4 ms·

What if 9.11 had never happened?

2 points by ebarock 11y ago

pseingatl 11y ago
Saudi citizens would still be able to pick up their U.S. tourist visas at Saudi travel agencies. U.S. citizens could easily open up bank accounts overseas. Saddam Hussein would still be in power. No ISIS, no war in Afghanistan, no Arab Spring. The war on drugs would still be going strong instead of being a footnote. Israelis and Palestinians would still be squabbling. The 2008-9 crash still would have happened. The Kardashians would have still happened. Airport security would be fast and efficient. You'd only have to arrive no more than an hour or so before your flight. And all the lives that had been lost would have gone on; enriching their families and those of us they touched.
cryoshon 11y ago
For one, the national consciousness would be a bit less xenophobic and a bit more "American" in the sense that we'd be behaving like a child who had never been stung by a bee instead of a grizzly bear that was angry it had been stung by a bee. I'd bet that we'd still have gone to war in Iraq (maybe in 2005 instead of 2003) and have some fraction of the current mess on our hands. The Bush administration was looking for a war with Iraq anyway. EDIT: Maybe we'd be in Iran, also. Hard to say, but there was definitely a big push to get us into a war against them. I'd also bet that we'd be a little bit behind on the whole surveillance state thing, though we might still have a police state. Assuming we did end up still invading Iraq, I can still see the world growing to hate the USA in the fashion similar to what happened.
bediger4000 11y ago
Something else would have happened. In retrospect, it's pretty easy to say that the main legal response to 9/11, the PATRIOT Act, was already mostly prepared, so some legislative types had a wish list of law enforcement type stuff ready. It also looks to me like the "peace dividend" from the end of the Cold War had starved a lot of Deep State entities. The think tanks, defence contractors, aerospace industry, spy agencies were all ready to leap on to any excuse that paniced enough people, so they could get back to Cold War size budgets or better. I'm also going to say that George W. Bush and his top-level people really wanted to invade Iraq and "finish off" Saddam Hussein. Saddam was a secular dictator, the very antithesis of a Shari'a state that Al Queada wanted. Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, but somehow got dragged into the whole mess. Since the desire to invade Iraq (even optimistically at an astronomical price) was so strong, some excuse would have happened.

2 points by ebarock 11y ago

Saudi citizens would still be able to pick up their U.S. tourist visas at Saudi travel agencies. U.S. citizens could easily open up bank accounts overseas. Saddam Hussein would still be in power. No ISIS, no war in Afghanistan, no Arab Spring. The war on drugs would still be going strong instead of being a footnote. Israelis and Palestinians would still be squabbling. The 2008-9 crash still would have happened. The Kardashians would have still happened. Airport security would be fast and efficient. You'd only have to arrive no more than an hour or so before your flight. And all the lives that had been lost would have gone on; enriching their families and those of us they touched.

cryoshon 11y ago

For one, the national consciousness would be a bit less xenophobic and a bit more "American" in the sense that we'd be behaving like a child who had never been stung by a bee instead of a grizzly bear that was angry it had been stung by a bee. I'd bet that we'd still have gone to war in Iraq (maybe in 2005 instead of 2003) and have some fraction of the current mess on our hands. The Bush administration was looking for a war with Iraq anyway. EDIT: Maybe we'd be in Iran, also. Hard to say, but there was definitely a big push to get us into a war against them. I'd also bet that we'd be a little bit behind on the whole surveillance state thing, though we might still have a police state. Assuming we did end up still invading Iraq, I can still see the world growing to hate the USA in the fashion similar to what happened.

bediger4000 11y ago

Something else would have happened. In retrospect, it's pretty easy to say that the main legal response to 9/11, the PATRIOT Act, was already mostly prepared, so some legislative types had a wish list of law enforcement type stuff ready. It also looks to me like the "peace dividend" from the end of the Cold War had starved a lot of Deep State entities. The think tanks, defence contractors, aerospace industry, spy agencies were all ready to leap on to any excuse that paniced enough people, so they could get back to Cold War size budgets or better. I'm also going to say that George W. Bush and his top-level people really wanted to invade Iraq and "finish off" Saddam Hussein. Saddam was a secular dictator, the very antithesis of a Shari'a state that Al Queada wanted. Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, but somehow got dragged into the whole mess. Since the desire to invade Iraq (even optimistically at an astronomical price) was so strong, some excuse would have happened.