause of the country, and the delays in reaching the bottom of the truth will provide a fillip to the controversies. It is being advanced that the government is delaying the investigation, not handing over some crucial investigation to the competent authorities to cover up its own failures. Eric Hufschmid (2002, p5) contends that “Most people blame the collapse of the two towers on fire, not the airplane crashes.
Building 7 collapsed also, and since it was not hit by an airplane, its collapse has been blamed on fire”. The book, ‘Painful Questions- an analysis of the September 11th attack’, written by Eric Hufschmid raises many questions about the way the buildings collapsed, ‘How did fire cause three steel-framed buildings to collapse? No fire had ever caused a steel building to crumble, but on that day a fire did to three buildings what no fire had done before. Are there other office buildings, apartment buildings, apartment buildings, or shopping malls that could also collapse from fire? How should we design future buildings to resist fire?’ are some of the posers being set by this book.
It is beyond doubt that any government will ever consider it wise to kill 3000 of its own people, just to take control of another country, that too at the expense of a number of its soldiers and a huge financial burden. But, it is equally true that the issues raised by a sizeable section of the society, cannot be just glossed over and rubbished as political opportunism. In fact, some people are also saying that 9/11 was a plot gone wrong.
If we trace back the history of the way terrorism-related activities in the region have gone up in the recent past, the Middle East region figures prominently as far as such disturbances are concerned. The conflict between Jews and Arabs in the Middle East region goes back to the establishment of the modern state of Israel in 1947 by the UN. This decision was strongly contested by the Arab World and they refused to recognize Israel. The relationship between the Arab nations and Israel has improved over the years but the acrimony remains. From the Zionist point of view, the Israeli’s came back to Palestine in the late 19th century to repossess their inherited homeland.
They instead had to buy the same land where they constructed a Jewish community. The reception, however, was rather unfriendly; the Palestinian Arabs were very intimidating towards them. The Zionists had to rise up and defend themselves from the aggression of the Palestinian Arabs, which gradually transformed into a terrorism problem Fishman. T (2005, p 67).
The issue has now become a worldwide one, with countries like the US, UK, India, etc. also affected by the menace of terrorism in different degrees. In fact, many countries have been tackling this menace of terrorism for many years. This way there has been an ongoing war against terrorism. But the term ‘The War on Terrorism’ got associated with the military and diplomatic campaign launched by the United States and allies in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The stated goal of this campaign is to end international terrorism by preventing ‘terrorist’ groups from carrying out further attacks. If we consider some of the statements being made by senior government functionaries before, immediately after, and after 2-3 years of 9/11, it appears that some of these statements are at variance and appear contradictory in nature. For example, while preparing to attack Iraq, President Bush appeared fully convinced about convincing proof that Iraq has a major role in the 9/11 attacks, but gradually, when Iraq came in control of US forces and Saddam Hussain was hanged for the ‘crimes against humanity’ gaping holes started appearing in this theory.
No trace of the weapons of mass destruction was in sight and President Bush had to say that nothing is available to prove that Iraq had a role in the 9/11 attacks1.
Similarly, the campaign being led by coalition forces in Afghanistan appears to be heading towards nowhere. Attention was diverted towards Afghanistan because there was no regime as such. The ruling combine called Taliban did not believe in human rights and controlled the country with terror at gunpoint. Women were treated like third-class citizens, not allowed to attend public functions and schools. One prosperous sheik from Saudi Arabia called Osama Bin Laden was there to help the regime with finances and arms. He had his own set of people ranging from nuclear scientists, engineers, villagers, and other trusted lieutenants around him.
They had their own ideology of calling the countries like the US, UK, India, Israel, etc. the enemies of Muslims. For this very reason, they gave calls for Jihad against these countries in particular. Afghanistan has had the misfortune of being in news for all the wrong reasons since the late 1970s. It was in 1979 that Soviet troupes from the then USSR invaded Afghanistan and engineered a regime change. These forces remained in Afghanistan for the next 10 years, but not before resistance forces were armed with lethal weapons and trained manpower. Thereafter began a bloody era of revenge when the erstwhile President was hanged in broad daylight in the middle of the road.
This bloody has not stopped since then. The areas bordering Pakistan are still full of sympathizers for the terror machine led by the likes of Osama Bin Laden. Prior to 9/11, the world paid little attention to these terror machines owing to a range of geopolitical issues and diplomatic concerns. But thereafter all eyes were focused on the regimes which were considered to be unfriendly towards the European nations. Information was being compiled and analyzed from nations like Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Libya.
This analysis led to the belief that Afghanistan is the hub of activities for producing the terror suspects while the regime led by President Saddam Hussain was considered to have a friendly approach towards the terror suspects. All these factors resulted in the formation of a coalition led by the US in the war against terrorism and the hunting down of the remnants of al Qaeda and Taliban forces in Afghanistan. Though the US led forces had earlier bombed some selected targets in Afghanistan, but these bombs failed to find the intended target. This time, the US did not want to take chances and launched a full-fledged war against terror in Afghanistan.
It began on October 7, 2001, when the coalition forces launched the aerial attacks, followed by ground forces advancements. As the US forces and the innocent citizens of the poor nation are at the receiving end of the bomb attacks and other skirmishes, the last word is yet to be said on the war. While taking stock in retrospect, such decisions appear to have blundered in foreign affairs, providing further fuel to the conspiracy theories.
Analyzing the circumstances leading to strikes on Iraq having a government led by President Saddam Hussain, it was suspected that this government is supporting the terror machine. Moreover, President Saddam Hussain had been in the thick of the storm since he launched an attack on Kuwait and occupied it for several days, before being driven out by the coalition forces. After accomplishing the regime change in Afghanistan, the coalition forces directed their attention towards Iraq and in early 2002 started redirecting troupes and equipment toward Iraq. After enough consultations and stock, taking began the attack on Iraq on March 19, 2003, when the US and Partners Invade Iraq from all sides sea, air, and ground.
The coalition faced good resistance for many days, before actually entering deep inside the Iraqi cities. Shias, the other sect of Muslims in the country was equally unhappy with President Saddam Hussain, himself from the ‘Sunny’ sect. Thereafter the coalition forces helped in effecting a regime change in Iraq as well. The war against terror in Iraq has so far proved costly for the coalition forces for it has resulted in more than the required retention of coalition forces in an alien land. The casualties too have been on the higher side.
Now the domestic politics in the US and UK, the two leading nations launching the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, has been hotly debating and discussing the issue. Terrorism is simply the destruction of the environment and private or public facilities as well as endangering national resources. Therefore, having a look at the developments thus far, it is more than apparent that violent activities leading to terrorist acts have not done anything constructive for society.
This includes all activities of antagonism unreasonably dedicated by personalities, assemblages, or positions in opposition to individual persons including attacks on their religion, existence, mental power possessions, or honor. All of these actions have been termed as mischief on earth. The revered Allah warned all his followers against such mischief only. According to Muslims Allah has promulgated severe and deterrent consequences for the acts of terrorism, profligacy, and waywardness including putting to death, crucifixion, the cutting off of hands and feet, and exile from the land.
But the way the Middle East and several other campaigns are moving ahead, resulting in death and destruction, an unfortunate tag of terrorism has come to be associated with Islam, thus placing the hapless followers of Islam in an awkward position amongst their own colleagues, friends, community and the Western world in particular. According to new symposiums, anti-Islamic campaigns have sought to convince Western cultures that Islam is the new enemy that has replaced Communism. They have sought to stir up crusade-like sentiments in the minds of Western nations and encourage them to adopt policies projecting Western ascendancy more than Islam, inflame intolerances and ethnic favoritism alongside Muslim communities and minorities, and encourage the conflict of modern hypothesis. Lael B.et.al (2004, p28).
Democracies function on the basis of the willpower of the rulers, how they respect and implement the electoral process, how the pluralism in the society is respected, and to what extent the general people can enjoy civil liberties. Though the extent of civil liberties varies from country to country, depending upon a range of factors like the population density, literacy level, and the overall development of the nation, yet the basic fabric of such liberties remains similar.
The United States is one of the leading nations as far as civil liberties, education level, and awareness levels of its citizens are concerned. Therefore, conspiracy theories are being debated at many forums, seminars, and media all over the country. Such discussions suggest that there’s more to these conspiracies than being stated by the official machinery. Lev Grossman (2006) in an article2 on 9/11 discussed why the conspiracy theories are doing the rounds. Grossman (2006) states that two main theories are being put forward to explain the collapse of the rugged steel structures like a pack of cards, and the puff of smoke and dust that blasted off the lower floors as the building collapsed. The two theories being advanced are;
- The force of the collapsing upper floors raised the air pressure in the lower ones so dramatically that it actually blew out the windows. And
- The towers did not collapse from the impact of two Boeing 767s and the ensuing fires. They were destroyed in planned, controlled demolition. The dust puffs seen by us on TV are the detonations of explosives planted there before the attacks.
These are indeed two very contrasting views and what is quite worrying is the fact that the number of people believing in the second theory of government’s active involvement is not less by any standards. People believing in the theory of Al-Qaida involved appear convinced that the building came down owing to the sudden force and weight followed by the sudden push of the Jumbo jet. This is further argued that the puff of dust appearing as a blast is in fact the blast of the window panes, which gave way to huge air pressure buildup in the lower level floors.
On the other hand the section of people who are least convinced by the government version, state that security agencies had actually planted bombs in the building, well beforehand and as soon as the jumbo jets struck the towers the bombs went off thus blasting off the building up in smoke and dust. What seems to have annoyed some people are the way security agencies started entering into the private lives of the citizens in the name of cyber-snooping.
Nancy Libin (2006) brings up3 the conflicting situation of government’s right Vs citizen’s right. The government has been buying the data on the pretext of securing the lives of its citizens. This trend increased particularly after incidents like 9/11. Government agencies require the databank about a certain community, a certain city, certain age group once they get some intelligence input. After getting an intelligence lead the agency starts hunting for more information.
At this crucial moment do we expect that the agency will come out with public pronouncements detailing the kind of intelligence input the agency has got, and the kind of information the agency requires to further pursue the matter? Things are done in a hush-hush manner so that the conspiring parties don’t realize that their plans are being sniffed. The federal agency approaches banks, telecom agencies, etc. to go to the bottom of the plans. And thus the process of further investigation begins.
Now there’s one very crucial issue that gets overlooked in this episode. The conspiring guys could be just a small group of people and the federal agency ends up with huge personal data of thousands/ millions. For the sake of argument, we can even think that at the leisure time federal agency people would start monitoring the intimate bedtime telephonic conversation/ net-chatting between two renowned Hollywood actors/ actresses or two well-known republicans/ congressmen.
This conversation could then be recorded and the next morning the tabloids would be full of hot stories. Well, the federal agency would never come out with assurances that they won’t allow this to happen and maintain the privacy of all such ‘monitored’ people, for the simple reason that they will never admit of having any such data. Does that mean the law-enforcing agencies are squarely being cruel and illegal in their activities? Nancy argues that if we study the Privacy Act of 1974 which requires the government to ‘abide by explicit privacy standards when it collects personal information from citizens and creates its own databases of personal information, then it is quite apparent that the law enforcing agencies are indeed exploiting the loopholes. This amounts to an unethical intrusion into private lives.
The action appears more unethical and unpardonable for the simple reason that the ‘Government’ appears to be the ‘law breaker’. The law itself has been made in 1974 with an eye on the security situation prevalent (and some amount of foresightedness) at that time. Who would have thought at that time that two commercial flights full of passengers will be deliberately crashed on the twin towers? Indeed the security scenario in 1974 and in 2006 is entirely different. But then it becomes the duty of the government to revise the law as per the times. It’s been more than 32 yrs and the privacy aspect is still being overlooked by the government.
Nancy Libin (2006) has very rightly pointed out4 that the existing law – written before the rise of private data brokers – does not provide the same privacy protections when government agencies purchase personal data from private companies that collect, aggregate, and sell personal information. As of now, foolproof mechanisms like ‘data breach mechanisms’ are being discussed and debated to fill some of the loopholes. In this digital age when storing and transferring data has become very easy and convenient, an appropriate data protection mechanism has to be in place to discourage the data-cheats from creating havoc.
Recent media stories about some call-center guys having sold details of millions of credit card users of some companies must prove to be an eye-opener for bridging the information legislation gaps. This is one way for the federal government, of preparing the ground for wider acceptability in the public domain. Otherwise, the conspiracy theories will do more harm than good for the country and the public at large.
Though the proponents of conspiracy theories do not have clinching proof or facts before them, what these people have been arguing is on the basis of circumstances, visual effects, and by picking up some holes in the statements of the people in power. On the other hand, the government with all the machinery and power at its disposal must be having something in its possession, but the government too has not come out with clinching proof in public, which could prove convincing enough to silence the critics of the government’s approach.
The government must be having its own reasons for not coming out with such sensitive data, as the investigations and criminal proceedings are going on against some of the accused in this incident. But what is frustrating for the general public is that even after more than six years of the 9/11 attack, the security environment is nowhere near ideal. The main accused aka Osama Bin Laden and some of his key associates are still at large, despite the strident tracking by security forces of many countries.
The sufferings of the people, in general, have not subsided. While on the one hand, the citizens of the USA, UK, etc have to undergo a number of stringent security checks through airports, etc. the citizens of the countries like Iraq and Afghanistan are suffering twin impacts, both from the security forces as well as the terrorist organizations.
Citizens of Iraq and Afghanistan are active participants in the campaign against terrorism. They are the ones who have been dealing with the bombs hurled by the anti-social elements and they happen to be at the receiving end of the bullets fired by the security forces. Their land is under occupation, but they can’t throw the occupational forces out, as the forces are here with the stated objectives of saving the citizens of Iraq and Afghanistan. Citizens of the nations at war have felt rather confused, during all these years with the way things are unfolding on daily basis. Some of these networks have since gone underground. While some other organizations have started gaining more sympathizers in many countries.
Earlier also these organizations used to get finances and committed supporters to carry out the tasks from many countries. In the name of Jihad, they were brainwashing young minds and quite successfully too with all sorts of attractive and compulsive resources at their command. Since these organizations did not face any direct opposition, this was resulting in sort of morale-boosting for them. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have at least put a stop to the trend of openly flouting the rule of law and joining hands with such organizations. But the continuing war, overstay of US security forces in alien lands, and adding number of casualties are doing no favor to the government efforts in tackling the war.
Fueling the theories of conspiracies are the increased tax burdens over the years when the country required spending huge sums of money on strengthening the defense and security establishment, recession in the economy, slowing down in industrial activities, etc. Taking a look at the airline industry itself, which bore the brunt of the recession, as air traffic started being viewed with suspicion all around the globe, it can be figured out that in the aftermath of 9/11 this industry suffered big losses.
After 9/11 in 2001, almost all airlines were in the red, reporting huge losses. But credit must go the agility of the airline’s industry that it has come out of this gloomy scenario, thanks to combined efforts of governments, business & tourism industry with airlines industry. In terms of market value, the global airline’s industry grew by 5.7% in 2004 to reach a value of $293.2 billion and the market value forecast for 2009 says that the global airline’s industry is to have a value of $368.2 billion, i.e. an increase of 25.6% since 2004. The US, the worst hit by the 9/11 terrorist attack has been able to maintain the largest airlines industry in the world, accounting for 39.7% of the overall value (Datamonitor, 2005, p3).
What is heartening for the airline industry is the increase in the volume of airlines passengers, which registered an increase with a CAGR of 3.1% during 2000-2004, to reach a total of 2.3 billion. This period includes the challenging times in the aftermath of the 2001 crisis. Part of this recovery is due to the emergence of successful low-cost airlines.
Now that the global economy has come out of that challenging phase and is in progressive mode, the conspiracy theories being raised by US citizens at times appear jarring and quite distracting actually. The scenario doesn’t appear to be registering any drastic change if we look at the events taking place all around us. The investigation is progressing at its own pace, without any hint of a major breakthrough.
Bomb blasts in Iraq and Afghanistan are taking the lives of innocent citizens while the US is preparing for the run-up for a fresh Presidential election. The votaries of conspiracy theories seem to be becoming more vocal as they are gaining more sympathizers with each passing anniversary of 9/11. What the government could do perhaps is to come out with some of the non-strategic yet factual information that it has gathered so far during the investigations. The atmosphere of mistrust will only go away when the government takes serious initiatives, while some of the citizens on their part play crucial roles in re-building public perception.
References
- Datamonitor (2005), Global Airlines: Industry Profile.
- Fishman. T (2005). The Rising Superpower and how it poses grave challenges on the superpower: Oxford University Press, Pg 65-78.
- Grossman, Lev (2006). ‘Why the 9/11 Conspiracy Theories Won’t Go Away’. Time Magazine. Web.
- Hufschmid, Eric (2002). ‘Painful Questions: An Analysis of the September 11th Attack’. USA
- Lael B.et.al (2004). The Other War: Global poverty and the Millennium Challenge Account. Harvard School of Humanities, pg 25-31.
- Libin, Nancy (2006). ‘The anxious new dawn of cybersnooping’. Web.