There comes a time when an overwhelming feeling of outrage and grief leaves us speechless. The wanton and cowardly act of violence against our country and the free world have left us stunned and has changed us all in ways we cannot understand or comprehend.
The meticulously planned and masterly executed attack against the US has no historic reference point or precedence. The Pearl Harbor and Oklahoma City bombing pale by comparison. Long after the rescue and clean up, the image of two commercial planes plowing into the World Trade Center twin towers would remain seared in our consciousness forever.
While it is early to point an accusing finger in any one direction it is not hard to realize that this was not the work of a few lunatics avenging their real or perceived grievances against the United States. There are very few organizations capable of pulling off an act of such mammoth proportions. The prime suspect has to be the Saudi fugitive Osama bin Laden. He has money, controls an elaborate international network of terrorists and has the loyalty of committed followers. His past behavior and his often-repeated threats against the US leave little room for doubt. He has proven his ability to carry out some spectacular attacks in the past. His fingerprints were clearly visible on Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia in 1996, the US embassy bombings in Tanzania and Kenya in 1998 and the bombing of USS Cole in the port of Aden in 2000.
Osama bin Laden lives in Kandahar region in southern Afghanistan under the protection of the Taleban. The Taleban consider him an honored guest and feel indebted to him for his services to their country during the struggle against the former Soviet Union. But caught in a time warp the Taleban are totally oblivious or willfully ignorant of the workings of their guest. During my visit to Afghanistan nine months ago I had lengthy discussions with the Taleban leadership about a host of subjects including Osama Bin Laden. They categorically denied his involvement in any of the terrorist attacks against the US interests. For years the Taleban have been demanding a conclusive proof of Bin Laden’s complicity in such acts. According to Pakistani government sources, Pakistan’s interior minister General Moin Haider gave the evidence provided by the US to Mulla Omer, the Taleban head of the state, during a personal visit to Kandahar last year. The Taleban rejected the evidence out of hand. Living in an illusionary world of their own making they just cannot comprehend the world beyond their own borders.
It is time the Taleban face the reality and abandon their grandiose ideas of molding the world in their own image. For the sake of their own suffering masses, if not for any other reason, they must pull the welcome mat from under their ‘honored’ guest and hand him over to the international community.
Pakistan has promised to help the US in its efforts to get to Bin Laden. That would certainly involve the use of Pakistani soil or Pakistani air space to launch an attack against Afghanistan. There may be a rare opportunity in all this for Pakistan to mount a clean up operation and curb the rising tide of militant Taleban style movement within its borders. This could start with disarming the heavily armed religious parties and common citizens. The Taleban were successful in disarming their heavily armed population within a short period of time. Pakistan can do that too.
In the past few days the word Islamic has been used rather frequently in conjunction with terrorism or terrorists groups. Islam has nothing to do with acts of violence by some of its followers just as Christianity has nothing to do with the communal violence in Northern Ireland. A great majority of one billion Muslims in the world have been as shocked and repulsed by these events just as others in the world. Leading Muslim organizations in the US and abroad have, in unequivocal terms, condemned this terrorist act.
At times like these an expression of outrage by the citizens is natural but directing this rage towards one particular segment of the society is not. While some people want to lash out at anyone who even remotely resembles the terrorists either by ethnicity or religion, it is a misplaced blame.
When the terrorists hit the World Trade Center, they were hitting at a prominent symbol of America. In that symbol on September 11, there was a cross section of American people. There were in access of fifty thousand Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, whites, blacks and Asians in that place. They all took the hit and many of them lost their lives. When a hole is blown through the fabric of a pleural society, it damages all segments. It was therefore fitting to include a Muslim imam in the prayer service in the National Cathedral in the nation’s capital the other day. It was a beautiful example of unity of faiths in times of crises.
In due course the lower Manhattan will be rebuilt, as will be the destroyed wing of the Pentagon. And in time the gaping hole in the psyche of the nation will also mend. We will look back and remember the day when terrorists struck a terrible blow to America and all Americans, irrespective of their color or belief, stood together in solidarity as one people. God bless America.
Dr. S. Amjad Hussain is a columnist on the op-ed pages of the daily Toledo Blade and a professor of surgery at the Medical College of Ohio. e-mail: aghaji@buckeye-express.com