NINE days after 9/11, in an address to the US Congress, George W. Bush declared, “Americans are asking, why do they hate us?” He went on to answer the question: “They hate our freedoms — our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other.”
Were that indeed the case, it could be argued that the terrorists who toppled the twin towers in 2001 were headed for success. The freedoms that Bush boasted about have substantially been curtailed since 2001 — his administration’s Patriot Act and Homeland Security overkill launched the process. The Trump era has merely served as a natural progression on both the domestic and global fronts.
The likely aftermath of the Sept 11 terrorist attacks was evident almost from the outset. Hardly anyone anywhere would have blinked at US police action against the presumed Al Qaeda perpetrators, primarily based at the time in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. The decision, instead, to invade the host nation could be seen even in the heat of that vengeful moment as a potential disaster. It took 20 years for the scale of that folly to become clear.
A more consequential blunder followed in March 2003. The invasion of Iraq was preceded by the largest antiwar mobilisations in the US since the Vietnam War and even bigger protest rallies across Western Europe. Some 70 per cent of Americans at the time appeared to have accepted the neoliberal lie that Saddam Hussein was responsible for 9/11 — a reminder that fake news is not a novel phenomenon.
A xenophobic America has outlived its utility.
Even back in the day, a particular clique looked upon Syria and Iran as the next beneficiaries of American munificence following the favour extended to Iraq. Within weeks of targeting Baghdad, with a ‘Mission Accomplished’ banner behind him, Bush proclaimed that major operations were over. Untold horrors lay ahead. It’s worth noting that the Bush pronouncement was made aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, the rusting aircraft carrier that has belatedly limped into the harbour at Pattaya to allow its overwrought sailors ‘rest and recreation’ in one of Thailand’s most notorious red-light resorts.
The patterns of US behaviour since 9/11 are familiar, but an overdose of vengeful Viagra has propelled particularly dire consequences for the region stretching from Central, South and West Asia to North Africa and beyond. Afghanistan was eventually handed back to a new generation of the Taliban after 20 years of a fruitless crusade, which was preceded by a decade-long effort to empower their antecedents among the mujahideen with the aid of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia in particular. The regional contributions included Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri. The blowback is still playing out in northern Pakistan.
Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Libya are broken states. Lebanon, Somalia and Niger could be added to the tally. Sudan is a different story, but it’s part of the pattern of regional carnage. One immediate consequence of the ‘global war on terror’ unleashed by America was Israeli tanks rolling into Jericho and Jenin. Ariel Sharon’s mindset was reflected in Russia by Vladimir Putin revving up his intervention in Chechnya. But perhaps the most predictable result of American idiocy was the vast expansion of terrorist networks such as Islamic State, whose outreach extended across Europe.
When future generations reflect on the early 21st century, though, what might stand out is how rapidly the US empire dug its own grave. Much of the process will be related to domestic concerns. America’s self-image as a beacon on the hill of freedom and democracy was always nonsense, but the plutocratic kakistocracy that has emerged since Donald descended a golden elevator in New York’s Trump Tower in 2015 has few precedents.
It’s unlikely that this moment and all that followed would have come to pass without the empire’s reaction to the challenge posed by what Zbigniew Brzezinski described as “some agitated Muslims”. He clearly had no idea of what might follow, not least for the US itself. America’s drift towards authoritarianism tinged with fascism can be traced back to the Carter and Reagan administrations in the 1980s; however, the Clinton and Obama regimes that followed were also complicit in propelling their nation towards a hostile takeover by the Trump brigade.
A xenophobic America that looks upon decent dissent as a form of terrorism has outlived its utility. The stupidity of its response to the dastardly 9/11 terrorism exposed the absurdity of the nation that had emerged in 1991 as the sole superpower but lacked the sense to dwell peaceably in a world without formidable foes. It felt obliged to find new enemies as a raison d’être and plunged into a process that propelled its doom. The advent of Trump might be remembered as the cherry on the cake in an inexorable saga of self-destruction.
Published in Dawn, September 9th, 2026
