Factors Contributing to 9/11

On September 11th, 2001, the majority of American citizens started their every day routines, not knowing that the safety that had once seemed so unbreachable to them was about to burst into flames before their very eyes. At 8:43am the peace that the nation had held so dear for so very long abruptly ended when a passenger jet smashed into Tower One of the World Trade Center in New York City. By 10:28 am, both towers of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were in flames. By days end, the events of the morning would have claimed over 2,000 American lives and the American people would be left questioning who had done such a horrible thing and why.

The outrage and the devastation of the American people has continued, and for many, "why" still echoes silently in their minds, not yet satisfactorily answered alongside a chorus of other pertinent and unanswered questions. Since September 11, 2001, we have been given many answers to those questions, but as with all great tragedies, there are often as many different answers as there are questioners and no matter the answer. For many, the hate that was aimed at the American people on 9/11 will never be satisfactorily explained; many will never understand. What we do know and what we can understand about the factors leading up to the tragic events of 9/11 is at its best an intricate history spanning much of the globe and at its worst, a confusing mess of circumstance that, as played out over the years, became the unavoidable consequence of actions taken by western nations over the course of decades.

Terrorism has, as we have seen repeatedly throughout the long history of record keeping, been with us from our most humble of beginnings. At nearly every point in history that has been some individual, some group, or some government that has drank of fear and dined on atrocity with barely the blink of an eye. For some, terrorism is a perfectly acceptable means to an end. For others, it is an evil not to be born; a misuse of power so grave as to shake the very foundations of nations and of faith. The reasons one turns to terrorism as a means to an end are as bountiful as the day is long. So too, are the reasons that led the American people to the point that countless of millions that came before had previously discovered.

On September 11, 2001, for the first time since America was born over 200 years previously, foreign terrorism reached our shores in a big way. While the majority of Americans did not see it coming, upon reflection, many have reached the conclusion that it was inevitable; that events of the previously handful of decades had led to that devastating conclusion.

The Middle East has long been in the midst of internal strife and warfare. Three major religions find their roots in that region, and as is so often the case when religion has a hand, bloodshed has been bountiful. Over the centuries, countless wars have been fought in the region with neighbor turned upon neighbor, religion turned upon religion. And during World War One, the British Empire managed to compound those problems with one mighty stroke of its pen.

During World War One, the Turks had joined with the Germans and the British Empire was desperate to bring the Jewish people to their side of that battle while at the same time turning the Arabs against the Turks (Simonsen, Spindlove, 2007). With that goal in mind, the British Empire penned the Balfour Declaration, "which stated that the British Empire 'viewed with favor the establishment in Palestine a national homeland for the Jewish people'" (Simonsen, Spindlove as cited by Glenn, 2007). With that one single move, the British Empire had given a promise of independence to both the Arab and Jewish peoples (Glenn, 2007). And with that single move, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was born. Both groups rightly believe they have a claim to the land, either in whole or in part, and have fought to that end for over half a century (Simonsen, Spindlove, 2007).

Nearly 40 years after the beginning of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, another battle began to rage, this time in Afghanistan. With the help of the United States and much to the chagrin of the Soviet Union, Egypt and Israel had signed a peace treaty, Soviet relations with Iraq were crumbling and the United States had begun to sell missiles to Saudi Arabia and the "Yemeni resistance against communist factions" (Wikipedia, 2007). The Soviet Union had begun to loose influence in the world while the United States was running a frontal assault on communism.

And so, in 1979 the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in support of the Marxist People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan government, who was fighting off Mujahideen insurgents hoping to overthrow the Communist rule in Afghanistan (Wikipedia, 2007). The United States, who had long abhorred Communism as was obvious, came to the aide of the insurgents, supplying them, through Osama Bin Laden; with "millions of U.S. dollars in secret aid and support of the jihad" that was raging (Simonsen, Spindlove, 2007, p. 82).

After the Geneva Accords in 1988, Soviet forces began to pull out of Afghanistan. Despite the withdrawal of Soviet forces, however, the civil war in Afghanistan continued to rage and Osama Bin Laden and his troops had discovered they had a base of operations, money and nothing much to do (Simonsen, Spindlove, 2007). During this same period in the 1980s, Bin Laden began working with a Palestinian cleric, Abdullah Yusuf Azzam.

Abdullah Azzam, "who was the central figure in the global development of the militant Islamist movement," envisioned a united Muslim Middle East as well as a globalization of Islam (Simonsen, Spindlove, 2007, p. 82). He "combined hatred for the West, Christians and Jews, whom he routinely accused of carrying out diabolical conspiracies against Islam, with nostalgia for the days of the Islamic Caliphate, when non-Muslims were still treated formally as second class citizens (Simonsen, Spindlove, 2007, p. 83). To Azzam, the United States was the standard example of the conspiracy against Islam (Simonsen, Spindlove, 2007). This was evident to Azzam and his supporters in the United States support of Israel in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Under the guidance and influence of Abdullah Azzam, Osama Bin Laden quickly began to turn against the United States and in 1993, the United States felt, for the first time, the consequences of their sponsorship of Bin Laden, Azzam and their groups of insurgents during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. On February 26, 1993, a bomb was detonated in the underground parking garage of Tower One of the World Trade Center, killing six and injuring over 1,000 others. The group of militant Islamists responsible for the bombing was financed by Khaled Shaikh Mohammed, a high ranking member of Bin Laden's al-Qaeda group (wikipedia, 2007).

The power the United States had unleashed upon the Soviet Union had turned on them, declaring war with the United States and instructing Muslims to kill Americans until they withdrew their support of Israel (Bin Laden, 1996).Between 1993 and 2000, militant Islamists with al-Qaeda ties attacked the United States twice more before the culmination of their attacks on September 11, 2001; once in the 1995 Oklahoma City Bombing and again in the 2000 suicide bombing of the U.S.S. Cole. The United States continued to support Israel, and on September 11, 2001, the retribution Bin Laden had been promising was delivered to the American people, terrorist style.

The American people have, as countless thousands did before them, discovered just how devastating terrorism can be to a people, to unity, and to faith. Events that took place a half century before at the behest of the British Empire started a domino effect throughout the world and in 2001 brought devastation and heartbreak to the American people. While the role of the United States in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the creation of Bin Laden to fight off the Soviet invasion are by no means the only factors leading to the terrorist attacks of 9/11, those events were perhaps the most damning and direct of all others. We may never know for certain if the attacks of September 11, 2001 would have happened had the United States acquiesced to the demands of Bin Laden, but we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that the American people will never forget that tragic day or forgive those responsible.

References
Bin Laden, O. (1996). Bin Laden's Fatwa. Retrieved April 5, 2007, from PBS Web site:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/terrorism/international/fatwa_1996.html
Simonsen, C., & Spindlove, J. (2007). Terrorism today: The past, the players, the future (3rd ed., pp. 82-83). United States: Thomson Wadsworth.
Soviet war in Afghanistan. (2007). Wikipedia. Retrieved April 3, 2007, from Wikimedia Foundation Inc Website: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_war_in_Afghanistan
Glenn, F (2007). Final Essays. (Final Exams, Kaplan University, 2007).