11 September 2006

TRANSCRIPT OF THE PRIME MINISTER
THE HON JOHN HOWARD MP
ADDRESS TO THE SEPTEMBER 11TH COMMEMORATION
UNITED STATES EMBASSY, CANBERRA

E&OE................................

’Ambassador and Mrs McCallum, ladies and gentlemen, we gather here this morning on the 5th anniversary of the terrorist attack on the United States and indeed on the entire world that values individual liberty and freedom on the 11th of September 2001. We gather both in remembrance and reaffirmation. We remember those from many nations, including Australia who lost 10 citizens in the World Trade Centre and was, several years later, to suffer even greater losses in the terrorist attacks in Bali, but also the other nations who lost citizens on that fateful morning. 

It reminds us, of course, that although the attack took place on American soil and was designed deliberately and calculatedly to do great damage to the people of the United States, it was an attack on values that the entire world holds in common. And that is why, in gathering here this morning, we do so not only in remembrance of those who lost their lives, we honour those who risked their lives, and in some cases lost their lives trying to rescue those in both the Pentagon and the World Trade Centre. 

But we also gather to reaffirm our commitment both as friends and allies of the people of the United States but also as citizens of the world, to maintain the fight against terrorism.  Terrorism is the enemy of all people of goodwill. It is the enemy of all of the great religions of the world; it is a blasphemy on Islam for the name of Islam to be invoked to justify terrorism. It is also the enemy of all the value systems that are important to Australia and the United States.

And speaking here, I know on behalf of all of my fellow Australians, and I know also on behalf of all of you, we think particularly of the losses and suffering of the people of the United States on the 11th of September 2001. And all of us, I know in our different ways and our different approaches, rededicate ourselves to maintain the values that are universal values of individual liberty and dignity, of freedom of association, of freedom of religion and freedom of thought. And in reaffirming our commitment to maintain the fight against terrorism, we do so in the belief that those universal values will in the end, because they represent the truth of mankind's existence, they will in the end triumph.’

meanwhile, from downtown wherever-istan …..

‘Were I to take my life in my hands this weekend and visit Osama bin Laden's hideout in Wherever-istan, the interview would go something like this. I would ask how things have been for him since 9/11. His reply would be that he had worried at first that America would capitalise on the global revulsion, even among Muslims, and isolate him as a lone fanatic. He was already an "unwelcome guest" among the Afghans, and the Tajiks were out to kill him for the murder of their beloved leader, Ahmed Shah Massoud (which they may yet do). A little western cunning and he would have been in big trouble.

In the event Bin Laden need not have worried. He would agree, as did the CIA's al-Qaida analyst in Peter Taylor's recent documentary, that the Americans have done his job for him. They panicked. They drove the Taliban back into the mountains, restoring the latter's credibility in the Arab street and turning al-Qaida into heroes. They persecuted Muslims across America. They occupied Iraq and declared Iran a sworn enemy. They backed an Israeli war against Lebanon's Shias. Soon every tinpot Muslim malcontent was citing al-Qaida as his inspiration. Bin Laden's tiny organisation, which might have been starved of funds and friends in 2001, had become a worldwide jihadist phenomenon.

I would ask Bin Laden whether he had something special up his sleeve for the fifth anniversary. Why waste money, he would reply. The western media were obligingly re-enacting the destruction and the screaming, turning the base metal of violence into the gold of terror. They would replay the tapes and rerun the footage ad nauseam, and thus remind the world of his awesome power. Americans are more afraid of jihadists this year than last. In a Transatlantic Trends survey, the number of them describing international terrorism as an "extremely important threat" went up from 72% to 79%. As for European support for America's world leadership, that has plummeted from 64% in 2002 to 37% this year.

Bin Laden might boast that he had achieved terrorism's equivalent of an atomic chain reaction: a self-regenerating cycle of outrage and foreign-policy overkill, aided by anniversary journalism and fuelled by the grim scenarios of security lobbyists. He now had only to drop an occasional CD into the offices of al-Jazeera, and Washington and London quaked with fear. The authorities could be reduced to million-dollar hysterics by a phial of nail varnish, a copy of the Qur'an, or a dark-skinned person displaying a watch and a mobile phone.’

The Weekend's 9/11 Horror-Fest Will Do Osama bin Laden's Work For Him