Ten Years Later (Lessons from History 9)

Everyone knows where they were ten years ago yesterday. Everyone has their own story of that day. I remember coming home from school and turning the TV on to watch the usual mixture of rubbish CBBC cartoons and Blue Peter. What I ended up watching for the next hour or so was the news. There was nothing else on, and, even if there had been, neither me nor my brother would have changed the channel.

I was only nine at the time. I had no idea what the World Trade Centre was. I had no idea of the political and social magnitude of the events unfolding on my TV screen. I did understand the enormous human tragedy that was happening. And I think I was vaguely aware, even then, that the world was going to be a very different place from now on.

It would be fair to say that I did most of my ‘growing-up’ in the post-9/11 era. Prior to 9/11 I knew basically nothing about the world outside my own little bubble, as is to be expected for a nine year old, but since then I have become more and more aware of the world in which I live. 9/11 is something of a reference point for that awareness. I’m not aware of much that happened before 9/11, but I have a pretty good idea of what has happened since.

This is not merely a coincidence of my age. Everyone who is anywhere near my age, from about mid twenties down to 17 or 18, probably has roughly the same experience – 9/11 is the first major international incident they remember. Historians do not always define when a century begins and end by the actual turning of a calendar century. Instead they look at critical turning-point which had world-changing consequences. For example, the 19^th century is not really said to begin until 1815, after the fall of Napoleon, likewise the 20^th century begins in 1914 with the outbreak of the First World War. I think posterity will define the 21^st century as beginning on 11^th September 2001.

So, what has changed? 10 years on, how is the world different? For better or for worse? Apart from making a lot more hassle to take a plane journey and radically altering the New York skyline, that is.

The 20^th Century is often seen as America’s century. The century in which America rose in economic, political and military might, to replace the old empires, most notably the British, that dominated the 19^th. American fought, first on the battlefield, then through political means, Fascist Germany and Communist Russia to become the one and only World Superpower, built on and supported by Free Market Capitalism.

As the first time since Perl Harbour that a foreign power has attacked American territory, and the first time in a long time that attack has been on the American mainland, or against civilians, 9/11 marked a very stark contrast to anything that had happened for most of the previous century. Subsequent political, economic and military failures, along with a lot of social introspection from many parts of America, are perhaps indicative of the American decline from world ascendency. It could, of course, be argued that Vietnam was a far worse military disaster than Afghanistan or Iraq, and that the Great Depression had far worse economical impact than the current recession, but neither of those resulted in quite the same loss of confidence as the last ten years have.

I wrote, a few months ago, about the impact 9/11 is still having on the American consciousness; the hurt that the American people still feel in the aftermath of 9/11. I won’t go over the same old ground today, but I will discuss the wider political impact of 9/11 and the events after it.

9/11 was understood very much in terms of an attack on America, which is probably fair, although perhaps seeing it in terms of an attack on western, capitalist, Christian democracy might be more accurate from the point of view of the terrorists. From the point of view of American politicians, the only way to respond to such an attack would be with an attack in kind, a war. When Al-Qaeda came forward and claimed responsibility for the attack, they became a clear target. However, Al-Qaeda is not as easy a target as Nazi Germany, or the targets of all the proxy wars that made up the Cold War. Al-Qaeda is one of several international terrorist organisations, with a lose affiliation of different semi-autonomous groups working under them. You can’t simply send army into the middle-east and conquer which ever countries harbour such groups.

Unfortunately this is exactly what the USA did and managed to find itself embroiled in two major and bloody conflicts, against groups that tend to just melt away, rather than face them in open combat. They now have to concentrate forces in peace keeping and rebuilding the countries that they invaded, rather than actually trying to defeat the enemy upon which they declared war.

The problem is that they did not really declare war on an enemy at all. America declared a War on Terror, which is a rather mind-boggling and confusing concept – how can one have a war on an emotion? Presumably what they really meant was a War on Terrorists or, more specifically, a war on the terrorists who target the USA specifically and The West in general – I don’t see them going against the Tamil Tigers or the Basque Separatists.

Even so, a war against a rather disparate group of people was never going to be terribly successful, because they don’t tend to present a unified front. Invading Afghanistan and, more bafflingly, Iraq was never going to solve anything in terms of international terrorism. Indeed it was only likely to make matters worse. The threat of terrorism has not really gone down all that much and the only reason there have not been more such attacks is the amount of security at airports and other such entry points. War in the Middle East has done far less than the work of Anti-terrorism laws and officers working to prevent such attacks.

The American response to 9/11 was disastrous. It committed thousands of American troops into wars that are still not won; it, in particular the invasion of Iraq, brought into question the exact motivations behind the wars, given Iraq’s complete lack of connection with Al-Qaeda; it made it clear that America no long has the economic and military power to dictate terms to anyone (if it ever did). America’s methods, the methods that worked at least fairly well in the Cold War, the method of aggressive rhetoric followed up by aggressive action if the need arose, worked when the opponent had very much the same attitude (and almost resulted in nuclear war…), but against an enemy that is largely faceless and disorganised, it failed miserably.

Add to this failure, the collapse of the economic system in recent years and you have a perfect storm. The failure of the economy showed, from the point of view of America, that is, that Capitalism is not a perfect system and that prosperity is not ever-lasting. Combine that with the realisation that their political and military power is waning, and you get something of a collapse in confidence, the kind of collapse that sees political upheaval such as the row over the healthcare bill and the rise of extreme movements like the Tea Party movement.

Trying to predict the future is one of those things that usually lead you to looking like an idiot. It’s pretty much inevitable that you will be wrong, so it’s usually a fool’s errant. However, as a fool, I might offer some prediction. I think it is already pretty clear that America is not the superpower it once was. Much like the British Empire at the turn of the last century, its power is fading and I can only see it fading further. I don’t think anyone is in a position at the moment to offer a suggestion as to who might place America at the top, if indeed any single nation will. If the 19^th century was Britain’s and the 20^th was America’s, time will tell to whom the 21^st belongs. 

Joy to the world, Bin Laden's dead

It’s weeks like this that make me wish I did more than one blog a week. Fortunately most weeks I’m thankful that I only do one a week because I have trouble enough filling one blog post, let along two. The reason I say this is that there are two news stories I think ought to be covered this week, the first is the resounding ‘No’ the British people gave to the referendum on AV this week. Those with a decent memory will remember my series of posts about the General Election and how utterly insane our electoral system is. Given that I’ve not been in the country as this campaign has been going on, I haven’t been subject to the incredible ignorance and cynicism spewed forth from the ‘no’ campaign, and to a lesser extend the ‘yes’ campaign as well, had I been, this blog would probably be looking rather different. As it is my distance from the events has meant that I will only note in passing my disapproval and disappointment with this outcome.

The second piece of news that I would like to cover is the news that Osama Bin Laden was killed in Pakistan early this week. A team of US Navy Seals conducted a raid on a compound in Abbottabad in North-West Pakistan early on Monday morning, killing Bin Laden. Almost ten years after 9/11, the leader of Al-Qaeda and the mastermind behind the attack has finally been killed. I want to qualify what I’m about to say by saying that the world is a better place with the death of Bin Laden. His death, in itself, is a good thing. However the manor in which he was killed and the reaction to it by many people in the USA raises some interesting questions.

There is no doubt that Bin Laden was an evil man guilty of tremendous atrocities. His death is a good thing, but it might not be justified in the context in which it happened. In an ideal world, Bin Laden would face trial for his actions and be sentenced accordingly. He should have faced proper justice from an internationally recognised court. We may never know exactly what happened in that compound, and we should certainly not blame the Navy Seals for shooting Bin Laden, but we have to question the intend behind the raid. Was the intention to kill Bin Laden, or to capture him? If it is the latter, then we must ask why he was killed, given that the details given thus far seem to suggest that shooting Bin Laden dead was not proportional to the direct threat he presented. If the intention was to kill Bin Laden, then whoever gave that order should be held accountable.

The basic principle of justice on which any civilised, democratic state is built, states that everyone is innocent until proven guilty. ‘Proven’ means in a court of law, in this case, when dealing with war crimes on an international scale, an international court. In order for someone to be proven guilty, he must face a trial and be given the opportunity to defend himself. If Bin Laden was ordered dead, then he was not given the opportunity to face trial. Of course, there is no doubt that Bin Laden was guilty, but that does not change the fact that he should have faced trial.

The main issue with this is that it sets a very dangerous president. A government cannot simply murder someone without trail any more than a civilian can simply cold-bloodedly murder a wanted criminal. The US is fighting a war against terrorist who use violence in order to force people into doing what they want. Their main weapons are fear and violence. In order to fight this war, the civilised world has to adhere to its principles and offer a clear alternative to violence and terror. The way to do that is by acting on principles of justice and democracy, by bringing people to trial, not simply killing them.

Now, of course, the circumstances of Bin Laden’s death are somewhat cloudy and will always remain so. There is no way to be certain that his death was the intention. However, I would like to see US officials show some remorse that Bin Laden was not brought to trial. Instead, the reaction to Bin Laden’s death has largely been celebratory, with a healthy dose of self-congratulation.

I can understand that people are happy that Bin Laden is dead, as I said earlier; I’m not exactly upset, but the thing that I find difficult to understand is the sheer force of the joy shown by many. The Whitehouse has been right to try to limit the celebration and Obama has been very gracious in his reaction, but much of the rest of the country has, in many ways, acted in a way that is not entirely appropriate.

People were literally dancing in the street when the news was announced. To me, that sort of outlandish celebration does not seem appropriate. What I think it shows more than anything is the depth of the wounds inflicted on America as a country by 9/11. As someone who does not live in North America, I find the fact that 9/11 is still very raw to many Americans very interesting. As far as I’m concerned it was a great tragedy, but I now see it more in terms of the effect it has had on international politics and airport security. 9/11 is a turning point, one of those cataclysmic events in history that set wholesale changes in motion, equivalent to the French Revolution, or the Nazi invasion of Poland. Obviously, I am living through these changes and observing them, rather than just learning about them in retrospect, but even so, it is very similar. In the months and even years after 9/11 it was still raw and shocking, I was a little too young to have really appreciated it, but even so, I was aware of how cataclysmic it was. Now, however, almost ten years on, I see it as part of the past, something that doesn’t really affect me directly.

What has become clear in the last few days is that ten years has done little to dampen the impact of 9/11 for Americans. It is clearly something that is very much at the forefront of the American consciousness. It still hurts, badly. It makes sense. Not only did thousands die, but it was the first time American civilians had been threatened by someone from outside the USA in a very long time. Not even during the Cold War, when large scale nuclear conflict was a serious possibility, did anyone actually attack the USA on their own soil. Americans are still smarting from the attack, they are still reeling and they still feel vulnerable because of it. Even ten years on, that is still true.

It is not exactly surprising, then, that the death of the man ultimately responsible for the attack has been so well received. The incredible outpouring of emotion is understandable, if a little alien to those observing from the outside. I hope that the death of Bin Laden will allow the USA to start moving on from 9/11 and that it can pass into history for them, as it has for the rest of the world. Of course, it will always be remembered and should always be remembered, but I hope that it will have less of a presence on the American consciousness in the future.

However, in reality, things are unlikely to change too much. While Bin Laden was the official head of Al-Qaeda, he has, for a long time, been just a figurehead. Other men will rise to take his place and their cause will continue to be fought for. Killing Bin Laden is not like beheading a snake. It is a victory which will boost morale, but it will not make it any easier for the west to win the War on Terror. Some commentators and politicians are calling this the beginning of the end, but the grim reality is that there is a long way to go in the current war.

Terrorism continues to be a threat and that threat cannot be countered simply through war. If anything this war has done much to alienate people who would otherwise not turn to extremism. If we are to put an end to the threat to the western world from extremist Muslims, we need to work on getting the moderate Muslims on our side, rather than alienating them by waging war in their country. But that is a whole other topic for a different blog post. In the meantime, we should be glad that Bin Laden is dead, but be sorry he was never brought to trial.