9/11 Still A Mystery – OpEd

By Ilya Kharlamov

As the suspected chief mastermind of the 9/11 terror attacks Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four of his Al Qaeda brethren go before a Guantanamo military commission to face formal charges, the world media remain abuzz with speculation about who was responsible for the ten-year atrocity that killed 3 thousand people and changed the course of history.

Staunch conspiracy theorists continue to argue that 9/11 was the work of shady global puppet masters or American special services, who wanted to mobilize the immense power of the United States to their political and economic gain. Which they successfully did, with the US sharply boosting its defence and security expenditure, stimulating the proliferation of private security companies and putting together the notorious ‘coalition of the willing’ for forcefully imposing Western-style democracy on Iraq and Afghanistan.

Russian analyst Dr Pavel Zolotarev disagrees, arguing that the subsidence of terror activity after the elimination of Osama bin Laden suggests that Al Qaeda was behind 9/11.

Another Russian analyst, Dr Leonid Polyakov, likens the mystery of 9/11 to that of the Kennedy assassination. He also espouses a ‘synthetic’ interpretation of 9/11:

“The choice between Al Qaeda and American cloak-and-dagger agencies is in fact false. Bin Laden’s network was actually nurtured by the American CIA for confronting the Soviet forces in Afghanistan. In the late 90s, when the Americans encountered serious economic difficulties and the prospect of losing their position of global dominance, they probably put this network to a different use. The 9/11 attacks enabled them to once again claim the top spot in the global power league by launching crusade against terrorism.”

Fortunately, the period since September 2001 has not brought new massive terror attacks on American soil. The administration pins this down to a security overhaul, including the creation of the Homeland Security Department. Many in the street, however, believe the gains against terrorism have been made at the expense of freedoms and rights.