以下は2011年10月に執筆し、その後、加筆したものです。竹野内真理
I was in NY on the day of 9.11 in 2001. The following is my essay written in October 2001 after the 9.11 terrorist attack in New York.
I revised the essay 20 years later in 2021.
Mari Takenouchi
(English follows after Japanese)
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「これは戦争行為だ。第二のパールハーバーだ。」「我々が殺される前に向こうを殺せ。今だったら、私も躊躇なく国を守るために戦争に参加する。」「リベラル派をどうにかしろ、移民を追い出してしまえ。」これらは右翼のプロパガンダではない。ラジオアナウンサーのセリフである。テロ直後のアメリカメディアのヒステリックな反応は驚愕すべきものだった。
私はテロが起きた時NYにいた。テロの一週間前、マンハッタンにある大学院のジャーナリズム学部に入学したのである。今は日本に帰ってきている。テロ攻撃後のアメリカの反応に心底嫌気がさしたのと、物理的にも怖かったので、10月初めに日本に戻った。
私が最も恐れるテロの標的物は、原発・核施設である。世間でよく言われる核兵器保有の是非は、私から見ればちゃんちゃらおかしな議論である。
原発・核施設はその国にあるだけでその国と周辺を滅ぼす可能性のある超危険構造物だ。現に、３．１１テロの直後、FOXニュースではアメリカの原子力施設への攻撃の可能性を否めない論調を、周辺原発の映像と共に報道していた。 100基もの原発を抱える米国は原子力大国であり、NY周辺にも少し軌道を変えれば、すぐに飛行機が突っ込める原発が少なくとも5か所存在していた。
日本においては、テロ攻撃だけでなく、まったく交渉の余地のない地下からの攻撃、すなわち「地震」とそれに伴う「津波」がある。いったいどう対処せよというのだ。チェルノブイリ事故でさえ、直下で起きた微小地震により引き起こされたという説が濃厚である。https://takenouchimari.blogspot.com/2013/04/blog-post_581.html 原発はもともと世界中であってはならない産物なのである。
ところで、私たちの大学院の「環境と科学のジャーナリズム」学科でも、テロに関しての報道は毎時間のように話し合われたが、一番大事な戦争反対を唱える人はいなかった。失望した。私は決断し、たまたまアメリカのアフガニスタンへの空爆が始まる前の晩に帰ってきた。
「テロリストをかくまっているかもしれない」という理屈に合わない理由だった。ソ連による干渉から内戦が長年続いている世界の最貧国アフガニスタンに、空から爆弾を落とすとは一体全体どういうことなのだ。
このような不可思議な決議を全会一致で可決した国連はおかしな組織である！！戦争が終わるまでに殺される無数の無辜の市民の事を思うと心底悲しい。（米国は「付随的犠牲」などという言葉を使って大量殺人をするのを即刻止めるべきだ。自分の国でテロが起きたら大騒ぎするのに、それをベトナム、イラク、アフガニスタンなど含め、他国で数多く実行してきたではないか！！！
「まずは軍需産業と武器を米国でも世界でも真面目に禁ずるべきだ！」と私は心底思っている。ついでながら軍需産業と密接な関係にある原発についても言うまでもない。あるだけで人間を含む生物と環境を破壊する代物なのだから。
さて、テロのわりと直後に現地でも反対運動はあった。2011年9月末、ワシントンで2万人集会が開かれ私も参加した。様々な国籍の人が集まり、一様にテロを非難するとともに、テロが起こる原因にも言及し、今後の戦争にも反対していた。当然のまともな意見が聞ける唯一の場だったと思う。そこで聞いた、韓国の方の「米国も関わった朝鮮戦争では500万もの市民が犠牲になった」というセリフが頭にこびりついている。
ただこのような集会は会っても、戦争をやりたい派の勢力が圧倒的に強すぎた。彼らは膨大な資金で政治家もメディアも国連のような世界の巨大官僚組織も操る。「ベトナムの時のように、しばらく時が経ないと気づかないのではないか」という人も多い。しかし、その間に犠牲になる人々の事を考えると悲しくなる。
テロが起きてから一週間は特に、どんなに筋の通った意見であっても口外することは許されない空気であった。中東系の人々は特に暴力の矛先が向けられるのを恐れ、米国国旗やTシャツを買いに走ったと聞く。
その後、米国議会で戦争に1人反対したバーバラ・リー議員に脅迫が殺到し、警察が彼女の家を監視しなければならなかった。
テロの朝、何十台という消防車、救急車のサイレンのけたたましい音をビルの崩壊直前までじかに聞いていた私は、消防団員が多数救急活動をしていたビルがパンくずのように崩壊していく姿を見て、 思わず絶叫してしまった。消防団員がお亡くなりになった話を聞いて涙した。テロの首謀者および共謀者は一刻も早く捕まり、裁きを受けるべきだ。
だが米国の軍事行動を受け入れるかどうかは全く別の話である。
（その後、一連のテロは、自作自演である可能性が高いとされている。ペンタゴンに突っ込んだ飛行機の直径が一致しないこと、貿易センタービルが爆弾によって破壊されたと思われること、当日金融系企業の人々が多数出勤しなかったこと、貿易センタービルに多額の保険金が掛けられていたこと、周辺にある倒壊されていないビルがライブ配信されている中、BBCキャスターが先走って周辺のビルが一棟倒壊した、とコメントしたこと等の理由が挙げられる）
*****
"This is an act of war, the second Pearl Harbor. Kill them before they kill us. I wouldn't hesitate to go to war to defend my country. " "Do something about the liberals, get rid of the immigrants."
These were not right-wing propaganda. They were the lines of radio broadcasters. The hysterical reaction of the American media in the immediate aftermath of the attacks was astonishing.
I was in New York City when the attacks occurred. One week before the attacks, I had enrolled in a graduate school of journalism in Manhattan. I am now back in Japan. I returned to Japan in the early October because I was deeply shocked with the reaction after 9.11 and physically scared.
The targets of terrorism that I fear the most are nuclear power plants and nuclear facilities. The popular argument for or against the possession of nuclear weapons is, in my opinion, solely ridicurous.
Nuclear power plants and nuclear facilities are extremely dangerous structures that have the potential to destroy a country/ countries/the world just by being there.
As a matter fact, immediately after the 3.11 terrorist attacks, Fox News reported on the undeniable possibility of an attack on nuclear facilities in the U.S., along with images of nearby nuclear power plants. The U.S. is a nuclear powerhouse with as many as 100 nuclear reactors, and there were at least five nuclear power plants in New York and the surrounding areas that could have been rammed by airplanes as soon as their trajectory changed slightly.
In Japan, there would not only a terrorist attack, but also a possible attack from underground, which is completely non-negotiable: an "earthquake" and ensuing "tsunami".
How in the world could we deal with this? Even the Chernobyl accident is strongly believed to have been caused by a minor earthquake that had occurred directly under the ground. https://takenouchimari.blogspot.com/2013/04/blog-post_581.html
Nuclear power plants are a product that should never have existed in the world in the first place. Nuclear power plants are a product that should not exist in the world.
Even in our graduate school's "Environmental and Scientific Journalism" department, there were hourly discussions about reporting on terrorism, but no one advocated the most important issue of all: opposition to any war. I was disappointed. I made a decision and happened to return to my own country the night before the US bombing of Afghanistan began.
The reason for the initiating the Afganistan war was not logical: "They might be harboring terrorists." What could be the point of dropping bombs from the sky on Afghanistan, the poorest country in the world, where civil war has been raging for years due to Soviet interference?
The United Nations is a ludicrous organization for unanimously passing such a wondrous resolution! It saddens me to think of the countless innocent civilians who would be killed before the war is to be ended. (The U.S. should stop using terms like "collateral damage" to describe mass murder. People's lives are equally important! What the hell is going on here?
The military industry and weapons should be banned in the U.S. and around the world! I am serious and everybody in this world should be serious. We should ban all the nuclear power plants on earth, which are closely linked to the military industry. Nuclear power plants would kill the global environment and life, including human beings.
At the end of September 2011, a rally of 20,000 people was held in Washington, D.C., and I participated. People of various nationalities gathered, and they uniformly condemned terrorism, mentioned the causes of terrorism, and opposed future wars. I think it was the only place where I could hear sane opinions. For example, a line I heard there from a South Korean, "As many as 5 million civilians were killed in the Korean War, in which the U.S. was also involved," got stuck in my mind.
However, even though such rallies were held, the forces of those who wanted to go to war were overwhelmingly strong. They manipulate politicians, the media, and the world's huge bureaucratic organizations like the UN with their vast financial resources. Many people say, "Like in Vietnam, we won't see the reality until some time passes," which again saddened me thinking about those who would be sacrificed.
For the first week after the attacks, there was some atmosphere which made people difficult to speak out their own opinions, no matter how well-reasoned they may be. Middle Easterners, in particular, had to run to buy American flags and T-shirts, fearing they could be the next target of the violence.
Later, Congresswoman Ms. Barbara Lee, the lone opponent of the Afghanistan war in the U.S. Congress, was flooded with threats that police had to patrol her home.
On the morning of the attack, I had been listening to the sirens of dozens of fire trucks and ambulances going to the collapsed buildings. I screamed when I saw the buildings, where many firefighters were working as first responders, collapsed like bread crumbs. I wept when I heard the story of the firefighters' deaths. The ringleaders and co-conspirators of terrorism should be caught and brought to justice as soon as possible.
But whether or not the people in the world should accept U.S. military action or not is totally another story.
Post script
(Subsequently, it has been suggested that the series of terrorist attacks were most likely staged. 1) The diameter of the plane that crashed into the Pentagon does not match, 2) the Trade Center building seemed to have been destroyed by set-up bombs, 3) a number of people from financial firms in WTC did not show up for work on Sep 11, 4) the World Trade Center building was heavily insured before the attack and gained enormous profits, and 5) while an uncollapsed buildings in the vicinity was being live-streamed, one BBC caster commented that the buildings had collapsed before it actually collapsed.)
