The awful legacy of 11 September 2001

We all know where we were when the news broke. For me it came early in the morning (N.Z. time) of 12 September 2001. Initially, I did not think too much of it until Mum came into my bedroom while I was getting ready for a University lecture. Then Dad came in and said it was being called an “act of war”…

25 years after that grim day in 2001, there is little evidence – if any – that terrorism has been defeated. The causes of such violence remain as they were on 10 September 2001. Countries across the world have improved airline security and enacted terrorism suppression legislation.

My sympathy for the 2,900 innocent victims of that day is absolute. They were innocent people going about their lives. They were people going home to families. Flight attendants on four separate flights innocently doing their job. And hundreds of firefighters and police who in a British dominion would be up for a George Cross for their bravery. I acknowledge them all.

I have no sympathy for the political actors. These are the authorities and people of influence who have stood to gain from this atrocity. People with no honour, corrupted by power, money and influence. Some of them had their time of influence before 11 September 2001. They enabled it by failing to take measures that might have made the attacks more difficult, if not impossible.

The C.I.A.

There are C.I.A. agents who failed to stop the flow of arms to insurgents in Afghanistan and elsewhere, even after finding out that those arms were being used to commit atrocities. Low level internecine warfare that quietly kills thousands of people is some of the most insidious combat ever imagined. Left to fester, this is what it can become. I am talking about the politicians who enabled covert coups in countries like Iran for decades. They did it because there were economic gains to be had at the expense of local democracy. A good example of this is the 1953 joint C.I.A./M.I.6 coup in Iran. It overthrew the democratically elected Mohammad Mossadegh.

25 years later little has changed in terms of political actors learning from their mistakes. And yet much has changed. In the 25 years since 11 September 2001, the world has gone from having post-Cold War hope for the future, to teetering on the brink of World War 3. It had some confidence in the international rule of law. Now it is one where the loudest and the most powerful speak with bullets and bombs. Respect for other nations, cultures and ethnicities has been replaced with fear, violence and mistrust.

Federal Aviation Authority

I mention the Federal Aviation Authorities and others. Following the spate of aircraft hijackings and atrocities like the Lockerbie bombing in the 1980s. Between then and 11 September 2001 they had over a decade to introduce pragmatic security measures that might have stopped the attacks. Air-marshals with tasers, having an emergency system that automatically signalled for outside assistance may have helped. In the run up to 11 September, intelligence agencies knew that Osama bin Laden was contemplating hijacking aircraft. Why did they not warn airlines about the risk, and require preventative steps?

New Zealand

No western nation comes away with entirely clean hands. New Zealand included. We have failed to act on principle on more than one occasion. Successive governments have too blindly followed American foreign policy as if it were gospel. We fail to criticise the genocidal regime of Benjamin Netanyahu, despite his administration openly advocating for violence against Palestinians in ways that Nazi-era Germany would have been proud of.

Where to from here?

I do not know where the next 25 years will take the world. I would like to think that at some point there will be a global reset. Maybe there will be something will make the powers that be realize there is more to life than being the most powerful country; the richest man. But having watched the world deteriorate to the point that it has, and how it got there does not fill me with hope.