...Al-Hayat: ...the 9/11 Commission Report...

[cantwealljustgetalong]

EFL -

Liberal Columnist in Al-Hayat: Do Arabs have the Courage to Reconsider Their Positions Following the 9/11 Commission Report?



Sheikh Abd Al-Hamid Al-Ansari, the former Dean of the Faculty of Sharia at the University of Qatar, wrote an article in the London-based Arabic-language daily Al-Hayat titled "Following the 9/11 Commission, do the Arabs have the Courage to Reconsider their Position?" In his article he called upon Arabs to recant their conspiracy theories regarding the perpetrators of the attacks, and apologize for spreading these theories. The following are excerpts from the column: <1>

The 9/11 Report Details the Terrorists' Plans

"The 9/11 Commission depicted the full and accurate picture of the attacks, their planning, their perpetration, the perpetrators, and their nationalities. The report clarified that the idea of the attacks was conceived by Khaled Sheikh Muhammad, who admitted that he first discussed the idea of attacking the World Trade Center with commercial planes with his nephew Ramzi Yousef . They discussed it again when they planned the Bojenka conspiracy in Manila in 1995, which aimed at hijacking commercial planes on 10 American targets, including the 4 targets chosen for September 11, American intelligence headquarters, the highest tower in California, and nuclear reactors. He presented the plan to Osama bin Laden and the Al-Qa'ida leaders, who at first weren't enthusiastic about it because of its complexity and magnitude, but in April 1999 bin Laden invited him to Kandahar and told him that Al-Qa'ida supported his idea. Bin Laden chose the first four suicide bombers after the original plan was changed.

...

Will We Now Admit that Arabs were behind the Attacks – or are We 'Incapable of Apologizing?'

"No doubt the Americans are going to draw practical lessons from the report in order to prevent their recurrence of their failings. But what about us? What about the Arabs who are the active element in this conspiracy?

...

"The question must be asked: Are those who blame the Mossad, the American Right, and the Serbs still holding strong to their convictions? What do they say about the American report? Do our religious leaders, especially those who appear so many times on the satellite channels and who have a monopoly on programs on Al-Jazeera, still hold to the conviction that Al-Qa'ida and bin Laden innocent of the September 11 attacks? These leaders used to say that bin Laden is a miserable sheikh who has no capability of planning operations at this high a level of accuracy and planning, and that the 9/11 attacks were perpetrated by the Americans themselves in order to prepare for attacks on Muslims and Islam.

...

"One of the absurdities is that while Al-Qa'ida and its supporters are proud of their deeds, calling them the 'Manhattan Raid,' and even printing advertisements in London in commemoration of the 9/11 attacks, with pictures of the 'magnificent 19' – our religious, cultural, and political elite struggling to deny that could have had anything to do with it.

"Do we have the courage to criticize ourselves, to admit to our fault, and to apologize as many people do, or is it one of our hidden qualities that we are a people that are incapable of apologizing? Why won't we take the opportunity of the appearance of the 9-11 Commission's report to ponder why destructive violence and a culture of destruction have taken root in our society? Why won't we take this opportunity to reconsider our educational system, our curricula, including the religious, media, and cultural discourse that causes our youth to live in a constant tension with the world?"



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<1> Al-Hayat (London), August 2, 2004.


I'd put the same question about blaming the Mossad/Israel to some DU'ers...