The Reality of September 11th

They came from a cloudless azure sky, nineteen hate bred messengers of a warrior creed, and they brought America a taste of Hell. For it was Hell we saw unfold before us on that day as its gates opened as if to welcome the perpetrators of an act so huge and so awful it has few which rival it in the history of our world.

Some, for the sake of their political cause, have sought to downplay the magnitude of what occurred on that September day nine years ago today. “More have died elsewhere” they say, and it is true that there was greater loss of life in Nagasaki, Hiroshima and in Dresden, there were single days in Rwanda which saw greater carnage and it is also true that many more die in earthquakes and other natural disasters. However, there is a context to these things, and it was the context of 09/11 which sets it apart from acts of God and from the crimes of other men.

09/11 came unprovoked and without warning, its aim was not to end a war, but to start one and the deaths of those who died were its purpose. More than anything it was an act of hate, pure, unadulterated and visceral hatred, frighteningly a hatred which has not abated but one which has grown. It is the hatred which inspired the attacks on America in 2001, and what they tell us about where we are in history which make them stand out from so many of the other horrors our world has seen

The acts could be compared to the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 or the Massacre of St Bartholomew in 1572 in terms of the the unprovoked and unexpected nature of the attacks, yet even those monstrous crimes had a political purpose beyond the glorified indulgence in carnage for its own sake. To find real equivalence we need to go further back, back to the second half of the first millennium following the birth of Christ, and it is there, again, that we find Islam.

We are told that the brutal mass-murderers who hijacked those four planes that day, intent on slaughter few can bring themselves to contemplate, do not represent the real Islam. However, to believe that it is necessary to shield one's eyes from the truth. Even if we ignore the joyful dancing Muslims in the streets we all saw that day, we need only visit Jihadi websites or listen honestly to the words on Imams preaching in Damascus, Iran and Yemen to hear the hatred for us and to see how the murderers of September 2001 are celebrated, to understand how those events were then, and are still now, perceived in those parts of the world from where they sprang.

Less clear however, is how we now perceive it for that has taken many forms, and the event has been moulded by many to fit more comfortably with their prejudices and agendas. It is actually easier than one might imagine to project ones own storyline onto the events of 09/11 in part because the events involved were so spectacular, so surreal they feel unreal. Often when I watch film of the attack I have to pull myself up and remind myself that “this really happened”.

It seems that not everyone is capable of doing that. So the cold blooded murder of so many has become the stuff of a thousand fantasies.

There are, of course the conspiracy theories, we have all heard them “the US government was behind it”, “MOSSAD was behind it”, “the buildings were brought down by controlled explosions”, “all the Jews working in the World Trade Centre were told to stay home that day!” and, of course, “The Pentagon was hit by a missile, not a plane”, on and on they go, the truth hijacked in order to blame a favourite villain or group by those incapable of saying to themselves “hold in, this really happened”.

Worse than the conspiracy theorists are those who have come to resent the victims because of what they stand for. Like a defence lawyer desperate to exonerate his guilty client, it is necessary to present those who suffered at his hand as less worthy, less deserving and less real. The apologists for these killers have done the same to their victims.

In the weeks following 09/11 I recall reading a letter to a newspaper in which those who perished in the twin towers were referred to as “3,000 plump Westerners”. Most likely the line was written by someone who was themselves a plump westerner and it is hard to contemplate the degree of self hatred which it required to write such an ugly line. The purpose, of course, was to suggest that those who lost their lives in the attacks were somehow less deserving or worthy than thin people from the third world, for whose plight we are all, including the victims of 09/11, as Westerners held equally culpable.

This, of course, leads us to the “We brought it on ourselves” accusation. This argument, as we all know is based on the idea that America's support for Israel, America's general foreign policy and our insufficient respect for Islam effectively provoked supporters of Islam into attacking America.

This accusation, of course, ignores the fact that one of America's main acts of foreign policy prior to 09/11 was to bomb European Christians in support of Muslims in Bosnia and Kosovo, and begs the question as to what previous victims of murderous Islam, such as Kenya and Tanzania, had done to piss off the Mullahs.

Those making such allegations, mostly academics, historians and media hacks, might wish to consider their own culpability when they actively reinvented a false history and deliberately provoked resentment against the “Great Satan” for the furtherance of their political ideology.

What happened in New York nine years ago today, should be seen what it was, a clash of cultures and an attack upon the west by a culture which hates us, not for what we have done, but for what we are and for what we have always been. We were attacked by a culture which has been at war with us for fourteen hundred years and which hates us now no more and no less than when Muhammad wrote "I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Therefore strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them" (Koran 8:12) and "So when you meet in battle those who disbelieve, then smite the necks until when you have overcome them”

Islam has been at war with us since the seventh century and it is only just over three hundred years since we confronted them at the gates of Vienna. Our cultures are entirely incompatible, however, this time we have ignored history and allowed our enemy to come amongst us. They have come amongst us in their millions, and used the trappings of our society against us.

Yes we did bring the attack on our society upon ourselves, but not in the way our critics claim. We have allowed our enemies to live amongst us and plot against us from within. We have allowed those who hate us to come close enough to strike us. Could, for instance planes hijacked in Kabul or Mogadishu have attacked New York and Virginia with the same ease as flights from Newark or Boston?.

It was Islamic Terrorists who attacked America in September 2001, theirs was an act of dreadful brutality, cruelty and mass murder. More than that, it was almost certainly a warning of what is to come. If it was, as I believe it was, then we are now well beyond the point where we can keep preventing the next attack.