Thoughts Ten Years Later, September 11, 2001

[Argus]

So all Saudis are terrorists now? Actually, Bin Ladin was somewhat of a paryah in Saudi Arabia, and not very welcome.

Yeah, okay, if you say so. Fact is that the massive upward rise in the fanaticism of world Muslims is directly attributable to the Saudis, to the billions and billions of dollars they've spent abroad in pushing their own fundamentalist interpretation of Islam. They've sponsored schools, built mosques, community centres and cultural centres while paying the salaries of Wahabi mullahs to go over to places like Pakistan and push their cult on the ignorant, illiterate locals. They've sent them here, too, and to the U.S., and to the U.K and other countries. And those mosques have become the centre of Muslim fundamentalism. That's in addition, of course, to the known fact that Saudi and UAE princes have donated millions to bin laden and various other Muslim terrorist groups.

So yes, Saudi Arabia should have been steamrolled. Its people were more responsible for 911 than the people of Afghanistan, and certainly far more responsible than the people of Iraq.

And before you say that Saudi Arabia is a dictatorship and its people have no real power, the only movement for change in Saudi Arabia, and it's a strong one, a strong undercurrent of public dislike with the present government, is to make things MORE conservative there, not less. If there were real democracy in that country for just one day the royal family would probably be replaced by something even worse.

[Guest Derek L]

There is an old axiom that two people can keep a secret as long as one of them is dead. I think we've seen evidence of that repeatedly.

All idiotic conspiracy theories aside, the notion that literally hundreds of people at all levels of the American government, military, policing, engineering, and academic communities would conspire to cover up the 'conspiracy' which has become the most emotional moment in American memory, and that not a single one has since allowed the secret out is so utterly preposterous as to make alien anal probes seem like a near logical certainty. And anyone who believes these conspiracy theories forfeits all right to be taken seriously on any issue.

The one thing I always wanted to ask the conspiracy theorists, if Bush and company where able to pull off 9/11, why didn’t they also plant chemical/biological (or a near complete nuke) weapons in Iraq after the invasion?

If they could pull off 9/11, they certainly could pull off putting a couple of tractor trailer loads worth of WMDs in some bunker in the desert in Iraq.

The beauty of these conspiracy theory’s, is that they don’t have to make sense………

Edited September 12, 2011 by Derek L

[Argus]

The beauty of these conspiracy theory’s, is that they don’t have to make sense………

That is because those who spout them don't have any.

[Sir Bandelot]

Fact is that the massive upward rise in the fanaticism of world Muslims is directly attributable to the Saudis, to the billions and billions of dollars they've spent abroad in pushing their own fundamentalist interpretation of Islam. They've sponsored schools, built mosques, community centres and cultural centres while paying the salaries of Wahabi mullahs to go over to places like Pakistan and push their cult on the ignorant, illiterate locals. They've sent them here, too, and to the U.S., and to the U.K and other countries. And those mosques have become the centre of Muslim fundamentalism. That's in addition, of course, to the known fact that Saudi and UAE princes have donated millions to bin laden and various other Muslim terrorist groups.

So yes, Saudi Arabia should have been steamrolled. Its people were more responsible for 911 than the people of Afghanistan, and certainly far more responsible than the people of Iraq.

They certainly do appear to be more responsible. But how do you feel about the fact the GWB continued to hold hands and blow kisses into those Saudi princes ears, long after 9-11? Evidently he did not feel the same way. And if anyone really knows, it ought to be him.

[Moonlight Graham]

So all Saudis are terrorists now? Actually, Bin Ladin was somewhat of a paryah in Saudi Arabia, and not very welcome.

Right. He wasn't just "not very welcome" in Saudi Arabia, he was exiled from the country in the early 90's.

[Argus]

They certainly do appear to be more responsible. But how do you feel about the fact the GWB continued to hold hands and blow kisses into those Saudi princes ears, long after 9-11? Evidently he did not feel the same way. And if anyone really knows, it ought to be him.

Bush is a Republican and thus a whore to anyone with a dollar to flip onto the ground in front of him. He'd hold hands with the Chinese too if they'd let him.

[bush_cheney2004]

Bush is a Republican and thus a whore to anyone with a dollar to flip onto the ground in front of him. He'd hold hands with the Chinese too if they'd let him.

If that be the case, Bush has plenty of company in Canada.

[maple_leafs182]

I think it silly that we think 3000 deaths is a horrible tragedy yet hundreds or thousands of deaths have occurred from the wars that followed 9/11 and nobody seems to care.

This world is really messed up, the government claims that the wars that are occurring right now are humanitarian so if you don't support them, you seem like a bad person.

[Sir Bandelot]

All idiotic conspiracy theories aside, the notion that literally hundreds of people at all levels of the American government, military, policing, engineering, and academic communities would conspire to cover up the 'conspiracy' which has become the most emotional moment in American memory, and that not a single one has since allowed the secret out is so utterly preposterous as to make alien anal probes seem like a near logical certainty. And anyone who believes these conspiracy theories forfeits all right to be taken seriously on any issue.

What bothers me is that the investigation after the attack did not seem to be thorough enough. Prior to 9/11 I was always under the impression that the US always had armed fighter jets ready to scramble on a few minutes notice, in particular to that area between New York and Washington. For these attacks to have been successful seems almost 'miraculous', in a bad way. So many things had to go wrong with their national security.

Maybe the security had just gotten complacent, or there were too many spending cuts. Or worse, they were incompetent. I guess I would have been more satisfied if they had admitted that someone screwed up, and after an investigation someone had to resign due to incompetence. I don't know, it just seems bizarre that the terrorists were able to pull it off the way they did.

[Sir Bandelot]

I think it silly that we think 3000 deaths is a horrible tragedy yet hundreds or thousands of deaths have occurred from the wars that followed 9/11 and nobody seems to care.

This world is really messed up, the government claims that the wars that are occurring right now are humanitarian so if you don't support them, you seem like a bad person.

That is my general perception as well, but I would not use the word "silly" for three thousand deaths. It is a tragedy. But I think your point really is, we hardly think twice about the hundreds of thousands who've been killed in subsequent years after 9/11. We hardly even think about it at all. The fact that it happened on US soil is what has shocked and frightened many people, but this is only because they are ignorant to what has been going on elsewhere in the world. Ignorant or indifferent.

[bush_cheney2004]

... The fact that it happened on US soil is what has shocked and frightened many people, but this is only because they are ignorant to what has been going on elsewhere in the world. Ignorant or indifferent.

Well..yea...it's not like Iraqi deaths or Serbian deaths or Haitian deaths or Rwandan deaths or Somali deaths caused much of a stink in Canada either, before or after 9/11, and it was never attacked!

Ooops...I forgot Libyan deaths. There..that's better.

Edited September 12, 2011 by bush_cheney2004

[maple_leafs182]

That is my general perception as well, but I would not use the word "silly" for three thousand deaths. It is a tragedy. But I think your point really is, we hardly think twice about the hundreds of thousands who've been killed in subsequent years after 9/11. We hardly even think about it at all. The fact that it happened on US soil is what has shocked and frightened many people, but this is only because they are ignorant to what has been going on elsewhere in the world. Ignorant or indifferent.

Yes, exactly.

[jbg]

Agreed. The answer though is not to kill more innocent people, but rather to beef up security in key areas such as airports and launch a planned campaign to first isolate the enemy and then kill or capture it when possible.

I disagree.

First of all "beefing up security" involves either expense, or profiling. There's no way around it. And what's to stop Al Qaeda and groups like them from attacking soft targets? How do you "secure" a Macdonald's?

Iraq for example had zilch to do with 9/11, and many more innocents died, making 9/11 even more tragic than it already was.

*****************

While I can accept the US war against Al-Qaida and the Taliban in Afghanistan, at least in principle, even the CIA had expressed doubts about the "proof" of WMDs, and even the US military had advised against going into Iraq. To ignore the advice of specialists in their fields is unexcusable. Sure even experts can sometimes be wrong and amateurs right, but in that case Bush should have been open about the fact that he disagreed with the CIA and military here, rather than tryng to mislead us that somehow it was the CIA and military who supported the Iraq war. Iraqis and Afghans are still being blown up today, possibly by their own people, but at least there was relative stability prior.

**************

Saddam Hussain was no angel, but now you're blaming the Iraqi people for something Saddam Hussain did not do on 9/11! How

As for Iraq, I agree the attack had nothing to do with September 11. It had a lot to do with showing that if a dictator announces he has WMD's and has the means to acquire them, eventually someone will act on the verbal threats.

Possibly, but not necessarily. Immediately after 9/11, there was much worldwide empathy towards the US. Heck, even Saddam Hussaain and the Iranian governments had expressed their sympathies! Unfortunately, the US decided to sqander that good will with "you're either with us or you're against us" type of rhetoric, along with dissing the international community at the UN by presenting proof of WMDswhich even the CIA felt insufficient yet hiding tha fact, and then going into Iraq anyway in spite of Iraq having had zilch to do with 9/11 and not having WMDs.

And in what way did this sympathy help? Edited September 12, 2011 by jbg

[Guest Derek L]

What bothers me is that the investigation after the attack did not seem to be thorough enough. Prior to 9/11 I was always under the impression that the US always had armed fighter jets ready to scramble on a few minutes notice, in particular to that area between New York and Washington. For these attacks to have been successful seems almost 'miraculous', in a bad way. So many things had to go wrong with their national security.

Maybe the security had just gotten complacent, or there were too many spending cuts. Or worse, they were incompetent. I guess I would have been more satisfied if they had admitted that someone screwed up, and after an investigation someone had to resign due to incompetence. I don't know, it just seems bizarre that the terrorists were able to pull it off the way they did.

NORAD did have (and does today) regular USAF, RCAF (I like the sound of that) and Air national guard units, armed for intercepts. Even though the numbers where curtailed after the “peace dividend”, and even with cold war numbers and operating procedures, these units trained for decades to respond to external threats. The events on 9/11 happened too fast to realistically respond to.

[jbg]

We know the TRUTH. Al Queda hijacked planes and flew them into buildings. The US government had warnings that something was suspicious but turf wars meant it was never followed up so it might have been prevented. Beyond that there is nothing to know.

I tend to think the problem was several fold: 1) The "chatter" wasn't very specific as to what was going to happen; and 2) foreign policy interests always hamstring policy makers from disrupting "business as usual".

[capricorn]

The fact that it happened on US soil is what has shocked and frightened many people, but this is only because they are ignorant to what has been going on elsewhere in the world. Ignorant or indifferent.

Fareed Zakaria had a good panel discussion today on CNN in which a Muslim woman activist and writer said it took the cataclysm of 9/11 to wake up Americans to the existence of Islamic extremism. I think it had a similar effect on Canadians. We may have been detached from that reality pre-9/11, but not so today.

[bush_cheney2004]

Fareed Zakaria had a good panel discussion today on CNN in which a Muslim woman activist and writer said it took the cataclysm of 9/11 to wake up Americans to the existence of Islamic extremism. I think it had a similar effect on Canadians. We may have been detached from that reality pre-9/11, but not so today.

I would disagree with Mr. Zakaria's assessment, given that Al Qaeda and other extremist attacks against US targets/interests was well understood and publicized before 9/11/01. The difference was in the American response given the severity of the attack...for instance, lobbing a few cruise missiles at Sudan and Afghanistan vs. a larger US & NATO intervention.

Recall that the World Trade Center was attacked with a truck bomb in 1993, with plenty of coverage in US media. My brother, a long time Manhattan Midtown resident quipped sarcastically that they (Al Qaeda) finally got it right on 9/11.

Edited September 12, 2011 by bush_cheney2004

[bush_cheney2004]

...As for Iraq, I agree the attack had nothing to do with September 11. It had a lot to do with showing that if a dictator announces he has WMD's and has the means to acquire them, eventually someone will act on the verbal threats.

The US Congress would agree with you, as the resolution authorizing war against Iraq did not rely on Saddam's alleged involvement in the 9/11 attack, but rather his continued capacity to thwart inspections and avoid compliance with Gulf War I surrender instruments. The US and UK were pounding Saddam's Iraq long before 9/11 ever happened.

[eyeball]

Would this be the hard-left which angrily defended the Soviet Union, Cuba, Mao's China, as well as other brutal Communist dictatorships over the years, denying all accusations and defiantly proclaiming them to be inclusive societies of peace, harmony and universal brotherhood?

Nope.

[eyeball]

There is an old axiom that two people can keep a secret as long as one of them is dead. I think we've seen evidence of that repeatedly.

All idiotic conspiracy theories aside, the notion that literally hundreds of people at all levels of the American government, military, policing, engineering, and academic communities would conspire to cover up the 'conspiracy' which has become the most emotional moment in American memory, and that not a single one has since allowed the secret out is so utterly preposterous as to make alien anal probes seem like a near logical certainty. And anyone who believes these conspiracy theories forfeits all right to be taken seriously on any issue.

Amen to that.

[Moonlight Graham]

I realize that there will always be people from other nations who blame the United States for all the ills of the world while ignoring the benefits that they received by association, giving no credit, assuming no blame/minimizing any blame.

This is an excellent point, one you hear very seldom, even from Americans. Though i would replace the phrase "all the ills" with "many (or most) of the ills".

Maybe you (and other Americans) should explore this further, and try to list the different things the US has given to the world. Much of it may be hard to empirically quantify, but so are many of the negative influences charged to the US. I've read a good article on this subject (though at times a bit chest-thumping) by Robert Kagan, printed in the well-known scholarly journal Foreign Policy: The Benevolent Empire

One thing I know for sure, i'm very grateful to have the US as the lone world superpower compared to many other nations who could have or may replace them (ie: USSR/Russia, China, Iran etc.). In 20 years people may be begging to have the US back as the hegemon if China starts to equal or surpass US power. The above article makes this point as well.

[Argus]

What bothers me is that the investigation after the attack did not seem to be thorough enough. Prior to 9/11 I was always under the impression that the US always had armed fighter jets ready to scramble on a few minutes notice, in particular to that area between New York and Washington. For these attacks to have been successful seems almost 'miraculous', in a bad way. So many things had to go wrong with their national security.

Caught an interview with a Canadian general who was talking about NORAD. He said that prior to 9/11 all of NORAD'S air defense systems were like a donut. That is, it was focused on a zone around the edges of Canadian and American air space, with almost nothing in the middle. He said that nobody had thought that was necessarily. It wasn't like the Russians were going to take off from Kansas to bomb Cheyenne Mountain, after all. Two fighters actually did scramble from near Washington to intercept the plane that went into the Pentagon, but things were so disorganized no one gave them orders, and they flew straight out to sea -- because that was their normal operating procedure, to get between Washington and the presumed direction of attack. In addition, communication between the FAA and the military was sporadic, at best. They never even told the military about flight 93, for example, the one brought down in Pennsylvania, even though they knew it was headed for Washington. The tapes of the conversations on it between the controllers and the FAA reveal the weakness and ineptitude of the FAA at that time.

[Argus]

That is my general perception as well, but I would not use the word "silly" for three thousand deaths. It is a tragedy. But I think your point really is, we hardly think twice about the hundreds of thousands who've been killed in subsequent years after 9/11. We hardly even think about it at all. The fact that it happened on US soil is what has shocked and frightened many people,

It wasn't just that it happened on US soil. It was that it happened in bright sunshine on live TV, that it happened during the middle of a large urban centre to people just going about their normal jobs in their cubicles and offices - like so many others - in peace time. Therefore, everyone could see that happening to THEM, as well. It's easier to identify with people like that than villagers in Sudan being attacked by camel riding Arab militia, or whatever...

[Argus]

The events on 9/11 happened too fast to realistically respond to.

Or maybe not. I caught a bit of the 9/11 commission hearings on a show the other night. A four star air force general was asked flat out, if the FAA had informed them the instant they knew the first aircraft had been hijacked would they have been able to scramble jets and intercept them before they hit the towers. He said yes, they could have.

But it wasn't normal practice to tell the military. It was normal practice to see where the plane was going, then inform the police and FBI so they could be there to surround it when it landed and the hijackers started making their demands.

[CitizenX]

Ten years ago tomorrow, some incredibly evil people made a senseless attack on the United States, killing approximately 3000 people, for no good reason.

There are many, both on the Board and off, who consider attacks primarily targeting the innocent and helpless somewhat excusable or at least explainable. They are not.

Ron Paul explains the damage that an interventionist policy can have when it comes to violent blowback

killing approximately 3000 people, for no good reason? WoW

You say that Leftists Are Reactionaries...I would say Rightists have their heads up their ***. Don't be afraid of knowledge.

Blowback Wikipedia

Blowback, Second Edition: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire

Edited September 13, 2011 by CitizenX