20 years of 9/11: imagining an alternate universe
An alternate history of how events following Sept, 11, 2001 could have taken place in a different turn
11-th September, 2001
2 days after 9/11, President Bush makes a phone call to President Musharraf. “General you are either with us or against us?” thunders President Bush. “We are with you Mr President.” replies a shaky and disturbed General.
10-th October, 2001
The huge headline on NYT which reads “AMERICA STRIKES BACK” A US Navy Seal team catches Osama Bin Laden outside his home near Jalalabad in Eastern Afghanistan. He is shot dead in the encounter and his body is given a burial of the sea in the Indian Ocean. President Bush goes on air immediately afterwards, “Ladies and Gentleman, we have got him.” Later the US state department thanks the Pakistani and the Taliban government for providing quick, decisive and critical support to the US for bringing the perpetrators of 911 to justice in so swift manner.
23-rd February, 2003
The biggest news of the day was that Vice President Dick Chenney offered his resignation. The main reason was that the strong refusal by President Bush and secretary of state Colin Powell to launch a military invasion of Iraq. The newspapers have reported that the President believed that it was not necessary for the US to invade Iraq since 9/11 has already been avenged in 2001. “I know Saddam is a bad actor but that does not mean we should go and topple him now. Dad had better reasons to do so but he did not. So why should I ? He does not have the power to harm America in any way.”, he is reported to have told Mr Chenney and Mr Rumsfeld , Mr Chenney’s most prominent supporter in the Bush administration. The more moderate republican Senator Chuck Hegel of Nebrasca almost immediately replaces Mr Chenney to moderate the Bush administration.
26-th May, 2006
President Chen-Shui-Bian declares independence from the People’s Republic of China. There have been rumours swirling around the capital Taipei that the President was going to announce something big and spectacular in order to deflect accusations of his family being involved in corruption and nepotism but nobody could comprehend that he was going to declare something as big as this one. Everyone in the World is awaiting reaction from President Jiang Jemin on this matter that may decide the future of cross-strait relations as well as possible political future of the People’s Republic of China.
27-th August, 2006
The people’s republic of China finally declares ceasefire after “Operation gonggong yao” i.e. “Operation People’s will” fails to secure the whole of the renegade Island. The Middle Kingdom had vowed to capture the Island by using “strong people’s force of retribution” after it’s president Chen-Shui-Bian, under fire facing corruption charges, had declared “separation” from the mainland. However the US president Bush did intervene and the ensuing battle between the Chinese and American forces ended in a stalemate with the Chinese forces being in control of just one-third of the Island’s territory. “We have managed to save Taiwan from the clutches of an oppressive communist state which was willing to snatch the freedom away from this small Island. We could do it because we managed to choose the right war. Had I invaded Iraq and Afghanistan, today our marines would be chasing those camels and terrorists in those deserts instead of beating the hell out of those Chinese !” thundered President Bush in the 2006 Annual republican convention with the crowd cheering loudly “USA, USA, USA”.
28-th October, 2009
One year after the sub-prime mortgage crisis had hit the global economy hard, the US president Barack Obama begins his “A new world of Green” speech whereby he declares that the main focus of the US from now onwards will be climate change and global worming and not forever wars in faraway lands. He pleads the American multi-national behemoths to spend their surplus capital to find innovative , green solutions throughout the World. “Ladies and gentlemen, this is our last chance to save humanity. Are you with us or against us ? If you stand against us then you are endangering the future of humanity.” President Obama ends his impassioned speech with thunderous applause. Few months later he will be awarded with the Nobel peace prize. More importantly, the Chinese president Hu Jintao and the Russian president Vladimir Putin would go on to support President Obama’s initiative in a joint press conference , a year later.
21-st September , 2012
A year and half after the Arab spring had set off in Tunisia, moderate but political changes had taken in some of the major countries across the West Asian and North African region. Potential civil war like situations have erupted in countries like Syria , Libya and Yemen following the Arab spring. However unlike previous wars in the region, this time a noticeable phenomenon is the absence of any US-led military intervention. “Our prime interest is to save humanity from climate change and we do not have time for these forever wars.” thunders President Obama from the United Nations general assembly.
26-th December , 2016
The US finally elected her first female president in Hillary Clinton. In the absence of US-led interventions, most of the wars in the West Asian and North African region had ended peacefully in last couple of years which ended the flow of refugees from the region to the Western world. This was pivotal in helping Mrs Clinton to blunt the brazen use of anti-immigration sentiments by her competitor Donald Trump during an immensely polarizing and hard-fought campaign. The president-elect has already promised to continue the “Global war on Global Worming and Climate Change” by her predecessor Barack Obama. Meanwhile last year’s “Belt and Road” economic connectivity project launched by President Xi Jinping is already in danger of becoming a sideshow to the American project which has a truly global scope.
14-th September , 2021
Almost a year after , she had become the first female to be reelected as President, Hillary Clinton has vowed to defeat COVID by launching the “Vaccinate the World” campaign in which the US would provide free vaccinations to the least developed countries on the Earth. First to apply for the project is the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan which ironically also elected its first ever female leader in it’s annual “Rehabari Sura” at the end of last year.
This was an attempt by this author to speculate how things would have turned out , had the US president George W Bush decided to conduct the response to the 9/11 attacks in a different way. Although some of these scenarios may come across as very far-fetched yet imagining in a positive way is probably one of the ways we can afford to contemplate when we look back at those epoch shattering events on 11-th September, 2001.