Category: 📀Gatestone Institute

“The Al-Aqsa Flood [what Hamas calls the October 7 massacre] is just the first time, and there will be a second, a third, a fourth, because we have the #determination, the resolve, and the #capabilities to fight.”

The plan calls for the #decommissioning of weapons, #demilitarization and the #establishment of an #International #Stabilization Force.

It also #envisages a process #intended to change Gazan #mindsets and #narratives by #emphasizing #tolerance and #peaceful #coexistence.

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What exactly has changed?

The George W. Bush administration opened the #military theater of this war by “liberating” #Afghanistan and #Iraq and seeking to #destroy the #terrorists nested there.

But this is a war that must also be fought in #diplomatic, #cultural, #religious, and, above all, #political #battlefields. In all those theaters the #US needed, and could have found, #allies, including among a majority of the #Muslims who have been the first #victims of terror. The #commission made no suggestions about how to engage in those battlefields, who to choose as allies and whom to identify as #neutrals or foes.

Now, this enemy does not grow on trees. He is a #citizen of a state, has bases and safe havens not in space, but in real countries, and uses all the facilities of the #modern #global system. It was astonishing that the 9/11 Commission chose to fly over all that. It discovered extensive contacts between al-Qaeda and 24 governments in #Europe, #Africa, the #MiddleEast and #Asia.

So, it was not surprising that it came up with only two new proposals: one is to create a Cabinet post dealing with #intelligence, a twin for the existing #Homeland #Security tsar. The other is a suggestion to spend #money on “improving the lives of disaffected youths in Arab and other #Muslim countries”.

I am not kidding! Less than 10 percent of the report, basically its Chapter II, was devoted to the key question: who were these terrorists, where did they come from, and what made them tick?

The report said:

“We learned about an enemy who is sophisticated, patient, disciplined, and lethal. The enemy rallies broad support in the #Arab and #Muslim world by demanding redress for #political #grievances, but its hostility towards us and our values is limitless.”

Leaving aside the odd syntax — obviously someone insisted that the last phrase be added – the #paragraph quoted above shows how the commission got on the wrong track. The report assumes that there was a single, readily identifiable enemy. This is the routine way of #political thinking, as shaped during the #ColdWar.

Anyone with #knowledge of the Arab countries and the #Muslim world in general would know that this is not the case. The problem with the 25-year war on #terror is precisely that the #democracies, and those Muslims who aspire after #democracy, are faced with a multi-faceted threat that assumes numerous forms.
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The commissioners tell us that they had three aims:

To offer “the most complete narrative” of the events. But what the report offers is a collage of numerous articles and books that have already covered the “event”.

To #assemble as many personal #testimonies as possible of the survivors of the #attacks and their #families. This, though, a laudable effort, is of little help in identifying the #ideology and the machine that produced the killers in the first place.

Making #recommendations about ways and means of preventing similar attacks That should have been the “meat” of the report. It is not. It was, in fact, its Achilles heel. The reasons are not hard to imagine. The commissioners have a politico-technocratic #mindset. They are the products of a #political #culture that assumes that all problems have #technical and bureaucratic solutions. Such solutions are standard: create a new layer of bureaucracy and spend some more #money.
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In other words, a tragedy that initially brought all #Americans together in #anger and grief may now forge into another fissure along partisan lines, at least in #NewYork.

Reflecting on that issue, I decided to re-read the 570 pages of the 9/11 Commission Report and to my surprise, I found that even then partisan divisions had prevented a proper understanding of the tragedy and the lessons to be drawn from the start.

Reading “The Report” was like going through a French nouveau roman. It starts with the promise of uncovering an ingenious plot, but offers nothing but reheated platitudes served with a pseudo-philosophical garnish. The reader ends up asking, “where’s the beef?

The names of the 2,977 #men, #women and #children who died in the #terrorist #attacks on the World Trade Center’s twin towers on September 11 are read aloud while millions of #Americans watch the #commemoration on TV with a mixture of grief and #anger.

The answer could be found in hundreds of books, articles and #sermons that make the rounds across the globe, including in the #UnitedStates itself. In fact, though you might find it odd, the bulk of what the #global anti-American industry produces comes from the US itself. The US is an “evil animal” because it can bite back when bitten. The #9/11 Commission failed in its mission.