What if 9-11 was a freak event?

Martin Varsavsky Tech Entrepreneur, Professor at IE
Posted: October 18, 2009 04:58 AM


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/martin-varsavsky/what-if-9-11-was-a-
freak_b_325016.html
http://bit.ly/3jiePH

Al Qaeda's actions on 9 11 2001 changed America's view of the world. After 
the terrorist attacks the Bush Administration came to the conclusion that 
America as a whole was under attack from the Middle East and that the 
solution was to move that war away from home into the Muslim countries. But 
what if USA governments, first the Bush Administration and now the Obama 
administration are wrong and the incredibly successful Al Qaeda attacks of 
9 
11 were not the beginning of a war on America or the West but a freak event?

In 2005 Safe Democracy, my foundation co organized the largest conference 
ever put on the subject of terrorism. The conference was attended by many 
heads of state and 1300 experts from the Middle East and the rest of the 
world. One of the highlights of the conference was the decision of Kofi 
Annan to choose this event to announce the UN Principles for Nations to 
apply when fighting terrorism. These principles were understood by many as 
a 
warning to USA that Terrorism could not be fought with more terror a la 
Guantanamo and Abu Gharb. Also around that time it become clear that the 
subsequent attacks that seemed to resembled 9-11, namely the March 11 in 
Madrid and July 7 bombings in London were home grown efforts of a very 
different kind as the Al Qaeda attacks. These tragic post 9 11 terrorist 
bombings were found to be not so much a continued attack by Al Qaeda but 
the 
story of angry immigrants who were reacting to Spain and UK participating 
in 
the invasion of Iraq. In other words these attacks were not originated in 
the Middle East but instead the consequence of our involvement in the 
Middle 
East. Terror in the form of brutal air bombings, torture on behalf of the 
US 
and EU occupying forces led to more terror in Europe. Out of fighting Al 
Qaeda with methods perceived as unreasonably brutal by Muslim immigrants in 
Europe a new type of home grown terrorism was born. It was this realization 
that made Spain's President Zapatero pull out from Iraq and since then the 
threat of Islamic terrorism has diminished.

So the question here is why is why USA and EU continue to believe that 
occupation of either Iraq and Afghanistan or only Afghanistan, is the best 
regional strategy. Many commentators still believe that we are safer 
because 
we occupy Afghanistan and Iraq. But lately many have been changing their 
views and are beginning to agree that Osama Bin Laden was a freak terrorist 
with a very personal agenda, who because of his own international 
background 
and skills as a terrorist, had his own global war to carry. That we should 
not manage our international agenda thinking that the globally minded Osama 
Bin Laden is the rule but that even the most radical elements in the Muslim 
world are now focused in regional objectives in countries that are mostly 
Muslim or have large Muslim populations such as the tragic attacks on 
India. 
Few critical observers believe that whoever is fighting Europe and USA in 
Afghanistan for example, wants to actually attack Europe or USA the way 
Osama Bin Laden did. Instead most conflict in Afghanistan and the Middle 
East in general now is against occupying forces or Palestinian/Israeli, 
Sunni/Shia and moderate vs radical Islam. Al Qaeda type attacks outside of 
the Middle East, like the attack in Mumbai, are serious but not the driving 
force of violence in the Middle East. The only way to prevent those is not 
for India to invade Pakistan where a lot of radical Islam is based, but to 
better protect itself. By now it is clear that most of the fighters in 
Afghanistan just want US and EU out of their country and will fight us like 
they fought the British 100 years ago and the Russians 30 years ago. But 
just like they did not go on attacking Great Britain after it pulled out of 
Afghanistan a century ago I don't think that even a Taliban Afghanistan 
will 
include a successor to Osama Bin Laden planning the next 9 11 out of there. 
I think that part of the message the Taliban got as well as Qaddafi got his 
when we bombed his home. And indeed, our enemies in Afghanistan want to 
turn 
the country back into the Middle Ages forcing men to wear beards, 
oppressing 
women, banning music and so on but is it our role to turn the Middle East 
into Western democracies or to protect our way of life and economies in our 
own countries? Because if the answer is the former we could invade Saudi 
Arabia next as most 9 11 attackers were Saudis and they also promote a way 
of life which we find that violates the rights of women, homosexuals and 
other groups who deserve their human dignity. But can we afford a global 
crusade for dignity? Would you send your child to die so the homosexuals of 
Iran for example stop getting the death penalty? Nobody seems to advocate 
that.

We have squandered over a trillion dollars occupying and policing Iraq and 
Afghanistan trying for those countries to become something they don't want 
to be. In the meantime we have been responsible for hundreds of thousands 
of 
deaths, the devastation of Iraq and Afghanistan's fragile economies and we 
have given an impossible task to our military who are dying for a dubious 
cause in tragic ways. What we should do instead is focusing our precious 
human and financial resources in making sure that those who intend to 
destroy us, freaks like Osama Bin Laden, do not get hold of nuclear weapons 
or the infamous weapons of mass destruction and achieve their personal 
objectives. And I say personal because I travel the Middle East enough to 
conclude that most Muslims would want to be like us rather than see us 
become like them. But to make sure that the next Osama does not show up 
with 
real weapons we need better cooperation with Russia and China who also 
suffer terribly from Islamic terrorism. We have to work with them as they 
are on one side victims of the same phenomenon, their countries border the 
Islamic world but also if we antagonize them, they can be the reason why 
the 
next Osama Bin Laden does show up with a nuclear weapon. In short what we 
have to do is to make sure that 9 11 continues to be the biggest and most 
successful terrorist attack in history, a freak event that is never again 
repeated.

-- 
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