In the period of human history that we know, last century probably reached a pinnacle when it came to bombs. Bombs (or sometimes called ordnances) had had their impact for centuries leading up to the 20th century in wars, conflicts and global and local power, but perhaps the last 100 years of the second millenium, the Common Era (AD), should be defined as such.
Maybe in the future, the 20th century of world history will be known as the time of "The Bomb". The Era of the Bomb. When we refer to "the bomb", or The Bomb in a singular way, most of us think of the creation of the nuclear weaponry originally developed and designed by the United States and shortly thereafter used twice in ending the Second World War, annihilating Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The arms race with such weapons has had its place in our international struggles ever since.
However, I would like to bring the focus of bombs down to a smaller time period, of which I was a participant, and mostly having to do with the use of conventional bombs in the last decade of the 20th century, the 1990s. By providing these snapshots and vignettes, or sharing my perspective on the matters of the cases of which I will recount, the world may become a little clearer to those who wish to understand global dynamics. And perhaps provide why, or how bombs were significant in certain cases across the planet back then, and possibly affecting the future (now).
I started the 1990s as an adult and a missionary in Chile, South America. While being a relatively peaceful Latin American nation, devoid of major drug cartels or organized crime or militia groups like other more deadly ones across the continent, there were threats of groups that did not like the Pinochet-lead government that enjoyed a transfer of power that same year (March 1990). There were also some vocal or covert groups that did not like US/American interests there; some of them used bombs to voice their displeasure or demonstrate their potency.
These targets included the church that I was officially representing, along with the at the time a small presence of McDonalds fast food restaurants in the capital, and a few few US banks, mostly also in the capital of Santiago.
All of the above being "North American" and capitalist, and therefore an enemy of a few leftist terrorist groups that had existed under the conservative Pinochet regime, having been in power in Chile since September 1973, these were a few targets of some small but extreme groups.
So in my first year in Chile, country-wide there were 60 bombing attempts on Latter-day Saint chapels, which happened from top to bottom of the coastal country, which is a very long nation. We as local missionaries and members did not notice it or feel it much, for a few reasons. Most of the actual detonations occurred inside the churches when no one else was around, and thankfully no one ever got hurt. Plus, we had so many Mormon places of worship over a great enough area that it was hard to know when one was close by. The Church of Jesus Christ did an effective job of not advertising this problem, which was most likely the intended goal of those who placed the bombs. By 1991, the whole thing seemed to have blown over. As did a lot of the animus by way of aggressive or aggrieved Chileans of the past "pro-American" political system under the self-appointed and self-removed dictator. I like to think that most Chileans knew that the LDS Church was not only a North American operation. Missionaries and members were mostly native locals.
My most vivid recollection of any reaction to a threat was walking around a small town chapel in my first sector at the behest of my Santiago born and raised trainer. He thought that since we were there at the church, taking advantage of the air conditioning in the sweltering January heat, we might as well do a sweep for bombs. Glad to say, nothing to report that hot day.
Upon returning to the United States, there were a few notable world conflicts going on, one of note was in Somalia. But I will flash forward to the World Trade Center in early 1993.
But in order to see a bit of the back story of why "Muslim radicals" or "Islamic extremists" would want to target the United States in 1993, and specifically the base of where its power and money lies in southernmost Manhattan, I need to recount a few former tensions and hostilities leading up to it.
While the US and USSR waged their mutually assured destruction of the Cold War from 1945 until roughly 1990, certain Muslim nations and causes were bubbling up in parts of the world that became increasing problematic for world security and peace. That is a Western perspective, and I am sure Edward Said and other Oriental apologists would explain it in their own way. No matter the framing of it, the existence and alliances with the newly formed state of Israel was possibly the epicenter of such strife, as will be discussed later in this post. But vast areas of Muslim impact farther from the Holy Land were also in turmoil and flux, almost too many to mention for the purposes of this article, in multiple continents. And this is not to disregard Communist insurrections and non-Muslim conflicts everywhere else. But as far as the decade plus leading up to this surprising bombing of the World Trade Center at the beginning of the of the Clinton administration in '93, there was the Iran hostage crisis of the late 70s and early 80s that enmitized Iran with the West, there was Moammar Khadafy of Libya that became the biggest persona no grata of the the mid 80s, the constant issues of Yasser Arafat in Palestine (and Lebanon, Egypt, etcetera) and then the US operation Desert Storm/Kuwaiti Freedom in the Gulf War of Kuwait and Iraq, with the residual Coalition troops stationed in Saudi Arabia.
With many of those issues enumerated, some jihadi militant clerics decided to try to take down one of the Twin Towers, to cause as much damage and disruption to the US as possible. It was largely unsuccessful; six were killed, many more wounded, and functionality was greatly interrupted, but the skyscraper remained. And the US moved on, and the 90s marched on, with more threats abroad than in the domestic confines of our nation (CONUS).
The 90s still made us feel that the enemy outside our borders were always the greater threat, despite some serious incidents within.
A couple of bombings transpired in 1994 that had their effects on the collective and even my individual psyche; perhaps these bombings changed views of who is targeting who, or clearer put: questioning the motivations behind such killings. Some may see them as aberrations, like Oklahoma City.
Was the root simply insanity or mad reactionary forces? Were these the terrorists that struck out unfairly and irrationally and cruelly, against the noble and innocent good ones? Was it always the insane bad versus the virtuous good?
Timothy McVeigh, a former US enlisted soldier, wreaked havoc on the Federal building near downtown Oklahoma City. There were not many who suspected such a brazen and wanton attack in such a way. Especially from a US national. I was living in an Arabic speaking college house in Utah, and as a room mate and friend of these Arabs, mostly from Israel/Palestine, we all vocally and silently prayed that the attacker[s] were not Arab, nor Muslim. And the relief was tangible when McVeigh was found to be the culprit. He was a former soldier of all things, from a Western Christian background. An American boy.
Not that this identity lessened the devastation of those killed and injured (I knew a young lady at Brigham Young University who was friends of a father of four killed at the Alfred P. Murrah Building), but Arabs and Muslims were tired of being the bad guys. They were tired of being in the spotlight as terrorists. They wanted the story to be better represented, as they felt the media tilted it against them, always. There was more to one argument to be shared, according to Palestinian Arabs. And many others in neighboring lands, most but not all of whom were Muslims.
Later that year (I think in the summer or early fall) of 1994 there was a surprise bombing in the Holy Land that targeted and victimized Jewish Israeli citizens. Of course, this struggle and conflict had been going on for years, well before I was born in 1970. And the 90s was a time of continuous attacks from both sides of the problem of dual statehood. But this was a new experience for me, as I was living at that time. As an American student learning Arabic, co-habitating and learning from my Arab brothers and sisters, some of whom were Christian, all of whom peaceful and smart and reasonable, I was shocked by some of their reactions. They thought the Israelis killed and injured deserved it.
They were "glad". Perhaps put more accurately, they thought some justice was being done to have Israelis get what they deserved. After all the injustices they felt as Palestinians, this act, that most of us Westerners considered a wanton terrorist attack, was justified in their eyes.
From their perspective, being from Jerusalem or Ramallah or Nablus, their people, even close personal relations, had put up with systematic unjust killings, imprisonments, dispossession of lands and belongs for generations. They could recount times where pregnant Palestinian mothers due to give birth were held up at Israeli checkpoints and lost their children. They could recount feeling treated as chattel or worse. They felt like they were not given a chance to be citizens of anything, which they were not. (See Edward Said, Hannan Asharawi, Saeb Erekat, etc.)
Palestinian issues and statehood and retaliation and intifada and other protests and acts were very personal to them. And I could understand, to some degree, how they felt. They turned my perspective eastward.
And yet, as an American and a Christian (Latter-day Saint), I had to maintain my neutral ground.
The following summer of 1995 I found myself in the Holy Land. It was fantastic.
But there were bombs. While only in the region for about two months, there were three bomb attacks in Israel. The first two were in Tel Aviv; while only being an hour away by bus, these still seemed pretty far. Even though effects of the bombings had their negative impact on some of our student travels and plans, it was not until the third bombing with only a day or so left in Jerusalem that it seemed proximate and real. A real thing.
Bombs are real.
A couple of students that we knew (not in our program) almost boarded the bus that was blown up. But they did not, thankfully. And not many were killed in that one. Sometimes, many are, which usually does make it worse. Anyone seriously affected is bad.
As we were departing the Middle East at the end of summer of 1995 (fittingly half way through the decade in question) we had our option of spending a week more in Paris, France, or Egypt. Most of went on to Egypt. Even though Egypt has had its security threats, Paris was not that fun at the time either.
More later...The Paris trash bombs, the African embassy bombings, and a missile or two in Afghanistan.
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