9/11 - Lessons still yet to be learned: extremist ideologies are not born in a vacuum but given birth by the foreign policies of double standards
If no ideological radicalism or religio-ethno-political extremism of thought process existed, such extremism would regrettably yet naturally be born as a by-product of foreign interventions
As Americans and many around the world commemorate the 22nd anniversary of one of the most tragic events on the American soil and the wider West the world has ever witnessed in the post-war era i.e. the destruction of the Twin Towers in New York , many ought to ask whether lessons have indeed been learned or not? Of course, the lives of all those who died in such a horrific attack can never be forgotten. However, what is more astonishing is that the focus in the West has been on 3000 people who died and yet tragically there has been little focus on hundreds of thousands of innocent people who died - around four million as a result of the full weight of America’s “war on terror” that had been unleashed on Afghanistan and Iraq, both countries with almost all of the population living below poverty line and had little to do with the tragic 9/11 events. What the war on terror did show was America’s way of avenging the terrorist attacks through using even mightier sheer military violence at its disposal to cause “maximum terror and destruction” killing over 920,000 lives in destitute regions in exchange for 3000 lives in the 9/11 attacks, with the cost exceeding US$8 trillion; an American and white-dominated western countries’ way of showing who is more civilized and whose lives count more when it comes to number crunching of those who are killed. Save for capturing Al Qaida (AQ) figurehead Osama bin Laden (OBL) and weakening AQ apparatus, there has been little benefit from the war on terror other than causing mass destruction of millions of lives, permanently changing the destitute regions with millions of refugees spilling over - with countries like Turkey, Pakistan, and Lebanon paying the full price of absorbing the bulk of refugees of the American led war on terror, not to mention lining up billions of dollars profits into the pockets of defense contractors and corporate lobbyists sustaining the war economy. More so, the war on terror gave birth to hundreds of dangerous militants and insurgent groups, among them the most dangerous group being ISIS or Daish as it’s commonly known, and further offshoots such as ISIS-K. Assassinating or taking out OBL - who was more of a figurehead as opposed to having full control over AQ-affiliated activities carried by various AQ stakeholders - instead of putting him on trial or allowing the then Afghan Taliban government to place OBL on extradition trial (a code of honor prevalent in Afghan Pashtun society and in the region that all guest and visitors’ safety is “inviolable at all costs” unless rightfully tried and proven guilty of criminality or violating host’s terms or host’s honor which includes using host’s land or hospitality to launch unprovoked attacks on others) only created further zeal among many disenfranchised AQ loose affiliates, becoming further motivated from OBL’s achieving “martyrdom” from their perspective, to create many more OBLs. The Afghan Taliban 1.0 government at the time in power between 1996 and 2001 was already tired of AQ for overstaying their welcome and would have been unlikely to fight their way to keep OBL or AQ fighters on their territory in case of OBL was tried and founded guilty enough to be extradited hence there was a real chance of avoiding Afghan war that resulted in 241,000 deaths including 83,000 lives in neighboring Pakistan.
The devastating after-effects of the war on terror would continue to metastasize and would be felt across the affected regions, entrenching further hatred for the West in a region where history says people in the region in question do not easily forgive or forget the transgression and devastation inflicted upon by the empires.
This is in addition to Islamophobia and anti-Muslim hatred unleashed by the West before and more so after 9/11 by predominantly focusing on the Muslim world purely through white supremacist imperialist’s lenses i.e. “crusader” terms of “us versus them”, “you are either with us or against us” and through the prism of security instead of looking into the root underlying causes that incubates and serves as a fodder for terrorists’ agenda. It would be a momentous task for the West to show that it has the resolve and the will to fight and eradicate Islamophobia and anti-Muslim anti-Arab hatred by reaching out not to out-of-touch Muslim apologists for Western values (aka House Muslims or passive Muslims) but mainstream active Muslims majority on board.
Of course, America and the West have legitimate concerns and the right to ensure their lands remain free from terrorism or external threats and citizens live without fear. America can only do so much to defend itself and take the fight to terrorists but until the root underlying humanitarian and political events and circumstances that serve as a fodder for terrorists’ causes e.g. US-led west’s inconsistent double standard foreign policy and meddling in foreign regions’ affairs, aiding and abetting settler colonial apartheid state Israel’s war crimes amidst illegal occupation including collective punishment and ethnic cleansing of the Native Palestinians from their lands under dubious pretext of military reasons, supporting or condoning oppressive dictators who are involved in overthrowing democratically elected governments in respective regions or supporting fascist governments e.g. Egypt’s dictator Sisi, Tunisia’s Said, Pakistan’s military establishment led by dictator generals e.g. General Bajwa ousting the elected Prime Minister Imran Khan’s PTI government with the continuing support to the military brass led by General Asim Munir in enforcing de facto martial law, US lending further support through business as usual with Saudi Arabia’s de facto dictator ruler Muhammad bin Salman and UAE’s autocratic ruler Muhammad bin Zayed, condoning or rather preferring to lend trade and diplomatic legitimacy to India’s far right Hindu supremacist BJP Modi government on whose watch the brutal suppression of the Muslim minorities etc have taken place at an unprecedented scale, until and unless all of these stated examples of the root underlying causes that serve the extremists’ causes aren’t dealt with, then everything else to tackle with preventative or defensive measures against the reactionary or resultative extremism or terrorism ideologies would remain elusive. Such countering violence and extremism (CVE) measures would forever remain stuck in the defensive mode and damage limitation measures to no avail. Prevention is better than cure.
The majority of the problems and the resulting effects rising in the form of today’s terrorism and militancy hailing from the Arab Middle East and surrounding Muslim majority regions, are mainly as a result of America’s interference in others’ regions, engaging and supporting illegal occupations e.g. supporting settler-colonialist apartheid state Israel—a state that functions more as a satellite imperial outpost of the West in the Middle East.
The newly declassified 9/11- related information shows that there is a “strong connection” between Israel being supported by America in its illegal occupation-led settler apartheid state policies against the Palestinians, and the terrorists hijacking the cause and causing 9/11. America’s entire or predominant part of Middle East policy is seen to be based on protecting and strengthening Israel’s superior might in its illegal occupation and settler colonialism-driven apartheid system at the expense of the indigenous Palestinians and the grievances of the majority population in the region. From intimidating Iran at the behest of the war criminal settler colonial state Israel (notwithstanding Iran’s own politically problematic misadventures including backing the brutal Assad regime in Syria), to illegal invasion of Iraq by waging unprovoked illegal Iraq war whose policies are solely responsible for all the aftereffects and by-products e.g. ISIS/Islamic State, almost all of these US-Middle Eastern foreign policy blunders were mainly down to protecting the satellite protege settler colonial state Israel. In fact, members from the US establishment already say that Israel lobbyists played a decisive role in pushing for illegal Iraq invasion that killed up to one million Iraqis. The West, or more so the western Anglosphere’s nemesis, Iran, no matter how problematic and brutally suppressive the state may be - which must be condemned as a separate topic - at least it is also seen as semi-functional democracy, albeit a controlled democracy but nevertheless its government of the day is not an unelected one unlike the neighbouring non-democratic Arab dictatorial states; more so, unlike the settler apartheid state Israel, Iran in modern post-war post-colonial era never expanded, invaded or annexed other nation’s or people’s territories; it has never set up heavily-armed naval bases sprawled across the backyard of the west unlike the US, UK, France, Russia etc. Any condemnable misadventures by Iran e.g. in Syria, Yemen or Iraq etc, has been as a direct reactionary result of the external foreign powers’ intervention in the geopolitics of neighboring region surrounding Iran i.e. Iraq, Persian Gulf etc. Of course, Iran’s brutal internal suppression or doing business or providing logistical or diplomatic support to despotic regimes involved in war crimes e.g. Assad of Syria must be condemned but such condemnation need not hinder to see it through the bigger picture of the fact that the Persian country Iran’s behaviour is greatly (if not always) shaped by seeing herself intimidated and surrounded by the foreign powers establishing military bases in support of the vassal state proxies in her very own backyard. Like it or not, as much as problematic and headache-causing Iran’s theocratic democracy may be, Iran, including its Persian people and even the religious clergy establishment, is still part of the continuing Persian civilization legacy, where even the religious Iranian Mullahs fiercely - rightly or wrongly - protect or proudly display their current and ancient Persian civilization heritage. This means the country comprising its Persian people and Persian civilization, be it in its current hybrid theocratic-democratic shape or its past secular liberal shape, like the Turkish, pre-modern Arabian and Indian subcontinent and the Chinese civilizations, will never accept to be intimidated or dictated by external powers or be treated as a vassal state (and if it has been a vassal state in the past, that usually didn’t last longer than few decades as Iran’s Pahlavi Shah history proved). In other words, America is (or ought to be) aware of this yet America’s major chunk of foreign policy in the Middle East is held hostage to preserving the status quo of illegally occupying settler-apartheid state of Israel under the influence of key Israel lobby at the expense of the interests of its American people having the right to live without feeling to be hated and without having to fear the consequences of ill foreign policies drawn up by the close-knit ruling Evangelical White Supremacist neocons with the White Zionist neocons bent on protecting a Eurocentric settler-supremacist apartheid state of Israel at all costs, a state that is founded upon crushing and terrorizing the Native Palestinians ever since Nakba (meaning catastrophe for the indigenous Palestinians since 1948). As if 929,000 murdered Afghan and Iraqi civilians during Anglo-American wars inflicted on the Middle East and South Asia as retribution for 9/11 weren’t enough, American servicemen and women’s lives also deserve better.
On the contrary, China, as much as it has issues the West (and many in the Muslim world) can never agree with, among them China’s communist establishment brutally suppressing its people which can never be condoned, and of course its brutal incarceration of the Uighurs in its troubled Xinjiang region which must be condemned and addressed as a separate issue, at least China’s foreign policy beyond the borders, despite its flaws and often cynical transactional self-interest driven, is more or less consistent. Other than occupying neighboring Tibet - which is sadly a continuing legacy of pre-modern era imperial China, an issue of suppressing the right to self-determination of Tibetans cannot be justified - but insofar as the Middle East and the Arab-Muslim world being the source of insurgency and terrorism is concerned for the purpose of 9/11 and similar events, China doesn’t generally militarily invade others’ territories in the concerned regions outside the vicinity of its borders (and that so in the case of occupying Tibet, Tibetans, notwithstanding their right to self-determination, are granted full Chinese citizenship unlike the 5 - 6 million Palestinians in both the Occupied Territories and refugees living throughout the region who are deprived of the full citizenship of the occupying state). Neither China directly supports military intervention or illegal occupation and invasion or worse, help prop up settler colonialism or apartheid projects in the lands of others. China’s major foreign policy in the region doesn’t revolve around protecting protégé illegal occupying settler colonial states as part of its foreign imperial outpost unlike the US, which the latter sees the settler apartheid state of Israel more as an outsourced aircraft carrier (metaphorically speaking) projecting imperial power in the region, all of which explains why a major power China faces much less terrorist attacks than other west-led or west-allied world powers. Even the US-allied Scandinavian Nordic countries like Norway, Sweden, and Denmark face less terrorist attacks precisely because they follow a non-interventionist and “non-supporting of occupying settler colonial states” foreign policy; in fact, the Nordic countries go to great lengths in being seen not to be closely aligned with US foreign policy, particularly in areas where double standards become obvious. Since time immemorial, history taught one consistent formula: interference, intervention, and occupation or supporting states that are involved in exploiting or taking over the rights of other communities and their affairs results in revolt, pushback, resistance, wars, and militancy, leading to loss of lives, all of which are often politically defined in today’s politically charged term, as terrorism.
On the anniversary of 9/11, the best way to pay respects to those who died - both Americans and the innocent civilians killed in the war on terror - would be to dig deep and look at the root underlying causes that continue to serve as fodders for terrorists and insurgents’ wider causes and the resentment and hatred it helps to fuel across the region; and to have the will power to deal with such root underlying causes - not by focusing on Muslims’ faith through the security prism as notoriously advocated by the discredited political war criminal former British prime minister Tony Blair who is still unrepentant in his interventionist approach by focusing on “radical Islam” - but by focusing on ultimate events that give birth to/help drive retributive insurgent ideology forward. That is by actively removing the “inconsistencies” and “double standards” in foreign policy that serves as a fodder for both terrorists’ causes and wider grievances felt in affected regions as a result of ill - and often destructive - foreign policy of double standards. Common example cited by the Middle Easterners are the fact that as much as Arabs in the Middle East may have loathed former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussain whose occupation of Kuwait was swiftly - and rightly so - pushed back by US-led coalition forces in the first Gulf War yet are enraged by the fact that US-led west’ continues to support for Israel in its illegal occupation over Palestinian Territories to date. Continuing with the obsession to focus on the Muslim world under the pretext of tackling “radical Islam” and “ideology” instead of looking at own state terror-led interventionist double standards behaviour in foreign lands, is nothing more than Evangelical White supremacy-led White savior complex driven defensive (and often futile) measures, which is more of an elusive “damage limitation” exercise to shield both misadventures and foreign policies of the White-dominated west from the devastating consequences they would entail; worse, it would only further fuel anti-Muslim hostilities/Islamophobia that already exists in the West, with the establishments and the media involved in constant “otherization” of the Muslims and their Islamic heritage. Extremism and radicalism don’t form and thrive in a vacuum. It is almost always an outcome of and reactionary measure to imperialist foreign policies and exploitative interferences in the affected region(s). So long as causality factors exist, the ideological and material factors for militancy and resistance (aka terrorism) will continue to exist. The extremism ideology and militancy/insurgency/terrorism/resistance/jihadism/freedom fighting resistance (call it what you want) hailing from the non-Western regions, particularly the Middle East and the wider Arab and Muslim world, has to be seen within the bigger colonial and anti-colonial picture that is part of the ongoing struggle of decolonization, which like any other radical anticolonial movements and movements for democracies throughout the twentieth century, regrettably had elements of extremism, radicalism and terrorism. British and French colonial authorities regularly proscribed anti-colonial anti-white supremacist resistant movements as terrorist groups while painting the White colonisers’ terror against the natives as defensive measures (and the same former White colonial powers apply the same strategy to its 21st century protégé settler colonial apartheid project Israel, presumably out of guilt for the early twentieth century’ murderous crimes committed against fellow White European Jews on their mainland Europe which the oppressed occupied Palestinians in the Middle East had nothing to do with). If no ideological radicalism or religio-ethno-political extremism of thought process existed, such extremism and radicalism would regrettably yet naturally be born as a by-product of foreign imperialism and interventions, be it in the extreme form of ethno-nationalism or religio-nationalism or pan-linguistic nationalism or whatever appropriate to the circumstances, in serving as a “push back” to the consequences of ill foreign policies and regional interference by external powers when interests of the native communities and local citizens in the impacted region(s) are threatened. The West’ imperialist protégé Eurocentric settler colonial apartheid state Israel’s expansionism and economic, political, and military interventionism in the Middle East predated 9/11 events, or as Dr. Usaama al-Azami eloquently puts it: “Unless memorializing 9/11 is accompanied by memorializing the exponentially greater numbers killed by American Empire (including due to blowback) both before and after 9/11, we are simply caressing and soothing the warmongering imperial colonizer and not the victims of 9/11”.
Not changing the current course by carrying on “business as usual” as it has been over the last 20 years since 9/11, and focusing on the symptomatic grievance-driven reactionary radicalisation of terrorists and insurgents instead of tackling the root underlying causative circumstances that serve as fodder for terrorists’ causes (and therefore the US-led west playing the role of a midwife helping to give birth of the radical ideologies shaped by the anti-interventionist causes), is nothing more than a stopgap measure to no avail. Not addressing the injustices and dark ongoing legacies of White Eurocentric colonialism, settler colonialism (e.g. Israel) and White Supremacy-led interference in other nations’ regions, not to mention the foreign policy of double standards, means delegating the task to the extremists to hijack those causes (or in the absence of extremism, to let such misdeeds by White colonialism and modern neo-colonial injustices in non-White lands, give birth to radicalism and extremism so as to serve the extremists in fighting their causes on their own accord). That has always been part of the natural human phenomena save for few exceptions. Worse, it means no lessons have been learned despite the 22 years that have passed since the tragic September 11 event, and a great disservice to all those who died in both the tragic events and the aftermath, be the millions of innocent civilians dead or the fallen soldiers in the war on terror. Withdrawing troops from Afghanistan following the humiliating defeat was the first step but changing the course of the entire strategy through doing away with direct or indirect imperialist neo-colonial foreign policy once and for all is the next step; otherwise, rest assured, we will be back to square one that led to tragic events and subsequent invasions and deaths in the first place. Digging a bit deeper into the Arab society, more so the Emirati, Moroccan, and Saudi societies at the local level outside the affluent bourgeoise bubble, and interacting with them in Arabic, it wouldn’t be difficult to see them saying that Abraham Accords have only added more fury to their internal grievances against further legitimization of the undemocratic autocracies and kleptocracies imposed on them, that so with the crushing of any hopes of their fellow colonized Palestinian brethren under illegal occupation and apartheid. One Emirati from an influential Al Zahiri tribe who is studying at a UK university before he returns back to resume UAE military service quipped (in Arabic) that God forbid, if there is another 9/11 style tragedy (thankfully it is extremely unlikely), then rest assured that the dictatorial tyrannical Arab monarchs-shielding Abraham Accords legitimizing the western settler colonial apartheid state of Israel over the indigenous Palestinians in the name of the Arab citizens without their consent, would be responsible for fuelling even more radical extremist anti-colonial ideology-led terrorism.
That doesn’t mean that the extremist theological indoctrination and radicalisation of the mindset should continue to be ignored. Of course not.
Point is, it would be hypocritical for the west (or any other country e.g. China insorfar as incarceration of the Uighurs are concerned) to call for paradigm shift in theologically driven religious dogma mindset yet continue to ignore the key drivers that drive such anti-colonial radicalism and religious indoctrination (or extreme nationalism and ethno-provincial fascism): foreign policy of double standards and interference via subjugation in the region of others.
To rephrase, one can’t have it both ways i.e. call for the colonised or semi-colonised Muslims’ radical mindset to be altered through re-education camps or charm offensive calling for religious reforms that are mainly imposed by White Savior complex, and at the same time continue to neo-colonially benefit from own neocolonial or white superiority-driven misadventures shaped by the foreign policy of double standards, inter alia, resource exploitation, illegal invasion/regime change or backing coup d'etat, supporting unseating of an elected government, backing settler colonialism and apartheid over the natives, installing or supporting autocratic rulers in suppression of mass voices etc, continuing with white supremacy / white superiority complex in dealing with the non-whites etc.
The question is would the Anglo-American-led White-dominated West (ignoring Russia or China for now - both have their own condemnable policy baggage but here the topic is the anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the West and the wider legacy that is the subject of the discussion here) be courageous enough to take the bold steps to set right its ill past of often ill-conceived imperialist foreign policies of double standards, and cease viewing foreigners and non-Whites in faraway lands as subhuman so as to secure itself a legacy in anti-colonial self-liberating history for changing the world in unison with the Global South, for the better?
The Author is a research scholar in Arab, Muslim and Middle Eastern studies and operates a strategic advisory consultancy from London, UK; a contributor columnist for Asian newspapers. An edited version has been published in Bangladesh’s leading English daily, Dhaka Tribune, which can be accessed here.
The author can be followed on Twitter @IsmailYSyed .