THREAD: Strategically, 9/11 was a one-off sucker-punch. That’s it.
1. 9/11 did not ‘change everything.’ In fact, it changed surprisingly little
This language was deployed to create political space for a vast expansion of US coercion, especially in the Middle East. If all the
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1. 9/11 did not ‘change everything.’ In fact, it changed surprisingly little
This language was deployed to create political space for a vast expansion of US coercion, especially in the Middle East. If all the
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rules have suddenly changed, then all sorts of behavior are suddenly permissible – like domestic spying, torture, and Iraq. But strategically, 9/11 did not change that much: US GDP continued to expand; US military power was scarcely affected; US alliances did not fracture; the
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stock market re-opened after a few days and did not crash; gas prices did not spike; the global Islamic revolution Osama Bin Laden hoped this would ignite did not materialize:
2. 9/11’s big change was psychological – our shared national trauma fully
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https://twitter.com/PatPorter76/status/1436314936033091584
2. 9/11’s big change was psychological – our shared national trauma fully
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broadcast on TV in real time – and the supercharged reaction it elicited from us.
No imagery of violence against Americans had been broadcast unfiltered into our living rooms like this since Tet. Pearl Harbor was not seen by most of the country, for example. Part of terrorism
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No imagery of violence against Americans had been broadcast unfiltered into our living rooms like this since Tet. Pearl Harbor was not seen by most of the country, for example. Part of terrorism
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is inspiring terror, and it certainly worked. But still, this reaction was under our control, and today all but the most unrepentant neocons recognize that we overreacted:
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https://twitter.com/kdrum/status/1435993336171487232. Given our response, I often wonder if we would have used nuclear weapons in the
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ensuing war on terror if the towers had collapsed immediately and 75k had died, rather than 3k after the towers were mostly evacuated. It’s a chilling thought.
3. 9/11 was not the start of a prolonged campaign of mega-terror against the US or West, much less a ‘Long War’ or
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3. 9/11 was not the start of a prolonged campaign of mega-terror against the US or West, much less a ‘Long War’ or
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or ‘WW IV.’
Remember in 2002 when one pundit after another told us that this was just the beginning? That al Qaeda and similar movements would target US or Western cities again with mega-terror? (This was basically the premise of ‘24.’) And we all just believed that (me too),
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Remember in 2002 when one pundit after another told us that this was just the beginning? That al Qaeda and similar movements would target US or Western cities again with mega-terror? (This was basically the premise of ‘24.’) And we all just believed that (me too),
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even though there was no evidence that 9/11 was actually the start of a permanent mega-terror campaign against us. Remember, in ‘Fahrenheit 9/11,’ the company which wanted to sell executive parachutes so CEOs could jump out a building window if the bldg was struck by a
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terrorist plane, or Fox talking about al Qaeda putting bombs in pens? Remember the elaborate mega-plots of all these terrorism movies and TV shows like ‘Die Hard 4’ and ‘Homeland’? I remember seeing a brief from the Ohio Department of Homeland Security – I was at OSU at the
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time – talking about terrorist attacks on Buckeyes’ games or Cedar Point and students writing term papers about this (and me believing it all too). Apart from much smaller attacks in Western Europe (London, Madrid), this was all threat inflation. Keifer Sutherland even played
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a liberal softie worried about rule of law in ‘Designated Survivor’ to apologize.
4. 9/11 was a sucker-punch
The 9/11 plot exploited American openness and trustingness. It was a sucker-punch. Our airports and facilities were not gated and locked up. Our open society did not
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4. 9/11 was a sucker-punch
The 9/11 plot exploited American openness and trustingness. It was a sucker-punch. Our airports and facilities were not gated and locked up. Our open society did not
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block the plotters from living and operating. This cost us dearly on 9/11, but it is to America’s credit that we did not have a surveillance society like China is building right now. And it is a great tragedy that 9/11 took this from us – that we became more paranoid and
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fearful, insisting on walls, IDs, secrecy, spying, and even tortured. 9/11 made us less open and less liberal, sadly, but also far less likely to suffer a repeat. 9/11 was a one-off because we weren’t ready. Now we are: newamerica.org/in-depth/terro….
5. Muslims don’t hate us
OBL
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5. Muslims don’t hate us
OBL
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thought 9/11 would catalyze an Islamic uprising. It did not. This is good. Muslims did not endorse the attack; no one was cheering in the streets, contrary to MAGA assertions. So this needn't be a clash of civilizations unless we make it one. And it means we can wind down the
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'war on terror' while responding measuredly against a manageable terrorist threat which does not require us to stay in the Middle East indefinitely:
6. 9/11 truthism is wrong, and Iraq had nothing to do with it.
I am amazed how persistent this stuff
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https://twitter.com/Robert_E_Kelly/status/1436208121408491525.
6. 9/11 truthism is wrong, and Iraq had nothing to do with it.
I am amazed how persistent this stuff
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is. Our university – all the way out here in Korea! – recently had an adjunct who showed ‘Loose Change’ in class. He left the same semester I heard about it, but I was debating contesting his re-hire over this. And I still regularly get undergraduates – both Koreans and
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foreign students from around Asia – who vaguely think that Saddam was somehow involved – mostly bc they assume the US would not have attacked Iraq otherwise.
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