Connor Warren

Connor Warren

Jihad/Terrorism in the Media

April 5, 2012

A New Kind of Terrorist Attack

 

 

            On September 11th, 2001, the course of American history, and that of the world, was changed forever.  Nineteen Al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners and intentionally flew them into designated, symbolic targets along the East Coast of the United States.  American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175 were intentionally flown into the World Trade Center in New York City, New York. American Airlines Flight 77 was flown into the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, and United Airlines Flight 93 crashed in a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania after passengers successfully overtook the plane.   The article itself, found in its full text athttp://articles.cnn.com/2001-09-12/us/davis_1_sky-marshals-fuel-tanks-targets?_s=PM:COMMUNITY deals with the former Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms director, Rex Davis' opinion on the September 11th attacks just one day after.

            Along with the rest of the nation, Rex Davis was still reeling from the shock of an unprecedented attack on US soil.  Never before had a civilian target been hit by a terrorist organization with such overwhelming success.  Further, never had the United States been hit at home by the militant Islamic group Al-Qaeda.  Davis offers his opinion on why planes were used, and why the particular flights were picked.  Suggesting that the hijackers wanted as much fuel on board as possible, they selected flights that were embarking from nearby airports.  He also comments on the morbid novelty of using airplanes as missiles.  The commercial airline industry was no stranger to hijackings prior to 2001, but they were certainly strangers to airliners being used as easily obtained missiles.  No explosives were necessary, and this allowed the hijackers to pass through security easily. 

            The overall attacks could be argued to have a root in the "Jihad" against the West.  A jihad, it is necessary to point out, includes any struggle whether it be violent or peaceful, religious or secular, internal or external.  In the West, "jihad" has a particularly negative connotation.   It has been attributed almost exclusively to the physical fight against the opponents of Islam.  Similarly, the term "fatwa" is also used generally to indicate a price on an individual's head--usually in the pursuit of one of those "jihads".  A fatwa is simply a ruling on Islamic Law y a person of Islamic authority.  The motives for these attacks were threefold: the presence of United States military personnel in Saudi Arabia, American support for Israel, and the sanctions against Iraq starting in 1990.  Al Qaeda published in 1998: "The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies -- civilians and military -- is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it, in order to liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque and the holy mosque [Mecca] from their grip, and in order for their armies to move out of all the lands of Islam, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim. This is in accordance with the words of Almighty Allah, "and fight the pagans all together as they fight you all together," and "fight them until there is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in Allah."" (World Islamic Front Statement, 23 Feb 1998)  The reading by A. Guillaume, on page 212 states clearly that "(Allah) gave permission to His apostle to fight and to protect himself against those who wronged them and treated them badly."  (Guillaume 212)  Such writing is exceptionally easy to take out of context and apply to modern incidents.  The Quran itself proposes: "The believers fight for God's cause, while those who reject faith fight for an unjust cause.  Fight the allies of Satan: Satan's strategies are truly weak." (Quran 4:76)  In context, these texts are applied to the literal war that waged between the Quraysh and the Prophet Muhammad.  While easy to apply to current events, it would be to take the segments entirely out of context and away from their original meaning.  We have learned in class that the Quran is to be taken as a whole, not as an individual sentence, in order to be understood properly.  Unfortunately, extremism is taking the one percent and magnifying it to the ninety-nine. 

            A question is brought forth by this article of how far is too far when protecting the masses.  If a plane is heading for a high value target, is it acceptable to eliminate that threat at the cost of a few civilian lives vs the many?  It is a question that I am not entirely sure where I land, and a difficult question posed to us by such radical attacks.  Davis himself acknowledges that the question has not been answered by the powers that be, and offers no insight into his personal opinion on the matter.  He advocates for the increased use of Air Marshals on flights in an attempt to dissuade further attacks, and match the threat of force if the need arises. 

            The article was relatively sparse in information, being that it was at heart an opinion interview that originally took place on the air the day directly following the attack.  Not all information was known at this time, and therefore speculation was limited.  With the author's background as director of the ATF, his opinion is relatively credible.  Obviously this was a case of Homeland Security, a topic of which the ATF is not necessarily involved.  With that said, the day after the largest terrorist attack in United States history undoubtedly left the FBI, CIA and NSA with little time for phone interviews.  The article itself expressed very little stereotyping of the Muslim faith in general.  At this point, so near to the attacks, news organizations and politicians were still processing the fact that the attack had happened, versus finding a scapegoat in the Muslim people within or outside of our borders.  It sought to get into the mind of the terrorist without expressly claiming that the attack was part of a great jihad against the Western world.

            Terrorism has unfortunately become a cold, hard reality of the world in which we live.  The attacks of September 11th, 2001 were some of the first to truly open the Western eyes extremism around the world.  The terms jihad and fatwa have been thrown around mercilessly until they have but one channeled meaning to the common population.  Unfortunately, these common connotations have spread to the whole of Islam, an issue which the media has not yet taken any steps to fully rectify.