Star Trek Enterprise and Terrorism
In September 2001, just as the latest series Enterprise (ENT) began broadcasting, Americans faced the worst terrorist attack in the nation’s history.
On the morning of September 11th, 2001 hijacked airplanes piloted by Al Qaeda terrorists struck the World Trade Center, bringing down the Twin Tower icons that dominated the downtown New York City skyline. In total, the hijacking of four planes by Al Qaeda led to the deaths of more than 3,000 people, ushering in a War on Terror which two months later began with American troops on the ground in Afghanistan. In previous articles I explored how Star Trek: The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine confronted the subject of terrorism from the late 1980s through the mid-1990s. By the late 1990s, terrorism as a storyline receded from the Star Trek franchise. However, in September 2001, just as the latest series Enterprise (ENT) began broadcasting, Americans faced the worst terrorist attack in the nations history. With the first season mapped out and an American public still reeling from the 9/11 attacks, Enterprise producers largely steered clear of plot lines dealing with terrorist attacks. 
As the first season wound down, an episode called "Desert Crossing" finally tackled the issue of terrorism. In this episode Captain Archer and Chief Engineer Charles "Trip" Tucker encounter a disabled ship and its pilot which they their way back to Enterprise. After repairing the ship, the pilot, Zobral, invites Archer and Trip to visit his world as a gesture of gratitude. Zobral's camp is located in an isolated area of his planet in the midst of a vast desert. While the captain is away, first officer T'Pol learns that officials of a city on the other side of the planet consider Zobral and his followers terrorists for their attacks on the city. Archer discusses this accusation with Zobral who claims that he is a freedom fighter struggling against oppression at the hands of those city leaders. Moreover, Archer discovers that Zobral had orchestrated the initial contact with Archer because he had heard that the Starfleet captain had earlier aided an oppressed group on another planet. When the government attacks Zobral's village, Archer and Trip flee across the harsh desert before T'Pol, with Zobral's help, rescues them. Despite sympathizing with Zobral's situation, Archer tells him that he can't intervene in this dispute. "Desert Crossing" in many ways resembles the Israeli-Palestinian conflict where a proud and apparently persecuted people engage in terrorism to resist a government that they believe seeks to destroy them. The desert locale and Zobral's bedouin lifestyle only encourage the reader to see this as a metaphor for a Middle Eastern conflict. Here, Zobral attempts to sway Archer and thus Starfleet to side with his people and employ the superior power of Enterprise to even the odds. Yet, like numerous past American administrations, Archer maintains that this is not Starfleet's fight and refuses to intervene. Part 2 is below...