9/11 Started 20 Years of Failure in Afghanistan

By Henry Srebrnik, [Saint John, NB] Telegraph-Journal

On September 11, 2001, 19 militants associated with the extremist group al-Qaeda hijacked four airplanes and carried out suicide attacks against targets in the United States.

Two of the planes were flown into the twin towers of the World Trade Centre in New York City, a third plane hit the Pentagon just outside Washington, D.C., and the fourth plane crashed in a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Almost 3,000 people were killed in the attacks, which triggered major U.S. initiatives to combat terrorism.

Mohamed el-Amir Awad el-Sayed Atta was the brains of the operation and might arguably be considered the most important person of the 21^st century thus far.

Virtually everyone on the planet who was older than 10 at the time remembers exactly where they were and what they were doing on that day. It was, in that sense, a “world-historical” event, similar to the start of the two world wars, and we had entered a new zeitgeist.

That morning, I had boarded an airplane in Winnipeg, en route to Toronto, in order to fly back to Charlottetown, following a three-day academic conference. About 40 minutes into the flight, the pilot announced that all aircraft in North America were being ordered to land at the nearest major airport.

He gave no explanation, but everyone realized something serious had happened. We touched down at Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. We then heard the astonishing news.

We were put up at a Holiday Inn for the next three days and nights and provided with various necessities (because our baggage initially remained on the plane) by the Red Cross.

The international bridge connecting the city to its namesake on the upper peninsula of the state of Michigan was already closed, guarded by soldiers with machine guns. We all got to know each other while in the hotel and watched the unbelievable coverage on television.

Our local Charlottetown CBC radio station interviewed me by phone about how we “airplane people” were faring. On Sept. 14, I finally caught a plane to Montreal and returned home, having missed the first few days of the term.

The term “Islamism” was still not much in use at the time, but through a strange coincidence, I had published an article in a Calgary newspaper, dated August 30, about the rise and spread of this ideology, entitled “Fundamentalist Islamism: A Form of “Religio-Racism.” After all, there had been numerous terrorist attacks around the world for at least a decade prior to 9/11.

 “It is this fundamentalist vision, with its totalitarian theory of absolute truth and religious domination, which theorizes non-believers as ‘others,’ to whom no mercy need be shown,” I wrote. “Islamists support the idea of ultimate world domination through war: the non-Islamic world is identified as dar e l-harb, those areas still to be conquered.” I then described their activities in Africa, the Middle East, the Caucasus and Central Asia, Southeast Asia, South America, the Balkans, and Western Europe. 

This paragraph, given recent events, stands out in particular: “Afghanistan itself is now ruled by arguably the world’s most repressive regime, the fanatical Taliban, who oppose all political rights to non-Muslims minorities, such as Hindus.”

As we know, because this regime was harboring Osama bin-Laden and his al-Qaeda organization, the terrorist group behind 9/11, U.S. President George W. Bush launched an attack on Afghanistan as part of what would be termed the “War on Terror.” It would be followed two years later by an invasion of Iraq, based on questionable information that Saddam Hussein’s regime, too, was somehow involved with Islamists.

President Joe Biden’s ignominious abandonment of Afghanistan, which is now once again in the clutches of a Taliban stronger than ever, forms a sad ending to Bush’s “mission accomplished” in Afghanistan and Iraq. The dates 9/11/01 and 8/31/21 might be considered bookends. 

The United States has lost trillions of dollars, more than 7,000 soldiers killed, and the destabilization of the entire greater Middle East and Central Asia, in this misguided mission. (Canada saw 159 troops killed in Afghanistan, the largest number for any single Canadian military mission since the Korean War.)

Not only did neither of these wars succeed in ending the terrorist threat, but they weakened America economically and politically, and led to the strengthening of her rivals – China, Russia, and, most worrisome, Iran. The Tehran regime now virtually calls the shots – literally -- in Iraq and will doubtless gain political advantages in Afghanistan.

The sad truth, often forgotten both by the idealistic left and those on the hawkish right, is that you can’t build democratic institutions (involving clearly dubious elections) in places where the indigenous political cultures don’t support the mission.