By Olakunle Agboola – Like a horrible scene from a horror film, America was suddenly brought to its knees by an enemy who was infantile in terms of technology yet unbelievably versatile in terms of sheer intelligence on September 11, 2001.
Doing what no one else has done in the history of America’s rise to power and fame, Osama bin Laden called America’s bluff with a dirty slap on her face that left ‘God’s own country’ not only humiliated but permanently scarred.
September 11, 2001, for the Americans, was a disaster. The prime enemy of the United States struck from the air when the American apparatus was looking for him on the ground. And the chick of it, Osama bin Laden, used America’s own technology to wreck the greatest nation by any other power on earth. From anyway one looks at it, one could see beyond the ordinary in the event of September 11. The build-up to that event was a progressively-run foreign policy option for the American State which was so driven by self-interests that it lost sight completely of the sensibilities of other people and the effect America’s foreign policy had on them.
America grew big and powerful. She thought her technology had given her the power of God over all nations. In playing god, the policeman rode such roughshod on so many countries that it became the scourge of the world. Her economic interest dominated, and in some cases oppressed, the nations in subtle ways that got to the very soul of some people who decided to take arms against the American people and her economic interests worldwide.
The ambivalence and perceived injustice of America’s foreign policy created the likes of Saddam Hussein of Iraq, Osama bin Laden of Saudi Arabia, the Palestinian terrorist organizations and the massive resentment of the Arabs for the American position which extols Israeli’s violence but condemns Arab’s response. From the moment Israel as a nation was created, America sided with her and armed her against the Arabs, a policy that has been consistent in the last 50 years. Even when Israel makes mistakes, the Americans stand by them.
As a result, a groundswell of hatred for America and Israel developed in the Middle East. That hatred translated into a dangerous rise of jihadist sentiments amongst Islamic clerics. This sentiment created, fueled and refuelled the Al Queda organization of late Osama bin Laden that resulted in the attacks of September 11, 2001, on the World Trade Centre, New York, and the Pentagon, in which over 3,000 people perished within hours in the United States of America.
Today, September 11,2018 marks another memorial event for the lost souls in an attack inflicted by late Osama bin Laden. 9/11 attack left the American in a deep anger and patent feelings of vengeance which made Osama bin Laden the most wanted terrorist by the American Government for almost a decade. On May 1, 2011, former United States President, Barack Obama announced that al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden had been killed by U.S. forces in his compound in Abbottabad, northeastern Pakistan. The killing triggered jubilation among Americans, who had increasingly despaired of ever catching the man blamed for the most deadly attack on the US since the second world war.
The problem that led to September 11 allegedly had to do with the actions of America and the reactions against those actions. It was not necessarily because America was off-guard that she got hit. It was mainly because she under-rated the capacity of her victims to inflict a telling blow on that nation in spite of her overwhelming technological superiority.
Thus if the correct lessons are to be learnt, one would have thought that America should look inward and re-examine her actions against the rest of the world which exploits nations, imposes the American culture on nations willy-nilly, and attempts to control the lives of those who are not necessarily Americans by imposing American values on them.
Until and unless America comes to grips with the lesson that September 11 should teach them, that nation may become the inevitable victim of its own failure. It would be profitable embracing 9/11 in its physical, psychological and spiritual dimensions having wisdom open minds like a chaste leaf in the morning when the sun first touches it.
It would be well for those who have drawn their swords to sheathe it. Let those who cock their guns resume their grip on the safety-catch. For them that are revving the engines of their tank, halt the action and let those who are nursing vengeance learn the art of forgiveness. Violence only begets violence. And those who do not learn peacefully the lesson of dialogue would be made to appreciate peace through inevitable disaster occasioned by violence. Then the difference between the peace of the graveyard and peace through dialogue would also become apparent.
Kindly follow us on twitter:@AfricanVoice2
