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posted by martyb on Tuesday September 01 2015, @08:04AM   Printer-friendly
from the it's-"talk-softly-and-CARRY-a-big-stick" dept.

Oder Aderet reports at Haaretz that the United States considered using nuclear weapons against Afghanistan in response to the September 11 attack according to Michael Steiner, who served as a political advisor to then-German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, as reported in Der Spiegel. "The papers were written," Steiner said when asked whether the U.S. had considered using nuclear weapons in response to the attacks orchestrated by Al-Qaida's Osama bin Laden, in which almost 3,000 people were killed. "They had really played through all possibilities." Steiner added that Schröder feared that the US, which was in a state of shock following the attacks, would overreact. "After Sept. 11, the entire administration positively dug in. We no longer had access to Rice, much less to the president. It wasn't just our experience, but also that of the French and British as well. Of course that made us enormously worried."


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  • (Score: 5, Touché) by isostatic on Tuesday September 01 2015, @08:19AM

    by isostatic (365) on Tuesday September 01 2015, @08:19AM (#230695) Journal

    Over 90 minutes of jaw dropping TV the American psyche was destroyed. No longer was it land of the brave, from now on it was "bogeyman behind every corner"

    Starting Score:    1  point
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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 01 2015, @08:22AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 01 2015, @08:22AM (#230698)

    and that's why the terrorists won

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 01 2015, @12:10PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 01 2015, @12:10PM (#230761)

      Yes but, steel beams?

      • (Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 01 2015, @04:21PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 01 2015, @04:21PM (#230870)

        jet fuel can't melt STEEL MEMES

  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 01 2015, @08:25AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 01 2015, @08:25AM (#230699)

    In the old days, the bogeymen were were foreigners from a foreign land. These days, the bad guy is you! That's right, you. You could be a terrorist and not even know it, until one day you find yourself on a list.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 01 2015, @02:19PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 01 2015, @02:19PM (#230811)

      To be fair, for a long time it was "commies" everywhere.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 02 2015, @01:46AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 02 2015, @01:46AM (#231082)

        And before that it was the facists, then the socialists, then the facists again, then the anarchists, the confederates, the savages, and then those loyal to the crown.

        There has always been boogeyman.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 02 2015, @01:26PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 02 2015, @01:26PM (#231248)

          Quite right too! That is the real reason for the rapid development of face-tracking technology, never again will we need to worry about those evil facists and their belief that everyone is entitled to their own unique face! Now we can quickly locate them, follow their movements and take them and their personalised visages out of circulation.

  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 01 2015, @08:47AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 01 2015, @08:47AM (#230705)

    And finally a reason to start deploying the authoritarian / police state. At least in Europe as far as I can see. Since 9/11, governments here finally found a stick to beat the dog with and populist, extreme right wing political parties have gained enormously, as has islamophobia. It seems not only the US have the terrorists won, but around the globe. What worries me most is that we may have the wrong idea who the terrorists really are.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 01 2015, @08:50AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 01 2015, @08:50AM (#230706)

    No it wasn't. The American psyche had already been slowly eroded in the preceding decades. The war on terror simply formalized it.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 01 2015, @11:15AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 01 2015, @11:15AM (#230747)

    You mean in contrast to the red commie plague eroding our freedoms around every corner scare of the cold war?

  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 01 2015, @02:46PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 01 2015, @02:46PM (#230821)

    > Over 90 minutes of jaw dropping TV the American psyche was destroyed.

    It wasn't the 90 minutes. It was the weeks and months of constant and pervasive replaying that followed.