By Norman Solomon
But 25 years ago, the impulse to avenge the horrors of 9/11 was instant. Fear and rage blended into high octane for war machinery.
Three days after terrorists killed almost 3,000 people in the United States on September 11, 2001, President George W. Bush stood behind a pulpit at the Washington National Cathedral and spoke to a nation in shock. “Our responsibility to history is already clear,” he proclaimed, “to answer these attacks and rid the world of evil.” The vow was, of course, preposterous. Yet the “war on terror” that followed was scarcely more realistic.
“Terrorism is not an enemy. It cannot be defeated. It’s a tactic,” retired U.S. Army General William Odom told C-SPAN viewers in 2002. “It’s about as sensible to say we declare war on night attacks and expect we’re going to win that war. We’re not going to win the war on terrorism.” But the American military crusade became more about persisting than winning. The ultraviolent momentum became its own reason. The destructive search for enemies created more. As years went by and the “war on terror” label faded, U.S. warfare was so normal in so many places that it no longer needed a name or much of a rationale.
But 25 years ago, the impulse to avenge the horrors of 9/11 was instant. Fear and rage blended into high octane for war machinery. Suddenly, overwhelming public emotions were fully in sync with the psychology of a military-industrial complex set for large-scale killing.
None of the 19 hijackers were Afghan, and Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden’s ties were much tighter with Saudi Arabia, but his presence in Afghanistan put that country in the Pentagon’s gunsights. The question in U.S. media was not about whether, but when, to attack. The answer came on October 7 when American missiles began to explode in Afghanistan. Hours later, a Gallup poll found that “90 percent of Americans approve of the United States taking such military action, while just 5 percent are opposed, and another 5 percent are unsure.”
The air war remained quite popular in the United States. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld held daily live televised briefings that catapulted him to national adulation. A pattern set in, taking for granted that American warfare was beneficent in intent and benign in meaningful impact. People dying under American bombs and less directly didn’t count for much. “The targeting capabilities, and the care that goes into targeting, to see that the precise targets are struck, and that other targets are not struck, is as impressive as anything anyone could see,” Rumsfeld asserted. And he added, “The weapons that are being used today have a degree of precision that no one ever dreamt of.”
Rumsfeld’s style went over big. “Everyone is genuflecting before the Pentagon powerhouse,” exclaimed the Washington Post’s media reporter, Howard Kurtz, who called Rumsfeld “America’s new rock star.” That winter, after the Taliban government fell, the host of NBC’s Meet the Press program congratulated Rumsfeld on the air: “Sixty-nine years old and you’re America’s stud.”
The war in Iraq, launched with a March 2003 invasion, relied on massive air power and more than 150,000 U.S. ground troops. The Saddam Hussein dictatorship fell quickly, but the promised “cakewalk” turned into year after year of combat and slaughter. Mainstream U.S. media outlets were more than comfortable with above-it-all bombing that signified American air prowess. But the toll of American deaths and severe injuries gradually depleted enthusiasm as soldiers were called back for two, three or even more tours of duty. For many, the images of glory days turned into real-life nightmares.
President Bush could not accept defeat in Iraq, and later Barack Obama could not countenance defeat in Afghanistan. Early in his presidency, Obama – in deed and word – made the “war on terror” expressly bipartisan. Less than a year after he received the Nobel Peace Prize in late 2009, the American troop level in Afghanistan reached 100,000, triple the number when he had entered the White House. During a visit to Bagram Air Base near Kabul, Obama provided the service members with star-spangled oratory that could be heard as uplifting or perhaps macabre: “I’ve been humbled by your sacrifice in the solemn homecoming of flag-draped coffins at Dover, to the headstones in section 60 at Arlington, where the fallen from this war rest in peace alongside the fellow heroes of America’s story.”
In effect, even as the trauma of the terrible day eased for the general public, 9/11 continued to serve as a political license to kill without an expiration date. Through it all, the ongoing war effort that began in autumn 2001 had an implicit throughline in dominant media and politics: while American lives really matter, the victims of American firepower really don’t.
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