by Rick Gee

"Yesterday, September 11, 2001 - a date which will live in infamy - the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by terrorists."

Despite the quotation marks, nobody actually said this. It is, however, a paraphrase of FDR's famous opening line in his address to Congress on December 8, 1941, the day following the attack on Pearl Harbor.

In the immediate aftermath of Tuesday's horrific strike on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Senator Chuck Hagel (R - Nebraska) and others described the attacks as the second Pearl Harbor. While striking similarities between the two events do exist, they are much different than Senator Hagel and his cohorts would have you believe. The real connection is provocation on the part of the United States government.

As Robert B. Stinnett explains in Day of Deceit The Truth About FDR and Pearl Harbor, the U.S. government had an eight-point plan designed to provoke the Japanese attack, knew it was coming and did nothing to stop it. On the contrary, FDR wanted the attack to occur because he believed it was the only way to rally the American people (polls showed over 80% opposed U.S. involvement) behind U.S. intervention in World War II.

Though I will not argue that the current administration knew this attack was imminent, the actions of government in the past cannot be dismissed as provocation. The imperial state, with its military occupation and involvement in over 100 countries around the globe, has acquired countless enemies that view America with a great seething hostility. Looking at it objectively, who can really blame those who harbor hatred for the United States for feeling that way?

The other theme being expressed by our elected officials in Washington is that this is an act of war. Senator John McCain (R - Arizona), who was an ardent advocate for a ground war in Kosovo, described it as such and is chomping at the bit for a retaliatory strike. I don't recall similar outrage when we bombed an aspirin factory in Sudan, or when an obsolete map was blamed for the bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade. When the government of the United States bombs innocent civilians, it is always portrayed as an act of self-defense or defending vital American interests. Collateral damage is considered inevitable and acceptable. When others who oppose our imperialism, however, strike back, it is an act of war for which swift and sure reprisal is promised.

Politicians from both parties are most assuredly anxious to use this tragedy as a pretext for further foreign intervention and the curtailment of personal liberty at home. Additional counterterrorism mechanisms that will chip away at our freedoms will be forthcoming, just as they were following Oklahoma City. And yet, those measures did nothing to prevent Tuesday's events.

This catastrophe is also another example of the illusion of the government as our protector. The FAA was unable to prevent four commercial airliners from being simultaneously hijacked, which is no different from the failure of other federal oversight agencies to protect the citizenry. The FDA inspects and approves beef and poultry, yet people routinely become ill or die from contaminated meat. Certain prescription drugs also kill, despite FDA approval. Six thousand workers die on the job each year, the existence of OSHA notwithstanding. The nanny state will use this incident as an excuse to implement further protections, which will not make us safer, but rather will result in less freedom and more surveillance by Big Brother.

Who is responsible for this calamity? On Tuesday, we were told that U.S. officials were over 90% sure that Osama bin Laden is accountable for yesterday's events. On Wednesday, the press continued to focus on bin Laden as the only one with the resources to carry out such an attack. Perhaps he is indeed culpable. But remember, similar pronouncements were made in the immediate aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. Just as they were then, such assessments now are premature and irresponsible. The truth is that it is far too early to know just who are the culprits in this horrendous act of violence.

We may not know who is directly responsible, but we cannot escape the fact that our own government is indirectly responsible by virtue of its never-ending hunger to impose its will around the world. As long as the empire insists on playing world policeman, those who are repressed will continue to fight back.

How can we assure that a similar attack will not occur in the future? While the answer may seem complex, it is actually quite simple. Bring home our troops from around the globe and establish free trade with all nations. Isn't it obvious that those who now consider us their enemy would feel differently if we left them alone and the mutual benefits of free trade accrued? The only way to reverse the odium of those who would perpetrate such horrors against us is to end our own antagonism.

September 12, 2001

Rick Gee [send him mail] resides in paradise, also known as Santa Fe, New Mexico.  He writes about liberty, sports, film and other topics for The Valley News.  In addition to being a Root Striker, he is a columnist at anti-state.com and a commentator at LewRockwell.com.  

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