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Today marks the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. These were "a series of four coordinated terrorist attacks [...] against the United States of America on the morning of Tuesday, September 11, 2001."
Of the 2,977 people who died, 2,605 were U.S. citizens and 372 non-U.S. citizens (excluding the 19 perpetrators). More than 90 countries lost citizens in the attacks, including the United Kingdom (67 deaths), the Dominican Republic (47 deaths), India (41 deaths), Greece (39 deaths), South Korea (28 deaths), Canada (24 deaths), Japan (24 deaths), Colombia (18 deaths), Jamaica (16 deaths), Philippines (16 deaths), Mexico (15 deaths), Trinidad and Tobago (14 deaths), Ecuador (13 deaths), Australia (11 deaths), Germany (11 deaths), Italy (10 deaths), Bangladesh (6 deaths), Ireland (6 deaths), Pakistan (6 deaths), and Poland (6 deaths).
It was a tragedy not only for America, but for the world.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by mhajicek on Saturday September 11 2021, @04:17PM (3 children)
"We" walked into that trap intentionally. An excuse was needed to run the military industrial complex, the money pump, while keeping us in a constant state of emergency so we would surrender our freedoms.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 11 2021, @07:05PM (2 children)
I don't fully disagree, but I find that line of reasoning to be way overblown. Congress, and particularly the House, are as impulsive and irrational as the general population. 9/11 was scary in many ways, before the passage of time allowed some perspective. Most people, including politicians, took it very personally and wanted to do something about it. There was a real fear that 9/11 was just the start and that there were all these overlooked sleeper cells around and that there were going to be chemical and nuclear attacks to follow, which is why so many draconian policies were enacted, both to stop perceived imminent next attacks as well as to assuage people that steps were being taken to keep them safe. Of course, once you put in place laws and policies like that, it is very hard politically to remove them, which is why you need the pendulum to swing too far so that you can bring it back.
There are always opportunists around, and after 9/11 it was the influence of the neocon academics who believed that all you needed to do to fix the Middle East was to remove their shackles and they'll rise up and naturally choose a liberal democracy for a government. Saddam was the easiest target because he was a secular leader. They took him out and it turned into a great big mess. There was no follow up plan, because why would you need one when the people were going to suddenly organize themselves into a representative government (after having essentially banned everyone who knew how to run a government and throwing them out on the streets) and then, one by one, the people in neighboring countries would all follow suit and voila!, a new and Enlightened Middle East! When the real Arab Spring happened, the neocons felt vindicated ("See? We told you! The reason it didn't happen in Iraq was that GWB did it wrong!"), until it fell apart.
The MIC always makes money, whether it is wartime or peacetime. They'll happily make more of the same, if you're in a war, and make new and better stuff if in peacetime. They don't have to push foreign policy in any particular direction because they're going to get paid either way.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday September 11 2021, @09:41PM (1 child)
You don't capture the atmosphere in Washington at the time, unless you mention the anthrax scare, the beltway shooter, emphasize the attack on the Pentagon which is basically right across the river from the Capitol. We had a horde of screaming, crying, terrified children making policy after 9/11/01.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Saturday September 11 2021, @09:43PM
You mean approving policy, not making it. Everything was written and awaiting an excuse beforehand.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek