Peter Espeut

September 11, 2001, will turn out to be an epoch in world history, the beginning of an era. The assault on the twin towers of the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a so far undetermined fourth target (presumed to be the White House) is the most serious attack on the continental United States in their 230-year history as an independent nation.

Five years on as I watched how the U.S. observed the anniversary, and as I review their intervening actions, I ask myself: what has the U.S. learned from the whole episode? What do they believe is the cause of what they call 9/11? What was the reason that led human beings to kill so many, and to threaten the very foundation of western civilisation? What did they hope to gain? What was their bottom line? How far has the U.S. made progress at addressing the root causes of 9/11 to make it unlikely that the same or similar persons would wish to repeat their devastating actions?

Little discussion

It seems to me that there has been very little discussion of these issues in the U.S. over the last five years. The first question they asked was: Who did it? And they quickly decided that it was their former ally, Osama bin Laden, a multimillionaire in his own right, who was a U.S. agent during the Cold War. They trained him well; the U.S. with all their satellites and their military might, have not yet been able to find him.

Their second question was: How can we prevent further similar attacks? And they quickly put in place measures to deepen 'Fortress U.S.A.' and to 'build higher walls' around their nation, no matter what civil rights had to be sacrificed - civil rights of their citizens and of non-U.S. citizens.

And then they asked themselves: Where did we see Osama last? And the answer was: Afghanistan, where they had given him millions of dollars to build up his organisation. So they invaded Afghanistan and overthrew the Taliban.

And they were quick to believe Iraqi dissidents resident in the U.S. that Saddam was linked to Osama, despite the lack of reliable supporting intelligence, and so they invaded Iraq for good measure.

But they have evaded the question about the real cause of 9/11. The enemy - the world has been told - is terrorism, and so the U.S. has declared a 'Global War on Terrorism'. Now, terrorism is a means to an end. You can call the tactics of Tacky and Sam Sharpe 'terrorism' if you wish, but their goal was to overturn the slave system in Jamaica. You can call the tactics of the ANC 'terrorism' if you wish, but their goal was to overturn the apartheid system in South Africa. To declare a 'War on Terrorism' in those circumstances would be to support slavery and apartheid.

What's the real issue'

Now someone is using terrorism against the U.S., and I don't for a minute support that sort of murder and mayhem, but we are conducting an analysis here. What has the U.S. been doing that would lead people to spend a whole heap of money and ultimately to give up their lives to put an end to it? What bothers me about the last five years is that this question is being avoided in the U.S.; the focus has been to attack the methods (that is, terrorism) used in the fight against the U.S., and to create Fortress U.S.A. The equivalent would be for the slaveowners and the racist practitioners of apartheid to criticise the slaves and the South African blacks for rebelling against their systems, and to deepen their defence mechanisms.

I don't want anyone to mis-understand me: morally, it is wrong to try to achieve a good end with immoral means, and I am against the use of violence as a tool; I am trying here to analyse the real cause of 9/11 and to discuss what will prevent a recurrence. Once slavery was abolished, once apartheid was overthrown, the rebellions and the violence ended.

What is the real issue behind the violence of 9/11? Next week I will give my view.

Peter Espeut is a sociologist and is executive director of an environment and development NGO.