View Point                                                                         Abid Ullah Jan

The Real Culprits behind 9/11?

In all discussion of 9-11 and Iraq war, much attention is given to the 2,902 American victims, lies of the Bush and Blair administrations, and demands for their removal from power. Absent from the discourse are victims of the US wars on Afghanistan and Iraq, the millions still suffering under its direct occupations, and, more importantly, the inquiry into finding the real culprits of 9/11.

As we see today, the Bush Administration is creating major roadblock to independent investigation by 9/11 Commission.(1) On the other hand, relatives of the 2,902 American victims are suing Iraq and Saddam Hussein for their alleged role in the attacks on the US.(2) Unmoved by the lengthening list of lies by the Bush and Blair administrations, 1,400 plaintiffs have focused their eyes on a total of more than $1,000bn from Saddam, Osama and the former Taliban rulers in Afghanistan.

Those who are convinced of the crimes committed by Bush and Blair demand their removal. However, would their removal give us the overdue evidence for justifying their illegal wars? Is removal alone a solution to the problems the world is facing today? Would continued US occupations and distribution of all Iraqi wealth among relative of 2,902 American victims erase what caused 9/11 in the first place? If we do not have a positive response to any of these questions, we need to focus our energies on just two aspects for yielding positive results.

The two aspects are, a serious and impartial inquiry into exposing the real culprits behind 9/11 incident and considering plight of the victims of US aggression in Iraq and Afghanistan. Relatives of the victims of 9/11 in the US are alone enough to work as a pressure group and help dig out the truth about 9/11. They can understand the pain of more than 30,000 civilian. They only need to shift their focus from billions of dollars in compensation to finding out the truth and punishing the real killers of their loved ones.
Let us take the victims' aspect first. We know that the relatives of 30,000 victims of the US aggression in Afghanistan and Iraq are facing a situation worse than what the Palestinians face in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. To the contrary, the Red Cross has spent approximately $590 million to benefit relatives of 2,902 victims of 9/11 in the US. As of July 26, 2002, it issued 8,553 checks to 3,396 beneficiaries, an average of $53,556 per beneficiary in the families of deceased and seriously injured. RC gave $276 millions to displaced workers, about $126.6 million to victims in the form of mental healthcare and $95 million to the relative of the 9/11 as an immediate disaster relief. IRS has given tax relief on top of the government's Tragedy Assistance Programme, Disaster Unemployment Assistance and other state victims' compensation procedures.
We may judge plight of the victims of US counter attack - if we assume that 9/11 was an act by outside party alone - from the fact that even their neighbours are not at peace from the US continued aggression. Depicted by the Pentagon as a mere border skirmish, "mistaken intelligence" once more led US forces to penetrate more than 25 miles into Syria and kill 80 persons on June 18.(3) Moreover, the miserable conditions faced by Iraqis and Afghans under US domination are no secret at all.

As far finding the real culprits behind 9/11, we need to find out, for example, why Senator Charles Schumer recently accused the Bush administration of intentionally impeding the probe into 9/11. The victims need to know why the government is willing to give them millions upon millions, but refuse to boost the 9/11 commission budget by just $11 million.(4) Until we punish the real culprits, the world might be "indisputably safer with the overthrow" of Saddam for detractors like William Safire, but not for Muslims from Indonesia to Morocco.(5)

The media is vocal about the US lies regarding Iraqi WMD. However, there is a complete silence over the secret evidence the US used to justify war on Afghanistan. Imagine validity of evidence that the US could not produce for waging a war on Afghanistan from the fact that the evidence it revealed in the case of Iraq was nothing more than lies upon lies. Two thirds of British voters feel Blair has misled them over the case for launching a war in Iraq. (6) Similar is the situation in the US. However, this attitude is not sufficient.

Both victims and non-victims of 9/11 and subsequent US aggression need to keep in mind that there are very powerful distracters, who are trying to shift public opinion and focus away from the real issue. Deputy Defence Secretary, Paul Wolfowitz, says, finding the Iraqi WMD is now a secondary issue.(7) Thomas Friedman believes that the Bush team had "phony reasons for going to war," but defending it should not distract them "from fulfilling the real and valid reason for the war: to install a decent, tolerant, pluralistic, multireligious government in Iraq."(8)

The question is, who has authorised them to do so? Alternatively, if installing a new regime was a valid reason, what was the need to make up so many lies? If they could lie for going to war in Iraq, how could we believe they did not cheat the world for going to war in Afghanistan?

From the pre-Iraq war reports of American public suing Bush to the post Iraq war calls for his impeachment,(9) we must not forget that removing Bush and Blair or compensating American victims of 9/11 beyond their expectations is not the solution. For the solution, the architects of the two wars must be tried together with the architects of 9/11. Furthermore, occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq must end before their trials at a suitable war crimes tribunal. Countries other than U.S. and its small band of Allies may then support these countries re-establish themselves.

With thousands of people killed, two countries directly occupied and others threatened with occupation, the world cannot afford brushing aside too many questions and countless facts under the rug by labelling everything that implicate someone other than Muslims as conspiracy theories. We need to know the culprits behind 9/11 and their real motives.

In the weeks immediately following 9/11 there was a genuine interest in understanding: who and why? Why so many are prepared to kill themselves or to be recruited by others with an interest in attacking US targets? Irrelevant questions, such as how did it happen, how many were there and how many are there left to capture and kill, have replaced the real issue.
To ask "who and why" is to lay oneself open to accusations of having sympathies with "terrorists," lacking the moral courage to blame Muslim extremists and to deal them with force and aggression. This attitude not only plays into the hands of the democratic extremists but, by downplaying the importance of genuine causes, risks encouraging tactics that are counterproductive.

Notes:
1) Frederick Sweet, "Withholding funding and documentation, the Bush Administration is the major roadblock for the 9-11 Commission. Why?" Intervention Magazine, http://www.aacaw.org/20030716news.htm and http://www.interventionmag.com/cms/modules.php
?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=447
2) Report "11 September victims sue Iraq" BBC Wednesday, 4 September, 2002, 23:36 GMT 00:36 UK
3) Sale, Richard. "U.S. Syria raid killed 80," UPI Intelligence Correspondent, Washington Times, July 17, 2003.
4) Time magazine, March 2002.
5) Safire, William. "Saddam's Guerrillas," The New York Times, 21 July 2003.
6) ICM Research poll, reported by AFP, July 14, 2003.
7) Burns, Robert. "Deputy Defence secretary says weapons issue is now secondary in Iraq," Associated Press, July 22, 2003.
8) Friedman Thomas L. "Winning the Real War," The New York Times, July 16, 2003
9) Frost, Greg. "Soldiers, Lawmakers Sue Bush to Block Iraq War" Reuters, February 13, 2003. Also, see: Margolis, Eric. "Bush deserves to be impeached," Toronto Sun, July 20, 2003