The dramatic photographs of passenger planes hitting the World Trade Center towers now spark different feelings from those they evoked at the end of 2001.
The immediate reaction of Americans was to join together against a faceless enemy that killed 3,000 innocent civilians without formally declaring war -- an enemy that provoked a sense of vulnerability never before felt in a country spared by its location and power from such attacks through most of its history.
ILLUSTRATION MOUNTAIN PEOPLE
The country rose to the challenge. In an outburst of support for the victims, hundreds of Americans lined up to give blood for the wounded, even as the sad realization sunk in that there were few survivors. The Red Cross and other organizations helping families of victims were flooded with donations of food and other items.
Democrats, Republicans and independents, conservatives and progressives, southerners and northerners, city residents and midwesterners -- all felt moved. And they felt justified in defending their lives after the attacks.
American flags were hoisted over gardens, homes, buildings, shops, cars, motorcycles and vans as had not been seen in recent memory.
Support for President George W. Bush, who faced severe problems in the 10 months after his highly controversial 2000 election win, rose to unprecedented levels, despite the near 50-50 division in the country between Bush supporters and opponents.
Bush rallied an international coalition to go to war in Afghanistan and push out the Taliban regime that had harbored al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden with support from not only the US public, but also from ordinary citizens abroad.
But any unity started to dissipate as the Bush administration pushed through an agenda that prodded great unease.
The Patriot Act drafted by Attorney General John Ashcroft introduced unthinkable violations of the civil rights deeply imbedded in US history: detention of suspects without charge, arresting suspects without allowing them to speak to lawyers, and spying on telephone and e-mail communications without a judge's order. Even librarians were supposed to submit to secret searches of their lending records without informing borrowers.
Protests from civil-rights groups were barely heard amid the Bush administration's arguments for the war on Iraq.
Bush chose to state the case against Iraq at the first anniversary of the terrorist attacks, noting the UN demand that Iraq give up its supposed weapons of mass destruction or face force. He pushed the issue to a divided UN Security Council, causing huge splits in the transatlantic alliance, with Germany and Russia and France refusing to wage war in Iraq.
The unity Americans boasted after the attacks has, three years later, turned into deep division. The US led a "coalition of the willing" against former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, and continues to supply most of the financial and military resources in the ever-escalating conflict. The purported weapons of mass destruction, administration officials had to admit, were never found.
The near 50-50 division has split open again, with only a small margin of undecideds expected to tip the November elections.
Half of the country thinks Bush has ensured that the US averted other attacks. The other half thinks Bush has put in place noxious measures that undermine civil liberties, and has followed a foreign policy that has alienated and provoked the international community.
Some, like Hashima Johnson, who just finished a master's degree in Brazil studies, have decided to leave the US and go elsewhere, in her case to Brazil.
"Bush is going to win, I'm sure of it, and he's going to appoint one or two Supreme Court judges, and the country I love will cease to exist," she said.
Many who oppose Bush will
of course stay in their country.
Protests against Bush have increased. More than 1,700 arrests during the Republican Convention in New York last month broke the previous record of 600 arrests during the raucous Chicago Democratic Convention in 1968 at the height of the anti-Vietnam War movement.
American unity went up in smoke after bombs were dropped on Iraq. The fallout has been an acrimonious election campaign filled with mutually personal attacks by Bush and Democratic challenger John Kerry.
Recently, China launched another diplomatic offensive against Taiwan, improperly linking its “one China principle” with UN General Assembly Resolution 2758 to constrain Taiwan’s diplomatic space. After Taiwan’s presidential election on Jan. 13, China persuaded Nauru to sever diplomatic ties with Taiwan. Nauru cited Resolution 2758 in its declaration of the diplomatic break. Subsequently, during the WHO Executive Board meeting that month, Beijing rallied countries including Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Belarus, Egypt, Nicaragua, Sri Lanka, Laos, Russia, Syria and Pakistan to reiterate the “one China principle” in their statements, and assert that “Resolution 2758 has settled the status of Taiwan” to hinder Taiwan’s
Can US dialogue and cooperation with the communist dictatorship in Beijing help avert a Taiwan Strait crisis? Or is US President Joe Biden playing into Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) hands? With America preoccupied with the wars in Europe and the Middle East, Biden is seeking better relations with Xi’s regime. The goal is to responsibly manage US-China competition and prevent unintended conflict, thereby hoping to create greater space for the two countries to work together in areas where their interests align. The existing wars have already stretched US military resources thin, and the last thing Biden wants is yet another war.
As Maldivian President Mohamed Muizzu’s party won by a landslide in Sunday’s parliamentary election, it is a good time to take another look at recent developments in the Maldivian foreign policy. While Muizzu has been promoting his “Maldives First” policy, the agenda seems to have lost sight of a number of factors. Contemporary Maldivian policy serves as a stark illustration of how a blend of missteps in public posturing, populist agendas and inattentive leadership can lead to diplomatic setbacks and damage a country’s long-term foreign policy priorities. Over the past few months, Maldivian foreign policy has entangled itself in playing
A group of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers led by the party’s legislative caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (?) are to visit Beijing for four days this week, but some have questioned the timing and purpose of the visit, which demonstrates the KMT caucus’ increasing arrogance. Fu on Wednesday last week confirmed that following an invitation by Beijing, he would lead a group of lawmakers to China from Thursday to Sunday to discuss tourism and agricultural exports, but he refused to say whether they would meet with Chinese officials. That the visit is taking place during the legislative session and in the aftermath