Five Years after 9-11: The War Against Terror Falters
By Leonard Zeskind,
Searchlight magazine September 2006
If there is one thing that might be said about the United States five years after 9-11, it is that it increasingly looks like the country it was on September 10, 2001. The brief moment of international good will and domestic solidarity has largely evaporated. Now, a majority of Americans know that people in the rest of the world don’t like them, according to opinion polls. And Americans are sharply divided themselves; as the lines of religion, race, class and political persuasion define where they live and who they talk to—and who they don’t talk to. While the deaths and the horror of that day remain a hole in their breast, the administration’s lies about Iraq and racist mishandling of Hurricane Katrina have grown into a raw scar tissue where their heart used to be. And a growing number think the whole 9-11 thing was a fraud in any case.
They call themselves the “911 Truth” movement in a bevy of internet postings, book publications and films. And on 11 September, as this magazine reaches you, they will stage events in cities from San Francisco to London and question the official story told about that day. They might claim that government agents knew about terrorist plans to fly airplanes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, but did nothing about it. They might tell you about a man working inside the WTC who heard and felt an explosion inside the building before the first plane hit. And a few will spew outrageously anti-Semitic nonsense about how no Jews came to work and died that day. They will ask, “Was 9-11 an inside job?” They will declare President Bush a traitor who routinely lies to the American public in order to pursue his own foreign policy objectives. And while they draw some sustenance from right-wing conspiracy buffs, the majority of these 911 Truth advocates claim to belong to the progressive or left end of the political spectrum. They are opposed to war, support gay rights and work for the environment. About one third of the populace quietly holds similar views, but they have very little impact outside their own ranks. The one public official most associated with these ideas, Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, an African American from the Atlanta area, recently lost her Democratic Party primary race to a less controversial figure.
That’s not to say everybody else believes George W. Bush. Immediately after the 9-11 attacks, the American people rallied behind their president, giving him record breaking levels of support. Five years later, only 37% think he is doing a good job. A solid 55% believe the war in Iraq is not going well, according to a poll conducted by the Pew Center. Most notably, a remarkable resurgence in isolationist sentiment defies the conventions of military intervention abroad; 42% agree with the statement that the United States should “mind its own business internationally and let other countries get along the best they can on their own.” The War Against Terrorism may be playing well in the ideological hothouses along the Potomac River, but in the rest of the country very few people pay it much attention. Even after the August arrests in the UK, only 2% of the electorate wants politicians to talk about terrorism. Almost five times that number want to hear about immigration reform.
If there is one piece of the war against terror that seems to have found an echo in a sector of the population, it is expressed as a rationale used by anti-immigrant groups, as they contend that foreign terrorists are sneaking into the USA disguised as day laborers and domestic workers. But even that thin tissue of lies has not convinced anybody. The anti-immigrant movement opposes dark-skinned Spanish speakers because they don’t want them living next door. And most everybody knows that.
Twenty-two years ago Hollywood made a commercially successful film called “Red Dawn.” The story line was a product of its times: A Soviet-Cuban invasion is launched from Mexico and communist troops came across that border and occupy the American heartland. A small band of intrepid high schoolers hide in the woods and launch a guerilla war of resistance. The film’s message was: keep your guns oiled and your ammunition dry because you never know when you might need them. And the theme found a resonance because of the Cold War, which then dominated every aspect of American life.
President Bush has attempted to turn his “war against terrorism” into precisely that kind of hegemonic force; one that would define not just how we pass through security at the airport, but how we should think about civil liberties. Not just how we hurt for the victims of 9-11, but how we should ignore the victims and senseless damage done in Iraq. This over-reaching has backfired, and done much to discredit the whole notion of a war against terror.
The final act in this drama may come this November, when Americans vote in Congressional elections. If the Republicans lose their majority in the House of Representatives and Democrats replace them—look for increased pressure to pull American troops out of Iraq. If Republicans hold on to power, it will be because anti-immigrant Christian nationalists had the votes. Either way, the people of the United States will be as sharply divided among themselves as they were before 11 September 2001.
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