The 9/11 Attacks Were 10 Years Ago: What Has America Learned?

Each time an Islamic movement wants to find its militant base, it promises to liberate Palestine and make Al Quds the capital city.

Literature, scientific studies and films are still flourishing 10 years after the horrible attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The modern geostrategic map of the world, designed after the end of World War II, was revised with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, and has been completely confused by the attacks of Sept. 11.

Every arena in the world was shaken enough to definitively establish the supremacy of U.S. power in both the literal and figurative sense of the word. But what lessons has Uncle Sam taken from these murderous attacks? Aren’t the same factors that are supposed to be the source of Arab and Muslim resentment still there? The less hawkish think about the Palestinian issue.

Each time that an Islamic movement wants to find its militant base, it promises to liberate Palestine and make Al Quds the capital city. The symbolism of an invaded and tormented Palestine is very heavy in the subconscious of Arab and Muslim populations. History’s injustice has not been repaired, 10 years after the Sept. 11 attacks, despite great promises from former American President George W. Bush to assist in the creation of a Palestinian state before the end of his term in 2008. Mr. Bush created two wars, but he hasn’t assisted in the creation of the Palestinian state.

The enthusiasm of his successor, Barack Obama, was hit by the intransigence of Israel, who defied the international community by pursuing the construction of settlements in Jerusalem. In March 2010, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saw some minor discontent from Obama. “If the Americans support the unreasonable demands presented by the Palestinians concerning a freeze on construction in Jerusalem, the political process risks being locked for a year,” he immediately threatened.

Since Obama has yielded, construction has continued and everything has returned to normal. The Obama administration came back “with no hard feelings” after threatening to use its veto if the Palestinians presented themselves to the U.N. with a demand for recognition of their own state. In the meantime, America was quick to recognize the Libyan National Transition Council with inexplicable ease. Despite the conspiracy theories and contradictions, despite the fact that it’s a barbaric attack against modernity, Sept. 11 2001 also launched a war.

The security-only strategy in which the Bush administration embarked on was inspired by the hawks in the White House. “[A]n extremely conservative estimate of the toll in direct war dead and wounded is about 225,000 dead and about 365,000 physically wounded in these wars so far,” according to a report from Brown University published yesterday. The report was dedicated to the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the antiterrorism campaign being led in Pakistan.

As in any war, the numbers are horrible. One should have seen the immensely huge barracks at Fort Lewis in Washington state; the unspeakable pain of the families of the dead soldiers in Iraq or in Afghanistan. Speechless, the pain is always just as unspeakable in the countries conquered by the U.S. Army boys, who didn’t leave just to go sightseeing. According to the same report, no less than 31,741 people including approximately 6,000 Americans, 1,200 Allied soldiers, 9,900 Iraqis, 8,800 Afghans, 3,500 Pakistanis, and 2,300 private military members have lost their lives in the course of these conflicts. All this doesn’t take into account the flow of refugees, particularly in Iraq and Afghanistan, where nearly eight million people have been displaced!

The worldwide war against terrorism declared by former President Bush to get revenge for the outrage has not been finished at all, even with the elimination of Osama bin Laden, America’s sworn enemy. The Obama administration has developed a new approach to the thought of warfare. “The true strength of our nation comes not from the might of our arms or the scale of our wealth, but from the enduring power of our ideas,” President Obama said in his first presidential speech several hours after winning the election in November 2008. But between talk and reality, there is also a crowd of lobbyists in the U.S.