9/11

The U.S. will remember the victims of 9/11 today. It has been 10 years since al-Qaida’s terrorist attacks in 2001. The horror of the moment when the planes hit the twin towers is on the screens once again. The suicide attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were destroying the hopes of peace in a world that had just emerged from the Cold War into the 21st century.

More than 3,000 people died in the twin towers. The Bush administration used 9/11 as an opportunity to settle its score from the Gulf War and for world domination. It invaded Afghanistan and Iraq. It ended the Taliban and Saddam regimes.

In the 10th year after 9/11, when the U.S.’ policies in Afghanistan were hitting dead ends, and its military presence was beginning to look like Vietnam, there were some unexpected developments.

Osama bin Laden, who is considered the architect of the 9/11 attacks, was captured dead in Pakistan.

If Osama had been caught alive, it would have been possible to shed light on the unknown aspects of the horrors that took place in New York.

That Osama was dumped to the bottom of the ocean, after 10 years of formulating thousands of scenarios and coming so close to the truth, must have served some cause other than being an operational accomplishment.

Afghanistan, whose invasion by the Russians had been the last display of power in the Cold War, later turned out to be a project supported by the CIA. When they were introduced to President Ronald Reagan, the Islamic Mujahedeen were praised as being the moral equivalents of the Founding Fathers. They were given financial and military aid. Osama and the Taliban showed up after the Gulf War in 1990.

It was enough for Osama bin Laden, who was a Saudi Arabian citizen, to start a jihad based on the belief that the holy land was being used as a military base for the American military.

Saddam Hussein was saying to the U.S. ambassador: “You can come to Iraq with aircraft and missiles but …. when we feel that you want to injure our pride … death will be the choice for us. … But we too can harm you. … We cannot come all the way to you in the United States, but individual Arabs may reach you.”

We cannot know if Saddam really said this!

But the attacks on the U.S.’ heart on 9/11 set the scene for the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq.

Ten years later, in 2011, developments in sync with the killing of the “invisible enemy,” Osama bin Laden, shook the Arab world.

The “Big Middle East Project” is coming to life through the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt and, lastly, the overthrow of Gadhafi.

The number of civilians who died after 9/11 is more than 1 million in Iraq alone. For all the millions of dollars spent in Afghanistan fighting the Taliban, the people are still suffering in poverty. I wish 9/11 could have been the milestone for a world where one could live in dignity.