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Chapter 36: “The Master of the Skies”
- University of Ottawa Press
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387 36 “we are all americans.” Echoing the words “Ich bin ein Berliner!” pronounced by President John F. Kennedy before the Berlin Wall on June 26, 1963, Jean-Marie Colombani made this the title of his Le Monde editorial of September 13, 2001, and it was a passionate declaration. With this historical paraphrase he gave vivid expression to the spontaneous indignation aroused by the murderous terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center’s innocent victims, who died tragically without knowing what had happened to them. Everywhere in the Western world, Americans were the beneficiaries of a surge of immediate sympathy, which gradually mutated into resentment. How to explain this turnaround in public opinion in less than two years? The Iraq War, launched on March 23, 2003, under fallacious pretexts, together with the subsequent accusations of torture perpetrated at the Guantanamo Bay naval base and the Abu Ghraib prison, did enormous damage to an image already tarnished for travelers, since September 11, by other, more day-to-day irritants . The onerous American security procedures imposed unilaterally on all the world’s airports, wherever flights took off for the United States, instantly generated waiting lines even longer than those Pierre Jeanniot had attacked in his Amman speech in 1997. The phenomenon assumed unimaginable proportions, and there were serious doubts as to its effectiveness. One could also point a finger at the significant economic fallout, through their airlines, for countries doing business with the United States. In the immediate aftermath of September 11, the Bush government gave itself two priorities: measures of control to be applied everywhere in the sector of civil aviation, and the war on terrorism, the new enemy, as elusive as it was menacing. Budgets for the protection of American airspace and soil ballooned, and those for defence instantly increased by fifteen percent. This was only the beginning of a long hike in public expenses fed by the fear of terrorism and the interminable war in Iraq. Other considerations, whether economic, social, political or diplomatic, were swept under the carpet by the Bush Administration. Those who flattered themselves that they were the masters of the world imposed their implacable logic: countries that were not for them were against them.n “The Master of the Skies” 70 Taking Aviation to New Heights 388 As of October 2001, the international civil aviation sector showed signs of weakness. North American airlines registered an average reduction in passenger traffic of thirtythree percent. Their counterparts in Europe, the Far East and Central and South America showed declines of twenty to twenty-five percent. When they could, fearful travelers found other means of transport than the airplane, or resorted to modern means of telecommunication in order to make fewer trips. As their revenues plummeted, carriers laid off workers at a rate of about ten percent, on average, over three months. Companies that were already vulnerable collapsed, or were subject to hostile takeovers, resulting in more layoffs caused by the rationalization of merged staffs. This time it was the domino effect that prevailed. In January 2002, four months after the tragedy, a large part of the world was as a result plunged into a major crisis, In its November 2001 issue, the magazine Airline Business published a report on Pierre Jeanniot. The author, Kevin O’Toole, titled the article “An Elder Statesman.” Étienne de Malglaive, with the permission of Airline Business Some fanatic restaurant owners changed the name of French fries to ‘freedom fries’ when they learned that France refused to participate in the Iraq War. [3.235.243.45] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 19:29 GMT) “The Master of the Skies” 389 restricted in the beginning to civil aviation on American territory, but soon affectingallsectorsofactivityinallindustrializedcountries .InEuropeandAmerica,the economic climate before the events had been showing signs of a slowing-down, but for the populations affected, there was no doubt that the attacks on America brought the situation to a low point never before experienced. Citizens of the world got the feeling, more and more, that they were the ones paying the price for this evil that had sown terror in the United States. Like Jean de Lafontaine’s The Animals Sick of the Plague, “All did not die, but all were affected.” There was another factor making serious inroads into the operating budgets of airline companies. As a secondary consequence of the Iraq War, which was siphoning off enormous quantities of oil, the rising price of fuel hit them hard. Along with the enormous increase...