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"mere terrorism"? It was an attack on a civilian target. Pearl Harbor was a military installation. The USA had never faced anything approaching the scale of 9/1

"mere terrorism"? It was an attack on a civilian target. Pearl Harbor was a military installation. The USA had never faced anything approaching the scale of 9/11. The WTC 1993 attack and OK City bombing in 1995 didn't come close. It became very apparent how complacent the USA had become. Unlike a state attacking another state, pinning down where these people were getting their orders from was difficult. Considering what your age must be, I'm surprised you struggle to understand the difference between an openly militarized nation versus terrorist cells that could be anywhere and anybody. There's no coordinates to punch into a MAD system when it comes to terrorists. If it was so easy, years wouldn't have been spent searching for the likes of Bin Laden.

jbverschoor 3y ago
Scale? Less than 3000 people died during 9/11. That is nothing compared to anything else that's happening in the world. With or without the US's involvement. Edit: he U.S. post-9/11 wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria, and Pakistan have taken a tremendous human toll on those countries. As of September 2021, an estimated 432,093 civilians in these countries have died violent deaths as a result of the wars 144 times as many CIVILIANS were killed by the US.
- hammyhavoc 3y ago
  It isn't about body count, it's about a handful of people taking control of aircraft and causing mass destruction with minimal effort, energy and resources expended. It also isn't about whether it is "nothing" compared to what is happening elsewhere, the topic at hand is the USA. The rest of the world isn't what is being discussed. There were weaknesses in the US national security threat model. It wasn't a major consideration that someone would hijack a plane and fly it into NYC, the major assumption was that an attack would come from another nation, and it would be military, and it would be detected as hostile in aerospace. Guise of a civilian aircraft? Yeah, that was a gaping hole. Come on, the fucking Pentagon had a plane flown into it on the same day. It's one thing for gov to get hacked by teens, it's another thing to have a terrorist org do all that in the space of a few hours.
  - jbverschoor 3y ago
    > A handful of people taking control of aircraft and causing mass destruction with minimal effort, energy and resources expended. Sure, the same can be said about the handful of people in the US: The president, the Secretary of Defense / Department of "Defense"
    - hammyhavoc 3y ago
      Again, the topic isn't other countries, the topic is the USA. My comment addresses that topic. You're trying to argue something completely orthogonal to what my comment or the one I'm responding to is about.
      - TheOtherHobbes 3y ago
        I don't see how the US responded in Rest of World is even remotely irrelevant.
  - richardw 3y ago
    Given you only want to measure US impact: The US lost more soldiers in the war on terror than people killed in 9/11. And spent by some counts $8 trillion. Compared to the threats posts by MAD, 9/11 was a rounding error and wasted an enormous amount of blood, treasure and political capital. On that day, the world was with you. We were all New Yorkers. But instead of fixing a few gaps and taking out a few leaders per month indefinitely, the US allowed itself to be distracted massively for decades, surely way beyond what the terrorists could have dreamed of. It was basically first prize for Osama. I’m not sure what the full count of the US economic and social losses are but it’s probably indescribable. Someone waved a red flag and Bush couldn’t help himself. The smart move would have been to rise above it. You’re the greatest nation on earth. You don’t get distracted by a few terrorists, you get on with changing the world.
    - hammyhavoc 3y ago
      I'm a Brit. You're talking to me like I'm an American. I understand your sentiment, but I disagree, "you get on with changing the world", which should include preserving that which already exists. People forget about the concurrent attack on the Pentagon on 9/11. If all that can happen in the space of less than an hour, that was not a threat to be ignored, and more would have followed had something not been done. You're also conflating improving national security with boots-on-the-ground searching for supposed WMDs in another country. The two things are not the same in any way. Your argument is total "whataboutery". If you have holes in national security that allowed something like 9/11 to happen, including the attack on the Pentagon on that same morning, you do something to prevent the likes of it, or worse, from happening again. You can't even argue against that.
jbverschoor 3y ago
Sure, just like Sadam.. Have your seen Bush recently about that? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58DXSSBs4u0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58DXSSBs4u0 "the result is an absence of checks and balances in Russia and the decision of one man to launch a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq.. i mean of Ukraine... heh.. Iraq too"
- hammyhavoc 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - jbverschoor 3y ago
    He said he was the was the one to launch a unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq. To me it sounds like he did some thinking the past 20 years.
    - hammyhavoc 3y ago
      Again, who gives a shit what Bush thinks in 2024? He served whatever role he was elected for with whichever result, and the world moved on. Whatever Bush now thinks is wholly irrelevant because what happened as a result of his input on policy has already happened.
- mardifoufs 3y ago
  What a piece of shit lol. Even Putin at least pretends (wink wink) that he actually thinks his invasion is justified. That the US has no problem with basically not just letting this guy get away with it but even "rehabilitating" him in the past few years... it's a bit unbelievable and clearly sets the precedent internationally. This video always plays back in my head whenever I hear about how good pax americana is or how our side at least has "good intentions" lmao.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  > absence of checks and balances in Russia and the decision of one man to launch a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq.. i mean of Ukraine... heh.. Iraq too Uh, the Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were sanctioned by the Congress. Overwhelmingly. Then the people who started them were replaced, thrice, giving the problem fresh sets of eyes. Comparing W. Bush et al to Putin is ridiculous on many levels, even if the wars per se share characteristics. (Most potently, in being massive blunders.)
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

jbverschoor 3y ago

Scale? Less than 3000 people died during 9/11. That is nothing compared to anything else that's happening in the world. With or without the US's involvement. Edit: he U.S. post-9/11 wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria, and Pakistan have taken a tremendous human toll on those countries. As of September 2021, an estimated 432,093 civilians in these countries have died violent deaths as a result of the wars 144 times as many CIVILIANS were killed by the US.

hammyhavoc 3y ago
It isn't about body count, it's about a handful of people taking control of aircraft and causing mass destruction with minimal effort, energy and resources expended. It also isn't about whether it is "nothing" compared to what is happening elsewhere, the topic at hand is the USA. The rest of the world isn't what is being discussed. There were weaknesses in the US national security threat model. It wasn't a major consideration that someone would hijack a plane and fly it into NYC, the major assumption was that an attack would come from another nation, and it would be military, and it would be detected as hostile in aerospace. Guise of a civilian aircraft? Yeah, that was a gaping hole. Come on, the fucking Pentagon had a plane flown into it on the same day. It's one thing for gov to get hacked by teens, it's another thing to have a terrorist org do all that in the space of a few hours.
- jbverschoor 3y ago
  > A handful of people taking control of aircraft and causing mass destruction with minimal effort, energy and resources expended. Sure, the same can be said about the handful of people in the US: The president, the Secretary of Defense / Department of "Defense"
  - hammyhavoc 3y ago
    Again, the topic isn't other countries, the topic is the USA. My comment addresses that topic. You're trying to argue something completely orthogonal to what my comment or the one I'm responding to is about.
    - TheOtherHobbes 3y ago
      I don't see how the US responded in Rest of World is even remotely irrelevant.
- richardw 3y ago
  Given you only want to measure US impact: The US lost more soldiers in the war on terror than people killed in 9/11. And spent by some counts $8 trillion. Compared to the threats posts by MAD, 9/11 was a rounding error and wasted an enormous amount of blood, treasure and political capital. On that day, the world was with you. We were all New Yorkers. But instead of fixing a few gaps and taking out a few leaders per month indefinitely, the US allowed itself to be distracted massively for decades, surely way beyond what the terrorists could have dreamed of. It was basically first prize for Osama. I’m not sure what the full count of the US economic and social losses are but it’s probably indescribable. Someone waved a red flag and Bush couldn’t help himself. The smart move would have been to rise above it. You’re the greatest nation on earth. You don’t get distracted by a few terrorists, you get on with changing the world.
  - hammyhavoc 3y ago
    I'm a Brit. You're talking to me like I'm an American. I understand your sentiment, but I disagree, "you get on with changing the world", which should include preserving that which already exists. People forget about the concurrent attack on the Pentagon on 9/11. If all that can happen in the space of less than an hour, that was not a threat to be ignored, and more would have followed had something not been done. You're also conflating improving national security with boots-on-the-ground searching for supposed WMDs in another country. The two things are not the same in any way. Your argument is total "whataboutery". If you have holes in national security that allowed something like 9/11 to happen, including the attack on the Pentagon on that same morning, you do something to prevent the likes of it, or worse, from happening again. You can't even argue against that.

jbverschoor 3y ago

Sure, just like Sadam.. Have your seen Bush recently about that? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58DXSSBs4u0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58DXSSBs4u0 "the result is an absence of checks and balances in Russia and the decision of one man to launch a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq.. i mean of Ukraine... heh.. Iraq too"

hammyhavoc 3y ago
[flagged]
- jbverschoor 3y ago
  He said he was the was the one to launch a unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq. To me it sounds like he did some thinking the past 20 years.
  - hammyhavoc 3y ago
    Again, who gives a shit what Bush thinks in 2024? He served whatever role he was elected for with whichever result, and the world moved on. Whatever Bush now thinks is wholly irrelevant because what happened as a result of his input on policy has already happened.
mardifoufs 3y ago
What a piece of shit lol. Even Putin at least pretends (wink wink) that he actually thinks his invasion is justified. That the US has no problem with basically not just letting this guy get away with it but even "rehabilitating" him in the past few years... it's a bit unbelievable and clearly sets the precedent internationally. This video always plays back in my head whenever I hear about how good pax americana is or how our side at least has "good intentions" lmao.
JumpCrisscross 3y ago
> absence of checks and balances in Russia and the decision of one man to launch a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq.. i mean of Ukraine... heh.. Iraq too Uh, the Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were sanctioned by the Congress. Overwhelmingly. Then the people who started them were replaced, thrice, giving the problem fresh sets of eyes. Comparing W. Bush et al to Putin is ridiculous on many levels, even if the wars per se share characteristics. (Most potently, in being massive blunders.)

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]