9/11 - 5 Years later: what the US has not understood – Part 1

The present series of articles is meant to shed light on misconceptions that prevail among the strategic decision makers, the senior academics, the leading editorialists, and the top opinion makers in America. The US can still win in this war, but to do so they should identify correctly their enemies, their friends, and above all themselves.

Mistake 1: False parallels

When the September 11 took place, the US supposedly had just won a staggering victory over the Marxist – Leninist camp, since the Soviet regime and its satellites had collapsed 10 – 12 years earlier. In the jubilating minds of the Clinton administration, the victory of the Market forces over the state run economies had taken wrong dimensions. Quite unfortunately, this phenomenon led to extensive confusion as regards the Islamic Terrorism.

The Soviet Union, along with the Eastern European states, and their allies, South Yemen, Syria, Ethiopia, Angola, Libya, Vietnam, Afghanistan, etc. simply collapsed because of inner inconsistencies and inadequacies. Who does not remember the long stories about commodities shortages in a place, village or city, at the moment these very commodities were available in surpluses in other places 50 km away? Distribution was just one of many problems that were inherent to the Soviet economy. With the increase in the number of tourists traveling to Eastern Europe and the USSR, with TV channels showing a definitely superior lifestyle in the West, and with a decisive delay in high technology, it was just a matter of time, very limited time indeed, until (not only masses but also) the Soviet nomenklatura realizes that their system was not sustainable anymore.

Collapse of the USSR: an inner development of the Western World

This event can hardly be called victory, let alone strategic victory; it was the collapse of a system that was not outer but inner to the Western World. The terminology "East – West" for Communism – Capitalism was absolutely wrong. And it created the false impression that it encompassed the two poles of possible socio-political systems that could exist in our world; nothing could be more erroneous than that!

In real terms of History, Philosophy, History of Religion and Sociology, it was an internal conflict of the Western world. Lenin implemented politically his interpretation of Karl Marx and Engels, who emanated out of the World of Hegel, a late 18th and early 19th century German philosopher, who was the first to make a link between History and the philosophical search of truth.

Coming out of the Renaissance – Classicism – Romanticism clivage, all these philosophers and systems did not represent Islam, Africa, India or China. In many cases, they meant nothing, and they have been mostly unknown to people who claim today to be the inheritors of Prophet Muhammad, Buddha, African Christianity and Animisms, Hinduism and Confucian orthodoxy. Even worse, in every case Hegel is known to people of these 'other' worlds, we have a genuine case of Cultural Colonialism (which means forced and abnormal imposition of another culture's norms) and not a case of genuine local interest for the 'other'.

China's way to the Maoist version of Marxism – Leninism was simply China's westernization, and as few people in the West know, it entailed an unprecedented destruction of Chinese temples, monuments, manuscripts, epigraphic documentation, and artistic masterpieces – which was shamelessly called "Cultural Revolution".

Second World War: a real Victory of the Democracy camp

As inner Western development, the collapse of the soviet – socialist regimes was not a victory of the Capitalist camp, quite contrarily to the Second World War which was a real victory of the Democracy camp over the forces of the Totalitarian Axis (Nazi Germany, Italy and Japan). WW II was also an inner Western phenomenon, since Nazism and Fascism were exclusively based on 19th century Romanticism, f. i. Wagner, and on early 20th century European Mysticism , f. i. Rudolf von Sebottendorf and die Thule Gesellschaft.

Compared to the 1939 – 1945 'win or die' confrontation, the so-called Cold War can hardly be taken as a fight; one should rather call it competition or rivalry, and the few times it was aggravated either the perilous escalation was averted (Cuba) or the hostilities were undertaken by proxies (Civil War in Greece, Vietkong rebels against the French and the Americans soldiers, Solidarnosc in Poland). Even so, there could be a winner and a defeated part; as it happened, the local upsurge in all these countries did not occur thanks to Capitalist military intervention and cannot be even attributed to direct financial involvement, remaining an absolutely local development: a sheer collapse of the Soviet socio-economic system.

No parallel between the Cold War and the War against Islamic Terrorism

This being so, it would be totally inconsistent to draw a parallel between the Cold War and the War against Islamic Terrorism.

First, within the second context, the Western Capitalist world, rejuvenated with the 'new born' market economies, the likes of Poland, Ukraine, Angola, Vietnam, etc., faces a non – Western enemy emanating from a non Western world, namely Islam. As such, the confrontation takes more serious a character than that of the Nazist challenge.

Second, the identity of the two opponents has not been clarified, since the Islamic terrorists do not appear as states, and when they do so, the rogue states, starting from Afghanistan and ending with Iran, are not numerous, and do not represent but a slight portion of the anti-Western strength and menace.

Five years after the tragic September 11th events, the US (let alone the Western World) failed even to specify what Islamic Terrorism and Islamic Terrorists are.

In addition, it is not sure that we have to do with a confrontation between the entire Western World and the Islamic terrorists, as France, Germany, Russia and China (all Western, the first three as historic European nations, and the latter as a Westernized – following to its adhesion to Communism, and more recently thanks to its opening towards Capitalism – Asiatic nation) rejected to participate in the war against the Saddam Hussein regime of Iraq, although this was considered as a significant stage of the War against Islamic Terrorism.

Third, the origins of the War against Islamic Terrorism are totally obscure, and few specialists seem ready to extend much on or to describe in depth the origins of this War. Quite contrarily, the origins of the Cold War were very well known (the targets set by the Third Communist International), and the same concerns the origins of WW II (the world envisioned by Hitler in 'Mein Kampf'). No supreme ideologist appeared so far to analyze what the targets of the Islamic Terrorists are or should be. Even worse, the historical reasons that gave birth to the phenomenon of Islamic Terrorism are passed under silence in a suspicious way.

When so little is known, diffused or explained, any attempt of further comparisons generates general confusion and contributes to bewilderment of many. No war can obviously be (or has ever been) won in this way, and this must therefore be well understood: in a war either you clarify positions (your own, and that of the opponent) – or you have already lost it.

To best address the topic of the emanation of the Islamic Terrorism, the US must focus on both, Islam and the 1400 years long relations between Christianity and Islam. The easiest way for anyone to do this is to advance backwards, and study the last confrontation between the two worlds; it did not look like a direct confrontation because it was part of a wider confrontation – that of the First World War, and its consequences. Studying the subject may be like examining the relationship between Ossama bin Laden and his grandfathers!