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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. Compa

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.

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.