America, The Flip Side

Everyone would agree that what happened on September 11th, 2001, was a horrific and tragic event. Directly after this occurred we as Americans thought to ourselves, what did we do to make such an event happen on U.S. soil? What if I said that we as Americans can look no further then our own government for the reasoning behind what occurred that September morning.  Arundhati Roy covered this exact topic in her work entitled " The Algebra of Infinite Justice.


Throughout her work Roy made a few key points, one was exactly who the U.S. was truly fighting in this war. Roy wrote : " On September 20, the FBI said that it had doubts about the identities of some of the hijackers. On the same day President George Bush said, "We know exactly who these people are and which governments are supporting them." It sounds as though the president knows something that the FBI and the American public don't." How is it that on the exact same day that the FBI and the President can give two completely different answers to the exact same question? In a matter of a few hours did the U.S. just all of a sudden figure out who they were? This point that Roy gives within her work also can be back by another statement that she uses within her work. She says , " If it doesn't find its enemy, for the sake of the enraged folks back home, it will have to manufacture one." Although some will deny it, this statement can give some proof as to America making up an enemy before we truly knew who did it just for us to be able to go to war. 


Another key point in which Roy states is that America by no means is a country that has innocence written by their name. Although I do love my country, in history they have been known to do some pretty drastic things and so one can't help but see that the saying " What Goes Around Comes Around" may apply to why this event occurred.  One thing that Roy says that really caught my attention was the words of Madeleine Albright, the U.S Secretary of State in 1996.  Roy writes , " In 1996, Madeleine Albright, then the US secretary of state, was asked on national television what she felt about the fact that 500,000 Iraqi children had died as a result of US economic sanctions. She replied that it was "a very hard choice", but that, all things considered, "we think the price is worth it". Albright never lost her job for saying this. She continued to travel the world representing the views and aspirations of the US government. More pertinently, the sanctions against Iraq remain in place. Children continue to die." Think about this, this is suppose to be a strong representative of our country and she just condoned that killing of 500,00 Iraqi children, how is that not inhumane? So can you see as to why the Iraqi people may in fact have a problem with Americans in general? Look at what we as Americans witnessed on September 11th and look how quick we were to hate Iraqi's and the sad truth is that we still killed more Iraqi children in '96 the the Iraqi's killed on September 11th. So a level headed individual can't help but see American's reaction of an attack and the Iraqi's reaction to an attack definitely have some similarities in how their people witnessed a horrific event and wanted revenge.


Like I've stated above, I do love this country and by no means am i solely blaming our countries government for why September 11th occurred. However, one cannot be tunnel visioned as to think that America is perfect and has done no wrong to Iraqi's over the years to cause them to grow a resentment to America as a whole. So do the Iraqi's has a legitimate claim into why they did do this to us, or do you think it was a blind shot that no one seen coming? Ill let you guys ponder that question.