Cui bono? Some thoughts of the day, 9/11

First appeared in the Evening Star, Ipswich, September 11, 2008

SEVEN years - a year longer than the Second World War - and yet it still seems like a recent event. The event that defines our era, shapes today's world, as the two world wars shaped the 20 th century.

It's the only event I can think of that is so well known just by its date - not its year, but the two numerals that denote month and day. Nine eleven.

A great many more deaths have been inflicted by subsequent American activities in Iraq , Afghanistan and Somalia than were caused directly by the attack on the twin towers.

The ongoing war in Darfur has cost at least 100 times as many lives.

All of those horrors combined are dwarfed by casualties in the Second Congo War, in which 5.4million people have died in the last 10 years.

Looked at on such a scale, 9/11 was scarcely more than a little local difficulty.

Around nine times as many people were killed on an average day in World War II.

So why does it still seem like the crime of the century?

Because it was so unexpected (at least by us, the general public). Because we saw it live on telly. Because it happened in a place so familiar and iconic.

But above all because we still live, despite the irresistible rise of the Eastern world, in an American-dominated age.

And Americans are used to breeding their own violence, or exporting it abroad, not to having it imported onto their soil.

Consider for a moment your first reactions on that day seven years ago.

Chances are that one of your first thoughts, like mine, was: "We're at war."

Have you ever felt that on hearing the news of bombings in, say, India , Pakistan - or even closer to home, in Europe ?

How much of the extra impact of 9/11 was due to feeling that we are somehow almost part of America ? How much to fear (justifiable fear, I'd say) of what America 's reaction might be?

If the aim of terrorism is to inflict fear disproportionate to your acts, or your real potential acts, then the criminals of 9/11 succeeded.

But who really were those criminals?

Detectives, and fans of detective fiction, will know that one of the first things to do when investigating a crime is to ask the question: Cui bono? Or, in plain English: Who benefits?

So who benefited from 9/11?

Not the people who actually flew the planes. They're dead.

Not the people of Iraq , Afghanistan or any of the other countries subsequently stomped on in the name of the War on Terror.

Not the world's billion-plus Muslims, the vast majority of whom want peace, stability and security as much as the rest of us.

Al-Qaeda? Well, maybe - though subsequent evidence suggests they're not as strong today as they were in 2001, certainly nowhere near as strong in reality as they are in our nightmares.

The US military? Certainly. They've had so much money poured their way it's destabilised the world's biggest economy.

The US "intelligence" services? Absolutely - just look at the power they have now compared to eight years ago.

The arms manufacturers? Yes of course.

America 's political right? Oh yes. It consolidated what had been their tenuous grip on power and may yet lead to the New American Century the neo-cons crave.

Of course, this is all great material for conspiracy theorists. And there are plenty of them out there.

One of the few certain things about 9/11 is that there was a conspiracy. The question is: Which theory do you believe?

If you like such things (and they do have an undeniable fascination) there are plenty of theories to be found on the web.

They include the idea (backed up with what may or may not be decent evidence) that the US government knew the attacks were coming but deliberately failed to stop them.

That the plane which supposedly crashed into the Pentagon didn't. Or that it was not a civilian aircraft.

That the way the twin towers fell - collapsing straight downwards, not toppling - shows it was a pre-planned demolition job, with carefully placed explosive charges, not the result of the plane strikes.

That the destruction of World Trade Centre Building 7 - and with it a huge quantity of legal paperwork that might have been damaging to the authorities - could not have resulted naturally from the disaster to the main towers.

There are also some wilder theories - such as the idea that the plane strikes never really happened, but were media fakes.

I think we can discount that one. But the fact that it's out there muddies the waters, making all the "unofficial" theories seem more crackpot.

Which may, of course, be why it's there.

I suspect that one or more of the above notions may have some shred of truth in it. After all - Cui bono?

But suspicion is all it's ever likely to be.

And the conspiracy theorist in me also suspects that any damning evidence that gets close to whatever the truth might be will never become public. Or at least that it won't stay public for long.