THE DOMINO EFFECT
The terrorist attacks
on the World Trade Center and the
Pentagon on September 11, 2001 will
be remembered as a defining moment in
the history of the United States of
America. The attack was a horrible
event and is proving to have
consequences of biblical proportion.
At this writing, more than 2 ½ years
have passed since that horrible day
and I am stunned at the domino
effect. Who could have anticipated
the enormity of the terrorist
attacks? When all the losses
were added up (loss of life, freedom,
property, financial resources,
injuries and collateral damage), this
event will be counted as one of the
United States greatest tragedies.
Authorities tell us
that the number of dead missing at
the World Trade Center is more than
3,000 people and the number of
injured is more than 8,700. At the
Pentagon, the death toll stands at
189. In Pennsylvania, where the
airliner plunged into a cornfield at
528 miles per hour, the death toll
stands at 93. Only five people were
rescued from the collapsed towers,
after two weeks of heroic effort.
However, the number of missing,
injured and dead is only a part of
the big picture. Consider the domino
effect from the events of this
tragedy. Relief agencies are saying
that more than 10,000 children have
lost one or both parents. Insurance
companies and government officials
have estimated that the damage and
the clean up was more than $40
billion dollars in New York City and
$500 million at the Pentagon.
The Impact
Continues
The consequences from
these events on September 11 have
also affected many people who were
not even near ground zero. For
example, who can add up the financial
impact on the families of the
victims? Who can measure their sorrow
and grief? The problems in corporate
America loom much bigger now. Because
the attacks were caused by hijacked
airplanes, the nation’s airlines
had to be grounded for several days
and due to safety concerns, fewer
people are flying. Again, notice the
domino effect. The airline industry
has continued their plan of reduction
of more than 100,000 employees, and
it has already lost more than $ 7
billion in revenue during its last
quarter of 2001 alone. To keep
airlines in business, congress
appropriated $15 billion in emergency
relief. This is not the end of the
story. People are not traveling as
much, which means travel agencies,
motels, restaurants, cruise ships,
theme parks and many other forms of
recreation are suffering. The MGM
Mirage complex in Las Vegas has laid
off 3,000 employees. Fewer tourists
mean fewer dollars and fewer dollars
means loss of jobs in places where
the tourist dollar is the primary
source of income. Since then, most of
these tourist companies have had to
be very creative in getting the
tourist back and spending some
dollars.
Another domino effect:
President Bush has received $40
billion from Congress to help pay for
the rescue and recovery at home and
to declare war on terrorist abroad.
Where does this $40 billion come
from? More than 27,000 troops have
been sent out to find terrorists and
their sponsors and more than 17,000
military reserves have called to
active duty. Who pays for this? It is
the United States taxpayer. Another
domino effect: Wall Street and
financial markets have been up and
down with an emphasis on
“down.” The stock
market experienced its largest
one-week drop in its history during
the week after the attack. To bolster
an already sagging economy, the
Federal Reserve Board lowered
interest rates to 2.5%. As people
spend less, the economy slows down so
tax revenues for the government
evaporate. The tax surplus which
Republicans and Democrats were
haggling over a couple of years ago
has been significantly reduced by a
single vote! The financial impact of
September 11 has reached $200
billion. (One billion is a thousand
millions.) The attack on the World
Trade Center has affected every U.S.
citizen and repercussions have
reverberated throughout the world.
The United States
Another domino effect:
Millions of Americans rushed to
church and began to pray as a result
of the attack. Prayer services and
candlelight vigils were held around
the nation. CNN reported that church
attendance in some areas of the
country was up 300%. Bible sales
during the first two weeks after the
tragedy were up 27% and sales on
books about prophecy were up 80%. A
prayer service was televised from the
steps of the Capital Building (first
time I have ever seen this) and
contrary to the Supreme Court’s
ruling, I am sure many prayers were
offered in public schools around the
nation. A sense of sobriety fell on
U.S. citizens during the week of
September 11, 2001 and for the first
time in a very long time; we became
the united states of America.
Another domino effect:
Attorney General Ashcroft is asking
Congress to enact and update a series
of laws to give police and
intelligence agencies greater freedom
to infiltrate terrorist cells. The
downside to this, of course, will be
the loss of civil liberty. Up to a
point, Congress seems willing to give
the authorities greater freedom to
invade our privacy by enacting new
laws for the sake of public safety.
Finding an acceptable balance between
safety and liberty is a serious
matter. The U.S. Constitution and the
Bill of Rights will be challenged and
I anticipate a great deal of debate
on these and other related matters in
days to come.
Peace and Safety
Another domino effect:
Every nation now realizes that a
relatively small group of terrorists
can be responsible for devastating
events. Consequently, I expect the
merry-go-round of “terrorism
then retaliation” to speed up.
Every time a terrorist act occurs,
retaliation will be swift and deadly.
Giving in to terrorists is not an
option for any government. President
Bush and a host of nations intend to
eliminate terrorism from the world,
but I do not think this will be
possible. Their attempts may limit
terrorism, but evil cannot be
prevented. A free society is a
wonderful way of life as long as
people live by the golden rule.
However, when people take advantage
of a free society to kill or maim
others, something has to be done.
When the rules of conduct change,
everyone losses freedom. There is a
minority of people in the U.S. who
are opposed to a military response to
the terrorism of September 11. As one
preacher said on TV, “if we
follow ‘the eye for eye and
tooth for tooth doctrine,’ the
world will soon be blind and
toothless.” This statement seems
to be confusing forgiveness with
justice. Christians glorify God when
we turn the other cheek and forgive
our enemies. We also glorify God when
we stand up for righteous principles.
God has made provision for the rule
of law and the right of governments
to defend their citizens. (Romans
13:1-4)
Why the Hatred?
As the 21st
century begins, we find that Earth
has become very small. There is not
enough inhabitable land or resources
for six billion people to live
together with divergent cultures,
languages and religious beliefs.
Many people are
asking, what would cause these 19
terrorists to attack the U.S. and
cause so much death and destruction?
In any conflict, there are always two
opposing sides with reasons they feel
are valid. For example, some of the
Arab hatred toward America stems from
two previous wars. First, after WWII,
the United Nations and the U.S.
aggressively supported the formation
of Israel as a nation. The formation
of Israel in 1948 required tens of
thousands of Palestinians who had
lived in and around Jerusalem for
several centuries to be displaced.
They were forced at gunpoint to
abandon their land, homes and
property to Jewish refugees.
Thousands of Palestinians became
captives of subhuman refugee camps
with nowhere to go and no one to turn
to for help. During the 53 years, the
U.S. supported Israel with billions
of dollars in aid and in weapons that
have been used to subdue the
Palestinians. In 1967, Israel took
even more land from the Palestinians,
as well as land from neighboring Arab
states. To maintain control and
“keep the peace,” Israeli
forces occupied the land they had
taken from the Palestinians and
imposed its rule of law on them.
Needless to say, the bitterness
between Arabs and Jews runs so deep
that no peace process has been able
to find a solution. Millions of Jews
now occupy the property that once
belonged to Palestinians. The Middle
East is a place where racial
profiling, racial discrimination,
racial hatred and religious
antagonism are part of the human
fabric. Fifty-three years of hatred,
injustice and thousands of casualties
have produced a generation of young
people in the Arab world who have no
confidence in any peace process. I
have heard it said that hundreds of
young Arabs would count it a
privilege to terrorize the enemy with
their own death, and maybe through
terrorism they will succeed where
endless talking has been able to do
nothing. Many Arabs believe that
martyrdom is better than churning in
the hopeless and futile state in
which they find themselves.
Another reason some
Arabs hate the U.S. stems from the
1991 war, “Desert Storm.”
Although most Arabs did not approve
of Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait,
neither did they appreciate American
soldiers in Saudi Arabia. Most Arab
nations do not have a sharp
distinction between church and state;
therefore, finding diversity of
religion is very difficult in most
Arab nations. Furthermore, many Arab
nations are not democratic and the
ruling authorities remain in power
for as long as they can hold on to
power. These two features
dramatically influence how the Koran
is used (or abused). Militant Arabs
can use the Koran to justify a
“holy war,” just as easily
as peace-loving Arabs can use the
Koran to claim they are a religion of
peace. This divergence on the Koran
is not unique to Moslems. In the
U.S., we have a similar parallel.
Some fundamentalist Christians are
militant about the abortion issue and
they have declared a “holy
war” on abortion clinics, even
going so far as to bomb clinics and
assassinate doctors. Other
Christians, using the same Bible,
believe a woman has the right to
choose. The salient point here is
that Christians and Arabs share
similar human characteristics.
Although this comparison between
Christians and Moslems is not
perfect, it still proves the point
that people can religiously justify
whatever they want to believe. If a
Moslem wants to justify martyrdom and
his hatred of the U.S. (the great
Satan), he can find religious
justification in the Koran to do so.
If a Christian wants to justify his
hatred fro abortion and those who
offer the service, he can find
religious justification in the Bible
to do so.
When Iraq invaded
Kuwait in 1991 on the pretext that
the land originally belonged to Iraq,
the U.S., along with a coalition of
other nations, responded to the plea
for help from bordering Saudi Arabia.
The U.S.A. responded primarily
because our country depends on the
oil that comes from the fields of
Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. It was in
our “natural interest” to
stop the invasion of Saddam Hussein.
However, the plea for help came with
a series of religious concerns and
concessions. Moslems and Christians
do not share much in common and the
Saudi’s did not want their
liberators desecrating heir holy
land. (The two shrines Moslems
consider most holy are located in
Saudi Arabia.) To their best of
our ability, Americans respected the
requests made by the Saudi’s and
Iraq was driven out of Kuwait in just
a few days. However, to keep Saddam
Hussein from causing more trouble,
American forces have been stationed
in Saudi Arabia for the past 10
years. The presence of foreigners in
the “holy land” of Saudi
Arabia continues to anger a
conservative segment of the Islamic
world. They feel that U.S. presence
in Saudi Arabia is an abomination to
Allah and his prophet, Mohammed.
Obviously, the Saudi’s who
govern the country feel otherwise.
The problem stems from the fact that
the Saudi’s do not
“own” their holy shrines.
The shrines belong to 1.5 billion
Moslems who are religiously required
at some point in life, to make a
pilgrimage to Mecca.
This is but a short
summary of some of the reasons why
some conservative Moslems have come
to hate the government of the U.S.
Many more reasons for their hatred
exist, which provide a fertile bed
allowing terrorism to flourish and
grow.
Putting the Attack in
Context
President Bush and his
staff have done an excellent job of
responding on numerous fronts to the
“terrorist attack,”
however, this terrorist attack
against America has posed a very
interesting problem. America has no
choice but to engage in a new type
of war. I do not mean
counter-terrorism tactics or a covert
war, but a new type of war that could
be a religio-political war. The U.S.
is trying its best to avoid this type
of war, but forces beyond our control
could pull the U.S. into a
religio-political war pitting Moslem
versus Christian.
Unfortunately, there
is an inherent antagonism between all
the religions of the world. Each
religion has its own view of God and
His will. Even more, each religious
system has its hierarchy of leaders
and scholars and one system will not
give way to the other. (When was the
last time you heard any religious
organization admit that another
religion knows more about God?) This
antagonism cannot/will not dissolve
until there is a one-world religion.
Yes, Protestants and Catholics can
live side-by-side if religious
differences are not the issue. Yet,
we only need to look to Northern
Ireland to prove that two similar
religions (both calling themselves
Christian) can be at war. Will there
be peace and safety? Not with the
current situation. The road to peace
with Arabs will need to address a
wide variety of religious and
political issues. Islamic
fundamentalists are going to be hard
to please as long as, they see (a)
the U.S. supporting Israel in its
oppression of the Palestinians, (b)
the U.S. westernizing the world with
its corrupt morals as it produces an
endless stream of degenerate movies
and books, and (c) the U.S. continues
to desecrate the holy land of
Moslems.
The Crossroads
Terrorists are
considered both heroes and villains.
They are heroes (or freedom fighters)
to people who share their ideology
and they are villains to those who do
not. Because of the population
growth, ethnicity is changing the
political and religious landscape. I
believe terrorism-retaliation
merry-go-round will speed up because
there is no human solution to
man’s diversity. The most
powerful military force on Earth
cannot stop terrorism. When human
beings become drunk from imbibing an
ideology that contains a deadly
mixture of politics and religion,
there is no way a terrorist can be
stopped from killing others in the
name of God. There are ways to limit
their destructive abilities, but
remember, this also means a loss of
freedom for everyone. As the cry for
peace and safety escalates in the
days ahead, I anticipate that it will
take God to step into the conflict on
Earth with His own firepower that
will be described in Revelation 8.
The Apostle Paul wrote, “While
people are saying, “Peace and
safety,” destruction will come
on them suddenly, as labor pains on a
pregnant woman, and they will not
escape. But you, brothers, are not in
darkness so that this day should
surprise you like a thief.” (1
Thessalonians 5:3-4) Paul says the
world will be crying out for
“peace and safety” when God
sends sudden destruction. The events
of September 11 put the whole world
into this setting. The world stands
at a very interesting crossroad. Will
terrorists use some weapon of mass
destruction? Will a world war unfold
as the nations of the world are
forced into taking sides between
those who harbor terrorists and those
who are determined to destroy them?
What does the future hold? The Bible
does not give details about what
happens before t5he Great
Tribulation. However, the Bible is a
beacon that shows us where the need
for “peace and safety” is
leading.
In closing, the reader
should consider one more domino
effect. At the end of the 1,000
years, all terrorists will stand
before God’s great white throne.
At that time, everyone outside the
holy city will receive his due
reward. The Bible says that all who
have committed murder will be
destroyed with fire. “Outside
[the holy city] are the dogs [scoundrels],
those who practice magic arts, the
sexually immoral, the murderers, the
idolaters and everyone who loves and
practices falsehood.” (Revelation
22:14,15) Their final reward will be
this: “…But fire came
down from heaven and devoured
them.” (Revelation 20:9) At
that time, the last domino (Lucifer,
the father of hatred, liars and
murderers) will fall.
