That was the day the War on Terror began. The Age of Terror got going much earlier.
Ask any American when it all began, and they'll tell you: September 11, 2001. It's a date burned into the nation's psyche as the day when we entered a dark era of terrorism. Most Americans will also probably be baffled by the terrible events of that day. Why would anyone hate us so much? What kind of psycho would want to do such a terrible thing? Why was America such a popular target for the world's hate?
These were some of the questions in my head as well when I began writing my debut novel, Fatally Flawed. The book was published and launched towards Christmas last year. I believe it's a story that will thrill you — as any political action thriller should — but also shock you.
You will learn that what began on 9/11 was the 'War on Terror'. The Age of Terror, and the emergence of the United States as a target, had its origins in events several decades earlier, during the 1970s, when a country called Lebanon was wracked by a brutal, ten-year civil war that pitted Muslims against Christians.
while writing Fatally Flawed, I turned into a student on a learning journey, understanding the roots and covert activities that shaped America's power and presence in the world, but also the high price it had to pay for its deeds. I want to share some of those learnings with you. Though my novel is a work of historical fiction about terrorism that builds on real events, its premise is completely fictional — and it depends on events that took place in distant lands.
There once was a time, not so many years ago, when suicide bombers were unheard of and the American way of life was not every terrorist’s favorite target. Indeed, to many of us, history is divided neatly into two eras — before 9/11 and after. The age of terrorism began with the crashing of an American Airlines Boeing 767 into the North Tower of New York’s World Trade Centre right before the world’s eyes.
Indeed, 9/11 was the most audacious and organized terrorist attack in American history but it was certainly not the first. The roots of terrorism and anti-Americanism depicted in my story go back to the iconoclastic 1970s.
It was a period that changed the geopolitical trajectory of the United States forever.
The beginnings were almost innocuous; no one could have predicted that the separate threads that evolved in the United States, the oil-producing countries of OPEC, the Middle East and Southeast Asia would lead to the terrorized world as we know it today.
The 70s were a time of exuberance, experimentation and activism in America. On the one hand, Star Wars, pop art and a photograph of a naked John Lennon on the cover of Life magazine defined a generation pulsing to new rhythms from Stevie Wonder's funk to Rolling Stones's rock. A generation that often viewed a utopian world through the filter of mind-altering drugs like LSD. A generation that contained some 40,000 diverse tie-dyed, Birkenstocked Americans who spent a rainy, historic weekend at Woodstock, New York, immersed in the spirit of love, peace and music.
On the other hand was an America convulsed with domestic unrest fired by opposition to the endless war in Vietnam, gay and women’s rights, Roe v. Wade, massive inflation and the implementation of the Civil Rights Act.
As the first stirrings of anti-American sentiment began to be felt in the Middle East, one could say the epicenter of those feelings might have been in Lebanon, where, as my story depicts, a devastating, multi-sectarian civil war erupted in 1975, mainly between an influential ruling elite of Maronite Christians and the country’s large but marginalized Muslim population. An influx of Palestinian refugees had swelled the ranks of the Muslims, bringing Israel into the fray, with America soon following suit.
What started as Lebanese civil unrest quickly acquired international stakeholders.
A destroyed cemetery in Beirut at the height of the Civil War
The beautiful and historic capital city of Beirut sustained major damage with relentless shelling and the killing of over 66,000 men, women and children during the bloody course of the conflict. The downtown area became a dangerous no-man’s-land separating Muslims in the west of the city and Christians in the east.
By June 1982, 100,000 Israeli troops and over 500 fighter aircraft occupied West Beirut and with the help of US and French peacekeeping forces there, they forced the withdrawal of the defeated Muslims from Beirut.
The first recorded terrorist attack against America occurred in April 1983, when Muslim militants detonated car bombs near the French and American barracks in east Beirut. The devastating second attack in Beirut witnessed in our story by ET Haynes and Jack Goodwell came six months later, in October of that year.
A nascent Islamic militant group known as Hezbollah took responsibility for this attempt to force the United States out of Lebanon.
This was the first-ever suicide bombing attack against America. Though no one realized it, the world had just entered a dangerous new age of terror and anti-Americanism.
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