Where were you when you saw this image of unimaginable terror?
I remember watching the unfolding of these tragic sequence of events, thousands of miles away from what would be later known as Ground Zero, in the relative safety of my parent's home in Taman Soga, Batu Pahat. I remember the tears running down my face as I saw the smoke spewing from the buildings.
I was barely out of my teens then, and such an introduction to world politics and terrorism left me cold and sad. One could barely imagine the confusion and fear of those who perished in the attack, and those who suffered the consequences thereafter.
The events of 9/11, in some ways, changed the world permanently, while in other ways, further cemented the deep seated chasms between countries, religions, politics. The invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, the fall of the Taliban government, the hunt for Al Qaeda operatives and leaders, and the continuation of terrorist bombings such as in the London Underground and in the Madrid train systems all was to an extent influenced by the 9/11 attack. The Middle East Palestinian-Israel unrest have seen a certain measure of improvement in the peace process up till the fateful day. The so-perceived idealogical war between Islam and the Western continents was further exacerbated and terms like Islamaphobia and Infidels were thrust into everyday lingo.
Although Al-Qaeda have claimed responsibility (or some may say, take credit for) the attach, some have theorised that the attack was a conspiracy by the United States of America as an excuse to invade oil-rich countries or as a means for the Bush administration to gain political leverage in their re-election bid.
I choose not to focus on alternative theories, or whether or not there were gaps in the subsequent official investigation of the 9/11 attack issued by the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States.
Instead, the one thing that refuses to fade away as memories often do, are the stories of human bravery and sad final goodbyes that slowly emerge after the attack.
Stories of how one of the victims who were working in the building made one final call to his mother, amidst all the smoke and confusion, and reassuring her that he is on his way out of the building, only to have the conversation cut short by reasons no one will ever know, or how the crew and passengers of the plane that crash landed in an open field in Pennsylvania tried to retake control of the plane from the hijackers, stuck with me throughout the decade that passed since 9/11.
The reason why I am writing this, is I just read President Obama of the USA have announced the death of Osama Bin Laden after a covert US Navy Seal operation in one of the suburbs of Islamabad, Pakistan.
Honestly, I have mix feelings about the death of someone who may just top Adolf Hitler as one of the few human beings who have changed the course of mankind by despicable acts of mass murder and terrorism. To be precise, I am not entirely sure as to why there was not effort to capture him alive and to try him in either a US court, or the International Court of Justice. Maybe there were attempts to not harm him in the extraction operation, or maybe the US government have learned their lesson from the charade that is the Saddam Hussein trial and his subsequent execution.
It would be foolhardy to think that with the death of Osama Bin Laden, we will finally be closer to world peace. Even as I write now, there are reports that various bases of American operations have increased their security levels in anticipation of possible retaliation from Al-Qaeda.
The least that I can hope for is that with his death, it may bring some closure to the families of the victims of the 9/11 attack.
Sharing this world of ours not only among human beings, but also with mother nature and her various animal inhabitants have proven to not be easy. Natural disasters such as the Japanese, New Zealand,Haiti and China earthquakes, the 2004 South Asian boxing day tsunami kills hundreds of thousands of people and causes devastation that takes decades to repair and rebuild. Avoidable man made conflicts such as the ongoing civil war in Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan and the unceasing fight between Israel and Palestine only adds to this toll on innocent human lives.
I pondered recently, if all the money, time and effort in the past 100 years that goes towards designing and manufacturing arms and weapons of mass destruction were instead channeled towards funding research in medicine and illness treatments, would we have cured cancer by now? Some of my friends weren't as hopeful as I am, and in our current global climate which favors killing each other in more and more methods and ways, and legitimising genocide by either executing genocide or turning a blind eye towards such atrocity, who can blame them for losing faith?
For an update on the death of Osama Bin Laden, please go to the following link
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