Wallerstein on Sept. 11th

Comment No. 72, Sept. 15, 2001
"September 11, 2001 - Why?"


On September 11, 2001, the whole world watched a human tragedy and a great
drama, and everyone was fixated on it. In the U.S., four commercial
airliners were hijacked in the early morning. The hijackers numbered 4-5
persons in each plane. Armed with knives, and having at least one person
among them capable of piloting the plane (at least once it was in the air),
the hijackers took over the planes, ousted (or killed) the pilots and
directed the planes on suicide missions. Three of the planes hit their
targets: the two towers of the World Trade Center in New York City and the
Pentagon in Washington. 

Given both the amount of fuel aboard and the technical knowledge to know at
which height the planes should hit the buildings, the hijackers managed to
destroy completely the two towers and carve a big hole in the Pentagon. As
of now, there are probably more than 5000 dead (no one has an exact figure)
and many more hurt and traumatized. The U.S. air network and financial
institutions have ground virtually to a halt, at least for this week, and
untold short-range and middle-range economic damage has been done.

The first thing to note about this attack is its audacity and its remarkable
success. A group of persons, linked together by ideology and willingness to
be martyrs, engaged in a clandestine operation that must be the envy of any
secret service agency in the world. They obtained entry into the United
States, managed to board with knives four airplanes, which were leaving from
three airports almost simultaneously, and all of which were heading on
transcontinental flights and therefore had large amounts of fuel on board.
They took over the planes, and managed to get three of them to reach their
targets. Neither the CIA nor the FBI nor U.S. military intelligence nor any
one else had any advance notice or was able to do anything to stop this
group.

The outcome was the most devastating such attack in the history of what we
call terrorist attacks. No previous attack killed more than 400 or so
persons. Even at Pearl Harbor, to which the analogy is being widely made,
and where the attack was conducted by the military forces of a state, many
fewer people were killed. Furthermore, this was the first time since the
Civil War (1861-1865) that warfare occurred within the boundaries of the
continental United States. The U.S. has since been engaged in many major
wars - the Spanish-American War, the First World War, the Second World War,
Korea, and Vietnam - (not to speak of "minor" wars), and in all of them the
actual fighting occurred outside these boundaries. The fact that warfare
occurred in the streets of New York and Washington constituted the biggest
shock to the American people of this attack.

So, the big question is why? Virtually everyone is saying that the person
responsible for the attack is Osama bin Laden. It seems a plausible
assumption, since he has declared his intention to carry out such acts, and
perhaps in the near future U.S. authorities will produce some evidence
substantiating this assumption. Let us suppose this is correct. What would
bin Laden hope to achieve in attacking the U.S. in this spectacular way?
Well, this could be seen as an expression of anger and revenge for what bin
Laden (and others) consider the misdeeds of the U.S. throughout the world,
and particularly in the Middle East. Would bin Laden think that, by such an
act, he could persuade the U.S. government to change its policies? I
seriously doubt that he is so naive as to think this would be the reaction.
President Bush says he regards the attack as an "act of war" and possibly
bin Laden, if he is the perpetrator, thinks the same. Wars are not conducted
to persuade the opponent to change his ways, but to force the opponent to do
so.

So let us reason as though we were bin Laden. What has he proved by this
attack? The most obvious thing that he has proved is that the United States,
the world's only superpower, the state with the most powerful and
sophisticated military hardware in the world, was unable to protect its
citizens from this attack. What bin Laden, again presuming he is in fact the
force behind it, wished to do, clearly, is to show that the U.S. is a paper
tiger. And he wished to show it, first of all, to the American people, and
then to everyone else in the world. 

Now this is as obvious to the U.S. government as it is to bin Laden. Hence
the response. President Bush says he will react forcefully, and the U.S.
political elite of both parties have given him their patriotic assent
without any hesitation. But now let us reason from the point of view of the
U.S. government. What can they do? 
The easiest thing is to obtain diplomatic support of condemnation of the
attack and justification of any future counterattack. This is exactly what
Secretary of State Powell said he would be doing. And it is reaping its
rewards. NATO has said that, under Article 5 of the treaty, a military
attack on the U.S. (which they consider this to be) requires all its members
to give military support to the counteraction, if the U.S. requests it.
Every government in the world, including that of Afghanistan and North
Korea, has condemned the attack. The sole exception is Iraq. It is true that
popular opinion in Arab and Muslim states has not been as supportive of the
U.S. but the U.S. will ignore that. 

The fact that the U.S. has achieved this diplomatic support, perhaps later a
U.N. resolution, will hardly make bin Laden quake in his boots. The
diplomatic support is going to seem to be thin gruel for the American people
as well. They will demand more. And more almost inevitably means some kind
of military action. But what? Whom will the U.S. Air Force bomb? If bin
Laden is behind the attack, there are only two possible targets, depending
on further knowledge about the evidence: Afghanistan and/or Iraq. How much
damage will that do? In half-destroyed Afghanistan, it hardly seems
worthwhile. And the U.S. has been restrained about bombing Iraq for many
reasons, including not wishing to lose lives. Maybe the U.S. will bomb
someone. Will that convince the American people and the rest of the world
that the U.S. is too fearsome to attack? Somehow I doubt it.

The truth of the matter is that there is not too much that the U.S. can do.
The CIA tried for years to assassinate Castro, and he's still there. The
U.S. has been searching for bin Laden for some years now, and he's still
there. One day, U.S. agents may kill him, and this might slow down this
particular operation. It would also give great satisfaction to many people.
But the problem would still remain whole.
Obviously, the only thing to do is something political. But what? Here all
accord within the U.S. (or more widely within the pan-Western arena)
disappears. The hawks say that this proves that Sharon (and the present
Israeli government) are right: "they" are all terrorists, and the way to
handle them is with harsh riposte. This hasn't been working so well for
Sharon thus far. Why will it work better for George W. Bush? And can Bush
get the American people to pay the price? Such a hawkish mode does not come
cheaply. On the other hand, the doves are finding it difficult to make the
case that this can be handled by "negotiation." Negotiation with whom, and
with what end in view?
Perhaps what is happening is that this "war" - as it is being called this
week in the press - cannot be won and will not be lost, but will simply
continue. The disintegration of personal security is now a reality that may
be hitting the American people for the first time. It was already a reality
in many other parts of the world. The political issue underlying these
chaotic oscillations of the world-system is not civilization versus
barbarity. Or at least what we must realize is that all sides think they are
the civilized ones, and that the barbarian is the other. The issues
underlying what is going on is the crisis in our world-system and the battle
about what kind of successor world-system we would like to build.(1) This
does not make it a contest between Americans and Afghans or Muslims or
anyone else. It is a struggle between different visions of the world we want
to build. September 11, 2001 will soon seem to be, contrary to what many are
saying, a minor episode in a long struggle that will go on for a long time
and be a dark period for most people on this planet.
by Immanuel Wallerstein
 
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These commentaries, published twice monthly, are intended to be reflections
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1.  I have made the case for why we are living in a crisis of the
world-system in Utopistics, or Historical Choices for the Twenty-first
Century (New York: New Press, 1998)





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