The world since September 11th
IT STANDS to reason that 19 men cannot change history. But they did. Five years and two Americanled wars later, the world created by the September 11th hijackers is a darker place than almost anyone predicted at the start of the new century. Al Qaeda itself may have been battered and dispersed, but the idea it stands for has spread its poison far and wide.
The essence of that idea, so far as a coherent one can be distilled from the ferment of broadcasts and fat was issued by Osama bin Laden and his disciples, is that Islam is everywhere under attack by the infidel and that every Muslim has a duty to wage holy war, jihad, in its defence. America is deemed a special target for having trespassed on the Arab heartland. Intoxicated by their defeat of the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in the 1980s, the jihadists are hungry to topple another superpower.
This cause had deadly adherents before the attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Centre in 2001. Mr bin Laden issued his Declaration of the World Islamic Front for Jihad against the Jews and Crusaders in 1998, the year alQaeda bombed two American embassies in East Africa. But an honest tally of the record since September 11th has to conclude that the number of jihadists and their sympathisers has probably multiplied many times since then. It has multiplied, moreover, partly as a result of the way America responded.
The first of the two wars George Bush launched after September 11th looked initially like a success, and compared with the second it still is. AlQaeda operated openly in Afghanistan and enjoyed the protection of its noxious Taliban regime, which refused America s request to hand Mr bin Laden over. America s invasion, one month after America itself had been attacked, therefore enjoyed broad international support.
The fighting ended swiftly and the political aftermath went as well as could be expected in a polity as tangled as Afghanistan s. By 2004 a firstever free election had legitimated the presidency of Hamid Karzai. A ramshackle but representative parliament took office in 2005. The country is plagued by warlordism and the opium trade, and Taliban fighters are mounting a challenge in the south. But they do not yet look capable of dislodging the new government in Kabul.
Even though Mr bin Laden himself eluded America s forces in Afghanistan, the invasion deprived alQaeda of a haven for planning and training. This achievement, however, was cancelled out by the consequences of Mr Bush s second war: the invasion of Iraq in March 2003. There, three and a half years on, fighting and terrorism kill hundreds every month, providing the jihadists with both a banner around which to recruit and a live arena in which to sharpen their military skills.
Why has Iraq turned out so much worse than Afghanistan? Not only because of the familiar catalogue of Rumsfeldian incompetence-disbanding Iraq s army, committing too few American troops-but also because of alQaeda itself. Like most Sunni extremists, some in alQaeda regard Shia Muslims as virtual apostates. Abu Musab alZarqawi, the movement s leader in Iraq, managed before being killed last June to organise so many attacks on Shias and their holy places that after a long forbearance the Shias at last struck back, turning what had been an insurgency against the Americans and the new government into a bitter sectarian war.
小学英语教学的一点感受
《On the farm》教学随笔
英语剧本《金蛇狂舞》狐假虎威
4-5人搞笑英语话剧剧本:荆珂刺秦王
让学生在轻松愉悦中学英语
试谈初中英语教学中的“情感教育”
初中英语教学心得体会
4人-6人英文话剧剧本:Be a Good Lover
教师在小学英语教学中对学生自主学习的促进作用
4人英语短剧剧本 唐僧,孙悟空,猪八戒,沙僧打怪物
初中六、七年级英语词汇教学实践与随笔
浅谈初中英语自主学习及其能力培养
二人英语搞笑剧本 拔牙
6人英语话剧剧本:做爱情的欺骗者是痛苦的It's Painful to Be a Love Cheater
课堂教学有效性
英语教学中的任务型语言教学初探
4人英语搞笑短剧剧本
英语学困生的成因及转变方法
运用幽默的教学语言 创设情景 以美激趣
浅谈英语词汇教学
小学英语教学随笔(一)
浅谈多媒体技术与英语教学
英语短剧本:《魔豆》The Magic Beans
4人英语话剧剧本:彼德与狼
英文短话剧剧本:狮子王3
如何在课堂上进行行之有效的评价
创设生活化、人文化、专业化情境,优化职高英语课堂教学
5-6人英语话剧剧本《Good Morning, Tim》
浅谈用爱转化英语学困生
英语练习课的教学随笔
不限 |
英语教案 |
英语课件 |
英语试题 |
不限 |
不限 |
上册 |
下册 |
不限 |