The twentieth anniversary of 9/11, the bloody conflict has caused a large number of innocent deaths, and the United States has built its own gallows

Source: Global Times

Editor's note: 20 years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the United States still shows strong stress disorder after being severely damaged. With the 20th anniversary of 9/11, the American people are mourning nearly 3,000 victims while reflecting on some of the failed U.S. domestic and foreign policies of the past 20 years. One of the more ironic backdrops is that the Afghan Taliban regime was overthrown by the George W. Bush administration three months after 9/11, but 20 years later, the Taliban are back in power. International public opinion believes that this reveals the failure of the United States to launch the war in Afghanistan, and also makes the Biden administration fiercely attacked in the United States. But U.S. policymakers have not reflected deeply, let alone learned the bitter lessons of the past 20 years, and instead have plotted against more powerful competitors. Some Chinese scholars believe that the rigid strategic thinking of the US political elite predicts that the United States will suffer greater and more defeats.

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"We are getting farther and farther away from the truth"

Unlike the Obama administration's "low-key" commemoration of the 10th anniversary of 9/11 10 years ago, the Biden administration, which was devastated by the evacuation of Afghanistan, is trying to use the special anniversary of the "20th anniversary" to divert public discontent. According to the schedule released by the White House, US President Joe Biden and his wife will go to the scene of the attacks in New York, the Pentagon and Pennsylvania on September 11. There are also spontaneous mourning activities in the United States. At Pepperdine University in Malibu, California, for 14 consecutive years, the "Flag Flying" exhibition has been held — 3,000 American flags planted on the grass to mourn the victims of 9/11.

From the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan at the end of August to the recent increasingly strong atmosphere of commemorating the 20th anniversary of 9/11 in the United States, American veteran Adrian Bonenberg always felt that he was in a state of extreme shock and some embarrassment, he told the Global Times reporter: "If someone asks me if the United States is stupid enough to waste 20 years of time, just to capture and kill a person to get revenge, I will say, we are actually so stupid!" Between 2007 and 2011, As a U.S. Army commander, Bohenberg twice went to Afghanistan on military missions, and to his displeasure, nearly all the U.S. policymakers involved in and created the chaos were doing everything they could to shirk their responsibilities, and that "in American television, the war was just a storyline from the shows of presidents such as George W. Bush, Obama, Trump, and Biden."

Like Bohonenberg, the fragile nerves of those who witnessed the 9/11 attacks are under new strain. Brett Eagleson recently signed a joint signature with nearly 1,800 people affected by 9/11 — including survivors, emergency responders and families of the victims — demanding that Biden take action to unseal the files, or else he would not go to the site of the World Trade Center terrorist attack in New York this year to mourn. Brett's father, Bruce, was working at the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center at the time of the 9/11 attacks, and he could have fled the building but chose to stay and help more people evacuate. Bruce was last seen going upstairs to get a walkie-talkie, trying to keep in touch with firefighters and police, but after that the building collapsed and his family didn't find his body. Brett told the Global Times: "It is infuriating that the US government's investigation into the 9/11 terrorist attacks has always been hidden. We're all frustrated because as time goes on, people get farther and farther away from the truth. ”

Ms. Zou, a 50-year-old Chinese-American who worked in the North Tower of the World Trade Center's Twin Towers, was lucky enough to escape the attack on September 11, 2001, but at least 30 colleagues at the same company were injured or killed in the attack. Ms. Zou told the Global Times: "War is always mixed with too much selfish interest. Twenty years later, the truth about 9/11 remains unsolved, and the American people have not received an answer to 'why they hate us so much?' The U.S. government, on the other hand, has created more conflict and hatred in the United States and around the world. She also clearly remembers that after the 9/11 attacks, President George W. Bush announced that he would launch a new "Crusade", which caused dissatisfaction in the Middle East.

"Every 9/11 anniversary is a reflection for the United States." The Washington Post recently published an opinion article saying that the initial "9/11" incident in the United States provoked heroism, and the police, firefighters and first responders who desperately rescued others in Manhattan, New York, were the subject of these memories. As the United States was deeply involved in the two wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the lies and bad deeds of the US government and intelligence agencies began to be exposed to the world, and the subsequent abuse of prisoners, indiscriminate killing of civilians and other shady scenes were exposed, and the reflection on the necessity of the war on terror and the collapse of the image of justice in the United States began to become the theme of reflection. Now, as the United States celebrates its 20th 9/11 anniversary, the United States has just completed its withdrawal from Afghanistan and the Taliban have retaken power in Afghanistan. The American people must ask: Why did the United States fail so much? Is the blood and money of Americans worth it?

America's "Lost 20 Years"

"The impact of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States can be compared with the Pearl Harbor attacks in World War II." American political scientist Joseph Nye said this recently. But in the view of the American writer Fred Kaplan, compared with the Pearl Harbor attacks, the terrorist attacks came from uncertain organizations and individuals, in this sense, al-Qaida has turned the United States into a more fragile country, even if the United States once overthrew the Taliban regime and killed bin Laden, but these victories are only short-lived, and the terrorist organization has continued to do evil for 20 years. More unfortunately, 9/11 made the United States a "more paranoid, xenophobic, and militarized nation," and this negative effect continues to this day. When the "9/11" incident occurred, Fred Kaplan was the new York bureau chief of the Boston Globe, looking back at the past 20 years, he believes that this incident also marks a change in the understanding of the United States in the world, some American politicians began to exaggerate the external threat to the United States, giving birth to "Trumpism", and led to the increasing division and confrontation of American politics, racial discrimination, party disputes, class contradictions and other gaps seem to be more and more insurmountable. Threats from the outside (real or exaggerated) have exacerbated the divisions among Americans, making it difficult for Americans to reach consensus on the most basic issues, including the fight against COVID-19.

Kommerskaya observer Gurevich believes that the United States is facing more serious problems now than it was 20 years ago. At the time, almost all countries sympathized with or declared solidarity with the U.S. war on terror, but no one could have predicted that the war in Afghanistan would last 20 years.

Talking about the "change and invariance" of the United States in the past 20 years, Li Haidong, a professor at the Institute of International Relations of the China Foreign Affairs University, told the Global Times that in the past 20 years since the "9/11" incident, the change in the United States is that its own strength and international credibility have suffered both substantive damage. The 20 years of huge resources devoted to the military or the so-called "reconstruction of other countries" have directly intensified the existing all-round crisis within the United States itself, plunging the United States into a high state of political polarization, the spread of racism and populism, the spread of class antagonism, and the loss of national and personal identity. Li Haidong believes that in the current extremely morbid United States, it is difficult to continue to maintain the domestic foundation of its so-called international leadership for a long time, "the unipolar pattern has collapsed, and the multipolar pattern is rapidly becoming a reality." What remains unchanged in the United States is that in the past 20 years, the United States has not changed its old problem of establishing its international status and planning its international behavior patterns by creating clear and unambiguous opponents or enemies. After the attack on the United States, it won the sympathy of the international community and should have effectively coordinated the efforts of all parties to eradicate international terrorism and extremist forces, but in the process of combating al-Qaida's counter-terrorism, it sought to promote the global hegemonic goal of its geopolitical interests, and thus launched a series of interventions, occupations or transformation actions against sovereign countries such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria in a way that violated international rules, such as unilateralism and pre-emptive strikes, resulting in long-term turmoil in these countries and related regions.

Li Haidong told the Global Times reporter that the double failure of the US domestic and foreign policies in the past 20 years is not caused by other countries, but precisely because the US political elite lacks the sense of introspection and the courage to correct its mistakes, and gradually accumulates mistakes step by step. More and more international scholars have reached a consensus: the US decision-making elite has not made full use of the past 20 years to solve or alleviate many major problems that plague the development of the United States itself, such as domestic political polarization, social rigidity, and the widening of the economic divide, on the contrary, they are obsessed with power struggles and sensationalism, and the current lack of anti-epidemic efforts has completely exposed the shortcomings of the United States' own domestic governance.

In the view of Chinese scholars, the "lost 20 years" of the United States is brought about by its own judgment and decision-making errors, and it is completely self-inflicted. In the past 20 years, the United States has not benignly used its position of absolute superiority to build an international order based on the coordination of major powers and the stability of major country relations, but has deliberately squeezed and suppressed China, Russia and other countries, and vigorously engaged in geopolitical tricks.

Jabala, a member of the Egyptian Foreign Affairs Committee and columnist of pyramid newspaper, told the Global Times reporter that the United States withdrew from Afghanistan before the 20th anniversary of the "9/11" incident and swallowed its own self-brewed "poisonous fruit", which can be said to be self-inflicted. Interfering in the internal affairs of other countries and interfering in regional affairs reflects the inferior nature of the United States, which should arouse the profound reflection of the US Government and draw lessons from it. But the U.S. reflection is clearly not in place. The UAE's "Statement" newspaper said that in fact, whether it is the Vietnam War or the Afghan War, the United States has ended in defeat. When the United States decided there was no need to waste time and energy in Afghanistan, it would turn eastward and confront China, a competitor.

"America has prepared a gallows for itself"

Germany's "Süddeutsche Zeitung" published an article saying that after the "9/11" terrorist attacks, the United States set up a new department, the Department of Homeland Security, and from that moment on, the United States used "counter-terrorism and national security" as a buzzword for political decisions and the defense of armed action. The most tragic legacy of 9/11 will remain the constant involvement of the United States in war — retaliation out of fear, or the naïve belief that terrorism could be defeated by bombs and invasions. In fact, there are very few real terrorists who have been killed or injured in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Brown University estimates that at least 1 million people have been killed in countries where the United States intervened in 20 years. And the university's "Cost of War" project co-founder Nita Crawford said that this is only the data of those who died directly from the conflict with the US military, and does not include people who died of hunger or disease due to the war, "Most of the so-called terrorists killed by the United States are civilians, is this the power given to the United States by the international community?" It is estimated that the United States is spending more than $8 trillion on the "war on terror," and the U.S. government claims that the money is used to develop occupied countries, but as one can see, Iraq and Libya are deeply impoverished, and 1/3 of Afghanistan's population is starving.

The Russian news agency commented that in these bloody conflicts, the US military industry has been making huge profits for 20 years, and all this is at the cost of innocent lives. As Chris Hudges, the American columnist who wrote America: A Farewell Journey, put it: "The United States has been humiliated in Afghanistan, Iraq, syria, and, as it was in Vietnam and Cuba before, still turning a blind eye to its decline, incompetence, and barbarism." The United States did not realize that the gallows they were building were prepared for themselves. ”

Marcus Chinel, a researcher at the German Marshall Foundation, believes that NATO's withdrawal from Afghanistan 20 years after the 9/11 attacks was a failure of the "war on terror" and Europe must learn from it. He argues that over the past 20 years, European allies have followed suit out of loyalty to the United States, and Western governments have vigorously exported Western-style democracy, but 2021 is no longer 2001, and Europe has been taught a lesson: recognizing that the United States is completely pursuing pure self-interest, and that "America First" applies not only to Trump, but also to Biden. Other NATO countries are merely capable appendages. The war in Afghanistan is the final death knell, and Europe must liberate its military and security policies from the United States.

In response to the reflection of German public opinion, Li Haidong said that the alliance system was originally the most important strategic resource of the United States, but due to the US government's rout to withdraw from Afghanistan and abandon its allies, the allies had a high degree of doubt about the US decision-making elite and the coherence and predictability of US domestic and foreign policies.

In the past 20 years, the democratic and republican parties in the United States have taken turns to govern, and domestic and foreign policies have shown a vicious circle of "one side demolishing, the other side building", and the United States often brings about the consequences of crises such as division, confrontation, and war when handling international affairs, which makes more countries recognize the reality that the United States is a "global chaos planter". In the past 20 years, the United States has actually had a clear understanding, that is, it is rare to admit that international cooperation is inseparable from solving many of the difficult problems facing the United States. In addressing challenges such as terrorism, the global financial crisis, climate change, pandemics, nuclear nonproliferation, and drug smuggling, most U.S. rulers have emphasized the importance of international cooperation. However, in dealing with these issues that it calls for cooperation, the United States often has double standards and the intention of geopolitical competition, which ultimately leads to these issues not being able to achieve the wishes of the United States. Now, more analysts believe that populism will influence the direction of U.S. political and foreign policy for a longer period of time, reminiscent of pre-World War I and pre-World War II Germany. This is a blessing or a curse for the United States and the world, and people can only observe it vigilantly.