4 ms·

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 expe

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.
  - richardw 3y ago
    > I'm a Brit. You're talking to me like I'm an American. You got me. > whataboutery Since we’re slinging terms around: false dichotomy. I’m not arguing that they should have ignored it. Fix the specific issues without creating more, broader, deeper issues. The approach used wasted massive resources of all kinds - economic, social, lives, focus. There were infinitely better outcomes that could have been achieved at lower overall cost. 8 trillion is a lot of misplaced focus spent in deserts far away. Don’t mix up the “what” with “how”. Fix the problem, but not stupidly.
TheOtherHobbes 3y ago
Somehow I suspect taking control of governments by - for example - invading them, or fomenting revolutions, is more dangerous than taking control of aircraft. And the "security weaknesses" were mostly in the White House. https://www.politico.eu/article/attacks-will-be-spectacular-cia-war-on-terror-bush-bin-laden/ https://www.politico.eu/article/attacks-will-be-spectacular-...
- hammyhavoc 3y ago
  Oh, you mean like the concurrent attack on the Pentagon on 9/11? https://www.history.navy.mil/research/archives/digital-exhibits-highlights/photo-galleries-9-11/pentagon-attack.html https://www.history.navy.mil/research/archives/digital-exhib...

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.
- richardw 3y ago
  > I'm a Brit. You're talking to me like I'm an American. You got me. > whataboutery Since we’re slinging terms around: false dichotomy. I’m not arguing that they should have ignored it. Fix the specific issues without creating more, broader, deeper issues. The approach used wasted massive resources of all kinds - economic, social, lives, focus. There were infinitely better outcomes that could have been achieved at lower overall cost. 8 trillion is a lot of misplaced focus spent in deserts far away. Don’t mix up the “what” with “how”. Fix the problem, but not stupidly.

TheOtherHobbes 3y ago

Somehow I suspect taking control of governments by - for example - invading them, or fomenting revolutions, is more dangerous than taking control of aircraft. And the "security weaknesses" were mostly in the White House. https://www.politico.eu/article/attacks-will-be-spectacular-cia-war-on-terror-bush-bin-laden/ https://www.politico.eu/article/attacks-will-be-spectacular-...

hammyhavoc 3y ago
Oh, you mean like the concurrent attack on the Pentagon on 9/11? https://www.history.navy.mil/research/archives/digital-exhibits-highlights/photo-galleries-9-11/pentagon-attack.html https://www.history.navy.mil/research/archives/digital-exhib...