A Distant View of 9/11

by Gupta Nama Dasa

“The policy of wise rulers has always been to disguise strong acts under popular forms.”

Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859)
History of England, Volume 1.

When it all happened on 9/11, I was away from the United States—in the Middle East, to be more precise. I didn’t watch the catastrophe on television; I didn’t have one. (I almost never watch tv, and rarely read newspapers.) And I can tell you that from my detached and distant vantage point the events looked very different than to my friends in America.

So different, in fact, that I ought to begin by telling you that what I write here does not represent the official views of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, nor even the unofficial views of more than perhaps a scattered handful of its members. And with that disclaimer I can now say whatever I want, however strange and radical it might appear.

This then is an account of how 9/11—and events that followed—can be seen from one Krishna conscious point of view.

What we know for sure

The towers fell, and within weeks American troops were in Afghanistan, soldiers of a “global war on terrorism.” But to me—how should I say this?—it didn’t look real. That is to say, I felt a growing sense I was witnessing a colossal, and demonic, fraud.

Here is a note I wrote to myself to help piece together my thoughts, a few days after America went to war in Afghanistan.

What we know for sure about the war

Political leaders cannot be relied upon to give a true picture of what they are doing and why.
The news media cannot be relied upon to give a true picture of what is happening and why.
America opposes terrorism of which America itself is the object.
When America is not the object, America often shows itself indifferent to terrorism, or actively initiates or supports it.
America, therefore, is not globally opposed to terrorism.
That America’s goal is to rid the world of the evil of terrorism is therefore a falsehood.
We can presume, therefore, that America has other objectives.
America has substantial economic and military interests in the Middle East.
Regardless of what else is going on, America is unlikely to put those interests aside.

Political leaders cannot be relied upon to give a true picture of what they are doing and why.

I take this as axiomatic. The history of politics is largely a history of lying. And my mind turned back to something written by my spiritual teacher, His Divine Grace A.C.Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, in his commentary on the Vedic scripture Srimad-Bhagavatam.

Writing in 1964 or ’65, he had depicted demonic, morally rotten ultra-materialists—in Sanskrit called asuras—in a way that now seemed helpful in sorting things out:

“The asuras want to enjoy a life of sense gratification, even at the cost of others’ happiness. In order to fulfill this ambition, the asuras,especially atheistic kings or state executive heads, try to equip themselves with all kinds of deadly weapons to bring about a war in a peaceful society. They have no ambition other than personal aggrandizement, and thus mother earth feels overburdened by such undue increases of military strength.”

Note that phrase: “They have no ambition other than personal aggrandizement.” We’ll come back to it later.

The news media cannot be relied upon to give a true picture of what is happening and why.

Another axiom. In the words of no less an American than Thomas Jefferson: “The man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them, inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.”

America opposes terrorism of which America itself is the object.

Well, obviously.

When America is not the object, America often shows itself indifferent to terrorism, or actively initiates or supports it.

Examples abound. America supports Pakistan, notorious for its ongoing terrorism in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir.

And America elsewhere? Shall we pick up another example?

Writing in the Sunday Times (London), here’s a British Army officer who in the 1980’s helped train backward Afghanis into effective modern guerrillas:

“The Americans had been keen we teach them urban terrorism tactics too—car bombing and so on—so that they could strike at Russians in major towns. Personally, I wasn’t prepared to do that, although I realised that eventually they would find someone who was.” ¹