Five years have passed since 9/11 happened, the event that supposedly changed the world as we know it.
This is what I keep hearing all the time and it makes me wonder to what extent such a statement holds true. The world I know hasn’t changed much at all.
Terrorism has been around well before 9/11 and terrorism in the name of religion is nothing new either.
The U.S. has invaded Iraq because it didn’t like Saddam much, an event that conjures up memories from over a decade ago.
In response to 9/11 i.e. an attack on Americans, Arabs and Muslims have paid for it 10 fold. Actually taking into account the lowest number of deaths in Iraq possible, approximately 13 people have died for every American. This is nothing new either.
The U.S. foreign policy has become fully immersed in the Arab world. This also is nothing different from decades of meddling with the affairs of the region before 9/11.
Nothing has really changed…
The only thing that may be different now is there’s new meaning to the numbers 9-1-1; it’s no longer just the number you dial to call the police. It’s now a number that is used every single day by American TV at least nine hundred and eleven times not to mention it becoming a centerpiece of every single Dubya speech.
Also people now hate Arabs, Muslims and Islam more than they did before.
DVD sales for the movies “True Lies” and “The Siege” are probably up and all through the month of September I can’t turn on the TV without seeing two buildings fall or a made-for-TV movie about two buildings falling or a story about someone who knew someone who knew someone who was there when two buildings fell.
Also the word “terrorism” has become synonymous with a people and a religion.
And while the general idea has always been that America is still under threat (but safer), Arab and Muslim nations have been the biggest targets of terrorism. Not to mention that the US foreign policy post 9/11 has polarized our society even more, nourishing extremism and encouraging it more now than ever before.
Also I’m pretty sure my phone is tapped, which is something that didn’t usually happen before 9/11.
Other than that, I’m not so sure 9/11 qualifies as “the event that changed the world”.
All that being said I do sympathize with the action itself and the people who lost anyone that day but the reaction has proven to be worse. I guess the “cure” for the disease has only encouraged its growth, especially in our own nations. I figure the US foreign policy might eventually change when it becomes overwhelmed with the disease and the failure of the “cure”, only to withdraw and leave us with the mess. This too, is nothing new.
Five years have passed since 9/11 happened, the event that supposedly changed the world as we know it.
Well, I don’t know that it changed the middle-east at all. All I know is that it changed America, and it changed America’s views of the Middle-East, of Islam, and of the rest of the world. We found out we have no friends, and we found out that most arabs want to kill us dead. Eventually, all Americans will in fact be dead, or the Middle-East will in fact be changed.
You bet on your horse and I’ll bet on mine. Or you can pretend everything is going to go back to the way it was before, but I think that’s really a long shot 🙂
In response to 9/11 i.e. an attack on Americans, Arabs and Muslims have paid for it 10 fold.
Well, since we’re throwing around the phrase “I keep hearing that” – I keep hearing that there is supposed to be some price that can be paid for 9/11, or for all the terror attacks that happened before and since 9/11. Exacting vengeance is not the plan. Ending the terrorism once and for all is the plan. Has the terrorism ended?
I’m pretty sure I could load a random Palestinian blog right now and find that the blogger is advocating terrorism. And so could you. So, the war continues. And the middle-east remains unchanged.
lol was there a survey done? 😀
sigh, i guess things have changed, for the worst.
so is Iraq considered payback or part of “the plan”
Nas,
lol was there a survey done? 😀
Yep! It’s called blog reading and you were a particpant 🙂
Actually there have been many surveys done in the last 5 years. I’m sure you disagree with the results that they all showed though.
sigh, i guess things have changed, for the worst.
You better f’ing believe it, buddy.
You better believe it.
so is Iraq considered payback or part of â??the planâ?Â
What do you think?
What do you care about the middle east, just leave the people over there alone, let them live their own lives!!!
The states is faaaaaaaaaar away over seas, just leave the people to live a life that they can choose, let them choose their leaders and their destiny.
As for “terrorism” as long as the states are trying to steal the oil from the middle east and as long as it is supporting Israel in such a way, and as long as we are not allowed to grow wheat and rice it will never end.
For Arabs and Muslim the world did not change a lot as I think, media coverage has changed, that’s why people think that things changed.
Nas, you might read El3atal’s post after yours.
Things are much different in the world than before 11/9.
It is not that just hatred have grown larger between Arabs and Americans, but some real changes in the ground have taken place as well like getting rid of Taliban and Saddam’s regemes.
Getting rid of those regemes didn’t help much the US war against terror as we have faced many blasts in other countries just for supporting the US war.
Our reputation as Arabs and Muslims is the most damaged. As you can see Craig and other Americans believes that we want them dead.
Sometimes people forget that we are humans. We love, we hate, but we don’t kill people or wish them dead. If some of us has gone astray, that doesnt mean we are all terrorists. You have your own criminals as well. And Craig, as you feel anger towards some other people’s opinion, you may think that the other party may hold some anger towards your opinions as well.
Well Nas, the event changed us big time … we do not see things the same way any more .. don’t you agree that since people changed, the world did too?
http://www.anolitasmind.com/2006/09/11/911/
observer & khalidah,
we see the world practically the same way as we did before. i’m not saying 911 didnt change anything i’m saying it wasnt the event that changed the world. much of the realities pre-911 are the same realities post 911. perhaps some of them have been expanded upon but they are more or less the same.
lets face it, the post 911 world has one thing going for it: the media. war, terrorism, fear, these things sell more than a picture of brad pitt and angalenia jolie’s baby. more than that moon landing. so we are lead to believe that 911 has flipped this world upside down.
world war 2 was an event that flipped this world upside down and set the tone for half a century. the attack on pearl harbor alone had a domino effect that set the stage for defeating nazism, the emergance of communism in russia, china, vietnam, korea, 2 wars in the latter countries, cementing the notions of arab states and establishing Israel, the cold war, etc etc etc.
911 changed very little. what realities we are facing today were already alive at the core well before 2001.
regimes have fallen and been established, this is nothing new. the US removing leaders or organizations or governments it had once been good friends with and funded while they tormented their people for years is nothing new. our reputation as terrorists was well established the minute the cold war ended and there was a need for a new enemy.
some things changed, most things didnt, new realities are simply takes on old realities already in existance. suffice to say in the context of history I don’t think 911 was the event that changed the world. it’s just that for most of us, our generation has never experienced something like this so we’re easily convinced that it is.
I don’t know if this applies to everyone but at least I am talking about myself when I say that my way of looking at things has indeed changed … so it is not an absolute view, everything is relative and relatively speaking, a large number of people whould say they have and their worlds changed and that 9/11 was a mile stone in history that we are still suffering from its consequences …
We do not have to see it the same way 🙂
khalidah, of course you’re free to see it differently, I’m just saying that in the context of modern history 911 is less of a milestone and more of a pebble.
It didnt change the world at all. I think that is the biggest myth of 9/11. Everything is exactly the same as it was. The only thing that changed is that the West, in particular America, got a taste of what has been happening around the world for decades.
That is what annoys me, that somehow the death of 2,900 people in America, not all Americans, is somehow more important that the hundreds of times that amount of people who have died in the Middle East and Africa.
1,000 dead in Lebanon recently. No, the world did not change. 3,000 women and children in Shabra and Chatilla. The world has not changed one bit. Just this time a different group of people tasted the violence.
I agree with you totally, Nas. But isn’t the ‘superlative’ typical americana- the fastEST, greatEST, biggEST, MOST powerful- everything that touches the US must be in the excessively, exaggeratedly highest degree, it would follow that their suffering would necessarily be the WORST, and therefore their enemies must also be the WORST, the LEAST human, MOST evil.
Doesn’t Hollywood in many ways epitomize this?
In the way that the jews will ETERNALLY mourn the Holocaust and demand ETERNAL retribution, the US, in spite of the huge difference in the scope of their respective events, is adamant on ‘building’ its own history-changing tragedy. As for the dead and suffering ELSEWHERE they are nothing more than casualities of history!!!
Of all the solemnly bowed heads and ‘heart-felt’ eulogies to commemorate the event this one is particularly risible:
Iraqi President Jalal Talabani wrote President Bush on behalf of the Iraqi people, expressing condolences to the families of Sept. 11 victims.
“On this sad and memorable day, I would like to reiterate the gratitude of the people of Iraq for the people of America and for your leadership,” Talabani wrote. “The people of Iraq will never forget those who helped them in getting rid of the most brutal and terrorist regime of Saddam Hussein.”
I wonder if Talabani will be around to one day ‘solemnly’ commemorate the invasion and destruction of his own country and the 100,000+ lives lost of his countrymen & women.
Abu Sinan,
Did the 1,000 people in Lebanon die in one day? No.
Did the victims in Sabra and Shatila die in one day? No.
Did you personally witness the slaughter in Sabra and Shatila in one day? I presume not.
9/11 has a lot of weight simply because 3,000 people who had nothing to do with U.S. foreign policy, were killed by brainwashed savages on live TV.
And to those who are bringing up Iraq and Palestine, please, spare me your crocodile tears. I’m sure most of you didn’t give a rat’s ass when Saddam was gassing the Kurds and the Shi’as, or when Hafez al-Assad butchered 40,000 Muslims in Hama, or the Taliban’s gross slaughter of ethnic Hazaras simply on the basis of them being Shi’a, or even Pakistan’s slaughter of Bengali Muslims in 1971, so please don’t play the game of victimization now.
Have the guts to condemn an evil act like any decent human being should, without the usual “but Israel this, America that, kuffar this, kuffar that” garbage.
What about what America did in Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
More that 214,000 civilians died in seconds!
And you don’t think al-Qaeda and their ilk wouldn’t want to repeat another Hiroshima?
And pray tell, what did the people in the towers had anything to do with what happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki? They were merely winning bread for their families, yet it wasn’t good enough for the savages who killed them.
May Allah swt curse the 19 cowards.
Danial I agree with you in spirit, there is no doubt in my mind and in the minds of most of us that those who died on that day died for no reason, that it was a barbaric act and that it was completely unIslamic.
The problem is (and this is the gap between you and aboud) that it’s tough to seperate this act of horror without recognising the reaction of greater horror that it lead to. and it doesnt matter if 2700 people died in one day or tens of thousands of iraqis died in 3 years. it’s simply tough to seperate the action from the reaction.
Well said Nas, millions of Iraqi children died because of America, because they couldn’t have medicine, so why on earth are those 2,700 are more important???!!
Why are they more important that the 214,000 who died because of the american nuclear bomb?
Why do people say nothing about all of these millions, and you want all of the world to cry day and night for the 2,700?
Nas, I feel for you, you are attempting a sensible realistic analysis/discussion however I will be extremely impressed if you find many capable of entertaining such a concept.
It is virtually impossible to reach consensus on whether an event changed the world till significant time has elapsed 5 years is far too short as the world is still a heavy beast which moves slowly regardless of the impression to the contrary we get these days due to the huge leaps in communication!
The above being said that does not stop us contemplating on the significance of a particular event, in that I share your view, thou I doubt many others would, the reason I do not think that particular event horrific as it was didnâ??t change the world is that I do not believe it was a sole trigger to what followed, particularly outside the US, the concept might be easier to grasp backwards, what events took place that would have been impossible to contemplate or improbable without September 11th?
So if September 11th was not turning point which led to Afghanistan and Iraq what was? If I was to have a stab I would say we are still in a cycle triggered by the collapse of the USSR!
A similar parallel can be used for Hezbollah kidnapping 2 Israeli soldiers, that supposedly triggered a war which caused more destruction than the event it self, but even without the event was a war improbable? I donâ??t think so
Any such analysis has to be based on cause and effect, not right and wrong