10 ms·

I remember the sentiment right after 9/11 and the country was baying for blood. It seems like the most prudent thing to have done was to adopt a kind of Fabian

I remember the sentiment right after 9/11 and the country was baying for blood. It seems like the most prudent thing to have done was to adopt a kind of Fabian Strategy where we don't invade a nation halfway around the globe and hope to change a culture that has stubbornly been able to avoid being conquered by the major empires in world history. When you really look at it, no major act of terrorism of the same scale was going to happen anyways. I mean really, mass shootings end up killing more people. And it's not like the hijack an airliner strategy is going to work again. But here we are, 2+ Trillion burned and nothing to show for it.

throwaway1777 5y ago
I’m surprised no one has pulled off a hijackjng again. Has security really improved that much? Because listening to the comments here you’d think it was all farcical security theater.
- MiddleEndian 5y ago
  The real security was locking the door to the cockpit alongside passengers being unwilling to let some dude with a knife hijack a plane anymore. The rest of the changes are security theater.
- soperj 5y ago
  The security theater does nothing. They installed pilot doors that could only be opened from the inside. Can't exactly high jack a plane with box cutters anymore can you?
  - loonster 5y ago
    Prior to 911, hijackers took over planes for ransom. 911 was a zero day exploit. The opportunity to use hijacked planes as weapons ended with flight 93.
- sokoloff 5y ago
  Locking cockpit doors and having the awareness that hijacking isn’t a (mostly) nonviolent stunt is sound security, not theater. TSA (Thousands Standing Around) is much more effective as a jobs program than a security program in my estimation.
  - dredmorbius 5y ago
    "Security theatre" generally refers to the TSA and airport screening. That's the first-paragraph description of the Wikipedia entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_theater https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_theater Its visiblity and intrusiveness is precisely the point. Not its effectiveness.
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > TSA (Thousands Standing Around) is much more effective as a jobs program than a security program in my estimation. A jobs program for the private screeners that the TSA replaced. It’s main original purpose (at least, of federalizing screening) was an excuse to transfer liability for future risks away from the airlines, which the airlines explicitly lobbied for in the immediate wake of 9/11.
- jdavis703 5y ago
  The security is defense in depth. There are now: - Background checks cross-references with photo ID before flying (e.g. the do not fly list) - Enhanced security screening (there’s YouTube footage of a totally incompetent pat down of one of the 9-11 hijackers) - Locked and strengthened cockpit doors - A chance of an Air Marshal on a flight - The knowledge that passengers will fight back - Strict no-fly zones around sensitive areas like DC
  - sokoloff 5y ago
    There are additional restrictions for flight around DC after 9/11, but most are SFRA (Special Flight Rules Area) or FRZ (Flight Restriction Zone) and very little of it is a Prohibited Area or Restricted Area (P- and active R- areas being what most would understand to be “no-fly zones”) I’ve gotten cleared to land in the “DC-3” airports and have landed at College Park (inside the FRZ) and Fort Meade (inside the SFRA) many times in light aircraft. There are restrictions, but they’re quite far from being “no-fly zones”.
  - amyboyd 5y ago
    > "there’s YouTube footage of a totally incompetent pat down of one of the 9-11 hijackers" Do you have a link? I can't find this.
- 1-more 5y ago
  Two important things came out of 9/11: cockpit doors are closed and locked now, and people fight back against hijackers. In 1968-72 there was a skyjacking every 6 days[0] but they were extortion attempts or plots to get a free flight to Cuba or some such thing. We now think that the endgame of a hijacking is that the hijackers will turn the plane into a suicide bomb, and passengers know NOT to be cooperative. These are real security improvements to air travel. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_hijacking#1958–1979 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_hijacking#1958–1979
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- belorn 5y ago
  The primary security theater was the military personal that popped up around airports around 9/11 that carried guns but no ammunition because guns with ammunition could hurt people. The TSA checkpoint is mostly a security theater. It stops people who don't try to hide and people who are unable to think of a way to get past it. It also limit the amount of weapons that airline personal need to see so that when they see it they can assume ill intent. The "random" checks and blacklists seem to have mixed quality. According to some they actually worked when good investigators identified high risk people. According to other it was mostly just racism and personal vendettas. Hard to give it a definitive grade. Locked doors and strict policy against people getting access to the cockpit seems to have worked.
- hindsightbias 5y ago
  OBL completely achieved his goal into trolling the west into a quagmire and got the US troops out of KSA within 16 months. Why would he need another hijacking?
Alupis 5y ago
I'm not certain there's nothing to show for it. For starters... any group thinking about attacking the US on it's homeland will have to contemplate a 20+ year conflict afterwards. We also did educate a lot of people there, many of which are leaving the country right now for obvious reasons - but still, we did help a lot of people there. Lastly, the way we're throwing money around these days, $2 Trillion is practically nothing when spread out over a 20 year period anyway. Maybe I'm just searching for the silver lining...
- zardo 5y ago
  > We also did educate a lot of people there We also "canoed" a lot people there.
- BitwiseFool 5y ago
  >"any group thinking about attacking the US on it's homeland will have to contemplate a 20+ year conflict afterwards." I don't know how true this is, but I heard that Bin Laden's goal was to get the US mired in an extremely expensive and prolonged war of attrition. It's the same strategy that helped bring down the Soviet Union. It makes sense, at face value, to get a vastly more powerful adversary bogged down in such a war. >"Maybe I'm just searching for the silver lining..." I feel you. It's pretty disheartening.
  - mschuster91 5y ago
    And as sad as it is, bin Laden completely won in that regard. The US and practically everyone else got so side tracked by Afghanistan that neither noticed the growing threat of Russia and China, plus local right wing people and parties were emboldened by an Islamophobic mindset in general (thus, in turn, leading Muslim communities into isolation instead of integration).
    - randompwd 5y ago
      > local right wing people and parties were emboldened by an Islamophobic mindset in general (thus, in turn, leading Muslim communities into isolation instead of integration). A phobia is an irrational fear. I don't quite think it's right to describe any criticisms of the Islamic religion/culture as de-factor irrational. Also, integration happened. Assimilation didn't - which is where the issue is. People in the "West" created enclaves and didn't leave behind the worst of their culture & traditions and instead allowed it to breathe in societies where have been trying for decades to rid themselves of patriarchy, misogyny and homophobia.
sharken 5y ago
It's a sad state of affairs indeed. The lesson here is that you cannot help a Middle-east Muslim country to democracy, it is an impossible task. Even Turkey seems to be heading in the wrong direction these years.
- the_only_law 5y ago
  You can, however align yourself with some of the more oppressive as long as they align with your interest.
  - sharken 5y ago
    Who would that be in Afghanistan?
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > The lesson here is that you cannot help a Middle-east Muslim country to democracy Afghanistan isn't in the Middle East. You don't invade and occupy a country to “help” it, but to achieve some self-interested goal at its expense.
dogman144 5y ago
> When you really look at it, no major act of terrorism of the same scale was going to happen anyways Why this is the case was a full court press on AQ across the globe by IC, and toppling the safety net in AFG was a (the) critical part of that occurring. It’s a fairly lengthy operation to succinctly cite, but starting with the CIA’a CTC activities between ‘97 and ‘03 will cover it. It’s also important to keep in context that after the Embassy bombings in Tanzania/Kenya in ‘98 (200 dead) another attack of the same scale was never going to happen again. And after the USS Cole (17 KIA plus a decommissioned Naval Destroyer), another attack at that scale was deemed unlikely. 9/11 happened, and… all sourcing to a serious inability to directly target or gain Intel on AQ, which operated freely in AFG. So, the initial invasion was critical in that narrow sense. AQ was toppled and never recovered globally. Should we have stayed, or instead given it to a United Front or heavily empowered/armed/funded Karzai? To your point - probably the latter was a good option, 20 years and a lot of dead Americans later. Edit - downvote for over-acronym use makes sense, another user helpfully linked acronym <>wiki articles. That said, the above is well known history, but happened a very long time ago to a niche area of national security. If people are curious on “what the hell happened to Afghanistan for 20 years,” it’s important to know this part.
- krastanov 5y ago
  Maybe I am just from a different cultural background, but I do not understand half of the abbreviations here. Could you help clarifying what you are saying?
  - blendergeek 5y ago
    AQ: Al-Qaeda - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Qaeda https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Qaeda IC: Intelligence Community - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_community https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_community AFG: Afghanistan - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghanistan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghanistan CIA: Central Intelligence Agency - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Intelligence_Agency https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Intelligence_Agency CTC: Counter Terrorism Center - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counterterrorism_Center https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counterterrorism_Center KIA: Killed in Action - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killed_in_action https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killed_in_action
AnotherGoodName 5y ago
I can't help but feel that if we didn't also go into Iraq at roughly the same time there may have been more resources which could have drastically changed the outcome.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
nebula8804 5y ago
There was this illusion that the US was an unstoppable juggernaut. That image was damaged by the failures in Afghanistan/Iraq in middle and high school, followed by the GFC in college, and finally totally destroyed in the eyes of Gen Y and Z after Trump's election and the bungling of COVID and the second GFC as the generations try to start families/get their footing in the job market. Your theory while very intriguing is something I can't possibly see ever happening just due to the hubris that occurs when you think you are unbeatable. That is exactly what the sentiment was going into the war. I am reminded of this scene from 2004's Slacker Uprising. This woman reminds me of the MAGA people of today. That same hubris is what got us Trump and it probably won't go away until the country stops being the singular world superpower. [1]:https://youtu.be/Axk_8DV2GXM?t=3030 https://youtu.be/Axk_8DV2GXM?t=3030
- dredmorbius 5y ago
  The US has been a stoppable juggernaut since Korea. Vietnam certainly didn't help. In the 1970s, the country was unable to secure its own embassy or fly helicopters successfully, at least in public perception. What the US can do is project power with precision (if not always accuracy), where that's politically and strategically possible, though bouncing rocks with cruise missiles and JDAMS may not actually achieve much after the nightly-news phosphers fade. The US is rather more hamstrung dealing with larger, or nuclear-armed, threats: Russia, China, North Korea. Iran have been taking notes.
  - nebula8804 5y ago
    >The US has been a stoppable juggernaut since Korea. Vietnam certainly didn't help. In the 1970s, the country was unable to secure its own embassy or fly helicopters successfully, at least in public perception. Maybe? But the Boomers emerged from those conflicts to be the most prosperous generation in world history so I don't buy your argument. Millennials and Gen Z didn't really live through the events you described and from their point of view, all they saw was optimism...until they grew up and saw the fire at their doorstep in the form of the events I mentioned. >The US is rather more hamstrung dealing with larger, or nuclear-armed, threats: Russia, China, North Korea. Iran have been taking notes. We will see. I think it is too early to tell. I don't disagree but this may just be a symptom of a fading US superpower but the underlying causes are unrelated to these countries and anything specific they have done.
dotcommand 5y ago
> that has stubbornly been able to avoid being conquered by the major empires in world history. Was reading Moby Dick the other day and came across this excerpt... 'Grand Contested Election for the Presidency of the United States. WHALING VOYAGE BY ONE ISHMAEL. BLOODY BATTLE IN AFGHANISTAN.' The more things change... > But here we are, 2+ Trillion burned and nothing to show for it. Other than another grateful nation basking in the glow of the democracy we've bestowed upon them. Mission accomplished.

throwaway1777 5y ago

I’m surprised no one has pulled off a hijackjng again. Has security really improved that much? Because listening to the comments here you’d think it was all farcical security theater.

MiddleEndian 5y ago
The real security was locking the door to the cockpit alongside passengers being unwilling to let some dude with a knife hijack a plane anymore. The rest of the changes are security theater.
soperj 5y ago
The security theater does nothing. They installed pilot doors that could only be opened from the inside. Can't exactly high jack a plane with box cutters anymore can you?
- loonster 5y ago
  Prior to 911, hijackers took over planes for ransom. 911 was a zero day exploit. The opportunity to use hijacked planes as weapons ended with flight 93.
sokoloff 5y ago
Locking cockpit doors and having the awareness that hijacking isn’t a (mostly) nonviolent stunt is sound security, not theater. TSA (Thousands Standing Around) is much more effective as a jobs program than a security program in my estimation.
- dredmorbius 5y ago
  "Security theatre" generally refers to the TSA and airport screening. That's the first-paragraph description of the Wikipedia entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_theater https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_theater Its visiblity and intrusiveness is precisely the point. Not its effectiveness.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > TSA (Thousands Standing Around) is much more effective as a jobs program than a security program in my estimation. A jobs program for the private screeners that the TSA replaced. It’s main original purpose (at least, of federalizing screening) was an excuse to transfer liability for future risks away from the airlines, which the airlines explicitly lobbied for in the immediate wake of 9/11.
jdavis703 5y ago
The security is defense in depth. There are now: - Background checks cross-references with photo ID before flying (e.g. the do not fly list) - Enhanced security screening (there’s YouTube footage of a totally incompetent pat down of one of the 9-11 hijackers) - Locked and strengthened cockpit doors - A chance of an Air Marshal on a flight - The knowledge that passengers will fight back - Strict no-fly zones around sensitive areas like DC
- sokoloff 5y ago
  There are additional restrictions for flight around DC after 9/11, but most are SFRA (Special Flight Rules Area) or FRZ (Flight Restriction Zone) and very little of it is a Prohibited Area or Restricted Area (P- and active R- areas being what most would understand to be “no-fly zones”) I’ve gotten cleared to land in the “DC-3” airports and have landed at College Park (inside the FRZ) and Fort Meade (inside the SFRA) many times in light aircraft. There are restrictions, but they’re quite far from being “no-fly zones”.
- amyboyd 5y ago
  > "there’s YouTube footage of a totally incompetent pat down of one of the 9-11 hijackers" Do you have a link? I can't find this.
1-more 5y ago
Two important things came out of 9/11: cockpit doors are closed and locked now, and people fight back against hijackers. In 1968-72 there was a skyjacking every 6 days[0] but they were extortion attempts or plots to get a free flight to Cuba or some such thing. We now think that the endgame of a hijacking is that the hijackers will turn the plane into a suicide bomb, and passengers know NOT to be cooperative. These are real security improvements to air travel. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_hijacking#1958–1979 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_hijacking#1958–1979
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
belorn 5y ago
The primary security theater was the military personal that popped up around airports around 9/11 that carried guns but no ammunition because guns with ammunition could hurt people. The TSA checkpoint is mostly a security theater. It stops people who don't try to hide and people who are unable to think of a way to get past it. It also limit the amount of weapons that airline personal need to see so that when they see it they can assume ill intent. The "random" checks and blacklists seem to have mixed quality. According to some they actually worked when good investigators identified high risk people. According to other it was mostly just racism and personal vendettas. Hard to give it a definitive grade. Locked doors and strict policy against people getting access to the cockpit seems to have worked.
hindsightbias 5y ago
OBL completely achieved his goal into trolling the west into a quagmire and got the US troops out of KSA within 16 months. Why would he need another hijacking?

Alupis 5y ago

I'm not certain there's nothing to show for it. For starters... any group thinking about attacking the US on it's homeland will have to contemplate a 20+ year conflict afterwards. We also did educate a lot of people there, many of which are leaving the country right now for obvious reasons - but still, we did help a lot of people there. Lastly, the way we're throwing money around these days, $2 Trillion is practically nothing when spread out over a 20 year period anyway. Maybe I'm just searching for the silver lining...

zardo 5y ago
> We also did educate a lot of people there We also "canoed" a lot people there.
BitwiseFool 5y ago
>"any group thinking about attacking the US on it's homeland will have to contemplate a 20+ year conflict afterwards." I don't know how true this is, but I heard that Bin Laden's goal was to get the US mired in an extremely expensive and prolonged war of attrition. It's the same strategy that helped bring down the Soviet Union. It makes sense, at face value, to get a vastly more powerful adversary bogged down in such a war. >"Maybe I'm just searching for the silver lining..." I feel you. It's pretty disheartening.
- mschuster91 5y ago
  And as sad as it is, bin Laden completely won in that regard. The US and practically everyone else got so side tracked by Afghanistan that neither noticed the growing threat of Russia and China, plus local right wing people and parties were emboldened by an Islamophobic mindset in general (thus, in turn, leading Muslim communities into isolation instead of integration).
  - randompwd 5y ago
    > local right wing people and parties were emboldened by an Islamophobic mindset in general (thus, in turn, leading Muslim communities into isolation instead of integration). A phobia is an irrational fear. I don't quite think it's right to describe any criticisms of the Islamic religion/culture as de-factor irrational. Also, integration happened. Assimilation didn't - which is where the issue is. People in the "West" created enclaves and didn't leave behind the worst of their culture & traditions and instead allowed it to breathe in societies where have been trying for decades to rid themselves of patriarchy, misogyny and homophobia.

sharken 5y ago

It's a sad state of affairs indeed. The lesson here is that you cannot help a Middle-east Muslim country to democracy, it is an impossible task. Even Turkey seems to be heading in the wrong direction these years.

the_only_law 5y ago
You can, however align yourself with some of the more oppressive as long as they align with your interest.
- sharken 5y ago
  Who would that be in Afghanistan?
dragonwriter 5y ago
> The lesson here is that you cannot help a Middle-east Muslim country to democracy Afghanistan isn't in the Middle East. You don't invade and occupy a country to “help” it, but to achieve some self-interested goal at its expense.

dogman144 5y ago

> When you really look at it, no major act of terrorism of the same scale was going to happen anyways Why this is the case was a full court press on AQ across the globe by IC, and toppling the safety net in AFG was a (the) critical part of that occurring. It’s a fairly lengthy operation to succinctly cite, but starting with the CIA’a CTC activities between ‘97 and ‘03 will cover it. It’s also important to keep in context that after the Embassy bombings in Tanzania/Kenya in ‘98 (200 dead) another attack of the same scale was never going to happen again. And after the USS Cole (17 KIA plus a decommissioned Naval Destroyer), another attack at that scale was deemed unlikely. 9/11 happened, and… all sourcing to a serious inability to directly target or gain Intel on AQ, which operated freely in AFG. So, the initial invasion was critical in that narrow sense. AQ was toppled and never recovered globally. Should we have stayed, or instead given it to a United Front or heavily empowered/armed/funded Karzai? To your point - probably the latter was a good option, 20 years and a lot of dead Americans later. Edit - downvote for over-acronym use makes sense, another user helpfully linked acronym <>wiki articles. That said, the above is well known history, but happened a very long time ago to a niche area of national security. If people are curious on “what the hell happened to Afghanistan for 20 years,” it’s important to know this part.

krastanov 5y ago
Maybe I am just from a different cultural background, but I do not understand half of the abbreviations here. Could you help clarifying what you are saying?
- blendergeek 5y ago
  AQ: Al-Qaeda - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Qaeda https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Qaeda IC: Intelligence Community - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_community https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_community AFG: Afghanistan - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghanistan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghanistan CIA: Central Intelligence Agency - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Intelligence_Agency https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Intelligence_Agency CTC: Counter Terrorism Center - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counterterrorism_Center https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counterterrorism_Center KIA: Killed in Action - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killed_in_action https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killed_in_action

AnotherGoodName 5y ago

I can't help but feel that if we didn't also go into Iraq at roughly the same time there may have been more resources which could have drastically changed the outcome.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

nebula8804 5y ago

There was this illusion that the US was an unstoppable juggernaut. That image was damaged by the failures in Afghanistan/Iraq in middle and high school, followed by the GFC in college, and finally totally destroyed in the eyes of Gen Y and Z after Trump's election and the bungling of COVID and the second GFC as the generations try to start families/get their footing in the job market. Your theory while very intriguing is something I can't possibly see ever happening just due to the hubris that occurs when you think you are unbeatable. That is exactly what the sentiment was going into the war. I am reminded of this scene from 2004's Slacker Uprising. This woman reminds me of the MAGA people of today. That same hubris is what got us Trump and it probably won't go away until the country stops being the singular world superpower. [1]:https://youtu.be/Axk_8DV2GXM?t=3030 https://youtu.be/Axk_8DV2GXM?t=3030

dredmorbius 5y ago
The US has been a stoppable juggernaut since Korea. Vietnam certainly didn't help. In the 1970s, the country was unable to secure its own embassy or fly helicopters successfully, at least in public perception. What the US can do is project power with precision (if not always accuracy), where that's politically and strategically possible, though bouncing rocks with cruise missiles and JDAMS may not actually achieve much after the nightly-news phosphers fade. The US is rather more hamstrung dealing with larger, or nuclear-armed, threats: Russia, China, North Korea. Iran have been taking notes.
- nebula8804 5y ago
  >The US has been a stoppable juggernaut since Korea. Vietnam certainly didn't help. In the 1970s, the country was unable to secure its own embassy or fly helicopters successfully, at least in public perception. Maybe? But the Boomers emerged from those conflicts to be the most prosperous generation in world history so I don't buy your argument. Millennials and Gen Z didn't really live through the events you described and from their point of view, all they saw was optimism...until they grew up and saw the fire at their doorstep in the form of the events I mentioned. >The US is rather more hamstrung dealing with larger, or nuclear-armed, threats: Russia, China, North Korea. Iran have been taking notes. We will see. I think it is too early to tell. I don't disagree but this may just be a symptom of a fading US superpower but the underlying causes are unrelated to these countries and anything specific they have done.

dotcommand 5y ago

> that has stubbornly been able to avoid being conquered by the major empires in world history. Was reading Moby Dick the other day and came across this excerpt... 'Grand Contested Election for the Presidency of the United States. WHALING VOYAGE BY ONE ISHMAEL. BLOODY BATTLE IN AFGHANISTAN.' The more things change... > But here we are, 2+ Trillion burned and nothing to show for it. Other than another grateful nation basking in the glow of the democracy we've bestowed upon them. Mission accomplished.