From Zain Raza
On September 11, the United States was attacked by terrorists who killed 3,000 innocent civilians. Anyone old enough can remember exactly where they were that day and how everything unfolded when that shocking event occurred. The United States then declared the “War on Terror,” which included illegal wars in Afghanistan, Somalia, Pakistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, etc., at a cost of $8 trillion and 900,000 lives, according to Brown University (a private Ivy League research university in Providence, Rhode Island). As many have warned, ironically including the dictators the U.S. toppled, these wars would unleash sectarian conflict in that region, lead to a rise in extremism, and set the stage for a refugee crisis. In 2014, we saw extremism flourish and ISIS gain prominence around the world. In 2015, Europe experienced the refugee crisis that shook its political fabric and continues to this day. Civil conflict fueled by sectarianism and instability is commonplace in countries like Libya, Iraq, and Afghanistan.
The price of the war on terror was not limited to foreign countries; the Patriot Act was implemented domestically, leading to an expansion of the surveillance state and severely impacting civil liberties. Later in 2013, Edward Snowden revealed how the surveillance apparatus was expanded worldwide and is still active today.
There would be much more to write about September 11, but one only has to turn on the television today to understand this sad historical event. The innocent people who lost their lives that day deserve to be remembered and honored, and this attack should be condemned in the strongest possible terms.
My attention today is focused on another event that also occurred in Chile on September 11, almost 50 years ago. However, the human toll and the impact on democracy in general and in Latin America in particular were far more horrific in that event. Despite its grave impact, this event is not reported as frequently or with the same tenor in the media, and I suspect this is because it reveals the role of Western governments.
On September 11, 1973, the United States overthrew the democratic and popular government of President Salvador Allende and installed the brutal dictator General Augusto Pinochet. The operation involved the CIA, which supported a fraction of the military that used air and ground attacks to carry out this coup. The reason why the U.S. supported Pinochet and overthrew Allende: Allende wanted to limit U.S. corporate investment and control of local resources and believed that local resources should primarily belong to and benefit the locals. Shortly after Pinochet came to power, the entire economy was opened up to U.S. corporations (finance, mineral resources, etc.), and it was not long before inequality increased immensely, plunging most Chileans into poverty. During Pinochet’s rule, 3065 people were killed or disappeared, and a total of 40,018 people were victims of some form of human rights violation (torture, assassination, imprisonment, etc.).
Now imagine for a few minutes that the events of September 11, 2001, which we all remember, had taken the same course in the United States as they did in Chile. It would look like this:
Al-Qaeda attacks the United States and then supports a military faction in the United States that carries out a coup to overthrow a democratically elected leader and install a dictator who implements an economic doctrine that benefits Afghan corporations more than the American people, who are reduced to poverty. During this dictator’s rule, 3,065 Americans have been killed, and tens of thousands have been tortured, kidnapped, or murdered over a 17-year period. The media would report this every year as one of the worst crimes against humanity, and politicians would hold large commemorative events.
The discrepancy in how we evaluate the crimes of others compared to our own reveals a lot. As a journalist, I think it’s an important task to overcome this difference, because I believe in the word “humanity” – which for me means concretely that we are all equal at the core and should therefore value and commemorate lost lives equally.
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