The 9/11 Wars by Jason Burke

Now that the tenth anniversary has come and gone, perhaps we can take stock of the events which followed the attack on America on September 11, 2001. Burke, a distinguished war correspondent, has interviewed several of those involved. Anyone who wishes to understand the 9/11 wars would do well to read his book.

Even at the time, there were those who thought that the attacks should have been treated as a crime, not the reason for a crusade. But it was obvious that the then US president and public wanted a terrible revenge. The Taliban were thrown out of Kabul, ten years ago this month; it might have ended there. Then came the Iraq war, which Burke describes as a “grotesque strategic error”.

He estimates 4,000-7,000 civilians were killed in the first onslaught, and they have gone on being killed ever since. Then the wars reached Europe, with the murder of Theo Van Gogh and the bombings in Madrid and London, a city where two million people had marched for peace in 2003. Then the Taliban came back. Then came the assassination of Benazir Bhutto and still more bloodshed in Pakistan.

Burke does as much as anyone can to make sense of this, and writes “about people rather than about power”, suggesting “a grubby view from below, rather than a lofty view from above”. He concludes that the events were marked “by violence to civilians, to prisoners, and by an appalling ignorance among many decision-makers of the local conditions, the circumstances and the cultures of other protagonists”.

The last pages cover the Arab spring, the decline of Al Qaeda and the death of Bin Laden, which give some cause for hope. But he is not sure that there will not be a new cycle of violence. So far, about quarter of a million have died – that is, 80 people for each person killed on 9/11. Most of them were civilians and “will not be remembered at all”.

How can we get our heads around these figures? Who will ever stand trial for their deaths?