WTC I and WTC II

In a Boston Globe op-ed on 12/16/02, syndicated columnist William Pfaff wrote, "In the months following the terrorist attacks of September 2001, it was politically taboo to say the United States had in some way brought these attacks upon itself. Television talk show hosts and print journalists lost their jobs for suggesting such a thing." Similarly, Mayor Giuliani turned down a $10 million gift for World Trade Center victims' families from a Saudi prince because the prince wanted to suggest that our foreign policy played a role in alienating the Muslim world.

Yet this should have been well known. Eight years earlier, Ramzi Yousef, whose mother was Palestinian, had masterminded the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. James Bamford ("A Pretext for War" pp. 99-102) explains, "His goal was to punish the United States for its support of Israel." Yousef's terrorist cell left behind a letter which "made it very clear that they were planning to return to finish what they had started at the World Trade Center." One wonders how many 9/11 victims were aware of this. Yousef's uncle, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, also made it clear that his motive in masterminding 9/11 was US favoritism towards Israel. ("The 9/11 Commission Report" p. 147)

Governor Howard Dean, while campaigning for the presidency in 2004, suggested that we take a more even-handed approach to the Israeli-Palestinian issue. He was immediately featured in negative cover articles in both "Time" and "Newsweek" and promptly lost the Iowa caucuses. President Bush boasts that he has kept us safe from terrorism since 9/11, but one must remember that it was eight years between WTC I and WTC II. It's time for an even-handed Middle East policy.