9/11 Ten Years Later: What have we learned?

Jamal Kanj*

Like many, I remember vividly the morning of September 11, 2001. I was in Pennsylvania participating in a conference for the American Public Works Association at Philadelphia’s Convention Centre. Walking into the conference hall just around 9 am, I couldn’t help but noticing a large group of likewise professionals congregating around a wall mounted TV screen watching a live news break.

The news was reporting on a plane crashing into a New York tower. I didn’t think much of it at first. Minutes later as another passenger plane hit a second tower I realized the incident was far more serious. A third plane followed crashing at the Pentagon in Washington and a fourth in the fields of Pennsylvania.

Today, ten years later, the US and people around the world, more importantly next of kin families, remember the life of more than 3,000 innocent victims who lost their life in that bestial act. This year we must also honor the memories of the more than 650,000 innocent Iraqis who lost their life for being “good targets” to avenge the victims of 9/11.

In his book Against All Enemies: Inside America’s War on Terror, former White House counter-terrorism advisor Richard Clarke, wrote that on September 12, US Secretary of Defense, Rumsfeld “was saying that we needed to bomb Iraq .”  “And we all said … no, no. Al-Qaeda is in Afghanistan. We need to bomb Afghanistan.” And Rumsfeld said “there aren’t any good targets in Afghanistan. And there are lots of good targets in Iraq. I said, ‘Well, there are lots of good targets in lots of places, but Iraq had nothing to do with it.”

As for the President, Clarke wrote “But, M r. President [Bush], al Qaeda did this.” “I know, I know, but – see if Saddam was involved. Just look. I want to know any shred . . .”

Bush and Rumsfeld’s military IQ must be a match to the leaders of Al Qaida. For the Twin Towers in New York were too chosen for being “good targets” with equal disregard to human life.

Unfortunately ten years later, 9/11 has turned to symbolize a monument of irrational hate propagated by a Neo Conservative political agendum intended to perpetuate collective anti Muslim sentiment in the US, rather than taking a coherent inward look to learn from those tragic events and the unjust debauchery wars that followed.

Israel’s men in Washington started instigating the Iraqi invasion long before 9/11. For instance, Paul D. Wolfowitz co-authored an article in the Weekly Standards advocating a military attack against Iraq four years prior to 9/11. Paul D. Wolfowitz, who served as the Assistant Secretary of Defense during the Iraq war, was dual Israeli citizen who worked closely with various Israeli governments.

Paul Wolfowitz was even more audacious when he revealed in an interview published in Vanity Fair on M ay 28, 2003 that “For bureaucratic reasons, we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction, [as justification for invading Iraq ] because it was the one reason everyone could agree on.”

This year’s 9/11 remembrance should also be a tribute to the life of more than 4000 American soldiers who in the words of Richard Clarke “went to their death in Iraq thinking that they were avenging September 11th, when Iraq had nothing to do with September 11^th.”

Putting emotions and national pride aside, America must take a constructive critical look into the events following 9/11 and its misguided foreign policy in the Middle East by trying to answer these questions:

Why was America’s target derailed from fighting the purported perpetrators of 9/11? Who has gained the most out of these wars? Who has a first class “Sayanin” (Zionist citizens in host nations) spying network capable of instigating these wars? Who has the interest in a perpetuating conflict between the West and Muslims? The only answer for all these questions: Israel.

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Jamal Kanj

*Jamal Kanj writes frequently on Arab World issues and the author of “Children of Catastrophe, Journey from a Palestinian Refugee Camp to America”, Garnet Publishing, UK . Jamal’s articles can be read at www.jamalkanj.com, his email address is jkanj@yahoo.com

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