Five years ago, as the twin towers burned in a crude effigy of otherworldly hatred, Americans were profoundly affected. No one imagined that the tallest buildings in our largest city could be brought to the ground by nineteen fanatical men flying on commercial airliners.
All of us here at the Spectator would like to express our deepest sympathies to those who lost loved ones during the events of September 11, 2001.
Five years after the fact, there are countless unanswered and unanswerable questions surrounding the events and their aftermath: what happened, what should have happened in response, and what might happen in the future are all up for debate.
Presented here are a few of these questions.
“A Thayer St. Discussion of Terrorism”
“A joke told on the Streets of the Middle East goes like this: President George W. Bush came to the Middle East to bring democracy, took some notes, and brought authoritarianism home.” That’s how Melani Cammett, assistant professor of political science and recently named Director of Brown’s International Relations program, began her presentation as part of the “9/11 + 5” panel held by the Watson Institute of International Studies on the fifth anniversary of the attack.
The panel’s general question, as presented by Professor of International Studies and Director of the Global Security Program at the Watson Institute James Der Derian, was whether the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 and America’s subsequent response have changed the world all that much. In academic circles, the answer is no.
Cammett recently returned from conducting research in Lebanon, and she spoke primarily about how America and its foreign policy are perceived in the Arab world. She said that the actions taken by American leaders in the region are largely viewed as hypocritical, as many observers might expect.
Still, Cammett described a “latent good will toward Americans in the region” that could be bolstered by a dramatic change in U.S. foreign policy. “Hearts and minds in the Middle East are ready to be won,” she said.
Cammett cited polls taken in 2001 showing that, while residents of the Middle East were at that time critical of American foreign policy, most harbored favorable opinions of American culture, products, science, and technology. Similar polls taken in 2003 and 2005, however, indicated that perceptions of all aspects of American culture – and not just its foreign policy – had dramatically worsened.
Justine Rosenthal and Michael Bhatia ‘95, new visiting fellows in international studies, followed Cammett’s presentation.
Rosenthal discussed the Council on Global Terrorism at the Watson Institute, an organization which she directs and is made up of international terrorism experts or “gray beards” as she referred to them. The Council recently released a report titled “State of the Struggle against Global Terrorism,” in which they graded the United States on 75 aspects of the war on terror. The United States received only four grades above a ‘C.’
Rosenthal went on to describe American progress regarding its efforts in the Middle East. According to Rosenthal, though three-quarters of al-Qaeda’s leadership has been killed, its center remains strong. It remains an active participant in most recent terrorist activity, including all recent European terrorist attacks and attempted attacks. Moreover, the organization is operating in an indirect manner that could ultimately prove exceedingly dangerous. In the mind of al-Qaeda, “simply being in the game is winning,” she said.
The fact that another attack has not occurred on American soil since Sept. 11, 2001 is no reason for optimism, Rosenthal added — the number of terrorism incidents occurring worldwide has actually gone up. Whether a future attack will occur in America is a question of “when, not if,” she said. Such an attack will likely include suicide bombers, whose numbers have increased as Iraqis travel to Afghanistan to train for such missions. Rosenthal predicted a dirty bomb will be used by terrorists in a European attack in the near future.
In a question-and-answer session following the panelists’ presentation, Rosenthal said that U.S. politicians should stop employing the politics of fear, and instead attempt to empower Americans. While she maintained there will be another attack on American soil, she also said the possibility that it will affect the average American is “nil.”
Bhatia, who has spent extensive time researching combatants in Afghanistan, spoke about the use of language, naming and rhetoric in the war on terror. Bhatia had spent the last weekend at a cultural competency conference at the Air War College. He told the audience he was glad to see the desire among attendees to avoid viewing the conflict in absolute terms and instead understand the perspective of those living in the Middle East.
“9/11 Conspiracy Theories”
Okay, so maybe all of this questioning is a bit silly. But with over 33% of Americans believing that 9/11 was a US government led conspiracy, and the University of Wisconsin allowing a professor to teach his own 9/11 conspiracy theory in class, I am surprised (and slightly disappointed) with the dearth of conspiracy-theorists at Brown. Noting this, I thought we might all enjoy a run-down on the crazy ideas out there. I pulled these from a Wikipedia article on the subject, if you are looking for more information.
There are two main categories of conspiracy theorists: those who believe that individuals had foreknowledge of the terrorist attacks, and those who believe that the widely reported story of the terrorist attacks was inaccurate.
There are various stories of government officials having previous intelligence information that could have prevented the attack, and also of people making huge financial profits from trading on Boeing and other stocks and options. Some in the engineering community still do not believe that the towers could have collapsed due to fire, as they have been the only skyscrapers in the world to do so.
Some of the theories center around World Trade Center Building 7, which was not hit by any plane but, despite this, collapsed at approximately 5:20pm.
Van Romero, a demolitions expert in New Mexico, was the first to suggest the possibility of an intentional demolition of World Trade Center Building 7 on 9/11. He later retracted his suggestion and insisted that he had “only said that that’s what it looked like.” Jeff King and Jim Hoffman were early defenders of the controlled demolition hypothesis, and have published their observations online.
www.911revisited.com presents a theory that the collapse of the World Trade Center was caused by explosions. Some contend that a commercial airliner did not crash into the Pentagon; others, that United Airlines Flight 93 was shot down.
By far, the most popular online conspiracy theory is “Loose Change” (now in its second edition), available through loosechange911.com. This “documentary” is a comprehensive overview of all available theories.
