9 ms·

Terror on Wall Street

140 points by soneca 11y ago

douche 11y ago
I'm amazed that I had never heard of this incident.
- BinaryIdiot 11y ago
  Honestly it's hard to hear about such instances when it's past the birth year of most of our parents. If information isn't actively taught about historic events then we're left with the few who actively seek it that will know. I'd be willing to bet that by 2110 most wouldn't have heard of the September 11th attacks simply because the people who experienced it and many of their parents will be gone by then. It'll be relegated to the history books possibly to be replaced with bigger issues that happen later.
  - veddox 11y ago
    While I agree with the first part of your post, I would claim that it will be several centuries before 9/11 is forgotten. The impact it had on the world is just too big to forget within 100 years. 9/11 fundamentally influenced American foreign policy. Think of the Iraqi invasion, the war on terrorism, the war in Afghanistan, heightened airline security. We still learn about the assassination of archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo in 1914. It may have been the killing of just one man, but it led to WWI. We still learn about the Black Hole of Calcutta (whether it actually happened or not is a different story). We still learn about the Boston Tea Party. We still learn about the Defenestration of Prague that started the 30 Years War. I could go on...
  - cm2187 11y ago
    The other thing is that events pre-1990s are poorly documented on the internet. Anything happening since yields a lot of material. So I'd expect the internet to introduce a big bias in term of how we percieve history in the future.
  - tajen 11y ago
    That event didn't shape humanity, whereas September 11 did. Here your schoolbook in 2110: "The world was recovering from the fall of the USSR. CIA had reduced operations in the middle east. Apart from minor crisis (Balkans, or 1998 crack in Russia), tensions were appeasing. On September 11, five places in US were hit by simultaneous terrorist attacks, the most famous being NYC with over 3000 deaths. The blame was immediately put on Bin Laden, who was searched for 10 years until his capture in 2011, and globally on Arabic people. USA raised CIA budgets, sent its army to Irak, Afghanistan and Pakistan, created illegal prisons, used torture against what was later proven to be civilians, sprung unprecendented measures for security. In the middle east, the recovery from the Cold War was replaced by a constant storm of missile strikes. Military started using automated robots such as the Predator, spreading a worldwide solidarity among arabic people. In the USA, impacts were high on civilians. In airports, people were arrested for not being able to explain where they were going, military tanks started being used in USA police stations, military methods were used to bust poker parties, killing hundreds of Americans per year, and NSA was in charge of establishing a permanent control on all private communications. In 15 years the most powerful country of the world became able to squash any interior political movement with military methods. Worst of all, a poll showed that 40% of the population believed that September 11 was an attack organized by the CIA to renew the nationalist sentiment." > It'll be relegated to the history books possibly to be replaced with bigger issues that happen later. Maybe not, if it's the root explanation of said later events.
    - mycelium 11y ago
      What unexplained event, potentially terrorist, catalyzed the US engagement in the Spanish—American war? Similar sorts of geopolitical consequences, similar timescale... the ease with which you recall the event is likely similar to the ease with which inhabitants of the US in 2115 will recall September 11.
      - Thimothy 11y ago
        For those who don't know, the parallels are unnerving. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish%E2%80%93American_War#USS_Maine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish%E2%80%93American_War#U...
mikk14 11y ago
Isn't a bit bizarre from the author to point the finger to Italian anarchists for this unsolved case? I mean the "pair of Italian-American anarchists had been indicted five days earlier for bank robbery and murder" he mentions are none less than Sacco and Vanzetti, who were victims of one of the most spectacular miscarriages of justice willingly perpetrated for political reasons I can recall. To find an Italian anarchist guilt of something in the US during the 20s proofs were not really a requirement, so this case wouldn't end up unsolved.
- scribu 11y ago
  > Isn't a bit bizarre from the author to point the finger to Italian anarchists for this unsolved case? It's the investigators that are pointing the finger, not the author: "Investigators immediately suspected that the bombing was the work of Galleanist anarchists"
  - jessaustin 11y ago
    The author chose how much context to include. Not to even mention the issues that most historians have with the treatment of S&V, while mentioning the case in apparent support of a completely opposed proposition, is odd in a work of this length.
    - DamnInteresting 11y ago
      Author of the article here. I did not intend to imply support for the conclusion that Galleanist anarchists were to blame. To the contrary, I feel the response of the public was misdirected and the response of the government was heavy-handed. Hence my phrase "the orgy of misguided justice."
      - jessaustin 11y ago
        I thought that referred to the "deportation of about 10,000"?
weatherlight 11y ago
If you go to 47 Wall street just 25 feet from where George Washington was inaugurated as president, you can see chunks of marble missing on the wall where the shrapnel hit.
- bro-stick 11y ago
  Yup. Btw: it's kind of shocking to see concrete and metal garbage receptacles (shrapnel-enhancing, hiding systems) in the US, after working abroad in FR and UK. These things need to be proactively replaced with tiny alumin(i)um hoops and clear plastic bags. Even the HS I went to in the 90's had a pipebomb issue at some point and hence no lockers.
  - lsc 11y ago
    I would argue the exact opposite. We need more "life goes on" and less fear. Like how the stock exchange opened the next day. I mean, changing garbage cans, really, is fine. It's not a huge cost and doesn't make it hard for us to continue to live our lives. If making a change to the garbage cans makes you feel better, go ahead. But think of the incredible cost of implementing the level of airline security we have now. For anything under four hours, you are better off taking a car. Sure, we're trying to improve our rail infrastructure to the point where that's an option, too, but we're a long ways off. The terrorists did some damage, sure... but the actual damage they did in the September 11 attacks has been dwarfed, at least economically, by the fact that we have essentially ruined our air-travel system in response.
    - veddox 11y ago
      > We need more "life goes on" and less fear. Thumbs up for that. And respect to Boston for the way they handled the marathon bombings back in 2013. > the actual damage they did in the September 11 attacks has been dwarfed, at least economically, by the fact that we have essentially ruined our air-travel system in response. That however is a one-sided statement. The question is always: how many attacks did we prevent with the new security? You can't just weigh up 9/11 vs. the cost of airline security. You have to see 9/11 plus any attack that was prevented (which I agree is hard/impossible to measure) vs. our security costs. I don't deny that some air-travel security is OTT. But you can't claim it's pointless. (Quite apart from the fact that customers, out of fear, nowadays probably wouldn't fly with an airline that didn't provide an insane amount of security. Despite an almost century long track record of astounding safety, the air-travel industry still has to convince its customers all the time that flying is safe.)
PhasmaFelis 11y ago
> The Washington Post referred to the bombing as an “act of war,” though no one could be certain who the enemy was. Jesus, that sounds familiar. And this: > Wall Street soon became a symbol of patriotism in the eyes of the country, and stock trading came to be viewed as an act of defiance against the terrorists. Before the attack a number of outspoken citizens had decried the unchecked growth of power underway on Wall Street, but many of those voices fell silent in light of the new public sentiment. Those critics who continued to voice their concerns were denounced as supporters of violence and terror, a trend which rapidly smothered all public debate on the matter. There seems to be no surer way to solidify a political tendency that to murder people while demanding its opposite.
PhasmaFelis 11y ago
Have terror bombings ever accomplished the bombers' demands? Every one that I've heard of just seems to mobilize people to do the opposite of whatever they think the terrorists want, as violently as possible.
- upofadown 11y ago
  People commit violence for all sorts of reasons. You really have to look at the motivations of the people involved on a case by case basis. Often times the reasons are entirely different from what any of the the people involved publicly claim. Sometimes there are long term political goals involved. Sometimes it is just simple revenge.
- afarrell 11y ago
  I've heard the effect of IRA bombings of empty buildings insured by Lloyds of London were fairly influential in leading to negotiations, but I forget my source.
- xorcist 11y ago
  It brings up a subject and a problem discourse that you third parties would not otherwise be aware of. An example where terrorism had at least partial success and were undeniably influential was in the creation of modern Israel.
- Asbostos 11y ago
  Spain's ETA reduced its terrorism because of being given some autonomy for its region. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0030438712000567 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0030438712... There was also the MK in South Africa which did some bombings and then its allies, the ANC took over the government. There were no doubt other factors besides the terrorism here though. Don't forget Nelson Mandela used to be called a terrorist but has since had his demands met so perhaps by definition a terrorist who wins is no longer considered to be a terrorist. Maybe that's why we don't hear about much history of this happening. We rewrite it.
- Houshalter 11y ago
  Gwern has an amazing essay on this: http://www.gwern.net/Terrorism%20is%20not%20about%20Terror http://www.gwern.net/Terrorism%20is%20not%20about%20Terror And also: http://www.gwern.net/Terrorism%20is%20not%20Effective http://www.gwern.net/Terrorism%20is%20not%20Effective >In a [previous study of mine] assessing terrorism’s coercive effectiveness, I found that in a sample of 28 well-known terrorist campaigns, the terrorist organizations accomplished their stated policy goals 0% of the time by attacking civilians. >Jones and Libicki (2008) then examined a larger sample, the universe of known terrorist groups between 1968 and 2006. Of the 648 groups identified in the RAND-MIPT Terrorism Incident database, only 4% obtained their strategic demands. More recently, Cronin (2009) has reexamined the success rate of these groups, confirming that less than 5% prevailed…Chenoweth and Stephan (2008, 2011) provide additional empirical evidence that meting out pain hurts non-state actors at the bargaining table. Their studies compare the coercive effectiveness of 323 violent and nonviolent resistance campaigns from 1900 to 2006. Like Gaibulloev and Sandler (2009), the authors find that refraining from bloodshed significantly raises the odds of government compliance even after tactical confounds are held fixed. These statistical findings are reinforced with structured in-case comparisons highlighting that escalating from nonviolent methods of protest such as petitions, sit-ins, and strikes to deadly attacks tends to dissuade government compromise. Chenoweth and Stephan employ an aggregate measure of violence that incorporates both indiscriminate attacks on civilians and discriminate attacks on military personnel or other government officials, which are often differentiated from terrorism as guerrilla attacks (Abrahms 2006; Cronin 2009; and Moghadam 2006). Other statistical research (Abrahms, 2012, Fortna, 2011) demonstrates that when terrorist attacks are combined with such discriminate violence, the bargaining outcome is not additive; on the contrary, the pain to the population significantly decreases the odds of government concessions.
retrogradeorbit 11y ago
So there was an attack on Wall Street and The US didn't immediately invade an unrelated middle eastern country? How times have changed...
cm2187 11y ago
A useful reminder that terrorism isn't new or even worse now that in the past. In the 70s and 80s, palestinian movements were regularly blowing bombs and taking hostages, along with far left extremists. A lot of state sponsored terrorism in the 80s and 90s, from our new "friends" Iran and Syria. And a lot of that terrorism was home grown (IRA, ETA, left wing). For instance in the EU: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_the_European_Union https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_the_European_Un... The number of attacks and number of victims has been pretty much consistent since the 50s with a small spike with the Madrid bombings. What has changed is our sensitivity to terrorism which has become absurdly high. There are violent crimes happening every day which kill an order of magnitude more people. Gang violence alone in the US kills several 9/11 every year. There are thousands of knife attacks just in London every year. None of that even make it to the news anymore. And the number of deaths linked to terrorism (1,100 in Europe since the 50s according to that wiki article) is dwarfed by things like death due to accidental drowning (35,000 every year according to eurostat). It is useful to remember this when we see politicians in pretty much every western countries throwing out of the window basic civil liberties in the name of the war on terror. The budget spent on anti-terrorism should be better spent teaching people to swim.
- veddox 11y ago
  Excellent comment! Although of course one has to remember that the impact of terrorism cannot be measured purely by a body count. There is a strong symbolic dimension to it - if al-Quaeda had killed a few thousand people in some remote town in America instead of targeting the World Trade Center, the response would have been much different.
  - saiya-jin 11y ago
    this happens when emotions take over rational thinking and decision process. as non-american, and apologies upfront to our US friends, whole WTC was more like 'meh', just another ugly day, what's the big deal... no reason to prefer some clerks over some other kids/women hacked with machetes, smashed by earthquake or other tragedies happening left and right. Manmade or not, not a big difference But when emotions kick in, when YOU feel YOU are attacked (and those are some powerful emotions!), proportions change, and you just want to nuke 'em to hell, twice. I think I react in similar way in... +- similar situations (more personal ones rather than attack on the nation). Sad story that whole USA got swayed into blind acceptance of any security measure to stop that ugly terrorist

140 points by soneca 11y ago

douche 11y ago

I'm amazed that I had never heard of this incident.

BinaryIdiot 11y ago
Honestly it's hard to hear about such instances when it's past the birth year of most of our parents. If information isn't actively taught about historic events then we're left with the few who actively seek it that will know. I'd be willing to bet that by 2110 most wouldn't have heard of the September 11th attacks simply because the people who experienced it and many of their parents will be gone by then. It'll be relegated to the history books possibly to be replaced with bigger issues that happen later.
- veddox 11y ago
  While I agree with the first part of your post, I would claim that it will be several centuries before 9/11 is forgotten. The impact it had on the world is just too big to forget within 100 years. 9/11 fundamentally influenced American foreign policy. Think of the Iraqi invasion, the war on terrorism, the war in Afghanistan, heightened airline security. We still learn about the assassination of archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo in 1914. It may have been the killing of just one man, but it led to WWI. We still learn about the Black Hole of Calcutta (whether it actually happened or not is a different story). We still learn about the Boston Tea Party. We still learn about the Defenestration of Prague that started the 30 Years War. I could go on...
- cm2187 11y ago
  The other thing is that events pre-1990s are poorly documented on the internet. Anything happening since yields a lot of material. So I'd expect the internet to introduce a big bias in term of how we percieve history in the future.
- tajen 11y ago
  That event didn't shape humanity, whereas September 11 did. Here your schoolbook in 2110: "The world was recovering from the fall of the USSR. CIA had reduced operations in the middle east. Apart from minor crisis (Balkans, or 1998 crack in Russia), tensions were appeasing. On September 11, five places in US were hit by simultaneous terrorist attacks, the most famous being NYC with over 3000 deaths. The blame was immediately put on Bin Laden, who was searched for 10 years until his capture in 2011, and globally on Arabic people. USA raised CIA budgets, sent its army to Irak, Afghanistan and Pakistan, created illegal prisons, used torture against what was later proven to be civilians, sprung unprecendented measures for security. In the middle east, the recovery from the Cold War was replaced by a constant storm of missile strikes. Military started using automated robots such as the Predator, spreading a worldwide solidarity among arabic people. In the USA, impacts were high on civilians. In airports, people were arrested for not being able to explain where they were going, military tanks started being used in USA police stations, military methods were used to bust poker parties, killing hundreds of Americans per year, and NSA was in charge of establishing a permanent control on all private communications. In 15 years the most powerful country of the world became able to squash any interior political movement with military methods. Worst of all, a poll showed that 40% of the population believed that September 11 was an attack organized by the CIA to renew the nationalist sentiment." > It'll be relegated to the history books possibly to be replaced with bigger issues that happen later. Maybe not, if it's the root explanation of said later events.
  - mycelium 11y ago
    What unexplained event, potentially terrorist, catalyzed the US engagement in the Spanish—American war? Similar sorts of geopolitical consequences, similar timescale... the ease with which you recall the event is likely similar to the ease with which inhabitants of the US in 2115 will recall September 11.
    - Thimothy 11y ago
      For those who don't know, the parallels are unnerving. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish%E2%80%93American_War#USS_Maine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish%E2%80%93American_War#U...

mikk14 11y ago

Isn't a bit bizarre from the author to point the finger to Italian anarchists for this unsolved case? I mean the "pair of Italian-American anarchists had been indicted five days earlier for bank robbery and murder" he mentions are none less than Sacco and Vanzetti, who were victims of one of the most spectacular miscarriages of justice willingly perpetrated for political reasons I can recall. To find an Italian anarchist guilt of something in the US during the 20s proofs were not really a requirement, so this case wouldn't end up unsolved.

scribu 11y ago
> Isn't a bit bizarre from the author to point the finger to Italian anarchists for this unsolved case? It's the investigators that are pointing the finger, not the author: "Investigators immediately suspected that the bombing was the work of Galleanist anarchists"
- jessaustin 11y ago
  The author chose how much context to include. Not to even mention the issues that most historians have with the treatment of S&V, while mentioning the case in apparent support of a completely opposed proposition, is odd in a work of this length.
  - DamnInteresting 11y ago
    Author of the article here. I did not intend to imply support for the conclusion that Galleanist anarchists were to blame. To the contrary, I feel the response of the public was misdirected and the response of the government was heavy-handed. Hence my phrase "the orgy of misguided justice."
    - jessaustin 11y ago
      I thought that referred to the "deportation of about 10,000"?

weatherlight 11y ago

If you go to 47 Wall street just 25 feet from where George Washington was inaugurated as president, you can see chunks of marble missing on the wall where the shrapnel hit.

bro-stick 11y ago
Yup. Btw: it's kind of shocking to see concrete and metal garbage receptacles (shrapnel-enhancing, hiding systems) in the US, after working abroad in FR and UK. These things need to be proactively replaced with tiny alumin(i)um hoops and clear plastic bags. Even the HS I went to in the 90's had a pipebomb issue at some point and hence no lockers.
- lsc 11y ago
  I would argue the exact opposite. We need more "life goes on" and less fear. Like how the stock exchange opened the next day. I mean, changing garbage cans, really, is fine. It's not a huge cost and doesn't make it hard for us to continue to live our lives. If making a change to the garbage cans makes you feel better, go ahead. But think of the incredible cost of implementing the level of airline security we have now. For anything under four hours, you are better off taking a car. Sure, we're trying to improve our rail infrastructure to the point where that's an option, too, but we're a long ways off. The terrorists did some damage, sure... but the actual damage they did in the September 11 attacks has been dwarfed, at least economically, by the fact that we have essentially ruined our air-travel system in response.
  - veddox 11y ago
    > We need more "life goes on" and less fear. Thumbs up for that. And respect to Boston for the way they handled the marathon bombings back in 2013. > the actual damage they did in the September 11 attacks has been dwarfed, at least economically, by the fact that we have essentially ruined our air-travel system in response. That however is a one-sided statement. The question is always: how many attacks did we prevent with the new security? You can't just weigh up 9/11 vs. the cost of airline security. You have to see 9/11 plus any attack that was prevented (which I agree is hard/impossible to measure) vs. our security costs. I don't deny that some air-travel security is OTT. But you can't claim it's pointless. (Quite apart from the fact that customers, out of fear, nowadays probably wouldn't fly with an airline that didn't provide an insane amount of security. Despite an almost century long track record of astounding safety, the air-travel industry still has to convince its customers all the time that flying is safe.)

PhasmaFelis 11y ago

> The Washington Post referred to the bombing as an “act of war,” though no one could be certain who the enemy was. Jesus, that sounds familiar. And this: > Wall Street soon became a symbol of patriotism in the eyes of the country, and stock trading came to be viewed as an act of defiance against the terrorists. Before the attack a number of outspoken citizens had decried the unchecked growth of power underway on Wall Street, but many of those voices fell silent in light of the new public sentiment. Those critics who continued to voice their concerns were denounced as supporters of violence and terror, a trend which rapidly smothered all public debate on the matter. There seems to be no surer way to solidify a political tendency that to murder people while demanding its opposite.

PhasmaFelis 11y ago

Have terror bombings ever accomplished the bombers' demands? Every one that I've heard of just seems to mobilize people to do the opposite of whatever they think the terrorists want, as violently as possible.

upofadown 11y ago
People commit violence for all sorts of reasons. You really have to look at the motivations of the people involved on a case by case basis. Often times the reasons are entirely different from what any of the the people involved publicly claim. Sometimes there are long term political goals involved. Sometimes it is just simple revenge.
afarrell 11y ago
I've heard the effect of IRA bombings of empty buildings insured by Lloyds of London were fairly influential in leading to negotiations, but I forget my source.
xorcist 11y ago
It brings up a subject and a problem discourse that you third parties would not otherwise be aware of. An example where terrorism had at least partial success and were undeniably influential was in the creation of modern Israel.
Asbostos 11y ago
Spain's ETA reduced its terrorism because of being given some autonomy for its region. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0030438712000567 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0030438712... There was also the MK in South Africa which did some bombings and then its allies, the ANC took over the government. There were no doubt other factors besides the terrorism here though. Don't forget Nelson Mandela used to be called a terrorist but has since had his demands met so perhaps by definition a terrorist who wins is no longer considered to be a terrorist. Maybe that's why we don't hear about much history of this happening. We rewrite it.
Houshalter 11y ago
Gwern has an amazing essay on this: http://www.gwern.net/Terrorism%20is%20not%20about%20Terror http://www.gwern.net/Terrorism%20is%20not%20about%20Terror And also: http://www.gwern.net/Terrorism%20is%20not%20Effective http://www.gwern.net/Terrorism%20is%20not%20Effective >In a [previous study of mine] assessing terrorism’s coercive effectiveness, I found that in a sample of 28 well-known terrorist campaigns, the terrorist organizations accomplished their stated policy goals 0% of the time by attacking civilians. >Jones and Libicki (2008) then examined a larger sample, the universe of known terrorist groups between 1968 and 2006. Of the 648 groups identified in the RAND-MIPT Terrorism Incident database, only 4% obtained their strategic demands. More recently, Cronin (2009) has reexamined the success rate of these groups, confirming that less than 5% prevailed…Chenoweth and Stephan (2008, 2011) provide additional empirical evidence that meting out pain hurts non-state actors at the bargaining table. Their studies compare the coercive effectiveness of 323 violent and nonviolent resistance campaigns from 1900 to 2006. Like Gaibulloev and Sandler (2009), the authors find that refraining from bloodshed significantly raises the odds of government compliance even after tactical confounds are held fixed. These statistical findings are reinforced with structured in-case comparisons highlighting that escalating from nonviolent methods of protest such as petitions, sit-ins, and strikes to deadly attacks tends to dissuade government compromise. Chenoweth and Stephan employ an aggregate measure of violence that incorporates both indiscriminate attacks on civilians and discriminate attacks on military personnel or other government officials, which are often differentiated from terrorism as guerrilla attacks (Abrahms 2006; Cronin 2009; and Moghadam 2006). Other statistical research (Abrahms, 2012, Fortna, 2011) demonstrates that when terrorist attacks are combined with such discriminate violence, the bargaining outcome is not additive; on the contrary, the pain to the population significantly decreases the odds of government concessions.

retrogradeorbit 11y ago

So there was an attack on Wall Street and The US didn't immediately invade an unrelated middle eastern country? How times have changed...

cm2187 11y ago

A useful reminder that terrorism isn't new or even worse now that in the past. In the 70s and 80s, palestinian movements were regularly blowing bombs and taking hostages, along with far left extremists. A lot of state sponsored terrorism in the 80s and 90s, from our new "friends" Iran and Syria. And a lot of that terrorism was home grown (IRA, ETA, left wing). For instance in the EU: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_the_European_Union https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_the_European_Un... The number of attacks and number of victims has been pretty much consistent since the 50s with a small spike with the Madrid bombings. What has changed is our sensitivity to terrorism which has become absurdly high. There are violent crimes happening every day which kill an order of magnitude more people. Gang violence alone in the US kills several 9/11 every year. There are thousands of knife attacks just in London every year. None of that even make it to the news anymore. And the number of deaths linked to terrorism (1,100 in Europe since the 50s according to that wiki article) is dwarfed by things like death due to accidental drowning (35,000 every year according to eurostat). It is useful to remember this when we see politicians in pretty much every western countries throwing out of the window basic civil liberties in the name of the war on terror. The budget spent on anti-terrorism should be better spent teaching people to swim.

veddox 11y ago
Excellent comment! Although of course one has to remember that the impact of terrorism cannot be measured purely by a body count. There is a strong symbolic dimension to it - if al-Quaeda had killed a few thousand people in some remote town in America instead of targeting the World Trade Center, the response would have been much different.
- saiya-jin 11y ago
  this happens when emotions take over rational thinking and decision process. as non-american, and apologies upfront to our US friends, whole WTC was more like 'meh', just another ugly day, what's the big deal... no reason to prefer some clerks over some other kids/women hacked with machetes, smashed by earthquake or other tragedies happening left and right. Manmade or not, not a big difference But when emotions kick in, when YOU feel YOU are attacked (and those are some powerful emotions!), proportions change, and you just want to nuke 'em to hell, twice. I think I react in similar way in... +- similar situations (more personal ones rather than attack on the nation). Sad story that whole USA got swayed into blind acceptance of any security measure to stop that ugly terrorist