What changed on 9/11?

Submitted by Arun (United States), Oct 26, 2004 at 12:24

Islamist terror was as much of a threat in 1994 as it was in 2001.
It was doing as much damage around the world then, as it is doing
today. The Saudis were pumping 6% of their revenues into
propagating Wahabbi Islam, and that was overwhelming the more
peaceful, unfundamentalist variants of Islam in Afghanistan, Pakistan,
Bangladesh, Indonesia, India, and elsewhere as much in 1994 as in
2001. The Pakistani-Afghan Talibani madrassas were churning out
hordes of indoctrinated believers ready to kill for Islam as much in
1994 as in 2001.

What changed in 2001 is the American perception of the Islamist
phenomena. John Kerry had followed the web of terrorist financing
in his unravelling of the BCCI scandal. He had travelled around the
world; he had actually met the Indian Prime Minister in 1999, while
Bush struggled in his pop quiz with a reporter to even name the
gentleman. Clinton & company had spent great and mostly successful effort
in warding off the millenium terrorist plots. Clinton tells us that he told
Bush that terrorism is the top threat facing the US. Bush ignored it.

The transformation of the world happened only to those who were ignorant.
This includes most of the American people, who do not care to follow what is
going on in far-away and strangely named places. The 1993 World Trade Center
bombing did not serve as a wake-up call. 9/10 to 9/12 is a transformation from
ignorance to knowledge, and not a change in the nature of the world.

The next question to ask is - is the American response led by Bush to the new-found
recognition of the world on 9/12 appropriate? Will it lead to a diminishment or
vanishing of the threat? ...

-Arun

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