ABSTRACT
The September 11 attacks marked the beginning of a veritable if unconventional war, as some immediately declared and some still say, the nature of the struggle, and certainly the identity of the enemy should have emerged with some clarity from the ensuing actions and reactions. Norman Mineta likes to remind everyone that the only post-September 11 attempt to attack a US airliner was perpetrated by an eccentric British-West Indian convert to Islam, not by an Arab-looking man with a Muslim name. The virtually official "war on terror" is therefore nothing but obfuscation, a deliberate elision of the simple truth that the September 11 hijackers were Arab Muslims motivated by hugely amplified renditions of common Arab and Muslim resentments, some very new but others dating back centuries. Osama bin Laden added an even greater resentment: the humiliating subjection of nominally independent Muslim rulers to the materialistic power of the Christians.
