The Chris Moeller Archives

Remembering 9/11

Part of this story you might know, most of it you probably don’t:

The date is September 11th. The nation is attacked by a group of radical fundamentalists that have been financed by the oligarchy of one of the world's most resource-rich countries. Many innocents are killed. The world expresses outrage at the abhorrent assault on innocent human life and vows solidarity with the victims. The country, which had previously enjoyed generations of peaceful democratic rule, is changed forever.

Now picture an extended scenario in which the onslaught does not simply end with that one terrifying day. Let's say that the orchestrated attacks are successful in reaching the center of the government and the president's house, where he is killed, and the terrorists actually manage to install a new dictatorial form of government. Thousands are murdered, thousands more brutally tortured, tens of thousands imprisoned for their resistance, and hundreds of thousands flee the country. The new terrorist rulers, after years of only funneling money and arms to combat the popular and democratic government, now establish an organized security center in the government designed to infiltrate other democratic governments and repeat the formula. "Freedom" is truly threatened across the globe.

The mastermind of the deadly charge, and of the atrocities that follow it, is not killed with two gunshots to the head after a period in deep hiding. In fact, he is never indicted because of the successful raid upon the government. He evades justice throughout his life, dying eventually of natural causes after living out his days secluded, but in general familial comfort.

Following the hijacking of the government, the country's unemployment level rises more than 600%, yet the terrorists and their propagandists aren't concerned. They have different priorities. They call theirs a larger war "against tyranny and injustice," a necessary "moral cleansing." The Constitution and Congress are suspended. Strict censorship and curfew are imposed, all political parties and activities ended. The victims are primarily not military officers, but non-violent activists killed not because of their weapons but for their beliefs.

The above scenario was always a rather unlikely result of the al Qaeda attacks on lower Manhattan and Washington D.C. a decade ago, but it's also the story of a real government hijacking. The date of the attack was September 11th, but the year was not 2001. It was 1973, the country was Chile, and the real extended scenario, as you can see, makes the al Qaeda assault of 9/11, as horrific as it was, look like an Oscar party by comparison. Another difference between the two 9/11 events, of course, is that the successful coup against Chile and the democratically-elected government of Salvador Allende by the United States Central Intelligence Agency did not change the world. That sort of behavior was-- and still is-- all-too-common as far as the C.I.A. is concerned. Shoulders shrugged.

The country of Chile, the toppling of their government of self-determination in 1973, and the human rights atrocities that followed for three decades and more after our incursion there, are the reason that Americans looked like dicks when they chanted "U-S-A, U-S-A" in the streets late last night and this morning. Citizens of the nation that Martin Luther King Jr. not that long ago called "the greatest purveyor of violence on Earth" have never actually been interested in renouncing violence or in opposing the death of human innocents. They only give a shit after that violence has been used against them.

posted by CM @ 8:33 PM