Turning Point: 9/11 War on Terror

Reflection

Watching the first two episodes of the documentary “turning point: 9/11 war on terror” left me coming out of the documentary with more opinions about the 9/11 incident and Americas response to it, than when I initially went into it. Although I did have a problem with the documentary itself.

The first episode reminded us of what actually happened in the incident of 9/11 and gave an insight on the terror attack from the perspective of people present there, I did empathize with the victims but calling it one of the biggest terror attacks was an over statement. The episode also gave us a background about Usama bin laden and Afghanistan’s history, it was dreadful to watch a once perfectly functioning state fall like that. The documentary seemed biased in the sense that it was glorifying the US and blaming the acts of terror solely on the Muslim terrorist organizations such as the Taliban without admitting that America itself might have pushed them in that direction. The US supplied afghan mujahedeen with deadly weapons and encouraged the mujahedeen’s to fight ruthlessly against the Soviet Union, not realizing that this was crossing the line between war and terrorism. After the war against soviets USA called back its troops without ensuring a clear transfer of power allowing a civil war to happen within Afghanistan leading to the Taliban taking over. Although, Taliban getting power over Afghanistan was not entirely the USAs fault I do believe they are to be blamed for the most part which the documentary failed to mention.

Coming to the dreadful event of 9/11 and the actions taken after it were impulsive on president Bush’s part the reaction to 9/11 was immediately to use military power against anyone involved with the incident. The anger Americans felt because of the incidents were understandable but if the government makes impulse decisions based on emotions it might lead to war, in this case they were not only declaring war against terrorism but the entire Muslim nation itself. Even the interviews showed in the documentary showed aggression and anger when the event was full of grief, I believe Bush used the anger and patriotism of the Americans to wage war against the Taliban, not exactly Taliban but also any origination and individual involved in the incident. Although I agree with the fact that you can’t talk peacefully to people who talk to you using violence, but no single president or person should be given this much power.

The Taliban was a group inspired the wrong teachings of Usama bin laden and their reign of oppression and terror indeed had to be brought to an end, they were enabling terrorist groups such as al Qaida and also based their rule off the teachings Usama bin laden that took the idea of jihad and completely butchered it, they oppressed the entire Afghanistan took away basic human rights and women’s rights were near to nonexistent. The era of terror should have been brought to an end but seeing the fact that a country that was part of the reason why Taliban existed and the reason their rule was enabled came to “save the day” when their own country got affected as a result, was a bit disturbing.

By: Khadija Ali