Terrorism and Economy: Battling Two Sides of the Coin
The United States of America is embroiled in battles all over like never before. While it's fighting terrorism on one side, it's economy is no better. Now Al-Qaeda has a new chief, after the death of Osama Bin Laden month and a half ago on May 2 at his Abbottabad residence in Pakistan. The Egyptian doctor turned terrorist, Ayman al-Zawahiri will head this terrorist clique which was responsible for the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center almost a decade ago in 2001. Today's op-ed article in the Hindu gives the background specifics on what made him the man he is now.
Being born in a upper middle-class family, he is said to have excelled in his studies and attracted to poetry. He was also drawn to the Muslim ideologies of Syed Qutb at a very young age of 14. He went on to become a surgeon and was later one among the many who were arrested and tortured post the assassination of the Egyptian President Sadat in 1981. Post release from prison 3 years later, he fled to Saudi Arabia where got into contact with Osama Bin Laden.
"The two men became inseparable: the intellectual, serious al-Zawahiri providing the perfect foil to the enthusiastic but politically immature bin Laden. Both men helped plan 9/11; it was to be al-Qaeda's greatest moment: a spectacular gesture that would precipitate a civilisational cataclysm between Islam and the west and signal that the power of the United States was illusory."
(The Hindu, June 17, 2011)
No doubt, the 9/11 attacks took the USA by shock and had severe consequences, both economically and politically world wide. The USA, then under the helm of George W Bush, launched a global War on Terrorism in Afghanistan and later in Iraq in 2003 (it continues to have its presence even now), and tightened its domestic security by creating a new Department of Homeland Security. The economic backlash exacerbated after the housing bubble (or the sub-prime crisis) in 2007 and the nation's economy has struggled to revive despite a host of austerity measures unleashed by the government. Its economic growth has also been outstripped by emerging nations like Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (called the BRICS).
The USA has played down the emergence of the new chief and has vowed to bring him down much like Bin Laden. While it's essential that Al-Qaeda has to be hunted down, what it needs is a reality check and correct its mistakes (Iraq is a timeless example, where billions spent could have used worthwhile), and take its sluggish economy surge forward.
Being born in a upper middle-class family, he is said to have excelled in his studies and attracted to poetry. He was also drawn to the Muslim ideologies of Syed Qutb at a very young age of 14. He went on to become a surgeon and was later one among the many who were arrested and tortured post the assassination of the Egyptian President Sadat in 1981. Post release from prison 3 years later, he fled to Saudi Arabia where got into contact with Osama Bin Laden.
"The two men became inseparable: the intellectual, serious al-Zawahiri providing the perfect foil to the enthusiastic but politically immature bin Laden. Both men helped plan 9/11; it was to be al-Qaeda's greatest moment: a spectacular gesture that would precipitate a civilisational cataclysm between Islam and the west and signal that the power of the United States was illusory."
(The Hindu, June 17, 2011)
No doubt, the 9/11 attacks took the USA by shock and had severe consequences, both economically and politically world wide. The USA, then under the helm of George W Bush, launched a global War on Terrorism in Afghanistan and later in Iraq in 2003 (it continues to have its presence even now), and tightened its domestic security by creating a new Department of Homeland Security. The economic backlash exacerbated after the housing bubble (or the sub-prime crisis) in 2007 and the nation's economy has struggled to revive despite a host of austerity measures unleashed by the government. Its economic growth has also been outstripped by emerging nations like Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (called the BRICS).
The USA has played down the emergence of the new chief and has vowed to bring him down much like Bin Laden. While it's essential that Al-Qaeda has to be hunted down, what it needs is a reality check and correct its mistakes (Iraq is a timeless example, where billions spent could have used worthwhile), and take its sluggish economy surge forward.
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