Ten Years Since the Attacks

Today marks 10 years since that terrible moment when the entire world was left speechless before images of the horror provoked by the unexpected terrorist attack against the twin towers in New York on Sept. 11, 2001. Almost 3,000 dead and more than 6,000 wounded innocent civilians remain as a heartbreaking toll.

Frightened in front of their televisions, hundreds of millions of people around the world couldn’t believe what they saw. The murderous minds of 19 suicidal members of the group al-Qaida conceived and executed the terrorist act, one of the most vicious in all of history, which also included an attack on the Pentagon.

Perhaps few nations could better comprehend the savage enormity of the brutal attack and the profound pain it caused. Argentina suffered massive terrorist attacks on three occasions — 1992, 1994 and 1995. The first two, on the Israeli embassy and on AMIA [an Israeli-Argentine Jewish community center], have been attributed to international terrorism. In 1995, the explosion at the Fábrica Militar in Río Tercero [an armaments factory] that destroyed part of the city of Cordoba, killing and wounding civilians, didn’t involve foreign agents but remains unpunished, as do the other two.

It is time, surely, to remember the victims of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and their relatives, and to show them once again our sincere solidarity. It is time also to remember that the fight against terrorism must be permanent, vigilant and shared.

Without adequate mechanisms for cooperation between states permitting an agile exchange of information, our societies are vulnerable to terrorist paranoia, which has changed our way of life so much.

One must remember that there will never be justification, nor a legal, moral or religious reason for terrorist attacks. Shame on those, such as Hebe de Bonafini in our country, who celebrate the attacks against the twin towers. No violent action against innocent civilians can be accepted, condoned or tolerated — for any reason. Such is required for the defense of human dignity and of civilization itself.

For this reason, in dealing with terrorism, there is no place for indifference or for tolerance — neither for inefficiency, inaction or inattention. We should all, without exception of any kind, be forever ready to attempt to prevent the terrorist actions that may lead to new attacks. The principal duty belongs to the state, but society can never lower its guard since a repetition of these acts of violence is, unfortunately, always a possibility.

Nevertheless, it serves to mention that actions and reactions against terrorism should always take place within the frame of the most complete legality, with the courage and dedication that this requires. We should never give in to the temptation to employ, as a means of reprisal, the terrorists’ own methods. This is what they aspire to: that society backtrack over centuries of slow and gradual advances with respect to liberty and tolerance to the point of returning to the intolerance and medieval fundamentalism — the intellectual environment, characterized by fanaticism, in which they live.

The general call made at the time, which led the U.N. Security Council, a few days after the attack on the twin towers, to sanction an obligatory resolution for all the member-states, remains in force. Because terrorism continues to be a very serious threat to peace and international security, all states are obligated to cooperate in distinct actions destined to avoid new attacks.