As one more anniversary of the 9/11 passed, one wonders if the world has succeeded in wiping out the terror menace.
There are two diametrically opposite views on the matter. While some people believe that the war on terror is a total failure others insist that it is a huge success in that it has curtailed the striking power of the Al-Qaeda.
While insisting that the war is a success and the world has become more secure and safer than before, the US President George Bush and his Western allies are living in constant fear of where the terrorists would strike next. They also say that the war has achieved some of its declared goals or is in its initial stage of reaping its benefits.
The US lost about 2,900 lives in Sept 11. tragedy. The loss of US lives in Iraq is put at 15,000, according to a reliable but unpublished report.
The US will never admit that so many of its people have been killed in Iraq. Further, 20,000 other US citizens have been injured and maimed. The enormity of the losses is attributed to the unilateral and hasty US decisions and actions in Iraq. On the contrary, America’s high-handed actions have led to the growth of terrorist cells on the one hand and a widening gap between the Western and Arab countries on the other.
According to a report in the Los Angeles Times, though the US and its allies claim success in blunting the strike power of Al-Qaeda leaders Osama Bin Laden and Ayman Al-Zawahari, the US president concedes that it is an impossible task to wipe out the Al-Qaeda. Could this be interpreted as a US victory in its five-year war on Al-Qaeda and international terror? While an unbiased analyst would answer in the negative, Bush would emphatically say yes.
According to the British daily, The Independent, the hasty war on terror launched by the US has resulted in the death of 62,000 people, most of them apparently unarmed citizens and the displacement of 4.5 million.
The huge sum spent by the US on this war is enough to repay all the debts of the poor countries of the world put together. Or half of that sum would be sufficient to solve the problems of the 37 million Americans who are struggling to eke out a living or scavenging on the street garbage in the US.
The Independent said that the sources of its information included academics and organizations operating in Iraq and other official studies.
The British newspaper put the total death toll of the Iraqis including the soldiers, armed militias and insurgents at more than 117,000 in 2003, not counting those succumbed to their injuries later.
The Independent put the US expenditure at $437 billion based on a congressional report on the terror-war allocations in July. It exceeds the costs of Korean and Vietnam wars put together.
The Sept. 11 was a traumatic event for the overwhelming majority of the American people leaving them in a state of general insecurity. They are distrustful and skeptical about the efficacy of the country’s security mechanism, which failed when they needed it most.
They also have finally realized that the US defense system is at its best only in the Hollywood movies. The reality is sinking slowly in their hearts that their present political leadership with their present strategies cannot wipe out the terror threats. The US administration is still groping in the dark about the hideouts of its enemies or the causes that promote the international terror despite the enormous sum of taxpayers’ money being spent in the name of the terror war.
The Sept. 11 attacks have changed the political maps of a number of countries. US citizens have lost their freedom, which was the cornerstone of the US identity and for the protection of which it launched the war on terror.
How the war on terror is being prosecuted has made deep dentures in the relations between the Muslims in the East and the Christians in the West. The misplaced US strategies have, undoubtedly, deepened the hatred between Muslims and the West helping open the floodgates of terror attacks.
President Bush’s claim that his war on terror has made the world safer is unsubstantiated by facts and is nothing but rhetoric to keep the flocks together.
If anything it has only made the situation worse. It has thrown Iraq to the brink of a civil war.
