Right Here Right Now, an alternative view

NEW YORK AND CHAOS

by Roland Watson
September 11, 2001
www.dictatorwatch.org

A cascade

Chaos theory demonstrates that one event can trigger a cascade of subsequent events, leading, ultimately, to the complete disruption of a system. Regarding the terrorist incidents in America, the following is one possible cascade.

- The leaders of the faith of Islam pronounce that those who martyr themselves in the service of the faith ascend directly to heaven and sit closest to God.

- Zionist communities begin to move to Palestine in the years prior to World War I. Palestine at this time is under the control of the Ottoman Empire, via Syria. England wins control of Palestine in World War I. In subsequent decades Zionist immigration continues on a massive scale, leading to Arab unrest.

- In the later decades of the first half of the 20th century, large deposits of oil are exploited in Arabia and Iran. This leads to the transfer of great wealth to the local populations and the subsequent rise of well-financed Islamic power.

- Following World War II, and a Zionist revolt, the British pull out and the Zionists take control of Palestine, which then becomes Israel.

- More than a million Palestinians are subsequently displaced, thrown out of their villages and off their land, and turned into refugees.

- Some five decades later, the Israeli Prime Minister is assassinated by an extremist Israeli man, just shy of the completion of an unprecedented peace agreement with the Palestinian Authority.

- Subsequently, Benjamin Netanyahu of the Likud Party is narrowly elected Prime Minister. He initiates a series of provocative steps towards the Palestinians, including a rapid expansion of Orthodox Jewish settlements throughout the West Bank, tunneling under an Islamic holy site from which the Prophet Mohammed reportedly ascended to heaven, etc.

- After an interim administration, Ariel Sharon, former Israeli Defense Minister, now on trial in Belgium for war crimes against the Palestinians while in that post, is narrowly elected Prime Minister. He embarks on an aggressive offensive against the Palestinians, leading to approximately 700 Palestinian deaths, and 200 Israeli deaths, so far.

- The United States Supreme Court rules for George Bush in the 2000 presidential election. The Bush administration assumes an isolationist stance and backs out of the Middle East peace process.

- Sharon, emboldened by the Bush administration passivity, increases his aggression.

- The U.S. does not, forcefully, speak out against this.

- Around the world a consensus develops that Israeli actions amount to state sponsored terrorism and ethnic cleansing. Discussion of this at the Racism Conference in South Africa leads Israel and the United States to withdraw from the conference.

- All Arab elements in the Middle East, even those which are moderate, conclude that the United States no longer has any pretensions of acting independently and promoting peace, that it fully supports Israel, and that it is therefore unequivocally and definitively the enemy of the Palestinians.

- Terrorists, Arab terrorists, attack the United States.

Extreme Islam

Extreme Islam considers America to be its primary enemy. While the avowed reason for this is our support of Israel, there are other, deeper factors at work:

- Islam is based on dictatorship. It is a dictatorial system that justifies the rule of the many by the few. Under Islam such oppression takes the worst forms: slavery, torture, the subjugation of women, and of other people with different faiths.

America, in principle, although regularly not in action, is pro-democracy.

- Islam, at least in practice, is based on violence. (Mullahs regularly call from their minarets for the violent overthrow of non-Muslim societies.) It motivates the most heinous, terrorist acts, acts unimaginable to reasonable people, using the supernatural fairy tale of martyrdom. Those who die in the service of holy war, the Islamic Jihad, immediately ascend to heaven and sit next to God (as if God, if such a being exists, would welcome the presence of such people). Indeed, if you kill a thousand, you get to sit closer than those who kill only a hundred, or ten.

America, although regularly itself a source of unethical violence, is the strongest power in the world. The proponents of Jihad have no answer to this strength other than petulance – the sacrifice of brainwashed individuals in terrorist acts.

The hatred of America

The people of the United States should recognize that many people around the world hate us. However, within this overall group there are a number of subgroups, with different reasons for their emotion.

Some people hate us (1) because they are unethical and we oppose them. One might think of the Chinese dictators and their desire to invade Taiwan, which without our presence they would undoubtedly do. However, other people hate us (2) because of our own unethical actions, or (3) because of our support for other unethical parties.

For the first group, we should not change our behavior. Instead, we should be stronger, far stronger, in our opposition to them.

For those parties in the second group, we should recognize that the path to self-delusion is much easier to follow than the one to self-knowledge. We should look at ourselves very carefully in the mirror. We should think of, and confront, all of the characteristics and values that we have but which we ignore or evade, both as a nation and as individuals.

And then, we should change. We must recognize that if so many people hate us, they cannot all be unethical or brainwashed. There are probably some good reasons for their views.

For example, turning to the third group, there is our support of other unethical individuals and institutions. We should cut this support, and convert it into the strongest form of opposition; i.e., we should add them to the first group.

The opportunities of chaos

There is no better way to honor the dead than to confront and defeat the parties that are responsible. As the above description shows, there is no easy answer to, or even understanding of, the terrorist acts in New York, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania. Furthermore, political and media commentary, and, subsequently, public opinion, will center on only the most superficial of appraisals and responses. But at any point in time, and certainly following a trauma of this magnitude, there is the possibility to dig deeper and go after the source.

We cannot focus solely on the symptoms, in this case hate, and a small group of suicidal terrorists who acted on it, or even on those who helped organize and sponsor their terrorism. We are going to have to go further, much further, than that.

Terrorism is a symptom, not the underlying problem. Symptoms can only be treated; it is the problems that must be solved. (And if they are not, the symptoms will recur.)

Religion

Because of the terrorism, the following commentary must be made. (Such ideas should have entered the public debate a long, long time ago.) All religions have a variety of goals; those that derive from their founders, and those that are added, including via “interpretations,