I’ve struggled with myself all day over whether to write a post that at least acknowledges the attacks on September 11, 2001. This will be brief: no “where were you when…”, etc. It may be a bit brutal.
Since the attacks we’ve killed a lot of people, had a lot of our own killed, and spent a lot of money. What we haven’t done is interrupted the critical success factors that lead to the original attack.
Any activity has critical success factors. Those are the factors or activities that make it possible for an organization or operation to accomplish its mission.
We’ve accomplished a few things. We’ve hardened jet cockpits. We’ve driven Al Qaeda from its stronghold in Afghanistan. I don’t happen to think that stronghold was a critical success factor for the attacks. They now have a stronghold in Pakistan. We’ve killed a lot of Al Qaeda leaders including Osama Bin Laden. I don’t think they were critical success factors, either. I believe that reasonable people can differ on that.
We’ve made counter-terrorism a more attractive career choice for people in the FBI. As far as I can tell that’s resulted in “sting” operations that haven’t actually done a great deal to make us more secure. The experts say that we’ll never know about the real successes, only the failures. They would say that, wouldn’t they?
So, yes, it can happen again.
You make some good points, Dave.
But I have to weigh in. I lived out there on 9/11. In my neighboring community, Brewster, NY, (next to Ridgefield CT, where we lived) people didn’t come home that night. Thats where firemen lived. My wife and young daughter were literally traveling into the city, on the bridge, for her to do a photo shoot. I called them and said get the hell out of dodge.
I know people, and of people, who died. This is not an intellectual exercise.
I lived the next month. The aftermath.
So yes, it can happen again. But what does that tell you? It should tell you that these people want to kill us. This should not be a political argument. It is real. Not money. Not power. Life and death.
And these people will not stop.
You have often made the point that you vote based upon foreign policy considerations. It’s hard to imagine a bigger one, for the rest of our productive adult lives.
Acknowledged Drew, but surely there have to be better ways to go about deterrence.
The best deterrence is to be actively engaged in it, versus passively hoping something won’t happen and staying disengaged from the problem.
To be actively involved in overseeing a country’s security means maintaining a good offensive operation, and updating and being aware of all the mutating and escalating tensions in the world. The proper implementation of protecting a country means having a good marriage between one’s domestic decisions and their foreign policy aspirations. Consequently, what we emphasis here in the United States, as our policy and our bottom-line principles, is directly communicated to our friends and foes overseas, and will play into the ultimate decisions made abroad. This is especially applicable to our relationships in the Middle East, as to how far they might feel free to press the envelop in pursuit of their own interests, at all costs to others, which can then greatly raise the possibilities of global havoc, including here within out own borders.
Today’s event, alone, of President Obama declining to meet with Netanyahu, is unbelievable to me, during these times of increased threats between Israel and Iran. It seems to me that Obama is preferring to simply tread water, rather than deal with any consequential pre-election decision making or diplomacy requiring his leadership. Earlier this week it was failing to have input in an important sequestation deadline. Now he is shying away from meeting with a ME leader who has been sending up all kinds of distress signals dealing with something that could trigger yet another war.
All of this is not good…..
Fair enough, Janis. I’m probably too emotional about this. Im tearing up as I type. I think you had to be there. It was un-effing believable.
Both of the World Trade Towers going down? You have to be kidding me. I know people who died. Because of crazy Islam?? I’m sorry, that makes me a lifelong opponent,,and will do anything to defeat these people. Fuck’m.
I can sort of understand. My mother-in-law called and alarmed me in time to watch the towers fall on television live. My mother called about 10 that morning to see if I was okay, because those kinds of things kick me in the gut.
I emailed an old NYC friend, Nick, to see that he and his wife were okay, and teared up for weeks watching the news here in Louisiana. Had I been closer, maybe I could have done something to help somebody.
In January of 2005, Radley Balko posted on a story from Newsday about an innocent family being shot to death at an Iraqi checkpoint.
The sole survivor was a little girl about 5 years old. They had a picture of her, spattered with her family’s blood, crouching and screaming in fear and horror.
Tell me again how that helped the cause.
Tell me again how that helped the cause.
That didn’t. We should have killed the little girl too. And then killed a few million more of them. Fried their asses with nuclear fire, let them know their camel-fucking pederast prophet and his God are powerless before us and our science, and to Hell with the lot of them. Let them know that in this age asymmetric warfare only favors the weaker side if the stronger side plays with its hands tied behind its back. It’s not like they’re going to stop until either we’re all dead or they’re all dead.
They CHEERED on 9/11/2001, and don’t forget that we all thought the body count was going to be a lot higher on that day. They rioted yesterday, essentially because someone somewhere put up a YouTube video they didn’t like – and because it was 9/11. So fuck ’em. They’re uncivilized barbarians, and it is long past time that they learned that the most savage possible actions are taken not by ignorant barbarians but by civilized people utilizing all their arts, sciences and organizational technique. We bombed entire cities out of existence in Japan, and that was before Fat Man and Little Boy. Similar things were done in Germany.
Ever read accounts of the strafing runs done late in the war in Germany? The ones against targets with no military value? The ones meant solely to instill terror? That was us, too. Here’s one American’s account of that:
I’ve read other accounts of this, complete with pilots using their big fifty caliber machine guns to shoot down little girls walking the family cow to the field. (I doubt Tom Brokaw ever mentioned this stuff.) And that’s during “The Good War” that people love to mythologize while decrying water-boarding. Why we’ve taken it easy on our opponents this time around is absolutely beyond me.
I imagine that little girl wished she were dead.
The American pilot I quoted above was Chuck Yeager, taken from his autobiography. Yeah, that Chuck Yeager.
Now we’ve got pictures of the mob parading around with the dead body of our Ambassador to Libya like it was a prize. The New York Times doesn’t think this merits page one attention. Anything to cover up for Barry Hussien’s wonderful foreign policy of apologizing to the barbarians for us having free speech & stuff, dontchaknow?
In response to the specific issue of the storming of the embassies in Egypt and Libya, I believe that the proper response of U. S. diplomacy would have been to remind the governments of Egypt and Libya of their obligations under the Vienna Convention and give them a reasonable amount of time to come into compliance by whatever means necessary—say, 24 hours. If at the end of that time the two countries had not enforced their obligations, the embassy staves should be removed, possibly forcibly. Under those circumstances the diplomats from those countries should be asked to leave the United States and the United States should have no official contact with the countries until there’s a change of government to governments that will, in fact, honor their obligations.
In all honesty I think there’s a fundamental cultural conflict. The people who live in Libya, Egypt, and other countries in MENA think that the U. S. government should control what our citizens read, write, and say. We think that the governments of those countries should live up to their treaty obligations and that the citizens of those countries should treat our diplomats with respect and recognize that our government does not control what our citizens read, write, and say.
I don’t see any way to reconcile those conflicting views without each side doing real damage to what they view as their fundamental rights. That means that diplomacy is impossible, their citizens should not be allowed to travel or emigrate here nor our citizens to travel or emigrate there, and contact between our countries should be limited to established, declared neutral zones. Pretty much the way it was in 1950.
I think that following 9/11 nuking all of the cities of MENA, although it would have been within our power, would have been an overreaction and immoral.
Weakness does not facilitate peace. Strength does.
Sometimes a beatdown is required.
I think you’re confusing restraint with weakness. We are so much stronger than any of the countries in MENA and, indeed, all of them put together that the people in those countries can’t even fathom how strong we are.
A single aircraft carrier could reduce many of the countries of the region to rubble with ease. We have eleven of them. Our nuclear capability is sufficient to reduce every city in MENA with a population of 100,000 or more to slag.
We have already delivered several “beatdowns”. That hasn’t worked. We should continue the beatings until morale improves?
Janis
That of course is tragic. But all you are telling me is that war is hell. It has been so since the inception of time. Atrocities occurred in WWI and WWII and Korea and Vietnam. It’s war. It’s the nature of war.
That’s why a decision to go to war is so intense and important. We can debate Iraq or any other military conflict. But once you are in, it does no good to cite the inevitable events that come with war. That decision has passed.
Roughly 3000 people perished on 9/11. The people in the airplanes were turned into hamburger. People jumped from 100 stories up in the World Trade Center rather than burn to death.
Al-Quada would do it again tomorrow if they thought they could. I have no sympathy. None. Zip. Zero. this is war.
Look what just happened in Libya yesterday. Look at Egypt. Look at Syria. “Arab Spring” my ass. And our President is whacking off. Pathetic.
These people are effing nuts. And they want us dead. If they want war, we will give them war. It won’t be pretty.
@Dave Schuler
In places where power is attained through violence, there is a vastly different dynamic, and many in Europe and the US do not understand this dynamic. Once a threat of violence has been established as credible, further violence is not required. Credibility is not established through ability. It is established through willingness.
US foreign policy over the past 10-15 years has been a mishmash, and with few exceptions, it has not been perceived as strength. The takedown in Afghanistan got Pakistan and Iran’s attention. The takedown in Iraq got Libya, Syria, and Iran’s attention.
The follow on operations were a mess, and they were not a sign of strength. The US should have installed a strong man as leader and left the country to him.
I am not making a case for Iraq – pro or con. If you are going to takedown a country, do it right.
Bringing a knife to a gun fight is sufficient if the gun will not be used.
We have already delivered several “beatdownsâ€. That hasn’t worked. We should continue the beatings until morale improves?
We beat up on the Iraqi military in 1991 – and then stopped because the slaughter was so awful. We rolled up Afghanistan with ease – and then failed with the occupation. Ditto with Iraq in 2003. Where have we delivered a “beat down” like we did to the Germans and the Japanese in the 1940s? When have we delivered a “beat down” on them like Sherman’s March to the Sea in 1864?
You say they can’t fathom how powerful we are. That’s only because we haven’t bothered to do so. We’ve treated the wars like some form of 18th Century European conflict with army vs army, with a little new fangled colonialism thrown in for bad measure. For “shock and awe” we didn’t carpet bomb Baghdad, we precision bombed a few buildings in Baghdad. Did the people on the next block even know they were getting bombed? It’s an impressive technical feat, but it doesn’t actually have the emotionally scarring impact of, say, Fourth of July in my neighborhood. (They use big fire works here, and the occasional house of innocent bystanders gets burned down. Fun times!)
Let’s show them some 20th Century-style action and firebomb Cairo. Or, for increased affect, Mecca during the Hajj. They will then understand that we have been inordinately nice to them. If they want to continue with hostilities after that? Well, they’ve been warned, and they shouldn’t be surprised at the results.
But instead we have gone over there and tried to turn camel-fuckers into liberal democrats, believers in free speech and gay marriage. How’s that working out?
All we get from the Mohammedans is “Great Satan this” and “Great Satan that” and “Allah will destroy you all!” They have set the terms of the conflict, let them die on those terms. We’d be doing them a favor – they’d all get their 72 virgins to give clitorectomies to in their heavenly manses. I believe they call that a “win-win” scenario. It isn’t a “win-win-win” because all those heavenly virgins will be getting the shaft, but they can take that up with Allah. Perhaps they can go on strike for better working conditions.
… People jumped from 100 stories up in the World Trade Center rather than burn to death.
This footage should be looped and shown over and over and over.
@Icepick
… We’ve treated the wars like some form of 18th Century European conflict with army vs army …
It looks more like the mercenary army vs mercenary army of the Renaissance era. They would inflict as little damage as possible.
It looks more like the mercenary army vs mercenary army of the Renaissance era.
I stand corrected.
@Icepick
You only need to blow up enough stuff to establish that you have the ability and the willingness. Once that is established, you can blow up a few random targets to establish a non-linear response.
Rather than invade Iraq, the US could have bombed Iraq, Iran, and N. Korea. An actual connection does not need to be established. All that needed to be established was that the US was pissed and somebody was going to pay.
I do not have much knowledge of the Haitian gangs, but I think you do. I know enough to leave them alone. They have established a willingness to use violence. I suspect that they reestablish that willingness from time to time.
The Middle East is not much from gangs fighting over turf, and the dynamics are similar. If you understand one, you understand the other.
I still don’t quite get it.
Hateful and crazy fundamentalist Muslims attack the US, so we go attack probably the most secular and Christian country in the Middle East?
Thereby removing the local threat from and empowering Iran?
This makes sense to y’all?
Oh, just go ahead and nuke the Middle East and polish the glass. Don’t mind the fallout.
Janis, how is a country that is run by the Muslim Brotherhood (installed with the help of our President – thanks so much Hussein) that is clamping down hard on the Copts a country that is either secular or Christian?
The populace was more secular, the leadership was oppressive.
There is such a depth of religious history in that region, that no single religion would encompass it.
You’re conflating current policy with past. Up until 2003 the country was run by the Republican Guard, an offshoot of the Ba’ath Party, which was nationalistic and pan-Arab, not religious.
”
… People jumped from 100 stories up in the World Trade Center rather than burn to death.
This footage should be looped and shown over and over and over.”
I will repeat. I think I’m just too emotional to be rational on the subject. I was there. NYC is a hard place. No place for fools. It can also be a great place. Great people when you gain their trust.
In my business its the 7th game of the World Series every day. I know, I make my living working with these folks. But you fuck with them and they will fuck with you five times worse. You can count on it. Radical Islam didn’t count on that.
Janis – its all connected.
@Janis Gore
It is not necessary to invade nor nuke a country to establish that it is not a good idea to mess with the US. It can be done in many other ways, but violence will be required. Rough areas play by a different set of rules than Europe & the US. In these areas, violence is repaid with violence, and any deviation is seen as weakness.
Where violence is the means for power, killing 3,000+ is not a big deal, and an innocent family being shot to death can be a means to power. Whoever is in power gets to make the rules. If one is going to play in these areas, one needs to understand this rule, and play accordingly.
Much of what is incomprehensible to western sensibilities is commonplace in rough areas, and the reverse is true also.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki comprise the first and last times a nuclear bomb was used by any nation — the United States. We have a stockpile of such arms, but are loath to put them into service, having them mainly as a strong offensive possibility which other countries don’t want to cross.
Now do you think the same restraint would be applied should a Middle Eastern country, let’s say Iran, finally develops such weaponry?
My answer would be “No.”
Along with being better armed than other countries with less stabilized governments, we have to have the strength of messaging to insure there is a believability that we would use them should these countries rise up and pose a legitimate global threat. It’s a psych-opts kind of front, making peace a much better option than going up against a self-assured power who is not bluffing.
IMO, Obama has eroded the image of the U.S. as being a strong country (or strong horse in Middle Eastern terms), to one racked by timidity and the wish to bury it’s head in the sand rather than be thought of as an international bully. However, the lack of a disciplined foreign policy from this country has led to more chaos in the world (not less), fueling the ambitions of dictators and newly formed Arab Spring countries to think they are no longer constrained by what has become a hesitating world power who would rather lead from behind.
The events in Cairo, of invading our embassy, followed by the greater tragedy (and loss of life) in Libya, exemplify how out of control things have become. These violent protests and raids are only aided and abetted by the mixed messages given by the WH (first an apology followed by a retraction of it), lowering the respect people have for this country even more, and, IMO, will encourage , rather than discourage, more of the same in the not too distant future.
Let’s just recall that Bush invaded Iraq and disbanded the military, not Obama.
@Drew
I am confused, but that is not unusual.
Most people were not there, and they need to have it brought to them. The footage of people jumping rather than being burned is very rarely shown because it is too horrific. Much of the horror has been sanitized. If more people understood that horror, many of them may have a different attitude.
….You’re right Janis, and Bush was rebuked by members of his own party for doing that too (as was Bremer, who was in charge over there and did a lousy job). But, we’re discussing Obama’s term of office, aren’t we, and what he has done right or wrong?
Somehow, whenever Obama gets into troubled or questioned waters, the conversation seems to veer back to Bush. I just think that is more of ‘blaming your parents’ for what went wrong with your life”, instead of focusing on the here and now, and being accountable for yourself. When is this country’s direction, decisions, outcomes going to fall on Obama’s desk — except of course for the OBL killing which he took instant credit for?
No, we’re discussing 9/11 and the fallout. I’ll agree that Obama’s policies are part of that.
Just so you know, I’ve been an unaffiliated voter since I registered to vote lo, those many years ago.
Just remember that “truth, justice and the American Way” was a lead-in to a superhero comic strip, not a presciption for foreign policy.
A further FYI is that I don’t give a rat’s ass about Obama and don’t plan to vote for him. But the damned stupid reactionary Republicans ain’t gettin’ my vote either.
@jan
A nuclear Iran will be a regional problem. They will not have a delivery vehicle capable of reaching the US for a long time if ever. Giving nuclear weapons to terrorists is really not a good idea, and they would be more dangerous to Iran than the US. In areas where violence is the means to power, it is best not to give away highly destructive weapons.
Also, the problem with a “suitcase nuke” is that it has a short shelf-life. I believe it is about six months.
Obtaining nuclear weapons thrusts a country into the major league, and the game is significantly different. A nuclear Pakistan is a a larger threat than a nuclear Iran, but if the US was really concerned, Musharraf would still be in power.
The Iraq war went downhill under President Bush. After the 2004 election, he was finished with it. He immediately began his Social Security reform push, and Iraq became a back-burner issue. Also, @Janis Gore is correct. The Iraqi army and bureaucracy was disbanded under President Bush. My dogs could have told them that this was a bad idea, and they ain’t that smart.
President Obama made a bad situation worse, but it is a matter of degree. He has taken a weak position and made it weaker. Amazingly, he has inflamed anti-American opinion in the Muslim countries. Pakistan did not like the US with President Bush, but they hate the US under President Obama. The negative feelings from the drone attacks will endure long after his presidency.
And of course, you know that both the Democrats and the Republicans are shakin’ in they shoes over the loss of my vote, as I have donated exactly zip to them since 1976.
Janis
There are a lot of people out there with similar sentiments about both parties. As they say, “you are not alone.”
Good Lord, jan, I just found a copy of the Reed College Quest with a photo of my freshman dorm roommate, Wendy, and me in it.
Tasty
(and I’ve removed the male appendage from my throat. ;). )
It was a day like no other in my life. I travel all over the country. I don’t think many really, really get it. If you were in NYC metro, you knew people who died. Firemen, policemen, executives, secretaries and so on….I suppose the same could be said for Washington DC.
It was unbelievable. It started with a report that a private small aircraft lost its way and crashed into one of the towers. That’s what I heard on the radio going into work. Then my partner called me after a breakfast meeting as he looked across the sound….and the tower was on fire. WTF? Then………and it was now on television, another commercial aircraft hit the second tower. Oh, shit.
Nothing productive happened the rest of the day. We had a diligence team at a potential acquisition in the Midwest. One of my other partners just said, “guys, what are we doing here?”. They got a rental car and drove back to NY.
I called my wife, who was taking our daughter to a photo shoot and just told her turn around and get the f out of there. I called people in Chicago and told them get the f out of your building. Nobody really knows the magnitude of this.
And then they fell, and you knew so many people had just died. And they had no reason to die.
War is war. But these people in the towers weren’t soldiers who signed up to participate in war. They were private citizens. Common folks. This was a cheap, cowardly, terrorist attack.
Fuck these people. Blow them away. This is a fanatical religious cult that has no place in a modern society. They are stone age.