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The Roots of Terrorism
Reflections on September 11, One Year Later

September 5, 2002

As we approach the one-year anniversary of the terrorist attacks of September 11, it has become painfully evident that the Bush Administration is either incapable or unwilling to understand the political, economic, and technological roots of the new international terrorism. Sadly, the issues discussed in my article, "Trying to Understand: A Systemic Analysis of International Terrorism," posted on my website almost a year ago, are still as relevant now as they were then.

In a recent op-ed piece in the New York Times, Zbigniew Brzezinski, national security adviser in the Carter administration, eloquently reiterates many of the key points made by the political analysts and grassroots activists cited in my original article. I have copied some excerpts from Brzezinski’s op-ed piece below.

Another very inspiring reflection on this issue is the editorial "The Great Denial" by Michael Lerner in the September/October 2002 issue of Tikkun (see www.tikkun.org).

"Confronting Anti-American Grievances"
By Zbigniew Brzezinski
The New York Times, September 1, 2002

Nearly a year after the start of America's war on terrorism, that war faces the real risk of being hijacked by foreign governments with repressive agendas. Instead of leading a democratic coalition, the United States faces the risk of dangerous isolation.… Missing from much of the public debate is discussion of the simple fact that lurking behind every terroristic act is a specific political antecedent. That does not justify either the perpetrator or his political cause. Nonetheless, the fact is that almost all terrorist activity originates from some political conflict and is sustained by it as well.…

In the case of Sept. 11, it does not require deep analysis to note — given the identity of the perpetrators — that the Middle East's political history has something to do with the hatred of Middle Eastern terrorists for America.… American involvement in the Middle East is clearly the main impulse of the hatred that has been directed at America. … Yet there has been a remarkable reluctance in America to confront the more complex historical dimensions of this hatred. The inclination instead has been to rely on abstract assertions like terrorists "hate freedom" or that their religious background makes them despise Western culture.

To win the war on terrorism, one must therefore set two goals: first to destroy the terrorists and, second, to begin a political effort that focuses on the conditions that brought about their emergence.…

The rather narrow, almost one-dimensional definition of the terrorist threat favored by the Bush administration poses the special risk that foreign powers will also seize upon the word "terrorism" to promote their own agendas… For America, the potential risk is that its nonpolitically defined war on terrorism may thus be hijacked and diverted to other ends. The consequences would be dangerous. If America comes to be viewed by its key democratic allies in Europe and Asia as morally obtuse and politically naïve in failing to address terrorism in its broader and deeper dimensions — and if it is also seen by them as uncritically embracing intolerant suppression of ethnic or national aspirations — global support for America's policies will surely decline. America's ability to maintain a broadly democratic antiterrorist coalition will suffer gravely.…

A victory in the war against terrorism can never be registered in a formal act of surrender. Instead, it will only be divined from the gradual waning of terrorist acts. Any further strikes against Americans will thus be a painful reminder that the war has not been won. Sadly, a main reason will be America's reluctance to focus on the political roots of the terrorist atrocity of Sept. 11.