History In Uniform

The Deadly Attack of 9/11 on American Soil

Tuesday September 11, 2001 dawned clear and sunny in New York. It was a beautiful late summer morning. Then, as commuters arrived at their offices, reports began to circulate that a plane had accidentally struck one of the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan. As thousands of onlookers stared at the smoke billowing out of the North Tower, they were astonished to see another plane—a large airliner—fly out of a clear blue sky straight at the South Tower and crash into it with a great burst of flames.

It was just fifteen minutes after the first hit at 8:46, and it was immediately clear that this was no accident. At 9:40 a third plane hit the Pentagon, the Department of Defense headquarters in Washington, DC, and within the hour a fourth plane had crashed in the Pennsylvania countryside. The passengers, finding the plane taken over by hijackers and hearing of events in New York and Washington on their mobile phones, had rushed their captors, in the almost certain knowledge that it would cost them their lives.

In all 2,750 were killed in the Twin Towers. A further 184 died at the Pentagon, and forty in Pennsylvania. All nineteen of the hijackers, most of them from Saudi Arabia, were also killed. It was the worst ever attack on mainland America, and it was to change the world forever.

From East Africa to Afghanistan
It soon became clear that the hijackers were associated with al-Qaeda, a hitherto shady Islamist terrorist group headed by a Saudi millionaire called Osama bin Laden. In the 1980s bin Laden had joined the US-backed mujahedeen fighting the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, but by February 1998 he was enjoining Muslims to “kill the Americans and their allies—civilians and military … in any country in which it is possible to do it”. In August of that year, al-Qaeda bombed the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killing over 300 people.

Bin Laden, as well as condemning America for its support of Israel, was particularly incensed by the presence of US forces on the soil of Saudi Arabia—the home of Islam’s most sacred sites, in Medina and Mecca. US forces had been stationed in Saudi Arabia since the 1991 Gulf War, to deter any further aggression by Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, whose occupation of Kuwait had been forcibly ended by a US-led coalition.

Following the attacks of September 11, 2001, some Americans were prompted to ask why they should be so hated in parts of the Muslim world, but many others enthusiastically backed Bush’s call for a “war on terror,” launched in an address to Congress on September 20. This “war on terror,” designed to defend the Western values of liberty and democracy, ironically involved a disregard for human rights, as those suspected of terrorist involvement around the world were subjected to detention without trial and even torture.
Al-Qaeda’s training camps were in Afghanistan, which had been controlled by the Muslim fundamentalist Taliban since 1996. In October 2001 the USA, at the head of a NATO coalition, began airstrikes against Afghanistan with the aim of destroying al-Qaeda bases, and in the following ground campaign ousted the Taliban from power. Bin Laden, together with most of the al-Qaeda leadership, escaped, probably into the lawless region along Pakistan’s northwest frontier.

Although a pro-Western democratic government was installed in Kabul, it has proved to be endemically corrupt, and unable to extend its power over much of the country. This, together with traditional tribal divisions and dislike of foreign occupiers, and an initial failure by the West to supply much-needed development aid, has led to a strong Taliban insurgency, tying down large numbers of NATO troops.

The 1991 Gulf War had left Saddam Hussein in power in Iraq, a somewhat artificial country created by the British at the end of the First World War out of a part of the former Ottoman empire. There were Kurds in the north, Sunnis in the center and Shiites in the south, an uneasy cohabitation that Saddam had kept together through ruthless oppression—even using chemical weapons against his own citizens. As well as poison gas, Saddam was suspected of acquiring other weapons of mass destruction (WMD), such as biological and even nuclear weapons, in defiance of UN resolutions. He was also increasingly thwarting the efforts of UN inspectors sent to ensure that he held no WMD.

After 9/11 the Bush administration began to suggest that Saddam was in league with al-Qaeda and other Islamist terror groups, and was likely to supply them with WMD, so threatening the West. In fact, Saddam was a secular Arab nationalist of the old school, and had dealt harshly with Islamists within Iraq. But Saddam nevertheless became the target of especial opprobrium by the neoconservatives within Bush’s administration,who believed that it was the mission of the USA to export freedom and democracy to the Third World, backed up if necessary by armed force. The fact that Iraq sat on huge oil reserves also made it strategically important.

The consequence was that in March 2003 a “coalition of the willing,” primarily comprising the USA and the UK, mounted an invasion of Iraq and overthrew Saddam. There was no clear UN sanction for this action, which was undertaken in defiance of mass popular protests around the world. Not a single WMD—the sole justification for the UK’s involvement—was found.

The invading powers had made insufficient plans for rebuilding Iraq after “regime change”. The ethnic and religious divisions within the country opened up, leading to civil strife and fierce resistance to the Western occupiers, together with the emergence of an al-Qaeda group in the country. During the invasion and the subsequent insurgency, the infrastructure of Iraq was badly damaged, and tens of thousands—perhaps hundreds of thousands—of Iraqi civilians were killed. Although the last US combat brigades withdrew in August 2010, Iraq remains a dangerously unstable place.

The Second World War: Asia and the Pacific

In a few decades at the end of the 19th century, Japan transformed itself from an isolated medieval state to a modern industrial power. Mimicking the great Western powers, the country also developed imperial ambitions, taking Taiwan and Korea from China in the war of 1894–5, and putting a stop to Russian expansion in the Far East in the war of 1904–1905.

During the 1920s Japan—short of land and resources for its burgeoning population—experienced severe economic difficulties, and many people, particularly in the army, believed that only strong military government and territorial expansion could solve the country’s problems. Their ardently militaristic and xenophobic nationalism centered round the emperor, a figurehead who was nevertheless worshipped as a living god.

Some elements in the army began to take matters into their own hands. Japan had gained the right to station troops to protect its South Manchurian Railway, and when in September 1931 a section of the railway was blown up near the city of Mukden (modern Shenyang), the army blamed the Chinese and used it as an excuse to occupy the whole of Manchuria. The League of Nations condemned the occupation, but Japan simply ignored this ans pushed on

The militarists increasingly gained control of the government in Japan, which repudiated international limits on its naval strength, and saw itself, alongside Germany and Italy, as one of the most unjustly treated countries in the world. Japan allied itself with Germany and Italy, and in 1937 launched an all-out attack on China. The Japanese occupied much of the coast, and the capture of the then Chinese capital was followed by the “Rape of Nanking,” in which as many as 300,000 Chinese civilians were massacred. Nevertheless, resistance by Chinese nationalists continued.

The USA—which had its own interests and territories in the Pacific (including Hawaii, Guam and the Philippines)—grew alarmed at Japanese expansionism, and sought to restrict Japanese access to strategic raw materials, such as coal, iron ore and oil. For its part, especially after the outbreak of war in Europe in 1939, Japan had its eye on the colonies of Britain, France and the Netherlands in southern and southeastern Asia, which it intended to absorb into a “Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.” This was dressed up as a liberation of Asian peoples from colonial rule, but in fact the intention was to swap European for Japanese domination, acquire strategic raw materials (such as Malayan rubber and Burmese oil), and at the same time to create a market for Japanese manufactured goods.

Japan demanded that all passage of supplies to the Chinese nationalists through French Indochina and the British colonies of Burma and Hong Kong should stop. To enforce this, in July 1941 Japanese troops occupied French Indochina, resulting in the US government freezing all Japanese assets in the USA. Prince Konoe, the Japanese premier, tried to broker a deal, but when the US government insisted that Japan withdraw from China and also from its alliance with Germany and Italy, Konoe resigned, and was replaced in October 1941 by General Hideki Tojo.

Tojo, while continuing to negotiate with the USA, was in fact planning all-out war. On December 7, 1941, while talks continued in Washington, Japanese carrier-borne aircraft attacked the US naval base at Pearl Harbor, on Oahu in the Hawaiian Islands. It was, President F. D. Roosevelt told Congress the following day as he requested a declaration of war, “a date which will live in infamy.” But, by bringing an end to American isolationism and given America’s huge resources, the attack ensured that, given time, the war was as good as lost as far as Japan and Germany were concerned

The same day as Pearl Harbor, Japanese forces attacked US and British bases elsewhere in east Asia and the Pacific. There followed one of the most spectacular offensive campaigns in history, and by the middle of 1942 Japan had occupied most of the island groups of the western Pacific, plus the Philippines, northern New Guinea, the Dutch East Indies (modern Indonesia), Hong Kong, Thailand, Malaya, Singapore and Burma, and was threatening India itself, the jewel in Britain’s imperial crown. The campaign was accompanied by appalling acts of brutality, the Japanese then regarding all other races as inferior species, and treating any soldiers who surrendered to them rather than fighting to the death as contemptible cowards, to be used as slave labor and subjected to starvation, beatings and summary ex*****on.

The Japanese advance was turned back in June 1942 at the Battle of Midway, in which the Japanese lost four aircraft carriers and 248 aircraft. It proved to be the turning point in the Pacific War.

The Japanese did not have the resources to replace such losses at anything like the rate that the Americans could. Although there were still years of hard fighting left, from this point on the Japanese were forced into a desperate retreat. By mid-1944 the Americans had retaken islands close enough to Japan to provide bases from which their bombers could begin the devastation of Japanese cities. But the closer the Americans came to Japan itself, the stiffer the Japanese resistance. Faced with Japan’s refusal to surrender, and the prospect of enormous casualties should they attempt an invasion of the Japanese home islands, the Americans decided to deploy a horrendous new weapon.

On August 6 they dropped an atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima, instantly killing 78,000 people. A second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki three days later. On August 15 Emperor Hirohito made his first ever radio broadcast to his people, announcing the unconditional surrender of all imperial Japanese forces to the Allies.

Scottish War(1295–1296)

The reign of King Alexander III (1241–86), who effectively resisted the constant English claims to hegemony over Scotland, came to be regarded by the Scots as agolden age of peace and prosperity. Trouble appeared on
the horizon, however, when his death left his granddaughter, the infant Margaret (d. 1290), Maid of Norway, heir tothe throne and Scotland’s interim government in thehands of noble “guardians.”Seizing the opportunity to realize an ancient Englishdream, the union of England and Scotland, the Englishking Edward I (1239–1307) negotiated the Treaty ofBrigham with Norway’s Erik II (fl. 1280–99), which called for the marriage of Margaret to Edward’s son, Edward ofCaernarvon (1284–1327), who would later reign in England as Edward II. The Scottish assembly approved the arrangement, but four years after her grandfather, young
Margaret herself died, and, with her, almost two centuries of more or less amicable relations between Scotland andEngland.

The uncertainty her passing created regarding the proper succession to the Scottish throne further whettedthe appetites of Edward and his successors to assimilateScotland. When 13 well-grounded claims were made to
the Scottish throne, Edward announced he would be thejudge of their merits, and the Scots had initially no reasonto object. But when it emerged that, instead of playing the role of independent outside arbiter, he saw himself insteadas any Scottish king’s feudal overlord who could disposeof Scotland as a fief, dissatisfaction began to brew.

The claimants themselves, who had more to lose by antagonizing Edward than by courting the Scots, generally acknowledged his over lordship, and the nobility by andlarge followed their lead. However, the group of prominent laymen and church officials known as “the community of the realm” declined to commit itself beforehand towhomever Edward chose. In any event, contenders wereRobert Bruce (1274–1329) and John Balliol (1249–1315);Edward I chose Balliol in 1291, who was duly crownedking of Scotland the following year.

When Edward, assuming Balliol’s compliance, sought to assert his overlordship by accepting appeals from law suits adjudicated in Scottish courts and by calling up Balliol to go fight for England in France, the Scots took up
arms instead against Edward. Balliol girded for war againstEngland and concluded an alliance with France in 1295.

By 1296, Scots troops were mobilized and deployed along the borderlands, poised to invade northern England.Edward, however, counterattacked. On May 28, 1296,Edward hit the Scottish-held town of Berwick-uponTweed, overran and sacked the town, then slaughteredScots by the thousand. Balliol was taken prisoner, and Edward’s forces went on to pe*****te deeply into Scotland,
capturing the mighty castles of the realm, including Edinburgh, Stirling, Perth, and Elgin.

To the victorious Edward, the Scots now paid homage.He did not bother to occupy the country, however. Instead,he stole the Stone of Scone, legendary symbol of Scotspower and legitimacy—any king crowned on the stone is
considered to be the rightful ruler of the Scots. (The Stoneof Scone become part of the royal coronation chair ofBritain; currently, however, the stone is on loan to Scotland and is housed in Edinburgh Castle.) Scotland was nowwithout a king of its own choosing and was deemed a
“forefeited fief” of England—effectively, an annexed landunder government by a committee of three English commissioners and guarded by military garrisons deployedthroughout the realm