" 9·11 " twenty years: pain and myth
Author: Is Yuan Is Not Cloud
Source: Broken Circle
WeChat Platform Editor: Zhou Yue
History The process always moves forward in unexpected ways.
On September 11, 2001, a civil airliner hijacked by terrorists razed the twin towers to the ground, damaging the Pentagon . This terrorist attack that claimed the lives of nearly 3,000 people shocked the world: men and women running in the smoke, retrograde firefighters, Bush Jr. President Bush's shocked expression after hearing the terrorist attack... countless moments, as clear as yesterday.
Twenty years later, the mourning for the dead is still painful, and the "9·11 generation" has grown up. In this generation, someone must have been on the battlefield in Afghanistan, and perhaps someone else has personally experienced the Kabul moment.
For them, this is an unspeakable and complicated moment.
Twenty years later, the Biden administration wanted to draw a successful conclusion to the anti-terrorism war at the "9.11" anniversary node by withdrawing its troops from Afghanistan, but it turned out to be another tragic moment.
"Knowing so long ago, we would not take this path." Witnessing the scene of Afghanistan’s 20 years of national construction being blown away by rain and wind, some analysts in the United States issued "Wrong, wrong, wrong, Momomo." So emotional.
Only, history has no ifs.
The historical trend and the illusion of the top of the mountain
The historical trend was changed at the moment when the plane crashed into the Twin Towers.
The "September 11" incident is an international political dividing line, which profoundly changed the United States and the world.
Over the past 20 years, the United States, as a superpower, has been writing various paradoxes: it has been injured continuously in the course of healing,It constantly creates fear while eliminating fear, and constantly undermines security while shaping security...
After the "September 11" incident, the United States established counter-terrorism as the main topic, which led to a shift in national strategy, and once received extensive moral support from the international community.
20 years in a flash. The international community’s initial moral support for the United States has long since turned into concerns about regional turmoil, war disasters, condemnation of unilateralism, power politics, and thinking about world development and global governance.
To some extent, it was after the "September 11" incident that global issues such as terrorism that transcended national and regional boundaries began to attract the main attention of the international community. Along with it, global governance has increasingly become a prominent discipline.
Over the past 20 years, from the perspective of shared destiny, the world is vast and there are opportunities for cooperation everywhere. Whether it is responding to SARS, Ebola, the refugee tide, the international financial crisis, climate change, or the new crown pneumonia epidemic that is currently raging around the world, it all calls for all mankind to work together in the same boat and test the international The collective consciousness and action consciousness of the society.
In the past 20 years, global issues such as terrorism have been deeply intertwined with traditional international political issues. For example, the Afghanistan War, Iraq War caused by anti-terrorism, gave birth to the "Greater Middle East Democracy Transformation Program" of the United States, and further promoted the United States to instigate " Arab Spring" and intervene in internal disputes in Syria, leading to the "Islamic State". "Rise. As a result, a large number of refugees flowed into Europe, sparked a wave of populism , and to a certain extent became the fuse for Britain’s “Brexit”.
can be said to affect the whole body. The complexity of global issues also determines that they are often long-term tasks that cannot be accomplished in one go. It requires patience based on international cooperation and holding for ten years or even longer.
However, Western politics, which is eager for quick success, often does not have a further perspective than the next general election.When long-term interests conflict with immediate interests, and overall interests with national interests, the word "I" comes to the fore.
From the perspective of "domestic first", the world is small and crowded, and there is always "fierce competition". For a period of time, the United States has brought great-power competition back to the international arena, using its so-called "power position" to implement unilateral sanctions and exert extreme pressure, which has poisoned the good atmosphere of cooperation in solving global problems.
It was originally necessary to be in the same boat, but now some people are "crowding" together.
The author of the best-selling book "The Earth is Flat" Thomas Friedman has such a description a few days ago: A kick or two turns into doing much less business on the table and kicking each other harder under the table, so that they risk breaking the table and then limping away from each other. The consequence is that the world’s ability to manage climate change, loss of biodiversity, cyberspace, and the growing expansion of disorderly regions is much lower.
Quange thinks this description is somewhat reasonable, but it obscures the fact that the United States is the troublemaker.
Even in the face of the century-old epidemic of "unless everyone is safe, no one is safe", the United States has not been idle, out of nothing, "theory of leakage of Wuhan laboratories", proclaiming "China is launching vaccine diplomacy to compete for influence" and so on.
"The Lancet" magazine's new crown committee chairman Sachs said that the world has not responded appropriately to the epidemic. One reason is that the United States has failed to cooperate with China to find a global solution. The United States should learn to cooperate with China instead of imposing its will on China.
Standing on the top of the mountain for a long time, sometimes it gives the illusion of "I am the mountain".
For the United States, its international status is based not only on its own strength, but also on respecting and observing the international system with the United Nations as the core and the basic norms of international relations based on the UN Charter .
Otherwise, just standing on top of quicksand, a torrential rain will rush out of its original shape.
Take the Kabul moment as an example, Kissinger pointed out the crux of the problem. He pointed out that as a viable alternative, the United States should adopt a political and diplomatic route to coordinate important countries in the region to jointly contain terrorism. However, both Trump and Biden ignored this, which ultimately led to today's passive situation.
Why the trauma is so hard to heal
In May 2011, bin Laden was killed by the US "Seal" commando, marking the "strategic disintegration" of the "Al Qaeda" organization. At the event to commemorate the 10th anniversary of "9.11", then President Obama stated that the "resilience" of the United States is beyond doubt, the Pentagon has been restored, and New York is still a vibrant art and business capital, Shank, Pennsylvania Sveil is a place of friendship.
External damage is easy to repair, but internal trauma is difficult to heal. According to a recent poll by ABC , only 49% of Americans believe that the United States is safer than before September 11.
"This psychological harm is enormous." Brookings Institution John Thornton China Center Director Li Cheng pointed out that in the past 20 years, unprecedented major events such as "September 11" have occurred one after another. Disasters such as the new crown pneumonia epidemic and climate change in the past two years have all made Americans’ unique sense of superiority and security of the geographical environment gradually disappear.
After "September 11", although no large-scale foreign terrorist attacks have occurred in the United States, "lone wolf-style terrorist attacks" have occurred from time to time, and the proliferation of guns has become a major problem. According to statistics, the number of deaths and injuries in gun violence in the United States reached a new high in 2020, reaching 82,996.
Brother Qiao noticed that in recent days, the United States is still analyzing the security situation faced by the United States after leaving Afghanistan. After all, the number of terrorist organizations in Afghanistan has surged from single digits 20 years ago to today. More than 20. " Thucydides Trap " the proponent Graham Allison predicted with concern,"Afghanistan will become the source of the next '9.11' attack on the United States."
Together with Kabul, which has always lowered President Biden's approval rating, there is also the recent worsening of the new crown crisis in the United States.
The damage of the epidemic is easily reminiscent of "September 11". When Trump was in office, he said that the extent of damage to the United States by the epidemic was worse than the consequences of the Pearl Harbor incident and the "September 11" incident. In March of this year, Biden gave a speech to commemorate the first anniversary of the outbreak and blockade, saying that the number of deaths from the new crown in the United States was more than the sum of World War I, World War II, , Vietnam War and "September 11".
"The New York Times" tells the true feelings of Americans: "I always hear people compare the epidemic to '9.11'. I also understand the reason: the fear today is very similar to that of the time, and it is caused by fragility. The terrible feeling woven by the inability to, helpless and unable to predict the future.”
This terrible feeling was exacerbated by the meteorological disaster that swept the United States this summer.
In Louisiana and Mississippi , hurricanes caused nearly 1 million people to lack electricity and drinking water. In California, the fire forced tens of thousands of people to flee.
U.S. public opinion criticizes that the government is not prepared to deal with the climate shock that has been predicted for a long time. In addition, the extent to which the United States and the world can adapt is limited. If countries do not take more measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, they may soon reach the edge of disaster resilience.
has returned to the issue of global governance. Whether it is counter-terrorism, the response to the new crown pneumonia epidemic, and climate change, these grand global issues have never been as closely related to the political society of every country as they are currently.
Brother Huan feels that this is also "unavailable in a hundred years".
How to deal with these global problems? Take the road of unity and cooperation, or still rely on it alone? What tests the wisdom, mind and responsibility of politicians is what tests the spirit, psychology and judgment of the people.
History seems to have reached a new threshold. A country that keeps pace with history and shares a destiny with the times,Will make the right choice.
*Disclaimer: This article only represents the author's personal views, and does not represent the position of this official account
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