9-11 Bits & Pieces

11/09/06, Thomas Homer-Dixon, Pull up terrorism by the roots, (Source).
11/09/06, Doug Saunders, Where ground zero began, (Source).
10/11/06, Stuart Lyster, It is tough to be a rational liberal these days, (Source).
27/04/04, Thomas Homer-Dixon, Remarks On The Naming Of The Pierre Elliott Trudeau Centre, (Source).
02/10/01, Salman Rushdie, Fighting the Forces of Invisibility, (Source).
11/09/06, George Bush, President's Address to the Nation, (Source).


11/09/06, Thomas Homer-Dixon, Pull up terrorism by the roots, (Back).

FIVE YEARS AFTER THE REVERBERATIONS OF 9/11 - Considering the causes of terror is neither softheaded idealism nor the appeasement of evil, says conflict analyst Thomas Homer-Dixon.

Since 9/11, millions of words have poured from our popular media into our brains about the nature of al-Qaeda, about divisions and discord within the Islamic world, and even about the ingredients for liquid explosives. This torrent of information has enlightened us about terrorism in some ways, but in others it has left us as befuddled as ever. And nothing has confused us more than the question of whether it's worthwhile, or even morally justified, to talk about terrorism's "root" causes.

Are there deep economic, social, political, or psychological causes of terrorism -- things such as economic inequality, militant religious fundamentalism, or feelings of alienation and humiliation -- and, if so, should we discuss them, analyze them, and then try to address them through our domestic and foreign policies?

To many people -- including this paper's editorial board and several of its columnists -- any discussion of root causes is simply an exercise in making excuses for terrorism. It shifts blame from where it should reside -- squarely on the heads of the terrorist perpetrators themselves -- to other people or impersonal external forces. In particular, the claim that the West's foreign policy is the root cause of Islamic terrorism amounts to little more than blaming the victim. At its best, consideration of root causes is softheaded idealism. At its worst, it's appeasement of evil.

In the passion that marks the aftermath of a terrorist attack, such arguments are understandable. But that doesn't make them sensible. In fact, they're downright dangerous. They could deprive us of knowledge and insights that might be decisive in our long-term struggle with terrorism. None other than Hans Morgenthau, one of the architects of the conservative realist school of international relations scholarship, recognized the vital importance of a "respectful understanding" of one's adversaries. "The political actor," he wrote more than 50 years ago, "must put himself into the other man's shoes, look at the world and judge it as he does."

To argue against analysis and discussion of root causes is to argue for blind ignorance, and in our new world -- where small groups of people may soon be able to destroy entire cities with nuclear or biological devices -- blind ignorance could be costly indeed.

That being said, the issue of terrorism's causes is truly a minefield. I've followed scholarship and popular commentary on the topic for 20 years, collecting shelves of books and many thick files of clippings and articles. Taken as a whole, this literature covers just about every imaginable cause. Some of it is thoughtful and well-researched, but too much of it, alas, is little more than ideological posturing by commentators on the political right or left. And a surprising amount of it is handicapped by some very basic analytical mistakes.

Take, for instance, the common tendency to conflate moral and causal assessments of terrorism. Conservative commentators, especially, often say that terrorism's fundamental cause is nothing more than human wickedness or evilness. To argue anything else, they say, is to justify and legitimize atrocity. Yet, while it's satisfying and morally appropriate to condemn terrorist attacks as evil, such condemnation doesn't really tell us much about why they happen. To say that evil happens because people are evil is circular. And the effort to diagnose terrorism's underlying causes -- the roots of the evil, if you will -- doesn't imply moral approval of the terrorism.

When it comes to terrorism, we need to have two kinds of discussion within our democracies. One should be about the moral character of terrorism and its perpetrators -- and here it's entirely appropriate to use words such as "evil." The other should be about the social and psychological factors that contribute to terrorism. The two discussions, both vitally important and inevitably connected, are nevertheless distinct. We can condemn terrorism as a moral abomination at the same time we try to figure out why it happens, just as we do with criminal behaviour in our societies, such as murder and child abuse.

Another common mistake is to say that terrorism is caused by one thing -- such as poverty, Islamic radicalism, capitalism, rapid modernization, or cultural insecurity. We all have our favourite cause, and it's usually something that makes sense within our ideological worldview. Conservatives, for instance, will often emphasize deep-seated cultural factors as the cause -- such as a tendency, supposedly intrinsic to Islamic culture, towards radicalism and violence. Those on the left of the political spectrum, on the other hand, will often stress economic factors such as poverty and inequality.

Once we've identified our favourite single cause, we frequently set up opposing arguments as straw men. A popular strategy is to find a few cases where the opposing argument doesn't work and to assert that, therefore, it's always wrong. For instance, if we believe that the cause of terrorism is Islamic radicalism, while our opponent argues that it's poverty, we'll try to discredit our opponent's argument by pointing to cases -- such as 9/11 -- where the terrorists were relatively well off. Or we'll note that the vast majority of poor people aren't terrorists. Of course, our opponent can do the same kind of thing by pointing to cases where Islamic radicalism isn't a factor in terrorism, including Tamil suicide attacks in Sri Lanka.

Such mudslinging over the relative merits of single-cause explanations of terrorism is utterly pointless. It gets us nowhere, because complex social events are never caused by one thing. Any particular event -- whether a war, economic recession, treaty negotiation, or instance of terrorism -- is always the product of the combined influence of an incalculable number of factors. The influence of any one factor will depend on the specific constellation of other factors operating in that case. So sometimes poverty might be an important cause of terrorism, and sometimes not, depending on what else is going on.

Does this mean that every terrorist attack is different? Yes it does. Does it mean that we can't say anything in general about terrorism's root causes? No it doesn't. Careful research can identify common patterns of factors across cases -- factors that occur frequently enough that we can say with confidence that they're significant causes of the general phenomenon we call terrorism.

Since 9/11, scholars have carried out and published an enormous number of studies. They've run statistical analyses of reams of data on the characteristics of terrorists and their backgrounds, and they've interviewed thousands of terrorists and their friends, acquaintances, and family members.

From this research, a clearer picture of terrorism's underlying causes is beginning to emerge. This picture suggests that participants in terrorism tend to be men in their twenties or thirties who are ferociously angry because of powerful feelings of humiliation. The humiliation can have many sources, but it's likely to arise when relatively well-educated young men are deeply frustrated by a lack of political and economic opportunity and when, at the same time, they strongly identify with a group, society, or culture they perceive as oppressed or exploited. Extremist leaders then inflame and manipulate these feelings of humiliation, partly by defining the "enemy" -- the group or society that's responsible for all problems and that should be the target of attack.

So far this research hasn't had much influence on our public conversation about terrorism in Western societies. Instead, too many commentators seem mainly interested in scoring cheap ideological points. But if we don't prepare ourselves better to deal with terrorism, especially by understanding and doing what we can about its deep causes, we'll eventually pay a heavy price. It's very unlikely we'll defeat this menace through military force alone.

Thomas Homer-Dixon is director of the Trudeau Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Toronto. His book The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity, and the Renewal of Civilization will be published this fall.


11/09/06, Doug Saunders, Where ground zero began, (Back).

The Hamburg mosque where terrorists plotted 9/11 is still the site of planning for violent acts of martyrdom.

HAMBURG, GERMANY — On the quiet end of an uncharacteristically seedy Hamburg street lined with sex shops and prostitutes, you will find an empty green marble doorway between a body-building parlour and a Vietnamese grocery.

Here is the place where the history of our age began, where a small group of men assembled beneath the fluorescent strip lighting of its dull rooms and made a plan that would kill almost 3,000 people, provoke two major international wars and dramatically change the policies of the world's major powers.

There is no sign denoting the al-Quds Mosque. No plaque, nothing to indicate its infamy -- and little, beyond the trickle of bearded men through its doors, to denote that the mosque continues to preach its brand of ascetic, angry Islam five years after the attacks, and that it remains a source of grave concern to German authorities.

This place, which is generally acknowledged to have been the ideological launch pad for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and a generation of terrorists, remains unchanged, still secretive and menacing. A young, dour man in the office says brusquely that questions will not be answered. Most of the city's other mosques are colourfully decorated to serve the moderate and peaceful Turks who make up most of Hamburg's 75,000 Muslims, but this barren place offers outsiders little welcome.

Upstairs is the plain-looking prayer room where disenchanted young Arab immigrants have long visited from across Germany to hear imams describe the virtues of martyrdom. In 2001, an especially angry group of young men sat in the back of this room, part of a humourless group who were known to bully and belittle those who they deemed insufficiently devoted to the purification of the faith.

Beyond it are the smaller rooms where one of these men, a tense and peculiar university student named Mohamed Atta, assembled a group of men who were equally devoted to the spread of rigid Islamic law.

They would later be known as al-Qaeda's "Hamburg cell," and German and U.S. authorities would describe them as the masterminds and main executors of the Sept. 11 attacks. In these rooms, and in Mr. Atta's student apartment near Hamburg's technical university, they planned the details of the airborne suicide bombings.

Five years after several of this mosque's most devoted congregants crashed jetliners into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the people of Hamburg are still wrestling with the extremist threat in their midst, in part because Germany's postwar laws, designed to prevent another outbreak of state extremism and oppression of minorities, provided excellent cover for the terrorists. To the horror of its well-heeled residents, Hamburg is still Mr. Atta's town.

"This really disturbs people, especially the people at the university, who had prided themselves at having the most international students of any university in Germany and spent a lot of time helping out Mohamed Atta and his friends," says Cordula Meyer, a journalist with Hamburg-based Der Spiegel magazine who has spent years investigating the Hamburg cell.

Mr. Atta's decade-long stay in Hamburg hasn't just sown suspicion in residents, it has also transformed the world's understanding of terrorists. Before, it was expected that they would be impoverished and desperate people from the margins of society in war-torn countries. But Mr. Atta's group was a new breed: Members were middle-class, well-educated success stories from secular families, with few obvious political convictions, who blended comfortably into mainstream society. In the five years since, hundreds of such people from dozens of countries, including 17 men in Canada, have been charged with planning violent attacks.

To find these invisible threats, Western countries are adopting the sort of intrusive police and intelligence measures that can easily threaten the basic freedoms upon which those societies are built.

And nowhere is the dilemma more poignant or emotionally charged than in Hamburg, which has seen extremism (from the Nazis) and horror (from the Allied firebomb attacks), and is now realizing that postwar laws designed to prevent the return of tyranny may have fostered even more extremism.

At the centre, amazingly, remains the al-Quds Mosque. According to German intelligence officials and journalists who have gone undercover to investigate it, the mosque is still the site of planning for violent acts of martyrdom in the name of a pure Islamic state — in Iraq, Afghanistan and the West.

In August, British officials arrested 19 men in an alleged plot to bomb airliners headed for the United States. German and British officials say some of the plotters were in touch with German extremist figures linked to the al-Quds Mosque. Later in August, German police found unexploded bombs aboard trains, in bags belonging to a young Lebanese-born German university student who appears to have made his plans while staying at a rooming house connected to another mosque in Hamburg, with possible ties to al-Quds.

"The al-Quds Mosque is exceptional," says Heino Vahldieck, head of the state intelligence agency, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution. "It is the only one of its kind in Germany. There are other mosques, we know, that are congregation points for jihadists. But al-Quds is exceptional."

There are still an estimated 170 "violent" Islamic extremists living in Hamburg, according to Mr. Vahldieck's investigators. Most of these are Hamas or Hezbollah members who might be inclined to commit attacks in the Middle East. But several dozen are believed to be "domestic threats," capable of al-Qaeda style attacks. And other investigators say that for many of them, al-Quds remains their centre for worship and indoctrination.

Before 2001, German officials say they devoted almost no resources to Islamic terrorism, even though they were aware that al-Qaeda members were operating on their soil. Their annual intelligence reports devoted far more pages to the Church of Scientology than they did to al-Qaeda.

The terror network is now a priority, they say. But it is telling that al-Quds continues to operate much as it did before. Intelligence officials say this is equal parts necessity and convenience.

"Quite apart from the legal problems involved with closing such an institution, there is the uncertainty of success — you can close an institution, but you can't prohibit the beliefs of those who use it," Mr. Vahldieck said. "And it's convenient for us to know where such people are — it helps if we have something we can watch."

Germany has 34 police and intelligence agencies, divided into state and national jurisdictions, which by law have not been allowed to share information. Some investigators say the suspects in this summer's train-bombing attempts were well known to the intelligence agency in the province of Schleswig-Holstein, but the information couldn't be shared with national police.

Similarly, German law prevents the use of criminals or members of terror groups who are paid with cash or reduced sentences to testify against their colleagues. They bear too much resemblance to East German informant practices.

Last Monday, the German government passed a law allowing the agencies to communicate with one another in terror-fighting operations. But opposition MPs say they will challenge this law in court, since it seems to contravene Germany's postwar constitution.

"In Germany's recent history, we have had a political regime in which people of other religious convictions were deprived of all their rights and systematically decimated," said Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, a member of the opposition Free Democratic Party.

"The consequences of that can be read in our constitution ... it is very clear in its dispensation of justice, very clear when it comes to infringements on individual rights. This may seem incomprehensible to the Americans but it is a result of the Holocaust."

This rigid protection of human rights infuriates law-enforcement officials, who say that these laws have made Germany attractive to terrorists.

"The founders of modern Germany, of the postwar constitution — if they had taken this into consideration, they would have said for sure that democracy has to defend itself," said Klaus Jansen, a Hamburg native who runs the German police union and has lobbied for greater police powers. "They would have said, you must be tolerant to people who are tolerant, but you have to have the courage that, if the tolerance is used against you, not to be tolerant, to defend yourself."


10/11/06, Stuart Lyster, It is tough to be a rational liberal these days, (Back).

It is tough to be a rational liberal these days. In the run up to the fifth anniversary of the downing of the World Trade Center by Islamic jahidists, it's going to be even tougher. The coalition of liberals, "Scholars for 9-11 Truth" (Scholars), are making it all the more difficult.

It is particularly disorienting when one's own theological mentor, David Ray Griffin, is part of this group - himself the author of a 9-11 conspiracy book "The New Pearl Harbor". I thought we were smarter than this.

So, turning to theology, what is at stake is one's 'theology of evil'. Liberals have always had a problem with evil and I had assumed that process theologians like Griffin had the most faithful explanation of it. Turns out that liberals still try to explain evil away especially if it belongs to someone else: ie. Hitler had a bad upbringing, or we need only to "really understand" Hamas or Hezbollah, as a way of excusing bad behaviour. We sag too easily into relativism and "who are we to judge?" Some liberals do not think evil exists at all.

But the irrational theses of conspiracy goes far beyond even this.

.............So it is difficult to be a rational liberal. People all over the United States and Canada are steaming mad at President George Bush. As am I. Bush just this week admitted to the existence of CIA interrogation centres in foreign countries, clearly despicable by any civilized moral standard. The extra-judicial holding of "battlefield detainees" at Guantanamo Bay is no less than a war crime. But for some, the anger aimed at Bush and his neo-conservative friends blinds them to like atrocities done by groups like al Qaeda, the Taliban, or Hezbollah.

For irrational liberals, do these groups do "Bush-like evil? No. In fact, according to Scholars for 9-11 Truth, on Sept 11th they did not do anything. These groups are at worst only indirectly complicit in a conspiracy which points to American neo-conservatives if you squint hard enough.

It does not matter what Islamic extremists do. They are not actors in the world stage. Only American neo-cons are. The latter are to be resisted to the point of irrationally pinning the most undemonstratable atrocities onto them, despite the evidence.

That is how a current liberal theology of evil works, even amongst sophisticated people who otherwise write great Christian theology. This is how conspiracy theories work. Neo-cons are bad - Islamic jihadists are misunderstood because they are not of us, so we will not judge.

In Canada, federal NDP leader Jack Layton is taking this to ridiculous levels, if only for crass political reasons. Layton is taking advantage of a leadership vacuum in the federal Liberal party to critique Canada's war against the Taliban. Fine - wars badly need critiquing.

But he wants Canadian soldiers out of Afghanistan because, he says, we are following too closely the militaristic agenda of that perennial Canadian boogey-man - American neo-cons. Is there a theme here? One NDP riding association in B.C. recently implied that Canadian soldiers themselves are the real "terrorists" in this war.

So - why am I, a bona fide theological liberal and long time supporter of the NDP, feeling a little raw these days? Maybe it is because one of my own theological mentors is caught up in this irrational stuff.

In brief, both theological and political mentors are articulating an otherwise well placed critique of American neo-cons in most areas, but also caving into non-rational hatred of those same folks which makes them say very foolish things. Scholars for 9-11 Truth, including my own theological mentor, are suspending basic rules of rational rhetoric to argue things which simply go against the best, unbiased evidence available. These people are otherwise fine thinkers. But what does that matter - taking a swipe at George Bush is its own reward.

What are they saying? These Scholars claim that the World Trade Center was brought down by controled demolition, rather than from airliner-impact and fire damage. It does not matter than not a single, reputable, peer-reviewed structural engineer agrees with them. It does not matter that the American National Institute of Standards and Technology rejects their conspiracy - and concludes on cold technical grounds alone that the resulting fires were enough to make the buildings collapse.

Scholars claim that both towers fell at "free fall speed", characteristic of controlled demolition. It does not matter that film of the collapses clearly shows material outpacing the main parts of the buildings in the collapse - meaning, that the main part of the building was at less than free fall speed.

They claim that firefirghters heard an order "pull" on their walkie-talkies, just before World Trade Center 7 fell, some hours after the other two buildings. They say that "pull" is a demolition term, proving conspiracy. It does not matter that the man who said, "pull" has maintained ever since that he was ordering other firefighters to "pull" themselves from WTC7.

None of this matters. It must have been George Bush behind the 9-11 attacks, because we hate him so. They argue that WTC7 must have collapsed due to controled demolition, because, "no other modern skyscraper in the history of architecture has ever collapsed in that manner." This is true, but it also shows uncharacteristic lapses of logic on their part. It is also true that no other building has ever had an uncontroled, raging fire in its lower floors for six hours either - unless you count the firebombing of Dresden. No wonder WTC7 went down hours later. A lot of things happened for the 'first time' that day. Why does that point to conspiracy?

But when one is eager to blame American neo-cons for all this, why would one consult reputable, peer-reviewed structural engineers before going public?

They argue for a missle hitting the Pentagon - not an airliner. This despite witnesses who saw an airliner hit. This despite the fact that a fully loaded airliner when somewhere - just where did it go if it did not go into the Pentagon? Why is not a single family member of any of the passangers or crew not agreed with the Scholars? Have they all been bought? And if it was a missile, who trucked-in the airliner wreckage found at the scene?

There are many claims the Scholars make - each of which is more than adequately answered by experts in many fields and eyewitnesses. The whole illogical house of cards falls when one contemplates this claim of a massive conspiracy. One would only need a single, junior, ambitious Pulitzer-caliber reporter to crack the conspiracy, liberal or conservative. All it would take is one truly patriotic middle manager in the FBI, CIA, or NORAD to blow the whistle on a commander-in-chief who allegedly murdered Americans for political gain.

There are honourable-conservatives, even from a liberal point of view. Ask folksinger Bruce Cockburn. Can all neo-cons be bought? Are they all so evil?

Back in Canada, Mr. Layton is calling for negotiation with the Taliban in Afghanistan, in response to the escalating Canadian casualty rate in our Afghan war. This is so non-rational, it makes one wonder if he will send a gay NDP MP or a woman MP to lead the negotiations! Does Mr. Layton really believe that the Taliban are in a mood for peaceful diplomacy: or did I miss something five years ago, September 11th? (I forgot - it was Bush who did it. The Taliban are simply misunderstood.)

How could a liberal be against Bush-basing? It is because the real critique here is the theology of evil some irrational liberals are dispensing these days, even one's mentors. Apparently 'evil' falls naturally along political lines.

Conspiracy theories about 9-11 simply go against the evidence. Hatreds are driving discernment. Judging from some e-mails I have received after being vocal about this, this is also a heresy for a fellow liberal to admit. It puts one outside of the "club". One is a "sell-out to the neo-cons" if one tries to chart this third course.

And it gets worse. According to a recent CBC poll, more Canadians believe that the United States government itself is responsible for the destruction of the World Trade Center, than believe that al Qaeda did it alone. Scholars and Layton are connecting with some very powerful emotional forces lining up against America's neo-conservative agenda.

But there are still some rational liberals left. There are plenty of people who can find really real things to dislike about the American president and his ilk.

Fortunately, the efforts to debunk 9-11 conspiracies are all over the internet. Fortunately, most of the debunking is being done by other liberals fearful of being discredited along with those who imagine a massive conspiracy on 9-11 is even possible.

But it comes down to what one believes about evil. It is a theological question.

It is time for liberals to do what they do best. Think. Return rational thought to theology. Listen to structural engineers, especially when the question is, "Who is responsible for 9-11?". Further, have these engineers been subject to peer review?

Liberals find out what is really real about this world - not what we wish to be real.

If we are driven by our hatreds, we are no better than either the worst of the neo-conservatives we oppose, or the Islamic jihadists who are doing some really real evil in this world.

I thought we were better.

Stuart Lyster is a United Church clergy in White Rock, B.C.


27/04/04, Thomas Homer-Dixon, Remarks On The Naming Of The Pierre Elliott Trudeau Centre, (Back).

Thomas Homer-Dixon, April 27, 2004, Remarks On The Occasion Of The Naming Of The Pierre Elliott Trudeau Centre For Peace And Conflict Studies

Pierre Trudeau knew something about the devastation caused by war. As a young man in 1948, he traveled from London to see the convulsions of Eastern Europe in the wake of World War II. He saw the fighting that wracked the Middle East following the birth of Israel. He saw the madness of India's partition and the chaos in Shanghai as the nationalist armies retreated before Mao's onslaught. As he later wrote in his memoirs, "the route that I had chosen was strewn with obstacles created by armed conflicts of that time. It was incredible—everywhere I went seemed to be at war."

The things he saw during that trip stayed with him for the rest of his life. In the course of his long political career, foreign policy was rarely a centerpiece of his public policy. But his passionate concern about war and its effects, and more fundamentally about the relationship between injustice and violence, was a palpable and ever-present influence on his political action. From his scathing criticism in 1963 of Pearson's decision to allow nuclear warheads on U.S. Bomarc missiles to his peace initiative at the end of his career in 1983, Pierre Trudeau's cause was the cause of peace.

His vision of the just society and of the just world was utterly at odds with another view of world order that is being widely discussed—and increasingly accepted as appropriate and right—by today's opinion leaders, commentators, and public intellectuals. Many of these commentators argue that humankind is locked into a "clash of civilizations"—that the peoples of the world are so rooted in mutually unintelligible cultures, ethics, and cosmologies that the best we can do is agree on a sullen modus vivendi, while we prepare for battle along the frontiers where our civilizations meet.

Pierre Trudeau saw things differently. He understood that you can't produce concord among diverse peoples when they each insist on going their own way—when they don't talk to each other and, in the extreme, deny each other's humanity. He would recognize today’s assertion that we face a clash of civilizations as a prescription for global apartheid and as a counsel of despair. It's also a direct route to disaster, to multiplying anger among the world's diverse peoples and escalating violence that will know no end.

He understood intuitively that peace had to be grounded in justice, and that justice had to be grounded in values of fairness, equality, and respect. He practiced these principles in Canada, and he believed they could be generalized to the world. "[My] approach to international relations," he later wrote, "was really based on my approach to the Canadian community. I wanted to run Canada by applying the principles of justice and equality, and I wanted our foreign policy to reflect similar values."

Today, we need to articulate and promote these principles more than ever, because we are entering a century that could be the most dangerous in humankind's brief history—far more dangerous and far more decisive than the century we have just left. Beneath the surface of global affairs, pressures are building. These demographic, economic, technological, and environmental pressures are generating immense potential for mass violence. And at the same time as these pressures are building, we've created a world so tightly connected that local shocks cascade around the planet in the blink of an eye. We've also permitted the spread of technologies that enormously magnify the ability of violent people to destroy and kill. Soon it will be possible for small groups of people to destroy whole cities and humble entire nations, and this one fact by itself ensures that our future will be entirely different from our past.

In this perilous time, education has never been more important. Education ennobles the individual. It improves understanding across social and cultural boundaries, and in doing so it challenges the misguided rhetoric about the clash of civilizations. And, most importantly, it empowers collective action. In turbulent times like today’s, when we’ve come upon a moment in history where small events can decisively affect which path we follow into the future, education helps young people understand that by working together and by focusing their actions, they can literally change the world.

The Trudeau Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies educates young men and women to understand how and why conflict occurs, to know the best ways of preventing and resolving this conflict, and to have the tools to work together to change our world. There is no better country, no better city, and no better university in which to do this. The Centre’s 80 undergraduates are a living response to the idea that we are locked into a clash of civilizations: they hail, either directly or indirectly, from nearly 30 different countries and from an astonishing mix of religious, national, linguistic, and socioeconomic backgrounds. And in their talent, ambition, idealism, character, and courage, they represent precisely the human qualities that Pierre Trudeau taught us must be the foundation of the just society.


02/10/01, Salman Rushdie, Fighting the Forces of Invisibility, (Back).

NEW YORK -- In January 2000 I wrote in a newspaper column that "the defining struggle of the new age would be between Terrorism and Security," and fretted that to live by the security experts' worst-case scenarios might be to surrender too many of our liberties to the invisible shadow-warriors of the secret world. Democracy requires visibility, I argued, and in the struggle between security and freedom we must always err on the side of freedom. On Tuesday, Sept. 11, however, the worst-case scenario came true.

They broke our city. I'm among the newest of New Yorkers, but even people who have never set foot in Manhattan have felt its wounds deeply, because New York is the beating heart of the visible world, tough-talking, spirit-dazzling, Walt Whitman's "city of orgies, walks and joys," his "proud and passionate city -- mettlesome, mad, extravagant city!" To this bright capital of the visible, the forces of invisibility have dealt a dreadful blow. No need to say how dreadful; we all saw it, are all changed by it. Now we must ensure that the wound is not mortal, that the world of what is seen triumphs over what is cloaked, what is perceptible only through the effects of its awful deeds.

In making free societies safe -- safer -- from terrorism, our civil liberties will inevitably be compromised. But in return for freedom's partial erosion, we have a right to expect that our cities, water, planes and children really will be better protected than they have been. The West's response to the Sept. 11 attacks will be judged in large measure by whether people begin to feel safe once again in their homes, their workplaces, their daily lives. This is the confidence we have lost, and must regain.

Next: the question of the counterattack. Yes, we must send our shadow-warriors against theirs, and hope that ours prevail. But this secret war alone cannot bring victory. We will also need a public, political and diplomatic offensive whose aim must be the early resolution of some of the world's thorniest problems: above all the battle between Israel and the Palestinian people for space, dignity, recognition and survival. Better judgment will be required on all sides in future. No more Sudanese aspirin factories to be bombed, please. And now that wise American heads appear to have understood that it would be wrong to bomb the impoverished, oppressed Afghan people in retaliation for their tyrannous masters' misdeeds, they might apply that wisdom, retrospectively, to what was done to the impoverished, oppressed people of Iraq. It's time to stop making enemies and start making friends.

To say this is in no way to join in the savaging of America by sections of the left that has been among the most unpleasant consequences of the terrorists' attacks on the United States. "The problem with Americans is . . . " -- "What America needs to understand . . . " There has been a lot of sanctimonious moral relativism around lately, usually prefaced by such phrases as these. A country which has just suffered the most devastating terrorist attack in history, a country in a state of deep mourning and horrible grief, is being told, heartlessly, that it is to blame for its own citizens' deaths. ("Did we deserve this, sir?" a bewildered worker at "ground zero" asked a visiting British journalist recently. I find the grave courtesy of that "sir" quite astonishing.)

Let's be clear about why this bien-pensant anti-American onslaught is such appalling rubbish. Terrorism is the murder of the innocent; this time, it was mass murder. To excuse such an atrocity by blaming U.S. government policies is to deny the basic idea of all morality: that individuals are responsible for their actions. Furthermore, terrorism is not the pursuit of legitimate complaints by illegitimate means. The terrorist wraps himself in the world's grievances to cloak his true motives. Whatever the killers were trying to achieve, it seems improbable that building a better world was part of it.

The fundamentalist seeks to bring down a great deal more than buildings. Such people are against, to offer just a brief list, freedom of speech, a multi-party political system, universal adult suffrage, accountable government, Jews, homosexuals, women's rights, pluralism, secularism, short skirts, dancing, beardlessness, evolution theory, sex. These are tyrants, not Muslims. (Islam is tough on suicides, who are doomed to repeat their deaths through all eternity. However, there needs to be a thorough examination, by Muslims everywhere, of why it is that the faith they love breeds so many violent mutant strains. If the West needs to understand its Unabombers and McVeighs, Islam needs to face up to its bin Ladens.) United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan has said that we should now define ourselves not only by what we are for but by what we are against. I would reverse that proposition, because in the present instance what we are against is a no-brainer. Suicidist assassins ram wide-bodied aircraft into the World Trade Center and Pentagon and kill thousands of people: um, I'm against that. But what are we for? What will we risk our lives to defend? Can we unanimously concur that all the items in the above list -- yes, even the short skirts and dancing -- are worth dying for?

The fundamentalist believes that we believe in nothing. In his world-view, he has his absolute certainties, while we are sunk in sybaritic indulgences. To prove him wrong, we must first know that he is wrong. We must agree on what matters: kissing in public places, bacon sandwiches, disagreement, cutting-edge fashion, literature, generosity, water, a more equitable distribution of the world's resources, movies, music, freedom of thought, beauty, love. These will be our weapons. Not by making war but by the unafraid way we choose to live shall we defeat them.

How to defeat terrorism? Don't be terrorized. Don't let fear rule your life. Even if you are scared.

Salman Rushdie is a British novelist and essayist.


11/09/06, George Bush, President's Address to the Nation, (Back).

THE PRESIDENT: Good evening. Five years ago, this date -- September the 11th -- was seared into America's memory. Nineteen men attacked us with a barbarity unequaled in our history. They murdered people of all colors, creeds, and nationalities -- and made war upon the entire free world. Since that day, America and her allies have taken the offensive in a war unlike any we have fought before. Today, we are safer, but we are not yet safe. On this solemn night, I've asked for some of your time to discuss the nature of the threat still before us, what we are doing to protect our nation, and the building of a more hopeful Middle East that holds the key to peace for America and the world.

On 9/11, our nation saw the face of evil. Yet on that awful day, we also witnessed something distinctly American: ordinary citizens rising to the occasion, and responding with extraordinary acts of courage. We saw courage in office workers who were trapped on the high floors of burning skyscrapers -- and called home so that their last words to their families would be of comfort and love. We saw courage in passengers aboard Flight 93, who recited the 23rd Psalm -- and then charged the cockpit. And we saw courage in the Pentagon staff who made it out of the flames and smoke -- and ran back in to answer cries for help. On this day, we remember the innocent who lost their lives -- and we pay tribute to those who gave their lives so that others might live.

For many of our citizens, the wounds of that morning are still fresh. I've met firefighters and police officers who choke up at the memory of fallen comrades. I've stood with families gathered on a grassy field in Pennsylvania, who take bittersweet pride in loved ones who refused to be victims -- and gave America our first victory in the war on terror. I've sat beside young mothers with children who are now five years old -- and still long for the daddies who will never cradle them in their arms. Out of this suffering, we resolve to honor every man and woman lost. And we seek their lasting memorial in a safer and more hopeful world.

Since the horror of 9/11, we've learned a great deal about the enemy. We have learned that they are evil and kill without mercy -- but not without purpose. We have learned that they form a global network of extremists who are driven by a perverted vision of Islam -- a totalitarian ideology that hates freedom, rejects tolerance, and despises all dissent. And we have learned that their goal is to build a radical Islamic empire where women are prisoners in their homes, men are beaten for missing prayer meetings, and terrorists have a safe haven to plan and launch attacks on America and other civilized nations. The war against this enemy is more than a military conflict. It is the decisive ideological struggle of the 21st century, and the calling of our generation.

Our nation is being tested in a way that we have not been since the start of the Cold War. We saw what a handful of our enemies can do with box-cutters and plane tickets. We hear their threats to launch even more terrible attacks on our people. And we know that if they were able to get their hands on weapons of mass destruction, they would use them against us. We face an enemy determined to bring death and suffering into our homes. America did not ask for this war, and every American wishes it were over. So do I. But the war is not over -- and it will not be over until either we or the extremists emerge victorious. If we do not defeat these enemies now, we will leave our children to face a Middle East overrun by terrorist states and radical dictators armed with nuclear weapons. We are in a war that will set the course for this new century -- and determine the destiny of millions across the world.

For America, 9/11 was more than a tragedy -- it changed the way we look at the world. On September the 11th, we resolved that we would go on the offense against our enemies, and we would not distinguish between the terrorists and those who harbor or support them. So we helped drive the Taliban from power in Afghanistan. We put al Qaeda on the run, and killed or captured most of those who planned the 9/11 attacks, including the man believed to be the mastermind, Khalid Sheik Mohammed. He and other suspected terrorists have been questioned by the Central Intelligence Agency, and they provided valuable information that has helped stop attacks in America and across the world. Now these men have been transferred to Guantanamo Bay, so they can be held to account for their actions. Osama bin Laden and other terrorists are still in hiding. Our message to them is clear: No matter how long it takes, America will find you, and we will bring you to justice.

On September the 11th, we learned that America must confront threats before they reach our shores, whether those threats come from terrorist networks or terrorist states. I'm often asked why we're in Iraq when Saddam Hussein was not responsible for the 9/11 attacks. The answer is that the regime of Saddam Hussein was a clear threat. My administration, the Congress, and the United Nations saw the threat -- and after 9/11, Saddam's regime posed a risk that the world could not afford to take. The world is safer because Saddam Hussein is no longer in power. And now the challenge is to help the Iraqi people build a democracy that fulfills the dreams of the nearly 12 million Iraqis who came out to vote in free elections last December.

Al Qaeda and other extremists from across the world have come to Iraq to stop the rise of a free society in the heart of the Middle East. They have joined the remnants of Saddam's regime and other armed groups to foment sectarian violence and drive us out. Our enemies in Iraq are tough and they are committed -- but so are Iraqi and coalition forces. We're adapting to stay ahead of the enemy, and we are carrying out a clear plan to ensure that a democratic Iraq succeeds.

We're training Iraqi troops so they can defend their nation. We're helping Iraq's unity government grow in strength and serve its people. We will not leave until this work is done. Whatever mistakes have been made in Iraq, the worst mistake would be to think that if we pulled out, the terrorists would leave us alone. They will not leave us alone. They will follow us. The safety of America depends on the outcome of the battle in the streets of Baghdad. Osama bin Laden calls this fight "the Third World War" -- and he says that victory for the terrorists in Iraq will mean America's "defeat and disgrace forever." If we yield Iraq to men like bin Laden, our enemies will be emboldened; they will gain a new safe haven; they will use Iraq's resources to fuel their extremist movement. We will not allow this to happen. America will stay in the fight. Iraq will be a free nation, and a strong ally in the war on terror.

We can be confident that our coalition will succeed because the Iraqi people have been steadfast in the face of unspeakable violence. And we can be confident in victory because of the skill and resolve of America's Armed Forces. Every one of our troops is a volunteer, and since the attacks of September the 11th, more than 1.6 million Americans have stepped forward to put on our nation's uniform. In Iraq, Afghanistan, and other fronts in the war on terror, the men and women of our military are making great sacrifices to keep us safe. Some have suffered terrible injuries -- and nearly 3,000 have given their lives. America cherishes their memory. We pray for their families. And we will never back down from the work they have begun.

We also honor those who toil day and night to keep our homeland safe, and we are giving them the tools they need to protect our people. We've created the Department of Homeland Security. We have torn down the wall that kept law enforcement and intelligence from sharing information. We've tightened security at our airports and seaports and borders, and we've created new programs to monitor enemy bank records and phone calls. Thanks to the hard work of our law enforcement and intelligence professionals, we have broken up terrorist cells in our midst and saved American lives.

Five years after 9/11, our enemies have not succeeded in launching another attack on our soil, but they've not been idle. Al Qaeda and those inspired by its hateful ideology have carried out terrorist attacks in more than two dozen nations. And just last month, they were foiled in a plot to blow up passenger planes headed for the United States. They remain determined to attack America and kill our citizens -- and we are determined to stop them. We'll continue to give the men and women who protect us every resource and legal authority they need to do their jobs.

In the first days after the 9/11 attacks I promised to use every element of national power to fight the terrorists, wherever we find them. One of the strongest weapons in our arsenal is the power of freedom. The terrorists fear freedom as much as they do our firepower. They are thrown into panic at the sight of an old man pulling the election lever, girls enrolling in schools, or families worshiping God in their own traditions. They know that given a choice, people will choose freedom over their extremist ideology. So their answer is to deny people this choice by raging against the forces of freedom and moderation. This struggle has been called a clash of civilizations. In truth, it is a struggle for civilization. We are fighting to maintain the way of life enjoyed by free nations. And we're fighting for the possibility that good and decent people across the Middle East can raise up societies based on freedom and tolerance and personal dignity.

We are now in the early hours of this struggle between tyranny and freedom. Amid the violence, some question whether the people of the Middle East want their freedom, and whether the forces of moderation can prevail. For 60 years, these doubts guided our policies in the Middle East. And then, on a bright September morning, it became clear that the calm we saw in the Middle East was only a mirage. Years of pursuing stability to promote peace had left us with neither. So we changed our policies, and committed America's influence in the world to advancing freedom and democracy as the great alternatives to repression and radicalism.

With our help, the people of the Middle East are now stepping forward to claim their freedom. From Kabul to Baghdad to Beirut, there are brave men and women risking their lives each day for the same freedoms that we enjoy. And they have one question for us: Do we have the confidence to do in the Middle East what our fathers and grandfathers accomplished in Europe and Asia? By standing with democratic leaders and reformers, by giving voice to the hopes of decent men and women, we're offering a path away from radicalism. And we are enlisting the most powerful force for peace and moderation in the Middle East: the desire of millions to be free.

Across the broader Middle East, the extremists are fighting to prevent such a future. Yet America has confronted evil before, and we have defeated it -- sometimes at the cost of thousands of good men in a single battle. When Franklin Roosevelt vowed to defeat two enemies across two oceans, he could not have foreseen D-Day and Iwo Jima -- but he would not have been surprised at the outcome. When Harry Truman promised American support for free peoples resisting Soviet aggression, he could not have foreseen the rise of the Berlin Wall -- but he would not have been surprised to see it brought down. Throughout our history, America has seen liberty challenged, and every time, we have seen liberty triumph with sacrifice and determination.

At the start of this young century, America looks to the day when the people of the Middle East leave the desert of despotism for the fertile gardens of liberty, and resume their rightful place in a world of peace and prosperity. We look to the day when the nations of that region recognize their greatest resource is not the oil in the ground, but the talent and creativity of their people. We look to the day when moms and dads throughout the Middle East see a future of hope and opportunity for their children. And when that good day comes, the clouds of war will part, the appeal of radicalism will decline, and we will leave our children with a better and safer world.

On this solemn anniversary, we rededicate ourselves to this cause. Our nation has endured trials, and we face a difficult road ahead. Winning this war will require the determined efforts of a unified country, and we must put aside our differences and work together to meet the test that history has given us. We will defeat our enemies. We will protect our people. And we will lead the 21st century into a shining age of human liberty.

Earlier this year, I traveled to the United States Military Academy. I was there to deliver the commencement address to the first class to arrive at West Point after the attacks of September the 11th. That day I met a proud mom named RoseEllen Dowdell. She was there to watch her son, Patrick, accept his commission in the finest Army the world has ever known. A few weeks earlier, RoseEllen had watched her other son, James, graduate from the Fire Academy in New York City. On both these days, her thoughts turned to someone who was not there to share the moment: her husband, Kevin Dowdell. Kevin was one of the 343 firefighters who rushed to the burning towers of the World Trade Center on September the 11th -- and never came home. His sons lost their father that day, but not the passion for service he instilled in them. Here is what RoseEllen says about her boys: "As a mother, I cross my fingers and pray all the time for their safety -- but as worried as I am, I'm also proud, and I know their dad would be, too."

Our nation is blessed to have young Americans like these -- and we will need them. Dangerous enemies have declared their intention to destroy our way of life. They're not the first to try, and their fate will be the same as those who tried before. Nine-Eleven showed us why. The attacks were meant to bring us to our knees, and they did, but not in the way the terrorists intended. Americans united in prayer, came to the aid of neighbors in need, and resolved that our enemies would not have the last word. The spirit of our people is the source of America's strength. And we go forward with trust in that spirit, confidence in our purpose, and faith in a loving God who made us to be free.

Thank you, and may God bless you.


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