Examining the Origins of the September 11 Attacks

For Barnett Rubin, the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States are partly rooted in a pattern of foreign policy missteps by the American government concerning the 1979-89 Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and its aftermath. [For more information, see EurasiaNet Recaps.]

The United States was a critical arms supplier to Afghan Mujaheddin groups that resisted the Soviet occupation. Once the Soviet army withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989, US links to the Afghan resistance shriveled. Having fueled a massive arms build-up in the country, the United States did little to foster a stable reconstruction process. As a result, factional fighting continued to plague Afghanistan until the radical Taliban movement succeeded in conquering roughly 90 percent of the country in 1996.

Rubin – a leading expert on Afghanistan, speaking at a September 25 seminar sponsored by the Open Society Institute – indicated that nearly 22 years of uninterrupted suffering fueled anger in many Afghans towards the United States. Such resentment helped enable the terrorist attacks.

"Terrorists are able to have bases [in Afghanistan] because they articulate grievances felt by millions of people who are not terrorists," Rubin said.

The case of Afghanistan is just one of several in which the US actions, or lack thereof, have engendered antipathy. Rubin cited the Rwanda Genocide as another example, in which the US slow response contributed to a proliferation of anti-American sentiment. "Look at us – 6,000 people were killed in one day [in the September 11 terrorist attacks]. In Rwanda, 6,000 people were killed each day for three months," Rubin said.

If the United States expects to prevent terrorist attacks on its territory in the future, it has to change the way it approaches security and humanitarian dilemmas. "Just getting rid of the bad guys doesn't solve the problem," Rubin said.

"What we really need to be concerned about," Rubin added, "is why tens of millions – hundreds of millions – despite their horror at what happened [on September 11], did get a little frisson from it."

Concerning the near-term, the United States would benefit from gaining approval from the UN Security Council for military action against Osama bin Laden and the Taliban, Rubin argued. Prolonged US engagement in Afghanistan's post-Taliban reconstruction could additionally help improve the US image worldwide.

He urged strategic planners to "start with quick humanitarian aid" and to avoid "building huge bureaucracies with aid money." The aid effort should also focus on building local capacity.

"This is not about religion," Rubin said about building a post-Taliban order in Afghanistan. "It's about a fight for the post-colonial state system."