fourth day, we're looking at - hello and welcome to press tv spotlight. i'm marizia hashimi, thanks so much for being with us. well, it has been 23 years since the t 10 twin towers in new york were brought down. on that day, almost 3,00 people were killed in the attacks. since that day, millions have been killed around the world under the guise of the us's war. on terror

when in actuality terrorism was being committed against the people of west asia and other places. stay with us. as we take a look back at 9/11 and its repercussions inside the us and around the world. i'd like to welcome my guests to the program. out of new york, press tv's correspondent racial hamdun. and out of london, back to soviet activists and political analys, thank you both for being with me. well, let me start this off actually in in the states in new york uh with rachel, i mean with any attack or war, the question to ask usually is who benefits the most, who or which entity would you say benefited the most from those 911 attacks and analysts that you have seen, um... talking about that day

and the aftermath? first of all, good evening, i would like to start by saying it is definitely the us that has benefited out of the 9/11 attacks. mean, 9/11 has been the gateway for the us to start what they called the global war on terror. uh, that's 911 was 23 years ago, and since then every american gathers in new york city in order. to commemorate that day as 3000 were left killed, however, one moment of tragedy has of left a history of devastation for the arab and muslim world as a result of g.w. bush, george w. bush declaration of the global war on terror has left hundreds of thousands, if not more killed in countries such as yemen, syria, libya and so on. the us was able to fund terrorism through its own campaign, it's

smear campaign against islam, against what it called the global war on terror, when it in fact was not only funding it, but it was fueling it, it was using the american weakness at the time, it was using the overwhelming sensation of weakness in order to mobilize the american public against muslims both in the us and outside the us. all right, well stay with me, batul, i mean after the 911 attacks... the then us president george w. bush declared the u.s. war in terror, do you think that washington could have invaded the countries that it did without the 911 pretext? right, it definitely would have found another pretext, but essentially the war of terror was within the quote and quote new middle east uh strategy that was put forward by the evangelical uh right-wing uh within uh george uh bush's department um the us decided at that point that direct. intervention was its strategy

and 9/11 was just the pretext for the us to then launch that terror mayhem uh in the region of west asia for the next two decades to come. the objective of the war of terror was number one for the us to expand its direct military presence in west asia to gain dominance over the natural resources, the oil of the countries. essentially it wanted iraq to be its kind of headquarters through which it can dominate the region. now why is the region so important? because if you control it then you basically control the oil top of the... world and therefore world economies and number two, it wanted to attack iran under this new middle east project, so this was done through invading afghanistan, then iraq, they station their troops in pakistan, their forces in the persian gulf countries and the persian gulf waters and then reinforce their basis in syria, so this was done in order to eliminate iran's friends, aka destroy the resistance access, whether that's in palestine, the resistance in lebanon that they had just that had essentially just kicked the israeli occupation entity out in 2000 to then the

government in syria, which they continued using the so-called arab spring, and then within their strategy it was to establish the so-called arab israeli peace within the region after they had done that, because by of that point "they had decided that the arab puppet regimes were effectively ineffective. um, so it was within this strategy that we also saw the 2006 war in lebanon, the war in syria with the west, backing the so-called moderate rebels in order to top bashal assad, and the insurrection of isis, so if this was just about fighting quote and quote terrorism, they wouldn't have invaded west asia, this resulted in more terrorism, in increase after the invasion, you during 9/11 the terrorism was limited, it multiplied after all the regions that they went into the terrorism increased. the likes of al-qaeda and you essentially got isis thereafter. okay, well rachel, how was the united states affected itself or change with the passing of the patriot act and in general after the 9/11 bombings? after the 9/11 bombings, it was not

just the patriot act is it is worth mentioning as well that in 2001 a week after the attacks they also passed the aumf law. that's is called the authorization of the use of military force, which the us used as an excuse in order to not only invade the middle east and west asia, but it used it in order to devastate, as bathud said, economies, infrastructure, educational systems lives, and that was a way for them to self-legitimize their way and their encroachment into the middle east by using the term counter-terrorism. operations, i mean they they invaded afghanistan in 2001, they invaded the yemen in 2002, iraq in 2003, pakistan in 2004, libya in 2011 and syria in 2014, and they are still there. in addition,

if you look at what is going on in occupied palestine right now, you can you can see that israel is is the mere means to an end for the us, this is a continuation for them to fund and fual terrorism both through patriot act and through the aums act. okay, well thank you. now um, turning back to london, former us retired general wesley clark pointed out how he found out from friends at the pentagon around 10 days after the 911 attacks that the us would invade seven countries in five years. they were iraq, syria, lebanon, libya, somali. is sudan and of course iran. i mean, let's look at this and what does this mean? um, your take, so were all these invasions are aggressions pre-planned, how do you see it? absolutely, of course they were pre-planned, as i as i was explaining, it was

pre-planned as part of the new middle east project that was put forward by the evangelical right, and 911 was simply used as that excuse, and as i've also mentioned, if the argument was to defeat terrorism. well terrorism was actually generated and multiplied as a result of, and actually it was the resistance access on the ground that defeated that subsequent terrorism, and actually america used the terrorism that was generated and the capacity for it that was created in afghanistan, in iraq to actually target the line of resistance that they consider to be a real threat to their hegemonic interests in the region and and globally and beyond so... so we see how terrorism actually became within the american strategy and actually benefited it, so consider how for example america uses isis uh and they consider them the best candidate to fight the version of islam that is really a threat to them and that is the version that is spearheaded by the islamic republic of

iran since 1979 that says no to humiliation and and no to to foreign invasions and occupations, no east, no west, islamic republic standing its two feet uh supporting the rest of the region that is fighting that common primary enemy which iran put forward as as the great satan, whether that's uh helping you know the palestinians in their struggle against the zionist aggression, lebanon, likewise, iraq in the fight against daesh, which these invasions created the capacity for, and yemen fighting um the uh saudi entity that is essentially propped there by uh the so-called great country, britain. well, rachel, i i wanted. because you're inside of the united states, i want to talk about the american public itself, so on the one hand, we we talk about the um, the events of 911, and and i want to look at that, because if the us really felt as if it was under threat, um, why would it want to attack so many countries instead of trying to

concentrate, for example, on the ledge perpetrator, and i'm just wondering, um, americans, when they look at this, this many years later, 23 years. later, are they questioning the narrative, i mean, do they understand the ramifications of what took place on 911, not only for americans, but mostly for other parts of the world. like west asia? well, if you look at it and you look a lot of research, right now americans are starting to understand not only the ramifications, but narratives are being questioned. you can see that the american public right now, 9/11 every year is still remains the equivalent of anti-muslim sentiments in the us, so hatred and discrimination against muslims in the us, and when you said about for example, if if you look about the aumf law, really there aren't

any geographical restrictions, there aren't any any designated entities, it's just an open allowance in order to invade the middle east and in order to call itself a global war on terror, but it doesn't designate any significant geographical boundaries, it doesn't designate a significant so quote unquote terrorist organization. that it says it wants to uh attack, and if you look at it as well, the us is trying to compensate for 9/11, it's it's become more of like a tit for tat type of situation, us government after 2001 is trying to compensate to the american public after so much weakness, vulnerability and hatred rose from that moment until now, but research does still show that right now americans are starting to question the... media narrative and the government narrative around the incident at that time? yeah, it is

quite amazing that it took this long, but we're happy that the american public is at least beginning to wake up. mean batul on october 7th, 2001, that's when the us started its war on afghanistan, just three weeks of course after september 11th. i mean, logically, why would the us bomb afghanistan for hijackers? who were allegedly from saudi arabia, and and even if as it said it wanted to get osama bin laden, i mean, why wouldn't the u.s. use special forces, what would be the need to bomb a whole country and remain in afghanistan for 20 years, and and how do they get away with justifying this, your perspective? absolutely, um, afghanistan, they invaded, as i mentioned, because they want to be directly in the region, they want to foresee uh the the affairs of the region, themselves and to take it into their hands and this all happened when the right-wing evangelicals came and proposed this idea of

the new middle east. groups like the taliban, like al-qaida, they were used as a tool by american, we all know this to fight the soviets, they were actually never the target. never was it a struggle between this, you know, islamist terrorism and america, rather we know how actually this, so-called islamist terrorism was used as a functional role to serve the american strategy. and continued with the formation, the creation and the initiation of isis uh, and the west playing a functional role in that to, as i mentioned, target the line of resistance that's a real threat to western hajaman in the region, and actually the became that strong excuse for them to be present in the region after these groups then turned uh against uh america, so ultimately uh this was all about the new strategy for america that started with 9/11, this was an era of unipolarity, you know, post soviet union collapse, they wanted to get rid of the puppets and the arab

countries, and um, for america to lead the whole world from iraq as its headquarters, they use 9/11 as excuse, um, and this was really their strategy. well, rachel, uh, after afghanistan, the next major step for the us so-called war and terror was iraq. iraqi lives have been affective killing, displacing and may millions of them, though iraq had nothing to do with the attacks. the us spread is terrorism throughout the country, which still has not totally recovered from what it experienced at the hands of the us. mean, what was the ultimate goal of the us's invasion of iraq in your perspective, and what do you think washington got for it? well, as as batul said, that was one of the, as i would say means to an end in order for them to not only gain traction into the area, but it was, i mean, think of it as... well there's there's the economy, there's the oil, oil was was and still is major major point of focus for the us, and

iraq was just one of the one of the means to an end, i mean, i mean, you have libya and and yemen and pakistan, afghanistan, and economy, oil was one of the main points of focus even though, as you said, idok had nothing to do with 9/11, but the region was the point of focus for. them, oil was the point of focus for them, and they were trying implement this us versus them complex, the civilized and the savage, this was just one the way for them to do that, right? right, well, but too, i mean, during the barack obama rain, the us so-called war on terror continued with covert lethal drone strikes throughout the world, and during obama's eight years as us president, 563 drone strikes were carried out targeting countries from pakistan to somalia, to yemen. would you say the us became judge, jury and

executioner, not following any international legal protocols and targeting people and countries that will... and what are the ramifications of this? absolutely, the fact that this all happened during obama's era, as you rightly stated tells you that actually this was within the strategy of the deep state trajectory as in it didn't matter if a republican bush was in power or democrat obama was in power, this was the american strategy for the region, the desperate attempt in light of the real expansionism of the resistance access that the region. was witnessing with 11 and having just defeated the zionist entity, the 2005 withdrawal of the uh zionists from uh ghaza, you know the the expansion of the veins of the resistance in syria, within that strategy as well uh where they you know assassinated to pull syria out of uh lebanon uh in order to make the uh resistance to lebanon vulnerable, then

it was forced to enter into government, the 2006 war that then happened, the arab spring, starting a war doesn't mean that you were... control of it, the wars ultimately in the region failed, these air strikes that we're mentioning, they failed to reach the intended objective of the west, and the results were incontrollable, and ultimately they used the situation in the region of breeding terrorism for their own strategies, they then they then use the pretext of daesh um in syria and iraq for them to basically loot syrian oil and to maintain their presence uh in iraq, so this all happened within the american planning and the american strategy that not only fermented the terrorism within the region, but also ratcheted up islamophobia in europe, because remember one of the fears of the west is that the people of the west will get affected by the real line and the real movement of islam on the ground that is being spearheaded by the resistance axis, they fear that, so for that reason they want to muddy the waters when it comes to ratcheting islamophobia and

making all kinds of resistance against colonialism as equating to that of that. and other real terrorists that the west breeds essentially. right, well rachel, other parts the u.s. war on terrorism, we can see the prisons in black sites that were created by the us specifically by the cia, from bagrib in afghanistan, to abu ghraib and iraq, to guantanamo and so many others, i mean these sites became infamous for their lack of abiding by any international law, do you think that these type of actions, evading international law? has set up a dangerous precedent in the world, and and your take on why the us still hasn't been held responsible? well, us hasn't been held responsible regarding local law, international law, i mean if you look at guantano bay, last year a lot of reports have come out showing the methods of torture that

already american law has prohibited such as water. and it's it's it's amazing to just see the similarity between for example the torture being used in guantanamu bay and the torture being used in israeli prisons against palestinian prisoners, the us isn't going to be held accountable for violating international law just as israel won't be held for prohibiting for violating international law and that's because the us, as you can see in the un for example, holds an upper hand when it comes to vetos, they the world can see the atrocities being being done in in prisons, in wars, in countries against people, and as i say, as long as money talks, the law isn't just going to set itself straight, and so you can see that

guantanamo bay, abu ghraib and other prisons are the excuse for the... us to say because of 9/11 we have the right to do this against those who we think have committed this atrochery on 9/11 and they're going to keep doing that by using that alibai by using that excuse in order to commit international crimes and international uh war crime yeah interesting point rachel and batul i mean exactly what she said we're looking at an extension of that right now of course unfortunately when we see what is happening in gaza and the excuses that the the regime, the israeli regime uses is for as their continual attacks and genocide basically taking place, so overall now when we look at the world today, is the world? safer today than it was in 2001, and in your perspective, the overall result of the us's war on terror? the war of terror ultimately failed uh, the

real defeat of terrorism didn't happen, in fact it only encouraged it. the nations in the region, um, the resistance access essentially, iran to syria, to lebanon, to iraq, to yemen, is what actually fought this terrorism that the west, not only supported, but created the capacity. uh us withdrawal has been occurring in the region, whether that's in afghanistan in in 2021, um, the presence of america in iraq is not sustainable, and actually what's really interesting is the whole war of terror is actually backfired, we now see a resistance axis that's a lot more stronger and coordinated, the hashhabi and iraq wouldn't have been created without the creation of daesh, essentially by by the west and it's sustaining, the israeli occupation entity will fall in the same way and... america uh has been withdrawing uh from the region, these kinds of policies are not sustainable, they create reactions, so in the same way that this war of terror has failed through direct military interventions, you know we've

seen that the sectarianism through the arab spring strategy has failed and the world is now, especially the region is realizing the on is realizing we have been lied to regarding syria you know and the threat of the so-called shassen, we've seen that the economic sanctions on the islamic republic, on lebanon, on syria through through... the caeser acts have failed, the smear campaigns to cause cous and color revolutions have failed and the resistance access is only getting stronger. well, thank you, ladies, it's been a pleasure talking to both of you, that brings us to the end of the spotlight. racial hamdoon, press tv correspondent out of new york, bato sovietty activists and political analysts out of london and thank you viewers for being with us on another spotlight. i'm marza hashimi, hope to see you right here next time. goodbye.

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