Ghana: Terrorism Is Not “Payback”

Free Press (independent weekly), Accra, Sept. 14-20, 2001.


Attempts by some rational human beings to justify the irrational attacks on the two major American cities last Tuesday in which the dead are still being counted is as unfortunate as the barbaric attacks themselves.

Considering the fact that the aircraft in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York’s two towers of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in Washington and the third [that crashed] in Pennsylvania were civilian planes, directed at civilian targets by still to be determined terrorists, means that not only were the perpetrators of the attacks and their collaborators cowardly but they were indeed barbaric.

Although freedom of speech guarantees the right to free opinions, it is interesting to tune in to some radio stations and on the streets here in Accra to hear people trying to justify the savage attacks on civilians in America as “payback” time for the world’s only remaining superpower.

These people, in their parochial and senseless disregard for civilian lives, claim that because America supports Israel in its fights against Palestinian terrorists and because it has become the world’s de facto police nation and led the multinational U.N. force to evict Iraq from Kuwait in 1991, last Tuesday’s attack on American soil by faceless cowards served the world’s superpower right.

Well, they may be entitled to their opinion, but what these people must be reminded of is that they remain a minority in the comity of the civilized world. If they in their infantile thinking believe last Tuesday’s attack on America affected only Americans, they better think twice.