How Fear shaped American Policy after 9/11
This weekend I visited the new World Trade Center. Exiting the Fulton Street subway station, I was quickly drawn to the two memorial pools that stand in the place of the Twin Towers. The largest manmade waterfalls in North America, they are each surrounded with plaques that honor those who died during 9/11. It is a sobering site, one that allows anyone—even someone who, like me, was born years after 9/11—to understand the carnage that occurred 23 years ago.
Photo credit: National September 11th Memorial and Museum
I then looked up and saw the new One World Trade Center, commonly referred to as the Freedom Tower. It’s the flagship building of the site, the building that was supposed to replace the Twin Towers, the building that was supposed to show America’s resilience in the face of terrorism.
Terrorism was bin Laden's tool with which he sought to destroy US influence and lead America into a war against Muslims. Bin Laden hoped that in a war against America, he could overthrow the Western world and establish a single Islamic State that is governed under his extreme understanding of Sharia law. Bin Laden's hatred of America could be attributed to several factors. He firstly was angered by the presence of American troops in his home country of Saudi Arabia. (After Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, American troops were brought into Saudi Arabia to protect its oil fields.) Bin Laden thought Muslim lands should be free from Americans. Bin Laden was also angered by the US’s support of Israel, a state he feared would, as he told ABC reporter John Miller in 1998, expand into Muslim Lands. And ideologically, bin Laden simply hated what America stood for. He shared the beliefs of Sayyid Qutb, the man often called the predecessor of Islamic extremism, who thought America was a cancerous society that was promiscuous, greedy, and the antidote to Islam. So, on September 11th bin Laden attacked America.
His plan was to strike the symbols of America. He attacked the Pentagon—the symbol of American military strength; attempted to attack the Capitol Building—the symbol of American Democracy; and attacked the Twin Towers—the symbols of American economy.
Photo credit: Spencer Platt
Bin Laden got what he wished for—he drew the United States into war (War in Afghanistan). But ultimately, his wider goal of toppling the United States and establishing a single Islamic world order failed. Due to this, the US has won the war against terror. After all, the United States has crippled al-Qaeda with the assassinations of bin Laden and Ayman Al-Zawahiri (bin Laden’s right-hand man). It has captured the mastermind of 9/11, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. And the United States has rebuilt the World Trade Center.
But it's not that simple. America has also lost itself in its war against terror. And the ‘Freedom Tower’—the building meant to represent its success in this fight—is symbolic of this failure.
The One World Trade Center isn’t a bad building, but it’s also no ‘freedom tower.’ It's a skyscraper built upon a 185ft windowless concrete base because the NYPD feared truck bombs. Its body isn’t special; it’s perfectly symmetrical and typical of modern design. When compared to the Twin Towers that were so distinctly unique—the tallest twin buildings in the world—the Freedom Tower seems unimaginative. And although it is the tallest skyscraper in North America, much of its height can be attributed to its spire. Instead of showing America’s resolve and strength post 9/11, it shows its fear of another attack.
Photo credit: Praneeth Thalla
It’s symbolic of post-9/11 America.
After 9/11, America, out of fear, passed the Patriot Act authorizing domestic surveillance of Americans. It was an act that violated the very fabric of America—the Constitution. America's Fourth Amendment protects Americans against unreasonable searches and seizures. Yet the Patriot Act allowed the US government to, without warrant, access American’s text messages, phone calls, location, emails, photos, search history, and much more. It was a civil liberty travesty, one that began out of fear of another attack. (Since then, the US has limited its domestic surveillance capabilities, but critics argue they haven’t gone far enough.)
America also, out of fear of another terrorist attack, began its program of “Enhanced Interrogation Techniques”—a euphemism for torture. After 9/11, CIA agents began to waterboard, sexually assault, humiliate, punch, and indefinitely hold detainees suspected of terrorism without due process. The government argued the Geneva Conventions did not apply to these people—since they were unlawful enemy combatants—causing America to descend into savagery.
The Abu Ghraib scandal was perhaps the most poignant example of this, with photos leaked showing guards sexually abusing prisoners, a prisoner being dragged on the floor with a leash, a prisoner covered with human excrement, guards smiling over dead prisoners, and the famous Hooded Man photo showing a man shocked by electric cables as he stands, hooded, on a box. Disturbingly, many of these people were later found to be innocent civilians caught up in the Iraq War and not terrorists. As America fought a war on the basis of liberating Iraq and giving the country freedom, it was simultaneously indefinitely holding and abusing people without due process. (Since then, America has stopped its Enhanced Interrogation Techniques Program.)
And more broadly, the foreign policy of the United States post 9/11 was a mistake caused by fear. The US wrongly invaded Iraq on the presumption that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. This was a lie. The US allowed itself to be fooled by forged documents—like the Niger Uranium document forgery that said Saddam Hussein bought uranium from Niger—or inaccurate testimony from Iraq defectors—like “Curveball” who claimed Iraq operated mobile WMD laboratories—instead of listening to the intelligence communities who were frequently disproving these lies. Whether or not President Bush truly knew the WMD rumor was a lie or not, the US made a huge mistake in its invasion of Iraq. The war destabilized the Middle East and killed hundreds of thousands of people. And the irrational, unsubstantiated fear of WMDs was a contributing factor.
So, is this freedom? It is not. It is fear. And this fear is what briefly led America to torture those around the world and violate the rights of Americans at home. It clouded the judgment of Presidents and intelligence agencies who were so consumed with fear of another attack they felt no limit in what they would do to prevent one.
This attitude is somewhat understandable. 9/11 was a terrible event and the United States should do everything in its power to stop terrorism. But, in hindsight, America’s approaches were not effective. Enhanced Interrogation Techniques were found to be less effective at garnering intelligence than classic, morale-based approaches. The Iraq war was a complete failure—there were no WMDs—and led to the death of hundreds of thousands of people. And there is still debate about the efficacy of domestic surveillance.
So, yes America must fight terrorism with all its might. But it also must not let its judgment be clouded by fear in this fight either. I’ll end this article with a quote. As Franklin D. Roosevelt once said, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”
*I’d like to quickly note that although I am critical of the decisions made by the US in this article, I can also understand them. Post 9/11 was a situation in which no President could succeed, and although I disagree with Bush’s decisions, I have tremendous respect for his leadership after the attacks. I wrote this article not to criticize but to make note of the power fear has to cloud people’s judgement, so people can be more mindful of it in the future. Finally, although I disagree with some design choices of the 1WTC, I still believe it is a fantastic building.
I’d like to thank the following authors for their books that helped me write this article:
Seymour Hersh (Chain of Command)
Lawrence Wright (The Looming Tower)
Mark Owen (No Easy Day)