Before September 12, 2001, no one referred to September 11 as “Al-Ahdiya.” That Tuesday, 23 years ago, was just another day in the calendar before the event became known today. groggy, certain that we are entering a new era.
With this introduction, Lotan takes a look – in a report written by Leo Ticcelli – at what was published in international newspapers on the eve of September 11, 2001, at the time when the United States commemorated this bloody anniversary.
The newspaper recalls that the editorialists were talking about Pearl Harbor that day, and Lotan herself estimated that “if there was an attack after December 7, 1941, it would be September 11, 2001.” If the bombing of the American naval base confirmed Washington’s entry into World War II, the fall of the Twin Towers will provoke the same type of reaction and “attacks committed against the symbols of American financial and military power deserve a declaration of war.” against whom?
It is year zero, and the door to a new type of confrontation and enemy, as the Spanish newspaper El Pais considered at the time and affirmed that it was “an act of excessive terrorism and the beginning of a French century.” Le Monde followed suit, which saw it as the beginning “of a new world, in which the superpower has demonstrated its weakness in the face of excessive terrorism.”
Blindly accuse
We thought Washington was untouchable, but the plumes of smoke rising from downtown Manhattan are challenging that certainty, as the German newspaper Neue Züricher Zeitung points out: “The terrorists wanted to demonstrate the fundamental weakness of Western consumer and high-tech societies in the face of criminals who were unwilling… They are ashamed of any wickedness. They succeeded terribly in demonstrating the hell into which they plunged New York and Washington on Tuesday.”
The New York Times newspaper saw at that time that America’s enemies were advancing in the open, at a time when the Soviets and the communists represented the greatest evil. The end of the summer of 2001 was therefore an important milestone “The new suicide bombers. The 21st century did not carry flags or distinctive signs. They hid behind ordinary citizens, and their target was ordinary Americans, by hijacking civilian planes and rushing them into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, they used their access. an open society to harm it.
At the time, the Guardian saw no comparison with Pearl Harbor, as Washington had been woken from its bed by a threat that came out of nowhere: “This time there was no megaphone, no air raid siren, no open declaration of hostilities and no final or advance warning.” The absence of a face, a name and the absence of… Meaning is an essential part of the horror of yesterday’s truly shocking and astonishing events.
The attack may have brought mourning to an entire country, but the press is already looking for those responsible and trying to point the finger at the perpetrators. The Wall Street Journal has blindly launched its accusations against the Middle East, declaring: “We have every right to do this. I believe it is the work of the usual suspects: Saddam, the Taliban, the mullahs of Iran and other tyrants who cite Islamic fundamentalism as a justification for terrorism.”
Take a deep breath, America!
In the aftermath of the attack, some news outlets still hoped for a future that would not plunge the country into a rush to war, with the Chicago Tribune saying that “a response centered solely on a sense of revenge cannot satisfy us.” The Washington Post took the same view but expressed serious reservations about the position the United States should take in response.
The newspaper believes that the United States “must resist the temptation to use force prematurely,” but if it turns out that the attack was launched abroad, then it will be an act of war and must be treated as such, and that is what the Bush administration has done.
It seems that the Guardian’s words still resonate 23 years later: “We must be wary of any American overreaction, especially at the military level. The temptation now is to make someone pay and pay. Take a deep breath, America!” However, the “Lawton” newspaper was more predictive and concluded that “if America goes to war, the world will go with it.”