WORLD TRADE CENTER, NEW YORK CITY
September 11, 2001
WORLD TRADE CENTER, NEW YORK CITY
September 11, 2001
It appears clear, in retrospect, that it were fanatical Islamic terrorists who killed some 6,000 Americans during the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon of September 11, 2001. The Muslim extremists who performed this action chose those two buildings as symbols of America power and culture, not by coincidence. These men see themselves as warriors in a broad centuries old war against the evil of Western modernity; they seek to destroy America and Americans by any means possible - there are no limitations or “off limits” targets. They see themselves as standing for the blood, soil, and tradition of Islam. In an increasing global society they fear the fluid cosmopolitan culture of trade, secularism, markets, and rationality, seen as embodied by America.
But ironically these terrorists are creatures of the new global culture, as much as is anyone else. The new global terrorists could not exist without the technological and financial networks our modern society is built upon. Terrorists use encryption, for example, on the World Wide Web and in their cellular phones to plan and coordinate their attacks. Additionally, they are able to transfer money and credit fluidly form nation to nation. They are constant world travelers, and it is by hijacking airplanes and taking advantage of the air routes did they brought about their most recent attacks. Then actively partake in what they hate. Modernity and the nation that most embodies it (i.e. the United States) is their mental enemy; but they will willingly use the tools of modernity (the World Wide Web, cellular phones, multinational banks, cheap and affordable international travel) to attack modernity, and the modern world has given terrorist such as Mohammad Atta dynamic new tools and weapons. They will use the tools of the devil, these people reason, to attack the devil himself. And so as technology has given birth to an entirely new set of weapons, so will they demand an entirely new set of responses. What might be some of these responses? How will Americans live and work differently because of September 11, 2001? Nobody is sure about everything, but everybody seems sure that life will be different: we live in a changed world.
At the very end of the American Civil War in 1865, committed and dissatisfied Confederate sympathizers were able only to kill the American president (Abraham Lincoln) and stab the Secretary of State (William Seward). One dead, and one wounded. In contrast, the active terrorists today number probably only a few hundred but on September 1, 2001, at the World Trade Center in New York and at the Pentagon they managed to kill over 4,000 - as well as to terrorize and bring normal life to a standstill for hundreds of millions! And with cyber attacks, toxic chemical substances, nuclear weapons, and highly infectious diseases such as small pox or the Marburg virus (producing a hemorrhagic fever similar to the dreaded Ebola), and new “genetic” weapons and the modern means to spread them. Or computer hackers shut down the national air traffic control system or wide area power grids. A crop duster, for example, speeds over a city releasing toxic chemicals on the populace below. A small fissionable device explodes in downtown Los Angeles on in Frankfurt, Germany. A reservoir is infected with small pox. A handful of perpetrators could kill millions!
The world has reached the stage whereby a group - even a single person! -- can mount an attack resulting in catastrophic casualties. On November 15, 2001, not long after the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks, a representative of Osama bin Laden's terrorist network al Qaeda told CNN correspondent Nic Robertson the following: "One supporter from us can destroy a huge amount of property in the United States. One person in a particular type of suicide mission can destroy an equivalent of what one corps in a modern army can do." Is this true? Is it that easy? Can this situation be helped? Is is possible that now a small group of fanatics with tools modern society provides them can cause damage on a scale that only large governments with powerful armies, navies, and air forces could do before?
The surrounding oceans, our vast military might of aircraft carriers and advanced weaponry, a large and highly professional standing army -- they only offer limited defense against terror attacks in a free and open country like America. It is true a person, organization, or a nation puts their physical safety in extreme jeopardy when they attack an immensely powerful country like the United States, but some fanatics, as proved recently, are more than willing to run that risk. They are even eager to do it! "God is on our side," or so they claim. "We are going to heaven because of our actions," or so they believe.
This is new. It is frightening. But it was not unexpected. And it won't be going away any time soon. Again, the world is a different place after September 11, 2001. Welcome to the future.
Questions to keep in mind: How is the “new terror” different from the “old terror” of the 1970’s and 1980’s? Who is Osama bin Laden? How and why has he come to declare “war” on the United States? How is the “Ai Quaeda” organization organized? Where is it based? What is the kind of person who is attracted to join it? What terror operations are they suspected of having planned and executed? Why is it so difficult for western intelligence to penetrate these terrorist organizations? How do the “new terrorists” take advantage of the openness of life in the United States and Europe to attack these societies? What are some of the political grievances that might motivate a “new terrorist”? What exactly did bun Laden urge faithful Muslims to do against America and Americans in his “fatwa”? How can terrorism be fought in America without compromising our civil benefits? What is President Bush’s strategy for “winning the war against terrorism”? What difficulties is he expected to face? What is, according to the U.S. government, the likelihood of more terror attacks on American soil? What are Americans strengths when it comes to combating terrorism? What are its weaknesses? How do some terrorists justify their actions in the name of religion? Is this an interpretation of religion shared by all it's adherent? Bubonic plague, bio-terrorism, anthrax, small pox: What do they do to they do to the human body? What are biological weapons? What are some of them? What are some of chemical weapons? If used, what could they do to victims? How could nuclear weapons fall into the hands of terrorist and/ or lunatics? What chemical weapon attacks took place in Tokyo in 1995? During WWI in Europe? How could it have been worse? How does the internet contribute to possible NBC attacks? What do experts believe are the chances of NBC terrorism in the United States in the future? What defenses does the government possess to defend the population? What about geological weapons? Did any counties continue to do researches? Who? How? How did we know? How might biological weapons research performed by governments and benefits terrorists and / or rouge states? Is it enough? Are we prepared? What are “genetic” weapons? How are they the “cutting edge” of biological warfare?