Watch - Articles and opinion: September 11

Archived news and commentary: September 11 - 16, 2001

2001/12/24 - 2001/12/31
2001/12/17 - 2001/12/23
2002/12/10 - 2001/12/16
2002/12/03 - 2001/12/09
2001/11/26 - 2001/12/02
2001/11/19 - 2001/11/25
2001/11/12 - 2001/11/18
2001/11/05 - 2001/11/11
2001/10/29 - 2001/11/04
2001/10/22 - 2001/10/28
2001/10/15 - 2001/10/21
2001/10/08 - 2001/10/14
2001/10/01 - 2001/10/07
2001/09/24 - 2001/09/30
2001/09/17 - 2001/09/23
2001/09/11 - 2001/09/16

Sunday, September 16, 2001

News and commentary:

"No greater hate: What inspires the Muslim kamikazes?" (Martin Kramer, Tel Aviv Notes No. 22, 2001/09/16)
"Those who killed thousands in New York and Washington had a different agenda, many levels above resentment at any specific American policy. Their grievance combines all grievances and supersedes them. The problem, as they have diagnosed it, is not what America does, but what America is. By America's very nature, they believe, it is a power arrayed against Islam. Those who went happily to their deaths at the helm of four airliners were striking a blow against Satan incarnate - centers of a vast economic and military conspiracy to subordinate and enslave over a billion Muslims. Their message to America was this: cease to exercise your power now, or we will overpower you. An audacious agenda? These same extremists believe that they single-handedly brought down another world power, the Soviet Union, by their steadfast jihad in Afghanistan. As a result of their deeds, so they believe, Soviet forces retreated, the Soviet Union collapsed, and hundreds of millions of Muslims trapped in the Soviet empire gained their freedom. Islam's extremists believe that the fall of the Soviet Union was a triumph of Islamic belief over communist atheism. America, to them, represents the other face of unbelieving materialism; like the Soviet Union, America too will tumble."

"Palestinians Suppress Coverage of Crowds Celebrating Attacks" (Lee Hockstader, The Washington Post, 2001/09/16)
"Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority is trying to suppress broadcast images and photos of Palestinians glorifying the terrorist attacks on the United States and hailing their suspected mastermind, exiled Saudi financier Osama bin Laden. Palestinian officials have told local representatives of foreign news agencies and television stations on several occasions that their employees' safety could be jeopardized if videotapes showing Palestinians celebrating the attacks were aired. Broadcast news organizations operating in the Palestinian-ruled portions of the West Bank and Gaza Strip have complied." (See also: "Palestinian leaders try to repair image - Effort includes threats to media" (Matthew Kalman, USA Today, 2001/09/13) and "Rejoicing in the streets of Jenin" (Flore de Préneuf, Salon.com, 2001/09/11))

"Anti-Americanism creates some strange bedfellows" (Anne Applebaum, The Sunday Telegraph/anneapplebaum.com, 2001/09/16)
"The initial goodwill did not last. Within about 36 hours, I began to detect the beginnings of a second reaction, less widespread, but very distinct. In The Guardian, Seumas Milne wrote of the "unabashed national egotism and arrogance that drives anti-Americanism among swaths of the world's population". While hastily declaring that his organisation did not support terrorism, a member of the British Green Party told the Today programme that it was possible to understand the "logic" behind the attacks. As if to prove that the Right is no less immune to such sentiments than the Left, Andrew Alexander, the veteran Daily Mail columnist, after explaining that he means in no way to justify terrorism (reminiscent of those who say "I-am-no-racist-but . . .") then went on to denounce the "self-sought imperial role" of the United States, which he said had rightly "made it enemies of every sort across the globe". ...
Of course I realise that the anti-globalisation movement and Islamic fundamentalism have completely different origins and different goals, not to mention different kinds of supporters. Nevertheless, the anti-globalist critique of American cultural imperialism, international capitalism, and the hypocrisy of bourgeois democracy does sound, at times, startlingly like what comes out of the mouths of bin Laden and his ilk."

"The shame that haunts the Arab mind" (David Pryce-Jones, The Daily Telegraph, 2001/09/16)
"Democracy means Us and Them. Nothing in the history or the culture of Arabs and Muslims allows them to put this into any form of political practice. From long ago they have inherited a cast-iron absolute system, in which the ruler does as he pleases, and the rest have no redress, they do indeed go to the wall. ... And who is responsible for this? It requires a rather special character to be able to lay the blame for social failure where it properly belongs, on the people who comprise one's own society. Much easier, more satisfying, to blame everybody except oneself. And haven't Westerners themselves been putting their shoulders to that wheel by reiterating for many years that the Arab and Muslim plight is nothing to do with their own conduct or culture but all the fault of colonialism, imperialism, capitalism, Zionism, globalisation, and We are therefore guilty for whatever They may do?"

"Where the violence comes from" (Michael Lerner, Tikkun.org, 2001/09/16)
According to Lerner the violence came because of U.S. saying no to the unrealistic Kyoto-treaty: "Similarly, if the U.S. turns its back on global agreements to preserve the environment, unilaterally cancels its treaties to not build a missile defense, accelerates the processes by which a global economy has made some people in the third world richer but many poorer, shows that it cares nothing for the fate of refugees who have been homeless for decades, and otherwise turns its back on ethical norms, it becomes far easier for the haters and the fundamentalists to recruit people who are willing to kill themselves in strikes against what they perceive to be an evil American empire represented by the Pentagon and the World Trade Center."

"Bin Laden British cell planned gas attack on European Parliament" (David Bamber et al., The Daily Telegraph, 2001/09/16)
"Islamic terrorists based in Britain and controlled by Osama bin Laden planned a devastating attack in February on the European Parliament building in Strasbourg. A six-strong terror cell funded by the Saudi fugitive planned to kill all 625 Euro-MPs, and scores of officials, by releasing sarin gas into the parliament building."

"On the Bombings" (Noam Chomsky, zmag.org, 2001/09/16)
Noam Chomsky comments on the terror attacks betrays his anti-American obsession immediately: "The terrorist attacks were major atrocities. In scale they may not reach the level of many others, for example, Clinton's bombing of the Sudan with no credible pretext, destroying half its pharmaceutical supplies and killing unknown numbers of people..."

"America at War" (Andrew Sullivan, The Sunday Times, 2001/09/16)
"What has happened so far is, in all probability, merely the latest in a slowly escalating scale of attack. We have been put on notice that every major western city is now vulnerable to anything - chemical, biological, even nuclear. ... It is no longer a matter of whether these weapons will be used against us, but when. In that sense, this is clearly not an American problem alone. It is a problem for civilisation itself."

"Islam and the West are inadequate banners" (Edward Said, The Observer, 2001/09/16)
Said speaks of the "roots of terror in injustice", which, not surprisingly, he considers are found in the foreign policy of the U.S.: "Political rhetoric in the US has overridden these things by flinging about words like 'terrorism' and 'freedom' whereas, of course, such large abstractions have mostly hidden sordid material interests, the influence of the oil, defence and Zionist lobbies now consolidating their hold on the entire Middle East, and an age-old religious hostility to (and ignorance of) 'Islam' that takes new forms every day."

Saturday, September 15, 2001

News and commentary:

"Religion's misguided missiles" (Richard Dawkins, The Guardian, 2001/09/15)
"I am trying to call attention to the elephant in the room that everybody is too polite - or too devout - to notice: religion, and specifically the devaluing effect that religion has on human life. ...
There is no doubt that the afterlife-obsessed suicidal brain really is a weapon of immense power and danger. It is comparable to a smart missile, and its guidance system is in many respects superior to the most sophisticated electronic brain that money can buy. Yet to a cynical government, organisation, or priesthood, it is very very cheap."

"Bush Braces Country for War" (Tracy Grant, The Washington Post, 2001/09/15)
"With the words 'we're at war,' President Bush this morning continued to prepare the country for what may be an extended campaign against those responsible for Tuesday's terrorist attacks at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. ... Bush, who yesterday visited the scene of devastation in downtown Manhattan, this morning described the carnage as 'the signs of the first battle of war.' He went on to say - echoing a phrase his father used during the Persian Gulf War - 'this act will not stand; we will find those who did it; we will smoke them out of their holes. ... Make no mistake about it: Underneath our tears is the strong determination of America to win this war. And we will win it.'"

"This is a war for civilisation" (Mark Steyn, The Spectator, from the 2001/09/15 issue)
"This is not terrorism - five guys in ski-masks plotting in a basement. This is war, waged in the shadows but openly cheered by millions and millions of people and more covertly supported by their governments, including the smooth, bespoke emissaries of the thug states in Durban last week. ... This is, as the German government put it, an attack on 'the civilised world', and it's time to speak up in its defence. Those Western nations who spent last week in Durban finessing and nuancing evil should understand now that what is at stake is whether the world's future will belong to liberal democracy and the rule of law, or to darker forces. And after Tuesday America is entitled to ask its allies not for finely crafted UN resolutions but a more basic question: whose side are you on?"

"A time for extremism" (Bruce Anderson, The Spectator, from the 2001/09/15 issue)
"But it is not enough to act against Afghanistan. With globalisation, there is a global threat. Any state which collapses into chaos could become a terrorist haven; there is now a small-scale version in Kosovo. If any such state has a basic industrial infrastructure, terrorists could use it to make chemical or biological weapons. ... We must assist, and if necessary coerce, any state which is afflicted with enclaves of anarchy or terrorism until they are eradicated. ... They must be dealt with, by whatever methods are necessary, including Western casualties. The Americans may now realise that unless they are prepared to use their armed forces to strike at adversaries, the adversaries will strike at them. It is better that trained men should be in harm’s way than an entire civilian population."

Friday, September 14, 2001

News and commentary:

"Bin-Laden Poster Seen at Gaza Rally" (AP/Yahoo! News, 2001/09/14)
"About 1,500 Palestinians, many supporters of the Islamic militant group Hamas, marched in a Gaza Strip refugee camp on Friday, burning Israeli flags and carrying a large poster of Osama bin Laden, who has been named as a key suspect in this week's terror attacks in the United States. After the rally, plainclothes Palestinian policemen questioned several journalists, including staffers of foreign news agencies, and confiscated videotape and film as well as camera equipment. An Associated Press Television News video was among the materials taken, and an AP photographer was warned by officials not to publish pictures of the bin-Laden poster. ... Earlier this week, Palestinian police stopped camera teams and photographers from covering a rally in the West Bank town of Nablus in which several thousand Palestinians celebrated the attacks in the United States. Palestinian officials said the demonstration did not represent widespread Palestinian opinion."

"In West L.A., Across Nation, Americans Rally Round the Flag" (Richard Lee Colvin, The Los Angeles Times, 2001/09/14)
"They began to gather outside AAA Flag and Banner in West Los Angeles an hour before the store's opening Thursday: White. Black. Asian. Latino. Bush voter. Gore voter. Gay. Straight. Young. Old. Hip. Square. They lined up, more than 100 at a time, all with one thing in common: They wanted to commit the simplest act of patriotism. They wanted to wave the American flag."

"What Became of Tolerance in Islam?" (Khaled Abou El Fadl, Los Angeles Times, 2001/09/14)
"As a Muslim, I feel that the horror of recent terrorist attacks demands a serious, conscientious pause. Terrorism is an aberration, but most often it is of a particular type, an extreme manifestation of underlying social and ideological currents prevalent in a particular culture. Terrorism is not a virus that suddenly infects the brain of a person; rather, it is the result of long-standing and cumulative cultural and rhetorical dynamics. ... Most important, however, a dogmatic, puritanical and ethically oblivious form of Islam has predominated since the 1970s. ... Fundamentally, this puritanical theology responds to feelings of powerlessness and defeat with uncompromising symbolic displays of power, not only against non-Muslims but also against Muslim women. It is not accidental that this puritanical orientation is the most virulent in flexing its muscles against women and that it is plagued by erotic fantasies of virgins in heaven submissively catering to the whim and desire of men. ... First, since the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the onslaught of colonialism, Islamic intellectuals have busied themselves with the task of "defending Islam" by rampant apologetics. This produced a culture that eschews self-critical and introspective insight and embraces projection of blame and a fantasy-like level of confidence and arrogance. Second, Muslims got into the habit of paying homage to the presumed superiority of the Islamic tradition but marginalize this idealistic image in everyday life."

"God Gave U.S. 'What We Deserve,' Falwell Says" (John F. Harris, The Washington Post, 2001/09/14)
A fundamentalist response to a fundamentalist attack: "Television evangelists Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, two of the most prominent voices of the religious right, said liberal civil liberties groups, feminists, homosexuals and abortion rights supporters bear partial responsibility for Tuesday's terrorist attacks because their actions have turned God's anger against America. ... 'I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way - all of them who have tried to secularize America - I point the finger in their face and say, 'You helped this happen.'"

"The furies of foreign lands" (Fouad Ajami, usnews.com, 2001/09/14)
"'The snake is America,' the Saudi-born financier of terror, Osama bin Laden, tells acolytes and recruits. 'We have to cut off the head of the snake.' Sadly, there is a deadly receptivity to this message. For nearly a quarter century, ever since the tribune of the Iranian revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, appeared as a pied piper of the disinherited, a wrath has blown through vast stretches of the Muslim world. ... The experts will pick over what we missed, the failure of our human intelligence, the failure to read this or that hidden message that bin Laden sent in our direction. But we should not lose our way: There is a generalized hatred that nourishes the terrorists, grants them indulgence, sees them as just avengers."

"Powell Calls Bin Laden a Prime Suspect" (Stefen Mufson and Alan Sipress, The Washington Post, 2001/09/14)
"Secretary of State Colin L. Powell yesterday pointed to wealthy Saudi exile Osama bin Laden as a prime suspect in the attacks on Tuesday by airplane hijackers and later spoke by telephone with Pakistan's leader to insist on his help in hunting down the fugitive militant and uprooting his network. ... He added, 'When we are through with that network we will continue with a global assault against terrorism in general.'"

Thursday, September 13, 2001

News and commentary:

"The Real bin Laden" (Mary Anne Weaver, The New Yorker, 2001/09/13)
Originally published in the 2000/01/24 issue. It seems "America's obsession" was warranted: "As bin Laden's international image and stature increase - along with his support, both ideological and financial, among some of the kingdom's élite and the élites of other states in the Persian Gulf - any Saudi hopes of quietly resolving its bin Laden problem by force become less tenable. And each time the Clinton Administration raises the stakes, and further enhances bin Laden's prominence, more and more disaffected Saudis flock to join the kingdom's militant Islamist underground, of which bin Laden remains a central part. That is one of the most worrisome consequences of America's obsession with one man."

"The Changing Face of Terrorism" (David Greenberg, Slate, 2001/09/13)
"Like the attacks led by Osama Bin Laden and Ramzi Ahmed Yousef in recent years, the horror we just witnessed was evidently motivated by crusading, messianic, fundamentalist religion, an unswerving conviction that to destroy America is to do God's work. Since this form of terrorism has no other political goal, there is no reason to imagine that world opinion can exercise any brake upon it. And since it didn't succeed in destroying America, we should expect that there will be more to come."

"This Is War - We should invade their countries" (Ann Coulter, National Review, 2001/09/13)
A very "hawkish" column, which later led to the severing of links between Coulter and National Review: "This is no time to be precious about locating the exact individuals directly involved in this particular terrorist attack. Those responsible include anyone anywhere in the world who smiled in response to the annihilation of patriots like Barbara Olson. ... We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity. We weren't punctilious about locating and punishing only Hitler and his top officers. We carpet-bombed German cities; we killed civilians. That's war. And this is war."

"The anti-globalizers' lowest moment yet" (Peter Beinart, The New Republic, 2001/09/13)
"'World Trade Centre ... anti capitalism ... anti globalisation ... was it one of us?' So read a Tuesday posting on www.urban75.com, a site popular with anti-globalization activists from around the world. ... Here are some snippets of the chat at urban75.com, in the first hours after the attack, while television and the Internet flashed scenes of the devastation in New York City. From a writer named "Buddy Bradley": "Can we draw one tiny element of goodness from this, in that it will maybe make America think again about its apparent invincibility in the modern age, or will this only serve to make them worse?" From someone called "twisted nerve": 'Maybe this is what was needed to make a change for the better??? It was only a matter of time.'"

"Attack on U.S. Is Attack on All, NATO Agrees" (William Drozdiak, The Washington Post, 2001/09/13)
"In an unprecedented show of support for a member country, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization decided today that Tuesday's terror strikes in the United States constituted an attack against all 19 members that commits them to respond militarily if they deem force is necessary to protect security. It was the first time in its 52-year history that the alliance invoked collective defense arrangements under Article 5 of its charter."

"Judgment Day in Mystery Babylon?" (Anthony C. LoBaido, WorldNetDaily, 2001/09/13)
A bizarre study in anti-Americanism and moral equivalence: "In the West, we most often see Islamic people as crazed and irrational. But have we considered that the Muslims might not be irrational when they consider America to be akin to Satan? Let's look at the Satanic Bible. What are the values of Satan? Lust, greed, gluttony, revenge. Hmm. Sounds like American society. ... Is New York the head of the "Great Satan"? All that is evil in the world can be found in New York: MTV, the United Nations, the U.N. abortion programs, the Council on Foreign Relations, New Age Church of St. John the Divine, Wall Street greed, Madison Avenue manipulation and of course more confirmed AIDS cases than the rest of America combined. Let's remember the filthy sodomite gay parade last summer in New York." (UPDATE: The original link is down, but it's archived here, by Wayback Machine.)

"Palestinian leaders try to repair image - Effort includes threats to media" (Matthew Kalman, USA Today, 2001/09/13)
"Palestinian Cabinet Secretary Ahmed Abdel Rahman used tougher measures to avoid an international backlash in response to apparent Palestinian jubilation. Abdel Rahman called international news agencies and said the safety of their staff could not be guaranteed unless they withdrew the embarrassing footage of Palestinian police firing joyfully in the air. Such threats appeared to succeed in suppressing immediate release of video showing large street celebrations in Ramallah, Bethlehem and other West Bank towns." (See also: "Rejoicing in the streets of Jenin" (Flore de Préneuf, Salon.com, 2001/09/11))

"A Volatile Neighborhood - A Guide to Countries Where Islamic Anger Against the United States Is Strongest" (The Washington Post, 2001/09/13)
"U.S. officials investigating Tuesday's attacks in New York and Washington have focused their suspicions on Osama bin Laden, the accused Saudi terrorist who has been living in Afghanistan. Any attempt to capture bin Laden or punish Afghanistan's Taliban rulers for sheltering him would involve the United States in an unsettled and dangerous part of the world."

"'We've Hit the Targets'" (Michael Hirsh, Newsweek, 2001/09/13)
"By the end of America's day of horror, U.S. intelligence officials said, most people inside the federal government were almost certain - about 90 percent certain, the consensus had it - that bin Laden and his global organization, Al Qaeda (The Base), were behind the attacks. One key reason: shortly after the suicide attacks, a source with access to intelligence told Newsweek, U.S. intelligence picked up communications among bin Laden associates relaying a message: 'We've hit the targets.'"

"Bin Laden: a 'Master Impresario'" (Michael Dobbs, The Washington Post, 2001/09/13)
"For the past few months, a videotape has been circulating in the Middle East showing Osama bin Laden appealing to his followers to join a "holy war" against the United States. ... Bin Laden's statements in the period leading up to Tuesday's multiple terrorist attacks seem to fit into a well-established routine. Interviewed last month in the mountains of southern Afghanistan by a London-based Arab journalist, he boasted - without going into detail - that he and his followers were planning "a very big one." Yesterday, however, al Qaeda spokesmen denied involvement in strikes on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, while expressing support for the attacks."

"A New Date of Infamy" (Evan Thomas, Newsweek, 2001/09/13)
"The date, like Dec. 7, 1941, will live in infamy. The audacious air assault on the political and financial capitals made a mockery of Fortress America and ended the illusion that its citizens can somehow float above the hatreds of the world. The thick clouds of smoke and dust billowing up from the spot where the World Trade Center once stood were eerily reminiscent of the photographs from the Japanese attack on Battleship Row in Pearl Harbor - only the clouds were engulfing lower Manhattan, where hundreds of thousands of civilians live and work. The image of the broadcast tower on top of one of the Twin Towers, slowly sinking as the 110-story building disintegrated, reminded older Americans of newsreels of the Hindenburg disaster, the explosion of a giant German dirigible in New Jersey 64 years ago. Only the death toll from this horror could reach well into the thousands - no one will know the exact total for days - and the cause of the tragedy was not human folly but evil."

Wednesday, September 12, 2001

News and commentary:

"Anti-Americanism: a new world power" (Derek Brown, The Guardian, 2001/09/12)
"There is nothing new about anti-Americanism - what is new is that the anti-Americans are the main players on the world stage at the moment. ... Just as every religion has its zealots, the anti-Americans have their extremists - and now we have seen the most extreme of them in action. The parallel with religion may seem odd, to those who have jumped to the conclusion that the catastrophes in New York and Washington were contrived by ultra-Islamist militants. But whatever their stated motive, it was surely was not to advance the cause of Islam. Rather, they were driven chiefly by an insensate hatred of America and all things American. That antipathy is shared, though not to anything like the same degree, by countless millions of people. It's not confined to Arab and Islamic worlds, nor even to developing countries."

"The Problem With Retaliation" (Robert Wright, Slate, 2001/09/12)
"Consider an alternative. Bush declares that the Afghan government is morally obliged to turn Bin Laden over and that, if it doesn't, it will risk military attack and occupation - and its leaders will themselves risk being either killed or put on trial for complicity in murder. He asks for support from the international community - including military support from NATO in the event of a war with Afghanistan. And he puts all of this in the proper rhetorical context: He is not just retaliating, but rather setting the kind of precedent that the entire world needs to set as we approach an age when terrorists will have nuclear and biological weapons."

"We Must Fight This War" (Robert Kagan, The Washington Post, 2001/09/12)
"One can only hope that America can respond to yesterday's monstrous attack on American soil - an attack far more awful than Pearl Harbor - with the same moral clarity and courage as our grandfathers did. Not by asking what we have done to bring on the wrath of inhuman murderers. Not by figuring out ways to reason with, or try to appease those who have spilled our blood. Not by engaging in an extended legal effort to arraign, try and convict killers, as if they were criminals and not warriors. But by doing the only thing we now can do: Go to war with those who have launched this awful war against us. Over the past few years there has been a nostalgic celebration of "The Greatest Generation" - the generation that fought for America and for humanity in the Second World War. There's no need for nostalgia now. That challenge is before us again. The question today is whether this generation of Americans is made of the same stuff."

"When Innocents Are the Enemy" (Michael Kelly, The Washington Post, 2001/09/12)
"This is the end logic of terror. ... If it is morally acceptable to murder, in the name of a necessary blow for freedom, a woman on a Tel Aviv street, or to blow up a disco full of teenagers, or to bomb a family restaurant - then it must be morally acceptable to drive two jetliners into a place where 50,000 people work. In moral logic, what is the difference? If the murder of innocent people is for whatever reason excusable, it is excusable; if it is legitimate, it is legitimate. If acceptable on a small scale, so too on a grand."

"We're still standing over here" (Christopher Hitchens, Evening Standard, 2001/09/12)
"There will be a great deal of pugnacious talk to be endured in the next few days. Much of what is said by the cable bombardiers will be worthless, or bluff. But the overused words "civilised world" seem to me appropriate. You could see the civilised world in the streets of Manhattan yesterday, as people of all faiths and shades kept calm, kept moving, kept in touch and kept up their solidarity. This is a strength that the sadists and fanatics do not possess and cannot emulate. ... And yet, everyone is still basically standing (forgive me, Barbara) and there has been no panic or lynching or looting. Almost everybody interviewed in New York seemed to have been brought up on programmes about British phlegm during the Blitz. There may be some laughter in hell, but those who willed this nightmare and sent others out to perpetrate it might be wondering peevishly why they haven't evoked more agony and distress. Let us hope to keep them wondering."

"The Case for Rage and Retribution" (Lance Morrow, TIME, 2001/09/12)
Probably the most "hawkish" opinion published in a major magazine: "Let's have rage. What's needed is a unified, unifying, Pearl Harbor sort of purple American fury - a ruthless indignation that doesn’t leak away in a week or two, wandering off into Prozac-induced forgetfulness or into the next media sensation... ... Let America explore the rich reciprocal possibilities of the fatwa."

"War to the death between America and Islamic terrorists" (Daniel Johnson, The Daily Telegraph, 2001/09/12)
"Let there be no mistake: global Islamic terrorism is rooted in global anti-Semitism. This was, in many ways, the most vicious blow aimed at the Jewish people since the Holocaust. Though the victims yesterday were Americans, the chief target was what the perpetrators would call international Jewry. ... As with suicide terrorism, anti-Semitism is unfortunately endemic in the Middle East, despite the fact that Arabic and Hebrew are both semitic languages. This anti-Semitism often still takes the crudest form, drawing on every scrap of discredited mumbo-jumbo since the Protocols of the Elders of Zion."

"Fear & Loathing in America" (Hunter S. Thompson, ESPN.com, 2001/09/12)
Thompson does a predictible moral equivalence-stunt, equating the fanaticism of the terrorists with "ours": "Make no mistake about it: We are At War now - with somebody - and we will stay At War with that mysterious Enemy for the rest of our lives. It will be a Religious War, a sort of Christian Jihad, fueled by religious hatred and led by merciless fanatics on both sides. It will be guerilla warfare on a global scale, with no front lines and no identifiable enemy."

"A policy of neglect and cowardice, a pay-off of death" (Bill Israel, The Massachussets Daily Collegian, 2001/09/12)
In contrast to to Browne's piece below, Bill Israel doesn't even bother to see the attacks as acts of terrorism: "Many commentators are describing the disasters in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania as terrorist attacks - the worst since Pearl Harbor 60 years ago. None I've seen call them what they are: the predictable result of American policy. ... George Bush said he intends to hunt down the 'terrorists.'"

"When Will We Learn?" (Harry Browne, Antiwar, 2001/09/12)
An example of an anti-American editorial published the day after the attacks. As most of these articles, Browne starts out by marking that he sees the attacks as horrible, but immediately continues to identify the American leadership as the guilty part: "The terrorist attacks against America comprise a horrible tragedy. But they shouldn't be a surprise. … Our foreign policy has been insane for decades. It was only a matter of time until Americans would have to suffer personally for it. It is a terrible tragedy of life that the innocent so often have to suffer for the sins of the guilty."

"Bush: Culprits will be punished" (BBC News, 2001/09/12)
"A grim-faced President Bush has mourned the deaths of thousands of Americans in the country's worst ever terrorist attack, vowing to find those responsible. 'Thousands of lives were suddenly ended by evil, despicable acts of terror,' Mr Bush told the nation on television. ... Mr Bush warned the US would make 'no distinction between the terrorists who committed the attacks and those who harbour them'." (See also: "Bush addresses nation: Full text" (BBC News, 2001/09/12))

"World press on terror strikes" (BBC News, 2001/09/12)
"'The sympathy of the world is with America, the blameless victim of the most concerted acts of terrorism ever perpetrated against one nation,' says London's The Independent. 'It was also an attack on the civilized values of the whole world,' it adds. 'In the days and weeks to come, as we begin to fully comprehend the full enormity of this evil, it will become clear that life in America, even the world, will never be the same again.'"

"September 11, 2001" (The Washington Post, 2001/09/12)
"In the past the United States has shied away from squarely confronting regimes that were linked to terrorist attacks against Americans - such as Iran in the case of the 1996 Khobar towers bombing in Saudi Arabia, or Afghanistan in the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania by Osama bin Laden's network. It can no longer afford to do so. Instead, it must seek to assemble an international alliance to identify and eliminate all sources of support for the terrorist networks that would wage war on the United States."

Tuesday, September 11, 2001

News and commentary:

"Bush: 'Freedom Will Be Defended'" (The Los Angeles Times, 2001/09/11)
"The texts of President Bush's remarks today following terrorist attacks in New York and Washington": "Freedom itself was attacked this morning by a faceless coward, and freedom will be defended. ... Make no mistake: The United States will hunt down and punish those responsible for these cowardly acts. ... We have been in touch with the leaders of Congress and with world leaders to assure them that we will do whatever is necessary to protect America and Americans."

"Rejoicing in the streets of Jenin" (Flore de Préneuf, Salon.com, 2001/09/11)
"The walls of people's homes here are covered with posters glorifying Islamic terrorists and Palestinian "martyrs." ... But Palestinian militants have never achieved terror of the magnitude seen today in the United States. When young armed Palestinians patrolling the streets of a refugee camp in Jenin heard the news from New York and Washington, they chuckled with glee. One of them thanked God for his mighty revenge against the United States, Israel's ally and main weapons supplier. Elsewhere in the West Bank and in Gaza, thousands of Palestinians applauded the devastating blows, cheering openly in the streets and distributing celebratory candy to passersby. Some shouted that they hoped Tel Aviv would be next or vowed to complete what they believe Osama bin Laden has started."

"Who Did It?" (Martin Sieff, UPI/National Review, 2001/09/11)
"The attacks certainly appear to point to Islamic extremist groups in the Middle East for three obvious reasons. First, they required an exceptionally high degree of intelligence preparation and planning. ... Second, the techniques involved in the catastrophically successful attacks were those that have pioneered, developed and favored by Middle East-based Islamic terrorists for the past 30 years. They involved a combination of the old terror technique of hijacking civilian airliners from the late 1960s that was pioneered by secular, leftist revolutionary Palestinian groups with the chilling abandon and ruthlessness of the suicide bomber. ...
Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan has been named by successive U.S. administrations as the so-called "Godfather of Terror" over the past decade. He continues to be based in Afghanistan and the Clinton administration has blamed him for the bombing of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania which killed hundreds of people - most them Kenyan and Tanzanian civilians - a few years ago. He will be an obvious suspect. ...
However, former House of Representatives Speaker Newt Gingrich has already called Wednesday's shocking attacks examples of "state-sponsored terrorism" and he could well prove to be right."

"Terrorist Attack" (ABC News, 2001/09/11)
"In a horrific sequence of terrorist violence, four U.S. passenger planes were apparently hijacked and crashed today, including two jets that flew into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, causing both to collapse. In Washington, a plane crashed into the Pentagon, causing part of the building to collapse. A passenger plane also went down near Pittsburgh. ... Suspected terrorist Osama bin Laden warned three weeks ago that his followers would carry out an "unprecedented attack" on the United States, an Arab journalist told Reuters news agency. "It is most likely the work of Islamic fundamentalists. Osama bin Laden warned three weeks ago that he would attack American interests in an unprecedented attack, a very big one," said Abdel-Bari Atwan, editor of the London-based al-Quds al-Arabi. ... 'We received several warnings like this. We did not take it so seriously, preferring to see what would happen before reporting it.'"

"When people accept futility and the absurd as normal, the culture is decadent. The term is not a slur; it is a technical label."

Jacques Barzun

Articles of the week

"Losing the Enlightenment" (Victor Davis Hanson, OpinionJournal, 2006/11/29)

"Allah’s England?" (Daniel Johnson, Commentary. November 2006)

"'Sex in the Park': The latest doings of the Danish imams" (Henrik Bering, The Weekly Standard, 2006/11/18)

"Narcissism on Stilts" (Harold Evans, New York Sun, 2006/11/16)

"Terrorists are recruiting in our schools, says MI5 boss" (Philip Johnston, The Daily Telegraph, 2006/11/10)

› AOTW Archive

From the archives

Oriana Fallaci, R.I.P.

"The Rage, the Pride and the Doubt" (Oriana Fallaci, The Wall Street Journal, 2003/03/13)

"How the West Was Won and How It Will Be Lost" (Oriana Fallaci, The American Enterprise, from the January/February 2003 issue)

"On Jew-hatred in Europe" (Oriana Fallaci, dennisprager.com, 2002/04/13)

"Anger and Pride" (Oriana Fallaci, dennisprager.com, 2001/12/19)

Weekly archive

2006/12/04 - 2006/12/10
2006/11/27 - 2006/12/03
2006/11/20 - 2006/11/26
2006/11/13 - 2006/11/19
2006/11/06 - 2006/11/12
2006/10/30 - 2006/11/05

› From 2001/09/11 -

Monthly index

December 2006
November 2006
October 2006
September 2006
August 2006
July 2006

› From September 2001 -

Author index

› Ajami, Fouad - Johnson, Paul
› Kagan, Robert - Ye'or, Bat

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