To commemorate the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, here is my column originally published September 13, 2001.
My smarter and handsomer brother was in Northern New Jersey on Tuesday looking across the water at what was for just a moment longer the single remaining tower of the World Trade Center. A cold front had passed through the night before, leaving the day startlingly clear. The carnage was easy to see even from a distance. Only the rising cloud of smoke and ash marred the sky. And then that tower, too, was gone. The magnitude of this disaster and its sister at the Pentagon in Washington is too great to ponder, so we are left wondering what we could have done to prevent it, and what we could do to keep it from happening again. I’m a longtime pilot, and a guy who used to work in the Middle East. Twenty-two years ago, I was a Fed investigating the Three Mile Island nuclear accident, so I have some experience of how governments approach disasters. It’s not pretty.
The point of terrorism is to leverage the efforts of a small group in an attempt to modify the behavior of a much larger group. I worked long ago as a reporter in Northern Ireland, and left that gig specifically because I began to feel like a pawn of the Provisional Wing of the Irish Republic Army. That 300-member organization was using my stories about their acts to influence people all over the world. I was probably just as much a pawn of the Ulster Defense League, the folks on the other side, but I didn’t want to be a pawn of anyone, so I left. The most important reaction to terrorism that a free society can show is to not give in to it.
But not giving in takes many forms, and I fear that some of the official reactions to the events of this week will take the form of effectively giving in if they also mean that we give up our freedom.
“To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail,” wrote Mark Twain. In the current, context this means that the organizations charged with reacting to this catastrophe will do so by doing what they have always done, only more of it. Congress, which controls the budget and passes laws, will want to pass laws and to allocate more money, lots of money, forgetting completely about any campaign promises. The military, which is the nation’s enforcer, will want to use force, if only they can find a foe. The intelligence community, which gathers information, will want to be even more energetic in that gathering, no matter what the cost to the privacy of the millions of us who aren’t thinking of terrorist acts. And agencies like the Federal Aviation Administration, which regulate, will want to create more stringent regulations. Now here is an important point to be remembered: All these parties will want to do these things WHETHER THEY ARE WARRANTED OR USEFUL OR NOT.
In 1956 two airliners collided over the Grand Canyon and the regulatory response was today’s air traffic control system. The FAA felt that by keeping most planes under positive control — telling them where to go and when — they could avoid future collisions. Yet collisions continue to happen. In 1978 a Pacific Southwest Airlines plane smashed into a small Cessna over San Diego despite the fact that both planes were flying under instrument rules and were under positive control. The FAA response that time was to carve up even more finely the sky over nearly every metropolitan area, controlling the airspace even more stringently with the intent of keeping instrument and visual traffic apart. There was no visual traffic in the San Diego accident, yet we still live with rules that arose from that accident even though those rules would not have prevented it.
So how will the FAA react this time? They will do what they have always done, pass new and stricter rules, and they will do so because it makes them feel better, not because it will actually help.
There is already a restricted area around the Pentagon where planes have never been allowed to fly, yet that didn’t stop this week’s attack. Should we make the restricted area larger? How much larger is large enough? Will we mount anti-aircraft guns atop office buildings? It won’t help. Would creating a restricted area over the World Trade Center have kept a hijacked airliner from entering that space? No, it wouldn’t. New rules will follow, and some of those rules won’t help, either.
It’s not just the government that is guilty of this over-reaction. Tuesday morning, I was speaking to eighth graders at the Pleasanton Middle School in California. The school was abuzz with news from the East Coast, but even more abuzz the next day when the kids had been through a full evening of re-run explosion footage and talking news heads instead of “That 70s Show.” I’m not saying we shouldn’t cover the news, but sometimes the extent to which we cover it creates problems of its own. There has been much made of the terrorists choosing New York as a target because it is the heart of the world financial community, but what made it an attractive target was more likely the city’s role as the very center of world media. That Peter Jennings could grab a shower at home and get right back on the air wasn’t by accident.
And I, too, am just another man with a hammer. My gig is technology, and I keep thinking there must some way to use it to prevent this kind of thing from happening again. The terrorists grabbed Boeing 757 and 767 aircraft because they are very different aircraft, yet share a single type certificate from the government. This means that the cockpits are identical. Learn to fly a 757 and you can fly a 767 too, making for a much larger pool of available aircraft with enough fuel capacity to take out the towers. But having a common type certificate also means the planes have the same autopilot systems, both of which include autolanding capability.
Why, I find myself thinking, can’t we build a system that takes over control of the autopilot, locks out flight crew and hijackers alike, and lands the plane at the first sign of trouble. Well, we could, but it opens a whole new area of vulnerability — hijacking autopilots. Forget I said anything.
So there are no answers, just more questions, and nobody is right. But we can’t give in, because to do so is to become less free, to be no longer ourselves. And above all, what defines us as Americans is our need to be ourselves.
Bob,
I remember the original posting. You called it on ending up with “solutions” that have taken away our freedoms. Way too many hammers looking for a nail. What do you see as major changes in technology directly related to 9/11? How have FAA regulations changed?
Seems to me 9/11 was a catalyst for drawing out the hateful underbelly of America. Prior to then it was too unfashionable to show visceral hate, now it’s practically a past time. I believe there is a burgeoning cultural renaissance to counter the hate, but that doesn’t get the media attention.
The seminal question opened by the 9/11 attacks is: Who are we, really, as Americans? What really defines us? I think we’re still finding out.
-Brian
BrianJA: What “solutions” have “taken away our freedoms”? If you are complaining about TSA, I’m with you but otherwise I don’t get it. No one I know has lost freedoms. Obama himself has continued almost all of the Bush policies. What are you talking about?
What “hateful underbelly of America” has been revealed? Bin Laden & Co. publicly declared it a religious duty for all Muslims to kill Americans — military and civilian — at every opportunity. They succeeded in spades ten years ago. Some of us took note and chose to respond.
The Constitution requires the President and Congress “to provide for the common defense” and they did so. There has not been a repeat 9-11, though attempts were made.
What do you believe we should have done instead?
>What “solutions” have “taken away our freedoms”? – Huxley
One means, was The Patriot Act. Most of the aspects of that act had failed passage in the past. After that date, the 3-letter-agencies wrapped all their blue-sky desires into a single package, gave it a name that made it hard to vote down, and shoved it down our collective tattered throats.
-B: What freedoms specifically have been taken away? There was much talk from liberals such as yourself that “the Constitution had been shredded.” But what real specific damage has occurred?
The Patriot Act was largely an extension of RICO applied to terrorism. We can argue about whether increased monitoring of financial transactions, of phone calls, of library books, and occasional sneak-and-peek warrants with judicial sanction are worth it when applied to organized crime or organized terror, but it wasn’t some unprecedented affront to American freedom.
We’ve lived with RICO since 1970. Most Americans have been grateful for the crippling of the Mafia. Most Americans are grateful not to have had another 9-11 attack. In terms of what we think of as “freedoms” enumerated in the Bill of Rights, life has gone on as before. We have hardly become a freedomless, police state despite all the vague hysterical accusations from the left.
Obama, despite all his bluster during his campaign, has continued the Patriot Act and Guantanamo. Meanwhile, most liberals who were so angry about Bush have shut up, proving that their indignation was entirely partisan politics, i.e. they are hypocrites.
“most liberals… have shut up…” orly? Go ahead, try to back up that claim with some facts. Torture at Guantanamo represents a real loss of American values, whether you’re the one being tortured or not. Maybe we’ve not been hearing about waterboarding so much now Cheney’s gone… because they aren’t doing it any more? Give me some facts to support your claim, otherwise you’re just imagining it because it supports your worldview (i.e., “liberals are hypocrites”). As to loss of freedom, before the attacks I could get on a plane without taking my shoes off. None of my taxes were used to support the TSA. More to the point, all the expanded spying powers granted in the Patriot Act can be (and have been) used against political protest groups. Perhaps you don’t care, if those groups are on the left politically?
Well, you can now be detained without your miranda rights:
* They won’t read the rights to you, because you don’t have it.
* They won’t let you call anyone.
* They won’t permit you to have a lawyer.
See, for instance, http://shebshi.wordpress.com/2011/09/12/some-real-shock-and-awe-racially-profiled-and-cuffed-in-detroit/. The problem is not the detention on terrorism suspicion. The problem is that she, an american citizen, did not have the miranda rights. That’s loss of freedom.
“But we can’t give in, because to do so is to become less free, to be no longer ourselves.”
Or as Bruce Schneier puts it, “Refuse to be terrorized.”
So disheartening that we gave in, are still giving in, and show no signs of heeding the above advice.
RonW: How did we give in to being terrorized?
Do you believe that any response to an attack on the scale of Pearl Harbor is giving in to terrorism?
What do you believe we should have done instead?
I always thought the thing to do was to be like the Whos in Whooville – after the Grinch stole Christmas, they ignored that he stole it, and carried on as if nothing had happened.
For the first 9 months Bush was in office he under-reacted to the threat of terrorism ignoring at least four major warnings: Clinton’s letter he left in the desk at the oval office, the Hart-Rudmann report, Richard Clark, and multiple warning from the intellegence community – including one infamous “Bin Laden Determined to Attack USA.” on the first day of his month long vacation the month before the attack.
For the rest of his presidency he over reacted to the threat of terrorism, aside from the fact that he started an unnecessary war that let Bin Laden get away to live another ten years.
Sure we needed to go after them, but not the way we did. That was over kill, and under secure.
The Whos in Whooville new how to react: you cant be the land of the free if you aren’t the home of the brave.
> “To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail,” wrote Mark Twain.
Are you sure it wasn’t Disraeli? Perhaps Lincoln or Oscar Wilde?
(Actually, Maslow’s Hammer, according to http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/archive/index.php/t-492714.html )
By any measure, the terrorists won. The more appalling insight is how quickly we American proved ourselves capable of evening more despicable behavior.
How so?
Bin Laden is dead, KSM is in Guantanamo, al-Zarqawi dead, al-Masri dead, al-Rahman dead, al-Zawhiri in deep hiding. No further spectacular attacks. Bin Laden, al-Qaeda and suicide bombing are nowhere near as popular in the Muslim world as they were in 2001. Gadaffi gave up his WMD program. The Taliban government in Afghanistan was replaced. Saddam Hussein is dead, his WMD programs gone, and his totalitarian government replaced with a fledgling democracy. Tens of thousands of jihadists were killed in Afghanistan and Iraq.
I’d say by many measures the global war on terror has been successful. Did it end terrorism once and for all? No. Did it usher in world peace? No. But your claim that “By any measure, the terrorists won,” is simply bunk.
Then there’s your despicable claim: “…we American proved ourselves capable of evening more despicable behavior.”
I guess you’re referring to Abu Ghraib and the waterboarding of three top AQ leaders captured after 9-11. The former was criminal and the perpetrators are now serving sentences. The latter is something we can debate, but both together are miniscule compared to the horrors — such as victims being dumped feet first into plastic shredders — that go on routinely in the dungeons of despotic Islamic states.
That’s a false and hateful thing to say about your own country and countrymen.
all little sparks off the dysfunctional Great Evil.
what pyssez off The Great Evil more than anything is not being steered by it.
praising God, elbow-dropping hijackers, walking down the street on your normal business and not being jolted and stampeded by some idiot with a vest of DuPont’s most nitrogenous… it all helps.
just like ignoring a 3-year-old’s hissy fit. they eventually get tired and quit.
a Wacko bin Looney pops up? — mix him a Geronimo with two shots and a splash. a copycat starts ranting? block the website.
instead, we grope grandmothers in wheelchairs and confiscate laptops because corporate sensitive information needed in a conference is encrypted.
heckuva job.
“just like ignoring a 3-year-old’s hissy fit. they eventually get tired and quit.”
One of the lessons is that we can’t ignore the terrorists. All through the Clinton era, WTC got bombed, OKC got bombed, various US embassies got bombed, the USS Cole got bombed, bin Ladin did his declarations of war, and the US administration still publicly chose to ignore him. Maybe lob some missiles his way when everybody was distracted by the impeachment silliness.
Flying airplanes into the biggest buildings of New York, now that’s something that can’t be ignored.
We sentenced a few idiots who were dumb enough to pose for photos. There were many allegations, even government reports, of people being killed while detained in Iraq, but no murder investigations followed. No credible investigation about CIA people who were running the “harsh interrogations” in the same prison, even though the sentenced soldiers claimed what they did was not as bad as what the others were doing. At least one even talked about a detainee death being covered up. Just because patriotic media in the US did not quite delve into it does not mean the rumors was not used against us over there.
We also detained thousands each for a couple of weeks in big dragnets hoping somebody would talk about an upcoming attack. This is not enough of a threat to break determined terrorists, but a sure way to alienate the locals. In the end, they were the ones slaughtering each other, just because some were of a different sect of Islam, so I don’t think we have a moral responsibility for the bloodbath that followed the invasion. However, the detentions and low intensity “torture” (no cop could avoid lengthy sentences on such treatment if done in the US) on thousands and hard core torture on a smaller scaler has hurt our moral standing. People in the Middle East did not quite trust much, but now everything we say or do is suspect even in Europe. During the Clinton and Bush Sr era, we could get some benefit of doubt. That surely has national security implications.
Oh, and by the way, the last I checked we could not find any WMD program and Saddam’s dictatorship was not providing jihadis much room to operate there until the invasion created a power vacuum. The war in Iraq cost a trillion dollars. Even if Iraqis are living in better conditions now, I doubt US taxpayers would want to give such an expensive gift if not for the baseless fearmongering before the war.
Bob,
Unfortunately, this was one of your most successful predictions come true…
– Theo
Great essay. I’ve re-read this many times, and it has proven prophetic far too often.
“So disheartening that we gave in, are still giving in, and show no signs of heeding the above advice.”
Freedom requires effort, responsibility, and courage. Nine of those are fashionable now. Just look at our cultural leaders at Viacom and Comedy Central. South Park has an episode that might enrage Muslims, and “freedom of speech” can’t be surrendered fast enough. You can’t tell me that was in the name of religious tolerance, either — South Park offends Jews, Christians, an Mormons all the time in worse ways, but no need for self-censorship there.
And to a smug, faux-thoughtful, condescending liberal, everything looks like an occasion to write a smug, faux-thoughtful, condescending essay.
Perhaps I’m misreading this post and its comments, but what does “not giving in to terrorism” mean? Pretending 9-11 didn’t happen at all? Going about our business as though there were no smoking holes in the ground with thousands of dead bodies in them?
Of course we took action. Of course we made mistakes.
However, it’s ten years later and we have not suffered another such attack — not for lack of trying on the part of our enemies.
Ten years ago the smart money was that we would be attacked again. Yet we haven’t. So some of the right things were done.
What is the sage advice being offered here?
I wouldn’t equate the shoe bomber, underwear bomber, and whatever liquid explosive that other airliner attack was supposed to have been, all taken together, with 9-11. Not even close to the same league.
Oh, but we have been attacked relentlessly, and we’ve suffered more casualties than 9-11. We’re fighting them “over there” so we don’t have to fight them “over here”, remember?
Freeman: What’s your point — that we’re not being attacked or we are being attacked all the time? Do you have any doubt that Islamic radicals are plotting against us?
https://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2011/05/39-terror-plots-foiled-since-911-examining-counterterrorisms-success-stories
Yes, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq did draw many thousands of jihadists to their deaths and disrupt al-Qaeda’s operations. It’s no stretch of logic to suppose that those wars made it harder for al-Qaeda to focus attacks on US soil.
Yes, those wars cost us blood and treasure. It’s legitimate to ask whether they were worth it. I don’t think the question can be settled today. History will have to weigh it in the future.
Has the US reaction over the past decade been a justified measure based only on the fact that the US hasn’t been “attacked” again since? Is there actually a direct correlation here? Or is this all just supposition? (which I think it is).
Unfortunately (@huxley) you have forgotten about the rest of the world – which dare I say seems to be an American political trait (generalized). The UK was later attacked. As was Spain. Countless other civilians have been killed by bombs, guns (all sides) or overt “American Reaction/Coalition of the Willing” since. Are these the victories you hold so dear?
The US was very quick to point out – shortly after the event – that this wasn’t an attack on the US alone – it was an attack on all democracies; the West. Yet you measure your success from your soil only. Convenient? Honest?
The question should be – Is the world in a better place now than compared to pre-9/11? I think not. Our streets are covered in cameras. Police have more power than ever to infringe on almost everything. Practically every increase in expiation, every new penalty developed, every freedom or privacy questioned, has all been at least partially justified against our vigilance in the “War on Terror” or “for your own security”. TSA, Homeland Security… Sound like freedom? Global economics continue to nosedive; billions still live in poverty or worse; corporations, Wall Street et al retain more power and control than ever. Yet the collective Western governments trumpet the same lines – worse – and seem to have few answers as ever. About the only area that’s doing great these days is your military-industrial organizations – Raytheon, Lockheed – all record profits continuing to sell security to everyone from recalcitrant third world governments to primary schools (think fingerprint scanners for role calls!). I doubt that we’re in a better, free-er, more comfortable and stable world today. If the US remains a cultural world leader – at the least – then I think it’s time for them to recalculate their impact and direction. Churchill: You can always count on Americans to do the right thing—after they’ve tried everything else.
Roy: You don’t know me and you don’t know what I may or may not have forgotten. I was a Chomskyite leftist on 9-11. I was widely read then and I am more widely read now, and not just with respect to the United States. This whole post reeks of liberal condescension from top to bottom, and your comment continues that condescension.
If you want to deal with me as an equal, I’ll be happy to debate. But bear in mind the limits of the venue. I was responding to a stupid generalization that the “terrorists had won” and I answered in quick simple refutations to fit a screenful of text, which doesn’t mean that those points comprise my entire worldview.
The question is not whether the world is in a better place than it was pre-9-11. There was no going back to pre-9-11. After 9-11 the choices weren’t for better or worse, but for worse and even worse.
I supported the Bush policies because I thought they were less worse than the alternatives. I don’t claim omniscience. As far as I’m concerned anyone who wishes to argue that, for instance, the Iraq War might not have been worth the blood and treasure expended has a point. But anyone who declaims that the Iraq War was entirely stupid is, I think, a bigot and an idiot.
And yes, I know that Churchill quote. I even quoted it in conversation to a friend tonight.
I wonder how many innocent Britons died at the hands of the IRA, funded by Americans and sheltered by the Irish, before the British government gave in and handed over part of the running of Northern Ireland to a bunch of terrorists. Because let’s face it, that’s what they are.
No, wait. They’re freedom fighters. The Muslims are the terrorists because Americans have been murdered. I get it now.
However nauseating it is to see the repellent Martin McGuinness in the role of deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland, the change for the better in the security situation over there cannot be exaggerated. Throughout my childhood and most of my adulthood, the news carried items about sectarian shootings, killings and bombings every night of the week. For 30 years. Not any more. Northern Ireland is still part of the UK (we never gave in over that), and a new generation is growing up against a backdrop of safe, normal life. The stain of hatred is slowly but surely fading.
Supping with the devil is not very palatable but it’s been a price well worth paying in Northern Ireland.
From my point of view, as an infrequent traveler, we have indeed made changes but those changes have not changed my freedom one iota.
11th w00t!!!
Huxley, and the like:
As I write this, less than 2 blocks away the police have closed and evacuated a zone around a Federal courthouse (I’m in Brooklyn Heights, moved here in early 2002 from downtown Manhattan) and brought in the bomb squad and many other emergency vehicles. My wife and daughter sit with me trying to find some information somewhere on TV, internet, neighbors, etc., to absolutely no avail. Every stinking news outlet is swamped with coverage of ceremonies, ceremonies, ceremonies. We feel emotionally raw on this day every year and do our best to blank it all out. But here it is literally in my front, back and side yards. We don’t panic, we don’t over think, we go about our business. My wife is making dinner with the groceries I just bought and carried pass the police blockades. THAT is what Bob means by not giving in to terrorism.
So Bob’s advice boils down to not being disabled by emotions during 9-11 coverage? Really?
Well, great. We do our best on 9-11 and other days. But I can’t say I find it all that useful as advice. I’ve looked through the comments and I can’t find any specifics for what Bob meant.
Perhaps I went off half-cocked. However, in my experience people who play the “Don’t give in to terrorism” card are usually attempting to claim the intellectual and moral high ground for anti-war or anti-Bush positions without earning it with rational argument.
In those cases “Don’t give in to terrorism” is a fatuous slogan like “Give peace a chance.”
As far as I’m concerned, we didn’t give in to terrorism. Those who disagree can make their case specifically.
The object of terrorists is to terrorize. They want you to be afraid, because fear is irrational. Irrational people make poor decisions driven by things that are not real and believe every promise to keep them safe, however deceptive.
Those who live by fear will be led in paths of darkness and the freedom they claim to be fighting for given to the unscrupulous who are without mercy.
For as long as you live in your fear you are terrorized.
That’s one theory, but again how does it translate into decisions and actions? Can’t all responses to 9-11 be characterized as the result of being terrorized or the choice of a man with a hammer? It seems to me that without specifics Bob’s article essentially rules out all responses.
Furthermore defining 9-11 as terrorism is a category error. AQ didn’t just blow up a bus or take a hostage. They killed 3000 people, obliterated two of our largest buildings and severely damaged a third. And those weren’t just any buildings — they were key nerve centers that run the finances and the military of our country. One assumes that Flight 93 was intended for a similar high profile target such as the US Capitol or the White House. The 9-11 attacks were decapitating strikes.
9-11 was a serious and successful attempt to do a large amount of damage to the United States. By any sensible measure it was an act of war, not terror.
From my side of the aisle, responding to 9-11 with vague advice about not giving into terrorism is a kind of paralysis that amounts to giving into al-Qaeda.
Thanks, Themike. What’s for dinner?
Life-affirming amatriciana. Pull up a chair… everybody.
One minor problem about that fellow and his hammer. WIthout a publicly visible foe, WE are now the nail. The word “domestic” is increasingly found in the same sentences as “terrorist”. Our local police department with 35 beat cops owns a frikkin’ tank…
As the Computer Studies teacher at Pleasanton Middle School that day..Thanks, Bob! I couldn’t believe you drove down despite the chaos and sense of unknown. Your thoughts that you shared truly created lasting memories for a number of my students..
Fred Emerson
Pleasanton Unified School District
#1 change that has prevented another attack: locking the cockpit door.
#2 change: A flying public that will fight back.
1) No doubt. When I learned of their effort to make the cockpit doors lockable, my first reaction was, “You mean, they aren’t ALREADY lockable?”
2) This was one of the biggest changes from 9/11. It effectively eliminated hijacking as a terror tactic because the passengers will know that they have no choice but to neutralize the hijackers.
The good news is that passengers figured out the necessity of fighting *on* *the* *very* *morning* of 9/11. Prior to 9/11, hijackers had no popular record of suicidal behavior, and the old, safe response was “sit tight and find out where we’re going”. Part way through that awful morning, passengers realized hijackers had a new motivation, and promptly defeated the sons of bitches.
Not giving in would have been treating the attacks as a crime, rather than an act of war. Smashing Bin Laden’s camps and giving the Taleban a bloody nose for harboring them, then leaving. Our actual response reveals the depth of the GOP’s libertarian convictions.
It is clear that the consequences of actions taken by the United States as well as others in the last 10 years have caused more death than the 9/11 act of terrorism.
One thing that always puzzled me is why so little has been made of the calling for secure doors to the cockpit made by pilots many years before 9/11. They were more concerned with air rage than terrorism. If the FAA had ordered secure doors be installed back in the 90’s I wonder if 9/11 could have occurred. Instead of focussing on this the big emphasis was put on passenger screening which has been costly and not that effective. My understanding is that the doors to the cockpit are now secured.
Remote access to the flight management system (FMS) of aircraft is already widely used, i.e., pilots usually do not enter their routing themselves upon entering their aircraft but the airline dispatch transmits the routing in advance. The pilots mainly choose the correct standard instrument departure (SID) according to the runway in use. As most systems in commercial aviation and air traffic control, this function has no real security mechanism but is mainly protected by the necessary aviation industry equipment and knowledge.
I’ve always been disappointed with the U.S. response. Too bad you didn’t have the ear of the president, Bob.
But what would Bob say?
Would he recommend against Afghanistan? Iraq? The Patriot Act? The Dept. of Homeland Security? TSA? Greater cooperation between intelligence agencies? Guantanamo?
I think arguments pro and con can be made but I want to hear the arguments, not the gnomic utterance, “Don’t give in to terrorism.”
If you were President Bush ten years ago, what would you have done?
“And above all, what defines us as Americans is our need to be ourselves.”
What drivel! I would have thought that it pretty much defines everyone in the world (you know that big round thing that america is merely a part of).
I realise that, even from Bob’s lofty perch, he may not be able to see out of the country and that america is the only country ever to have experienced a terrorist attack, but a less insular view would be nice every now and again.
Sure everyone in the world wants to be themselves but they are more willing to give up their freedoms than Americans who feel the NEED to be free.
Ever play with a cat and have it be unable to resist reacting to a laser pointer or bobbing string ? Humans are arguably worse.
https://www.nerdpocalypse.net/cat%20toy.html
Due to visual tracking and limitations of how much humans can hold in thought at once, they react positively to positive stimulus (generally without appreciation of underlying causes–the hand moving the string). Judgement goes way down with overloading also.
Quite prescient, Bob. Sadly a scared populous is a very useful one for exploitation for any government.
Jon: How was Bob prescient?
Speaking for myself and everyone I know who supported the Bush policies after 9-11, we were shocked, we did some rethinking and recalibrating, then we were angry, energized and determined to prevent another 9-11. No one I know was afraid. We know the strength of America, even if you don’t.
Fear was a narrative the left and liberals manufactured to discount our side’s efforts to defend America from a serious and implacable enemy.
As far as I am concerned, given that your side is determined to psychologize us, you are the ones who gave in to fear. The world no longer made sense, you were confused, and rather than deal with reality, you decided the enemy was other Americans.
It’s easy, cheap and fatuous to condescend about “not giving in to terrorism” when you don’t know, you can’t know, if Muslim fanatics might set off a suitcase nuke tomorrow in New York, San Francisco, or Washington.
I’ll ask you the question I keep asking and no one will answer. If you were President ten years ago, what would you have done?
BBC produces a telling documentary that outlines the goals of the perpetrators called The Power of Nightmares: The Politics of Fear. It’s available on YouTube.
Buiding What (a organization of 9/11 family members, first responders and survivors) website uses David Chandler analysis (Newtonian) of the video evidence left by the perpetrators.
>leaving the day startlingly clear.
The video evidence left by the perpetrators sometimes has a hazy sky that morning… Simon Shack has analyzed much of it on his YouTube channel
https://www.salem-news.com/articles/september122010/911-reflections-ew.php
I recall reading that post ten years ago, along with some others you wrote around that time. My level of agreement, while still high, has changed a bit in the last 10 years. “The terrorists grabbed Boeing 757 and 767 aircraft because” well, because they could.
Your original reasons are accurate, but not complete.
These young Arab Islamists hijacked US aircraft because of their deep hated for Israel. Does that make sense? It does when you consider the fact that it is not possible to hijack an Israeli commercial aircraft. The pilots and flight crews are armed, and trained in how to effectively stop a hijacking, by killing the hijackers before they can accomplish a hijacking. So far, nobody has found a crack in that security big enough to sneak through. And it doesn’t involve sexual assault or other thuggish behaviour that makes air travel a pain for non-criminals.
US aircraft are (mostly) flown by unarmed pilots, with flight crews who are told to cooperate with would-be hijackers.
The US reaction to the WTC atrocity was to build up a bureaucracy of perverts and thugs whose job appears to be to make airline travel really suck. They could have followed the example of the Israeli security — but they won’t, because it is not Politically Correct.
Many years ago, long before 9/11, I was singled out for a very close examination by German security (heavily armed and serious-minded young men). I don’t know what I did that tickled their paranoia nerve, but they handled it professionally and quickly — and without groping or threatening me (I’m guessing that it might have gotten to that point if I had not willingly cooperated). They even apologized, and my response was that I was glad they did their job well.
But the TSA? They have no clue. They can’t find a terrorist because it is Politically Incorrect to do so. They are stuck with the notion that they have to find bombs and weapons — a task many times more difficult.
Let’s try a small math exercise.
Civilian Fatalities from terrorism in the US from 2000-2009: ~3,000
Civilian Fatalities from motor vehicle crashes in the US from 2000-2009: ~ 370,000
(https://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.aspx)
What is more dangerous: terrorism or motorism?
topchem: Let’s try another simple math exercise.
Civilian fatalities from old age: 100%
Civilian fatalities from terrorism: far less than 0.001%
What is your point?
In the course of life, people die, no matter what. But they are not intentionally murdered by other people. Nor are the institutions that maintain life and quality of life for millions of people, intentionally destroyed as in 9-11.
That’s not in the ordinary course of human events. 9-11 was an act of war which any nation serious about future viability would necessarily respond to.
Is this a mystery to you?
Very few people in motor vehicle crashes die from old age.
Almost all motor vehicle crashes are violent and preventable (unlike old age) so they are relatively comparable to terrorist-induced deaths. Whether there was intent in causing the death only matters to the survivors.
Even if you allow that a large portion of the motor vehicle fatalities are the person that caused the accident, that still leaves a lot of innocent third parties dead.
So going back to the original question: Should we be spending 100 times (proportional to the fatality rate) more resources on reducing motor vehicle crashes than we currently do on fighting terrorism around the world?
Or is our current policy predicated on what resources (hammers) we had on hand, rather than on what would accomplish the most good.
That was my point.
topchem: Our society has already settled on the benefit/risk tradeoffs of automobiles. How much more do you think we can do, and are willing to do, to lower traffic fatalities.
However, 9-11 attacks are an area where we haven’t settled on how much damage we are willing to absorb versus how much we are willing to pay to prevent such damages.
The 9-11 attacks didn’t just kill 3000 people, but obliterated two of our largest, most important buildings and severely damaged a third. The attacks were intentional attempts not just to terrorize Americans but to decapitate financial, military and government nerve centers. It’s been estimated that the cost of the 9-11 attacks, direct and indirect, amounted to $1 trillion. Furthermore, it was clear that al-Qaeda and other radical Islamists weren’t going to stop with 9-11.
You are comparing apples with serial killers.
I apologize for the impolite heat in some of my comments above.
My point is that the 9-11 attacks were not only horrifying but posed very difficult problems . “Don’t give in to terrorism” sounds good but how does it guide us?
Many Americans believe that the Bush administration overreacted. For instance during Bush’s presidency, Barack Obama publicly opposed almost all of Bush’s post-9-11 policies. Yet now that Obama is president, he has continued most of those policies, including Guantanamo Bay, which he had emphatically promised to close during his campaign.
Has President Obama given in to terrorism?
huxley: “My point is that the 9-11 attacks were not only horrifying but posed very difficult problems . “Don’t give in to terrorism” sounds good but how does it guide us? “‘Don’t give in to terrorism’ sounds good but how does it guide us?”
There are several posts by Bruce Schneier answering this question. Just one cite: https://www.schneier.com/essay-038.html. You may not agree with the guidance, but it is there.
What “very difficult problems” did 9-11 pose, that other terrorist acts had, and have, not?
RonW: Bruce Schneier doesn’t really answer the question of what “Don’t give in to terrorism” means. He says that defending against terrorist threats is hard and much of the money is wasted. I’m sure both are true. But that’s true of much government activity, with or without terrorism, with or without giving in.
For instance I think we should disband TSA now. However, what’s really holding it in place is not “security theater” as Schneier claims, but that the TSA has become another self-perpetuating bureaucracy / public sector union.
Shneier’s message is to focus on the best bang for the buck. I’m for that. But we are dealing with the government and politics and not surprisingly things don’t work out optimally. Plus, I expect the any group or person when dealing with a new large threat would overreact and that would be the prudent thing to do.
As to how 9-11 is different from other terrorist acts — again, it was not the bombing of a bus or café, it was on par with Pearl Harbor in terms of the real damage it did. It was not retail terror; it was a serious act of war. How many more 9-11s could the United States take?
I ask you as I have asked everyone else here. What would you have done if you were president?
No one answers. That’s a clue as to the difficulty of the problems posed by 9-11.
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huxley: But anyone who declaims that the Iraq War was entirely stupid is, I think, a bigot and an idiot.
I AM AN BIGOT AND IDIOT. Iraq had NOTHING to do with 9/11. I still don’t know what agenda Bush et al had. But bin Laden was never in Iraq. Was Saddam and evil dictator – yes. But why him when there’s an entire world full of despot dictators? What more could we have accomplished if we focused our efforts on Afghanistan first? Much more than what we’ve accomplished in our ten years there (so far).
Greg
Iraq potentially could have had WMDs. All they had to do was comply with the inspections requested by the UN. The fact that they refused coupled with the fact that their non-elected leader was a ruthless dictator killing his own people, was enough to scare us in to action. Even without 9/11, they were a serious threat to world peace that needed to be delt with.
Sorry, I must have missed the news bulletin that said the world was indeed safer (and better) since Iraq. Maybe it will get better after Libya or Syria?
Yeah, sure, that was the BS. Iran may also have weapons of mass destruction. Wanna go to war there next? So do China and Russia.
Giving in to terrorism would have been quitting support of Isreal and Saudi Arabia, for starters. That’s what Bin Laden was wanting.
Greg: You seem to be poorly informed.
Read the “Joint resolution to authorize the use of United States Armed Forces against Iraq” at http://usgovinfo.about.com/library/weekly/bliraqreshouse.htm . It does not say that Bin Laden was in Iraq, though it notes that members of al-Qaeda were.
More importantly, unlike all the other despots of the world, we had gone to war with Saddam Hussein in 1990. Since that war, Hussein had repeatedly violated treaty agreements and UN resolutions about WMD, had attempted to assassinate former President Bush, and was firing on American aircraft on a near daily basis, and clearly sponsored terrorism.
There are almost two dozen counts explaining why we went to war in Iraq and not Zimbabwe. However, I have noticed in debates over the years that anti-war proponents are never concerned with these facts, if indeed they are aware of them.
Give it a rest. I believe the whole readership my now have an idea of what you think. Or refuse to think.
We have Shawn/Sean Hanady to carry your flag.
One of those ie enough.
Rod: Thanks. I’ll take that as an admission of bankruptcy and defeat.
>what would you have done?
Your old friend Chomsky wrote an article and a book about some alternatives recently.
> Many Americans believe that the Bush administration overreacted.
Many also believe Bush was involved in 9-11 – see Chomskys latest and/or opinion poles (20-30%) in the last decade) … Stop watching tv:
https://www.septemberclues.info/
What I find interesting in all these responses – as a non American – is the seeming lack of awareness of what causes terrorism. Its all about ‘what can we do to stop it, ‘how do we react’. Any independent study of terrorism shows that the root cause is having foreign troops on their soil. That’s the most basic reason. (Along with regular fundamentalist outlooks of course which are the same with any religion). Get the troops out of the country and the most basic complaint is dealt with. But of course the US government won’t do that for many reasons, and never has. Witness the behaviour over the decades all over the world. This behaviour which has served to undermine democratically elected governments is South America and the like has caused the countries in the first place to create terrorists. In a nutshell: change your foreign policy and you will address the problem. But I don’t think that will happen any time soon!
That’s like saying doctors cause illness and death because wherever doctors go, illness and death are there as well.
Tommi: Interesting.
Please cite three studies of terrorism that make your point that the root cause of terrorism is foreign troops on native soil. Since you say that “any independent study of terrorism” bears that out, you should be able to cite three.
It seems to me that there is a great deal of Muslim-on-Muslim terrorism that contradicts your claim — unless you find a weasel way that excludes those cases and probably many others.
This topic may be dead by now. The tenth anniversary of 9-11 is four days past and the shelf life of a blog post is three days or less.
However, I will underline the three questions I have asked here over and over again and received no answers:
(1) What specifically does “Don’t give in to terrorism” mean?
(2) What responses don’t come under the heading of “over-reaction” and a “man with a hammer”?
(3) What would you have done if you were President on 9-11?
The 9-11 attacks were serious, successful and deeply problematic. Bob says that there are no answers but he seems prepared to discount any responses President Bush might have made. Commenters go further.
I find little wisdom in Bob’s piece. Of course we responded. Of course we made mistakes. But it’s easy to kibbitz and criticize.
What would you have done?
>cite terrorism studies that point the root cause of terrorism is foreign troops on native soil.
Nible,nible…Again read Chomsky – he cites studies ad nauseum . Robert Pape, produced a six-year study on some 2,200 suicide terrorism attacks.
Also there was quite a bit of terrorism during the occupation of Vietnam:
https://www.straight.com/article-368577/vancouver/gwynne-dyer-vietnam-war-and-war-terror-both-fuelled-foreignpolicy-delusions
Again stop watching tv:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oU7VHf4TVIY&feature=player_detailpage#t=350s
Dave: I’ve got three feet of Chomsky on my bookshelves. I’m not going to pore through all those books as a favor. The onus is on you and Tommi to support your claims, not me.
If foreign troops on native soil is “the root cause of terrorism” why did al-Qaeda attack the trains in Spain? Why do Islamic terrorists kill Buddhist school teachers in Ceylon? Why do Muslims kill Muslims in so many Islamic countries?
We have military bases all over the world. Why isn’t there terrorism in all those countries?
It’s true Bin Laden claimed US bases in Saudi Arabia justified his fatwa mandating a religious duty of all Muslims to kill Americans — civilian or military — wherever and whenever possible. However, American bases were in Saudi Arabia as part of a Gulf War agreement with the Saudi government. Do we simply withdraw our military forces from everywhere because terrorists might be offended?
Your Vietnam link is a leftist rehash of that war that sheds no specific light on the root cause of terrorism.There was already a war going on in Vietnam when we got there.
I’m not going to read any more links people throw out unless they specify the point they are making and quote the pertinent lines that apply.
@Huxley – I’ve lost the point you’re trying to make with your persistent posts (becoming troll-like in the process). We (or at least I) also have no idea who you are to justify your relentless mollycoddling of virtually every comment or perspective on this forum. And no, for the record, I don’t expect you to explain who you are. I don’t really care! The purported contents of your bookshelf, mind or ego are entirely superfluous at this point. In fact, Cringely’s retrospective article is almost superfluous in itself. We have the benefit of a decade of hindsight and history on this issue now. Perhaps instead of arguing this history and trying to extrapolate things that will make us feel better, we should focus on what steps and directions we should encourage our leaders to take from this point. Because war, increased surveillance and distrust of citizenry, and continuous political rhetoric just don’t seem to be working.
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