A NEW epoch in America’s relations with the world began at 8:41 a.m. on Sept. 11 when the first hijacked plane crashed into the World Trade Center. By imposing on America a sense of vulnerability, the attack also introduced the country to a new form of warfare — without battle lines and specific demands and not resolvable, as some wars are, by negotiation, only by victory.

The reaction has been defiant national unity. Partisan debate on foreign policy has been suspended. No significant disagreement exists on the strategy for defeating global terrorism put forward eloquently by President George W. Bush.

For all its shadowy nature, the new warfare permits a clear definition of what is needed to bring it under control. The terrorist attacks — from the hostages in Lebanon of the 1980s, to the bombed embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, and the crippled American destroyer in Yemen in 2000 — took place far away and while the United States was reluctant to put sustained pressure on the countries harbouring terrorists.

In the new approach, the terrorists will be viewed in the proper perspective. They are ruthless but not numerous. They control no territory permanently. If their activities are harassed by the security forces of all countries — if no country will harbour them — they will become outlaws and increasingly obliged to devote efforts to elemental survival. If they attempt to commandeer a part of a country, as happened to some extent in Afghanistan and in Colombia, they can be hunted down by military operations. The key to anti-terrorism strategy is to eliminate safe havens.

These safe havens come about in various ways. In some countries, domestic legislation or constitutional restraints inhibit surveillance in the absence of demonstrated criminal acts, or prevent the transmittal of ostensibly domestic intelligence to other countries — as seems to be the case in Germany and, to some extent, in the United States. Remedial measures with respect to these situations are in train.

But the overwhelming majority of safe havens occurs when a government closes its eyes because it agrees with at least some of the objectives of the terrorists — as in Afghanistan, to some extent in Iran and Syria and, until recently, Pakistan. Even ostensibly friendly countries that have been cooperating with the United States on general strategy, such as Saudi Arabia, sometimes make a tacit bargain with terrorists so long as terrorist actions are not directed against the host government.

A serious anti-terrorism campaign must break this nexus. Many of the host governments know more than they have been prepared to communicate before Sept. 11. Incentives must be created for the sharing of intelligence. The anti-terrorism campaign must improve security cooperation, interrupt the flow of funds, harass terrorist communications and subject the countries that provide safe haven to pressures including, in the extreme case, military pressure.

In the aftermath of the attack on American soil, the Bush administration resisted arguments urging immediate military action against known terrorist centres, especially those that had supported previous terrorist attacks against Americans. The challenge is to guard against the temptation to treat cooperation on Afghanistan as meeting the challenge and to use it as an alibi for avoiding the necessary succeeding phases.

This is why military operations in Afghanistan should be limited to the shattering of the Taliban and the disintegration of the bin Laden network. Using military forces for nation-building would involve us in a quagmire comparable to what drained the Soviet Union. The conventional wisdom of creating a broad-based coalition to govern Afghanistan is desirable but not encouraged by the historical record.

The likely — perhaps optimum — outcome is a central Kabul government of limited reach while tribal autonomy prevails in the various regions. This essential enterprise should be put under the aegis of the United Nations, with generous economic support from the United States and other advanced industrial countries. A contact group could be created composed of Afghanistan’s neighbors (minus Iraq), India, the United States and those NATO allies that participated in the military operations. This would provide a mechanism to reintroduce Iran to the international system, provided it genuinely abandons its support of terrorism.

The crucial phase of America’s anti-terrorism strategy will begin as the Afghanistan military campaign winds down, and its focus will have to be outside Afghanistan. At that point, the coalition will come under strain. So far, the issue of long-term goals has been avoided by the formula that the members of the global coalition are free to choose the degree of their involvement.

A la carte coalition management worked well when membership required little more than affirming opposition to terrorism in principle. Its continued usefulness will depend on how coalition obligations are defined in the next phase. Should the convoy move at the pace of the slowest ship or should some parts of it be able to sail by themselves? If the former, the coalition effort will gradually be defined by the least-common-denominator compromises that killed the U.N. inspection system in Iraq and are on the verge of eliminating the U.N. sanctions against that country. Alternatively, the coalition can be conceived as a group united by common objectives but permitting autonomous action by whatever consensus can be created — or, in the extreme case, by the United States alone.

Those who argue for priority for the widest possible coalition — in other words, for a coalition veto — often cite the experience of the Gulf War. But the differences are significant. The Gulf War was triggered by a clear case of aggression that threatened Saudi Arabia, whose security had been deemed crucial by a bipartisan succession of American presidents.

The United States decided to undo Saddam’s adventure in the few months available before the summer heat made large-scale ground operations impossible. Several hundred thousand American troops were dispatched before any attempt at coalition building was undertaken. Since the United States would obviously act alone if necessary, participating in the coalition became the most effective means for influencing events.

The direction of the current coalition is more ambiguous. President Bush has frequently and forcefully emphasized that he is determined to press the anti-terrorism campaign beyond Afghanistan. In due course, he will supplement his policy pronouncements with specific proposals. That will be the point at which the scope of the operational coalition will become clear. There could be disagreement on what constitutes a terrorist safe haven; what measures states should take to cut off the flow of funds; what penalties there are for non-compliance; in what manner, whether and by whom force should be used.

Just as in the Gulf War the pressures for American unilateral action provided the cement to bring a coalition together, so, in the anti-terrorism war, American determination and that of allies of comparable views are needed. A firm strategy becomes all the more important as biological weapons appear to have entered the arsenals of terrorism. Preventive action is becoming imperative. States known to possess such facilities and to have previously used them must be obliged to open themselves to strict, conclusive international inspections with obligatory enforcement mechanisms. This applies particularly to Iraq, with its long history of threats to all its neighbors and the use of chemical weapons, both against its neighbours and its own population.

The conditions of international support for a firm policy exist. For the attack on the United States has produced an extraordinary congruence of interests among the major powers. None wants to be vulnerable to shadowy groups that have emerged from Southeast Asia to the edge of Europe. Few have the means to resist alone. The NATO allies have ended the debate about whether, after the end of the Cold War, there is still a need for an Atlantic security structure.

Our Asian allies, Japan and Korea being democratic and industrialized, share this conviction. India, profoundly threatened by domestic Islamic fundamentalism, has much to lose by abandoning a common course. Russia perceives a common interest due to its contiguous Islamic southern regions. China shares a similar concern with respect to its western regions and has an added incentive to bring an end to global terrorism well before the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. Paradoxically, terrorism has evoked a sense of world community that has eluded theoretical pleas for world order.

In the Islamic world, attitudes are more ambiguous. Many Islamic nations, though deeply concerned about fundamentalism, are constrained by their public opinion from avowing public support, and a few may sympathize with some aspects of the terrorist agenda. An understanding American attitude toward traditional friends of America, like Saudi Arabia and Egypt, is appropriate.

Their leaders are quite well aware that they have made compromises imposed on them by brutal domestic necessities. The administration clearly should make every effort to help them overcome these circumstances, to improve intelligence sharing and the control of money flows. But it must not press to a point that undermines these governments for, in the short term, any foreseeable alternative would be worse for our interests and for the peoples involved.

Yet there are limits beyond which a serious policy cannot go. There is no reason for treating as members of the coalition countries whose state-supported media advocate and justify terrorism, withhold intelligence vital to the security of potential victims and permit terrorist groups to operate from their territory.

These considerations apply especially to Iran. Geopolitics argues for improved U.S.-Iranian relations. To welcome Iran into an anti-terrorism coalition has as a prerequisite the abandonment of its current role as the leading supporter of global terrorism, as both the State Department and the bipartisan Bremer Commission have reported. An Iranian relationship with the West can prosper only when both sides feel the need for it. Both sides — and not only the West — must make fundamental choices. The same is true to a somewhat lesser degree of Syria.

The war on terrorism is not just about hunting down terrorists. It, above all, is to protect the extraordinary opportunity that has come about to recast the international system. The North Atlantic nations, having understood their common dangers, can turn to a new definition of common purposes. Relations with former adversaries can go beyond liquidating the vestiges of the cold war and find a new role for Russia in its post-imperial phase, and for China as it emerges into great power status.

India is emerging as an important global player. After measurable success in the anti-terrorism campaign, when it does not appear as concession to the terrorists, the Middle East peace process should be urgently resumed. These and other prospects must not be allowed to vanish because those that have the ability to prevail shrink from what their opportunities require.—Los Angeles Times Syndicate International, a division of Tribune Media Services.

WHEREVER you look in America these days, you see Osama bin Laden’s mug staring right back at you. It is unnerving. You wouldn’t want to run into this man in a deserted street on a dark night. There are T-shirts selling with the man’s image superimposed with cross-hair.

What is written on some of these shirts, it will be imprudent to report in a newspaper that children may look through in search of comics. Seems to me OBL will do a lot of people a lot of good if he decides to step out of whatever cave he is holed up in and announce, “Hi folks, is that me you are lookin’ for?” Surely, he has heard the Lionel Ritchie song.

Of all that has been said and written about bin Laden, including unprintable graffiti on the walls, I like this letter sent to him by Ed Anger who writes a column for a weekly that you pick up and throw in with your groceries at the checkout of any American food store. The letter is addressed to OBL in the care of the General Consulate of Afghanistan at Lexington Avenue, New York. This has to be some sort of a joke because the only address outside Afghanistan that the Taliban and, by association, OBL sill possess is in our own Islamabad and who knows for how long. Things are moving faster than mail does.

The letter after its ‘dear Osama’ beginning comes to the point right away, “Listen up, you lily-livered piece of crap - if you haven’t been sent on a one-way trip to hell by some brave Marine’s M-16 rifle or a nuclear bomb from the belly of an air force flyboy’s B-52 stealth bomber. Anger’s the name and tail-kickin’s the game. I am not the young buck I was when we charged Pork Chop Hill in Korea back in ‘52. And I’ve got a steel plate in my head as a little souvenir from that blood-soaked battlefield.

“As that late, great American hero John “Duke” Wayne used to say, ‘I’m gonna finish what you started, Pilgrim, and it ain’t going to be a pretty sight.’ So how about you and me, one on one, weapons of our choice. Winner take all. You win and you can hang Ed Anger’s head from the highest termite mound you can find. I win and what’s left of your ‘terror club’ buys hot dogs, hamburgers and apple pie for every man, woman and child in America for life. What say we meet at high noon on October 11, one month from the day you became public enemy No. 1, in Manhattan — I think you know the spot — and settle this thing the old fashioned way, mano a mano.

“If you’re too yellow to come out of your hole, dung breath, we can handle that too. American warplanes will hit you like 20,000 bats out of hell and our fighting men and women will pour over your borders like banshees. It will make Armageddon look like a Sunday school picnic, you cave-dwelling, knuckle-dragging lunatic. We’ll be waiting to hear from you.”

I am not sure OBL is likely to visit Manhattan any time in the near future, nor can one pick up a copy of ‘Weekly World News’ at a grocery check-out in Kabul or Kandahar or wherever Mr Elusive is, which means, he won’t know of the Anger challenge. However, this being the age of the Internet, you can never be sure who will read what where. If OBL is tired of listening to Radio Shariat broadcasts or is looking for some diversionary reading to take his mind off the current stuff, he may, with profit, ask one of his boys to pick up a copy of the Weekly. It might amuse him despite the fact that it is published in the Land of the Great Satan.

The Weekly believes that facts must not be allowed to stand in the way of a good story, which is why it is here that you can read about the mystifying escape and disappearance of a creature called the Bat Boy despite the fact that he was being guarded by 250 undercover officers as they watched a musical in New York-based on the Bat Boy’s life. Bat Boy is both a bat and a boy. Because of the former, his favourite drink is blood and on account of the latter, he likes to play pranks.

But that is where Jim “Dead Eye” Slubbard, who has bagged more than 130 escaped cons, felons and bail-jumpers, comes in. Jim “Dead Eye” has declared war on Bat Boy. “I’m going to bring Bat Boy down with one clean shot to the head. Then I’m gonna have him stuffed and mounted over my fireplace.” At last we all now know what to do about our own Bat Boy Fat Boy, Adnan Sami Khan (unless he is settled in India, as has been reported, in which case the Aabpara boys will have to go get him).

Meanwhile, there is a report from Atlanta that a granny who saw angels floating up to the sky (they turned out to be helium-filled naughty dolls that had fallen from the back of a truck) is now with the real ones. While the dolls were floating towards heaven, she also noticed Jesus standing on the roadside. “Jesus” turned out to be the driver of the truck who was only dressed like Jesus. He was standing by the roadside wondering what to do about his escaped load.

But as for granny, she thought this was it. She leapt out through the sun roof, landing in the middle of the traffic which must have surprised her since she expected to float all the way to heaven. “He has come for us at last. Thank God and the heavenly hosts, he’s here,” she yelled in ecstasy as 16 cars from all directions hit each other in a dramatic pile-up. It is another thing that granny may, in the end, have got to heaven but not by the route she had in mind.

The driver who turned out to be a 28-year old man named Madison Grosnik, when asked why he was dressed as Jesus, replied that he was taking the helium-inflated dolls to a costume party and he thought this was a good outfit to be in. Then he raised his arms in frustration and said, “People always told me I looked like Jesus. But I never thought anyone would mistake me for the Messiah. If I really was Jesus, I certainly wouldn’t have been driving a rusty old pick-up truck. I always figured he’d come back driving a BMW.”

Ten of the blow-up dolls that had been mistaken for angels were eventually recovered.

The Weekly has an advice column as well that doles out some choice stuff. For instance, here is a letter signed ‘Disgusted in Phoenix’. Writes ‘Disgusted’, “I love animals as much as anybody else but my 17-year old son’s pet chimpanzee is driving me up a wall. He is cute as a bug and real smart. Unfortunately, he’s in desperate need of a lady monkey and his behaviour proves it. I have asked my son to give him to a zoo where he can get the companionship he needs but he won’t hear of it. What should I do?”

And this is the advice he gets. “Dear Disgusted, The next time your son leaves the house, take the monkey to the zoo. When the boy gets home and asks what happened, tell him the little pervert croaked.”

Well, as they say, ask a silly question.

TURMOIL and Afghanistan go together. Every Afghan boy is supposedly born holding a gun in his hands and he learns the skill of handling weapons in his teens. For the rest of his life he is at peace with himself and confident when engaged in musketry duels and combat environment.

The polity of Afghanistan’s fiercely independent tribal society is replete with unrest and violence; bullets not ballots dominate the landscape of its turbulent history.

A long line of Afghanistan’s top rulers met gory ends. They include Bacha-i-Saqao, Nadir Shah, Sardar Muhammad Daoud, Nur Muhammad Taraki, Hafizullah Amin, Babrak Karmal and Dr Najibullah. Additionally, King Mohammad Zahir Shah was deposed and exiled.

The Geneva accord of 1988 served the national interests of both the superpowers, the erstwhile Soviet Union and the US. It provided a face-saving formula for the Soviet Union to withdraw its forces from the quagmire of Afghanistan. The US felt elated at the political defeat and humiliation suffered by its superpower rival. To what extent did its military misadventure in Afghanistan contribute to the collapse of the Soviet Union itself is best left for the historians to assess. The Geneva accord was a half success for the regional powers. Infighting in Afghanistan continued. Regional instability stayed. Gun culture persisted. Narcotics trade flourished. The bulk of the three million Afghan refugees who had taken refuge in Pakistan remained in this country. Iran also had it share of the refugee burden.

The sudden exit of Soviet military forces created a political vacuum in Afghanistan. The Geneva accord did not envisage the formation of a caretaker government in Kabul to fill this vacuum. The negotiators had failed to reach a consensus on this important issue. Political expediency guided them to leave this issue unsettled for the future. This was a strategic blunder. General Zia wanted the Geneva accord to include a mechanism for the formation of a broad-based caretaker government to govern Afghanistan in the immediate post-accord period.

However, Prime Minister Junejo, asserting his constitutional right in the formulation of Pakistan’s Afghan policy, felt otherwise. The majority of Pakistan’s political parties, showing war fatigue, supported Junejo on this issue. They desired to distance Pakistan from events in Afghanistan and castigated Zia by reversing his Afghan policy. The vital issue of post-accord government thus became a victim of domestic pressures in Pakistan and was relegated to the backburner.

In the final analysis both superpowers decided to delink the formation of a post-accord government in Afghanistan from the Geneva accord. Junejo’s victory was a setback for Zia. However, it proved to be a costly error for Afghanistan and for the region. This misjudgment directly affected later developments in Afghanistan that kept this country in a state of flux.

After the implosion of the Soviet Union the US interest in Afghanistan and in Pakistan rapidly waned. It dropped Afghanistan like a hot potato, cold-shouldered Pakistan and wooed India for developing a bilateral strategic relationship. The large Indian market for trade was too lucrative to ignore. The Afghan ship, rudderless and without an experienced captain, started drifting in the turbulent waters of regional political rivalries. The US policy of isolating itself and leaving a troubled region to its fate was the second major policy blunder. It betrayed history and ignored geopolitical compulsions. In the process, the US compromised its own long-term interests. It is incomprehensible that the security of the US could be promoted by creating insecurity in a region that virtually floats on oil and gas and lies at the confluence of three important civilization centres — the Gulf, Central Asia and South Asia.

Developments in Afghanistan repeated history and proved the point that freedom fighters may not necessarily be blessed with the skill of efficiently governing a state. Afghan Mujahideen who had blunted the Soviet military aggression were soon at sea, not knowing how to govern their own country. The end of the jihad (in 1988) started a struggle for power between the hitherto loosely knit team of seven Mujahideen groups. The seven friends turned political foes, quarrelled and fought among themselves and in the process destroyed Kabul and turned it into a ghost city. Their inexperience in statecraft was patent. Afghanistan was split into two parts.

The Taliban emerged on the political landscape of Afghanistan, subdued both the warring factions and quickly took control of the country, almost without any serious resistance. They had a reasonable start and quickly established peace in the areas controlled by them. However, their bigoted policies and inflexible attitude range alarm bells in many parts of the world. Afghanistan defied world opinion, adopted harsh policies, and became a pariah state. In the resultant impasse Afghanistan was isolated in the comity of nations.

Osama bin Laden aggravated the woes of Afghanistan and perhaps contributed in creating some of them. The US links him and his organization Al-Qaeda with the September 11 attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. These attacks were abominable acts that stunned and infuriated the US and shocked the world. The entire world has condemned them in unequivocal terms. The feeling of rage and the cry for revenge in America are understandable. The perpetrators of this horrendous crime should be brought to justice. Washington claims to possess evidence to convict Osama bin Laden in a court of law. Much of it is reportedly classified in nature and only a part of the evidence has been shared with some countries.

CNN, BBC and other western agencies have been carrying out a relentless media trial of Osama bin Laden. This was perhaps inevitable in view of the enormity of the September 11 tragedy. The media blitzkrieg has, however, influenced the minds of the people including all the anticipated prosecution witnesses and the judges that may sit on the trial bench. Under the Angle-Saxon law every accused deserves a fair trial and he is considered innocent unless proved guilty. It will promote international unity and create public confidence if the trial, if and when held, is not only fair and is also seen to be fair by all impartial observers.

The on-going UN-approved and US-led military action against Afghanistan is a continuation of a series of tragedies that this country has unfortunately faced during the last few decades. Unfortunately, the injury suffered by Afghanistan is self-inflicted caused by the Taliban government. Taliban are largely to blame themselves for the damage caused to their country. Given prudence, flexibility and foresight, the damage caused was avoidable. Irrespective of the outcome of the war and irrespective of the future of the Taliban government and Osama bin Laden, one thing is crystal clear: the people of Afghanistan have faced poverty, turmoil, deprivation and cruel rule for a long time and this country virtually stands destroyed.

Afghanistan’s crisis can best be settled by political means. The country needs a broad-based interim government chosen by national consensus through a familiar homespun system. This government should shun terrorism and be friendly to Pakistan and other neighbours. Any attempt to impose a leader on Afghanistan, from within or from outside the country, may meet the fate of Babrak Karmal.

Afghanistan needs a large-scale international programme for rehabilitation of refugees and for the reconstruction of destroyed infrastructure of the country. The people of Afghanistan have suffered too much for too long. It is time to put the healing balm on their wounds be they self-inflicted or caused by external aggression.

The writer is a retired army general.

A CAREFUL study of the coverage of the Black Tuesday incidents and its aftermath by the western media reveals a clear and astonishing departure from its usual handling of such events.

Wide-ranging investigative reporting, searching questioning on lapses on the part of government agencies or functionaries and independent assessments of the whole episode have been the characteristic pattern of western, particularly American, media reporting of such occurrences. Surprisingly, the media coverage of the September 11 tragedy was lacking in all those elements. The reason was that they were acting under some preconceived notions which they wanted to prevail.

One of the two main areas in which the media would have raised searching questions under any other circumstances, was the complete failure of the intelligence agencies in forewarning what was to come on that fateful day. The other such area was an apparent absence of surveillance and security measures at the largest office building in the US which is also the nerve centre of its defence operations, the Pentagon, and also at one of the tallest structures in New York city, the World Trade Centre.

There are two main intelligence agencies working under the US government — the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Both of them have multi-billion dollar budgets and a large network consisting of spies, collaborators and informants. These agencies are armed with the most modern and sophisticated equipment.

The CIA was formed in 1947 during the Truman administration for gathering a wide variety of information considered necessary to safeguard the national security of the US.

It operates world-wide, outside the United States. It also works, whenever there is a need for it, in association with the intelligence agencies, the armed forces and the governments of other countries. It has been involved in many covert operations around the world and in toppling popular governments in several Third World countries.

Established in 1908, the FBI has been responsible for intelligence and law enforcement work mainly inside the US. It employs thousands of agents and other personnel and also runs an academy for the training of its employees and a laboratory for scientific investigation. The responsibilities of the FBI consist of gathering intelligence on, and investigating, various types of crimes, including domestic terrorism.

According to what little has been given out by the FBI about the 19 hijackers, they were probably Arabs hailing from various countries in the Middle East. All of them had spent some time in the United States before committing those ghastly acts of terrorism.

During their stay there, they had received training for flying passenger planes in American institutes and had also made other preparations which were spread over a period of about a year.

The question arises as to how it was that neither the CIA nor the FBI could get any inkling of their activities or plans. According to the US administration and its allies, Osama bin Laden and his Al-Qaeda group were behind this action. It is, therefore, logical to believe that these people must have remained in contact with the members of that group before and after arriving in the US. But Osama and his group have been for years under the most careful watch of not only the US intelligence agencies but also, because of their Middle East connection, under the vigilant eyes of their Israeli counterpart and associate, the Mossad. Was this massive failure of three of the world’s best equipped intelligence networks not worth discussing and probing by the media?

The Pentagon is generally described as the most protected building in the US. And it has to be because of the nature of work performed there. Strategic points all over the world are usually equipped with a surveillance system which gives a warning of any advancing intruder and also a retaliation mechanism that comes into operation in no time and which prevents or, at least, resists the intruder from causing any damage to the structures and installations. High-rise structures like the WTC towers, too, have such systems.

As reported by the media, the north tower of the WTC was hit by a plane at 8.45 a.m., the south tower at 9.03 a.m. and the Pentagon at 9.35 a.m. Thus, there was an interval of 50 minutes between the first strike and the crash into the Pentagon.

The camera crew and the team of commentators of the CNN and Fox News were able to take their positions well in time to show live the attack on the second tower which came only 18 minutes after the one on the first. But those holding the supreme responsibility of protecting some of the most supposedly secured buildings in the US capital were, apparently, in deep slumber even after a lapse of 50 minutes.

Such an enormous lapse would have let loose a great media uproar even in a Third World country and would have also caused quite a few heads to roll. But not a word of criticism or of censure has been uttered so far by the otherwise extremely vigilant American and British media. Isn’t it surprising?

The media description of the 19 persons believed to be the hijackers involved in the Sept 11 tragedy, was very sketchy. Yet it was enough to make one conclude, as did Newsweek in its issue of September 24, that they did not appear to be poor and desperate, were comfortably blended into American culture, at least one had a family and school-going children, and another could ‘violate Quran’s ban on alcohol.’

This description is very different from the picture that one usually has in mind of a religious fanatic set on a suicidal mission. One would believe him to be a recluse and a mysterious person with puritanical habits. This divergence in what was given out officially and the common perception should have led the media to use its own initiative and resources to dig out more about the men concerned.

They had been doing that in the past. It was because of the investigations carried out by two sceptical journalists from The Washington Post that what Nixon had tried to hide with regard to Watergate was uncovered. In the Monica Lewinsky case, too, the media had scrambled to obtain narratives about the principal characters from every one — valets to friends of the school days.

Here, in the case of the alleged hijackers, the issues were far grave than the moral weaknesses of erring presidents. These people were stated to have been involved in incidents that had shaken the world and were likely to affect the future course of mankind. Yet the media people did not feel the need to look deeper into each case but quietly accepted what was dished out to them by the FBI.

Why did the American media, as also the rest of the western media, behave in this unusual fashion on this occasion? It can thus safely concluded that this was so because the media had been acting under certain preconceived perceptions.

The first of these was that Osama was responsible for these acts of terrorism. Within an hour of these gruesome happenings, a BBC commentator named Osama directly and the CNN followed the lead a bit later.

Obviously, they could not have had access to any solid evidence in such a short time. (Incidentally, any such evidence is still not available, at least, to the public). Thus, it was mere speculation and that too of a very transparent kind in view of the example of the Oklahoma killings for which ‘Islamic terrorists’ had been blamed at first but later investigations had revealed that it was the work of a Christina American.

The other predetermined notion was that the Muslims — individuals and governments — has been involved in the terrorism and this was an opportunity to teach them a lesson. That was why there was no attempt to advise Presiden