Ground Zero

Tuesday September 11^th 2001 probably began like any ordinary day in America. As millions of people in the central and pacific states still slept soundly in their beds, many millions more on the East Coast had just woken up to begin the routine of daily life. In homes from the Florida Keys all the way up to Portland in Maine, the daily squabbling over the family bathroom had already began. Lunch-boxes were being filled with ham sandwiches and Sunny Delight, and women fussed over whether this or that blouse would make them look fat. The paper-boys had already done their rounds and as ESPN relayed the sports stories in the background, men poured over the early morning news with their customary cups of coffee. The main traffic arteries linking suburbia and city were clogged with commuters, many of whom were no doubt listening to their favourite morning radio programmes and thinking about what the day had in store for them. Tuesday September 11^th 2001 probably would have ended like any ordinary day in America too, but for the nineteen mujahadis who had passed through passport control at Logan, Newark and Dulles.

To say that America had woefully under-estimated the threat from Al-Qaeda is like saying that the Klu Klux Klan is racist. This is no better illustrated than by the fact that as Mohammed Atta and Marwan Al-Heshhi were slamming their hijacked planes into the Twin Towers, the man in overall charge of the nation's security was reading 'My Pet Goat' to a bunch of pre-school kids. Since then however, America's response to this atrocity has been wide and far reaching. An ''axis of evil'' was quickly identified and the President launched what he termed to be a ''crusade'' against those enemies of freedom. The President and his men claimed that there would be no hiding place for the purveyors of terror, and vowed not only to go after those delivering terror, but also those who had harboured and sponsored them. The United States called on all responsible nations to unite in the now infamous war on terror. Collectively, they promised to make our countries safer and to rid the world of terror. They promised that democracy would not be shaken and that our way of life will prevail.

For a while our leaders had us believing that we were indeed winning this fight. When coalition forces rolled into Kabul, it was hard even for the man on the Arab street to argue against the expulsion of the Taleban. After all, these were men who had confined the people of Afghanistan to the most barbaric of existences, and few questioned the ferocity of the attacks to exterminate Bin Laden, his followers and his landlords. An illusion of order was created amidst anarchy, and for the first time in living memory, Afghans had a government chosen by the people for the people. In 2003, the ''crusaders'' then turned to Iraq. Iraq under Saddam Hussein they claimed had been stockpiling weapons of mass destruction and there was incontrovertible evidence in the form of satellite photos showing mobile and fixed chemical and biological laboratories. Intelligence sources had also apparently uncovered Al-Qaeda training camps in the north of the country. The combination of weapons of mass destruction and Al-Qaeda left little to the imagination. We were told that pre-emptive action was in our best national interests and that America and its allies could no longer stand idle while others willfully plotted our downfall. The march to Baghdad took less than a week and the defining moment at that time was when Saddam's statue was pulled down from central Baghdad and many Iraqis danced long into the night...Iraq was liberated at last. Having tasted blood, the hawks were by no means satiated though and they now set their sights on the Ayatollahs of Iran and the Baathists of Syria. So perturbed was Libya by all this sabre-rattling, that Gaddafi decided to 'fess up' about his own nuclear weapons programme. He offered his apologies, promised to follow the 'straight and narrow' and was subsequently ushered back into the fold; the prodigal son that he was. The 'coalition of the willing' had laid down its marker in the Middle East and in the wider international community; their actions heralded as a triumph for peace, democracy and freedom for all mankind.

Soon enough, however, the smoke screens that were put up in both Afghanistan and Iraq were fast dissipating and the stark truth could be seen lingering in the background. The Taleban have resurfaced at an alarming rate and Afghanistan is slowly slipping back into lawlessness with an increasing number of warlords reasserting control in several regions. Shortly before the British took over control of the NATO security forces in the south a few months ago, the then Defence Minister John Reid remarked that it was highly likely that British troops would carry out their mission without having to fire a single shot. He stated that their mission was to re-build and stabilise rather than to engage the Taleban. To date, more than thirty soldiers have died in the last few months and it seems as if it is the Taleban who is doing all the engaging. For all its obvious troubles and concerns however, Afghanistan is Utopia compared to the situation in Iraq.

Saddam's rag-tag army no longer even posed a threat to any Arab regime yet we were led to believe that his bunch of malnourished conscripts represented a clear and present danger to our very existence. The country was scoured by thousands of US-led inspectors for months on end but no weapons of mass destruction were ever found. For the thousands of war dead, the irony of this war is especially poignant as many have died fighting against an enemy that never was. It is also clear that the terrorists followed the Americans and British into Iraq. There was no Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi nor his group 'Al-Qaeda in Iraq' until after the American and British invasion of the country. Yet still our leaders persist in fooling themselves that Iraq is making steady progress... ''Democracy conquers all'' they are often heard to say. It is telling then that many Iraqis are now worse off under democratic rule than they were when Saddam and his co-tyrants were in power. Many Iraqis now go without basic amenities such as running water, electricity and communications. The country is now gripped in the midst of a seemingly endless cycle of sectarian violence between the majority Shia population and the minority Sunni and conservative estimates put the average monthly death toll at anywhere between 300 and 400. And just ask the Palestinians about this democracy. Democracy can't be all that bad they convinced themselves and after Yasser Arafat's death, they came out in their droves to vote for Hamas. But Hamas, militant faction that it is, was not what the Europeans who held the purse strings of Palestine had in mind and they subsequently withdrew all financial and logistical support to the regime and thus the people themselves. The Palestinian people had clearly not read the fine print before signing on the dotted line.

Most alarmingly for me, however, is that this war on terror has seen us abandon the very principles on which our free and just societies are based...the very principles that we are told, time and again, that we are fighting to protect. Out have gone time-honoured practices such as treating all persons innocent until proved guilty, giving everyone the right to legal access and a fair trial, and in have come things like Guantanamo Bay and military (read: kangaroo) tribunals. The Geneva Convention suddenly became 'out of date' and was replaced with never before heard phrases like ''enemy combatants'' and ''extraordinary rendition'' (read: torture) The erosion of civil liberties does not only stop at the door of the assumed terrorist. Ohhh no, it has trickled down into the daily lives of you and me. We have seen the most flagrant disregard for the principle of an individual's right to privacy with the wanton and illegal surveillance of electronic communications in the United States. Here in Britain, we have seen ever-increasing numbers of Asian men and women stopped and searched for no other apparent reason than for simply being Asian. As is often the case, many of these people are not even Muslim, but Sikh and Hindu. Just recently, two Asian looking men were forced off a British plane at gunpoint...they 'just didn't look right' remarked one concerned passenger.

Who would have thought on September 12^th 2001 that Osama Bin Laden, Mullah Omar and Ayman Al-Zawahiri would still be at large today? It now seems highly likely that this trio will outlast the political lives of both Bush and Blair, the key architects in this war on terror. Funny thought that, isn't it? Amid all this, we are often told that we are winning the war against terror. Hmmm...if this is winning, then I shudder to think what losing would be like. From where I am sitting it seems as if we are no safer now than we were five years ago. In fact, terrorism seems to have been exacerbated by the very war that was designed to stop it. From Bali to Madrid, from India to Morocco, to London and beyond the jihadists, continue apace. I ask you to reflect upon this as you stand in the snaking queue at Heathrow with a small clear plastic bag in your hand where your Samsonite used to be...five years on from that fateful morning, are we still at Ground Zero?

prophet