posted
With all the talk about security measures and possible terrorist attacks, one cannot help but wonder how we would and should react if al Qaeda ever manages another terrorist attack like the one that happened on 9/11. It seems almost inevitable at some point, in some form or another, doesn't it? Hopefully not soon, but one could hardly imagine al Qaeda never trying something spectacular again.
This raises a number of questions:
1. If such an attack occurs, can we still claim innocence?
After 9/11, there was a suggestion that we did nothing to warrant the attacks - that we did not understand why anyone would be mad at us. Given the fact that we have now invaded two Arabic countries, and specifically threatened Iran, North Korea, and Syria, it would be much more difficult to claim the same degree of innocence today. If another attack occurs, will large parts of the world now claim we deserve it? And do we?
What do we do if the world DOES claim we deserve it?
2. If an attack occurs, what does it mean for our foreign policies?
I would argue such an attack would illustrate the failure of our current strategies in the war on terror - that by provoking such anger with our random wars and rhetoric, we have made such future attacks inevitable. Indeed, many pro-war folks have suggested the lack of an attack since 9/11 shows Bush's plan is working. Does this mean an attack would illustrate failure?
I have a suspicion that many would argue the opposite is the case - that an attack would prove Bush right, and prove we were right in invading Afghanistan and Iraq.
Will an attack hurt or help the current Bush administration?
3. How should (or will) we react if another attack occurs?
After all, we've pretty much run out of countries we can get away with invading. Now (predictably I might add) al Qaeda has hidden itself, so we can't really bomb anywhere to get at them. We could invade Pakistan, but given they are our friends, have nuclear weapons, and are highly unstable, that seems like a poor idea. We could (God forbid) actually start working with allies to a much greater extent, but that might be a bit awkward after all we've done. We could just do nothing, but nobody seems to like that. I suspect we'll feel the need to have some sort of spectacular reaction again - the only question is who will be the victim.
4. Will a thread like this still be acceptable if an attack occurs?
Or will we return to hyper-patriotism, where all political issues must be set aside until the crisis is over, and where we must blindly support however our government responds?
I figured there's a fair chance of that happening, or at least of people becoming so emotional that any reasonable discussion becomes impossible. That's why I figure it's better if we started asking these questions beforehand.
posted
1. We didn't invade two Arabic nations, Afgahnistan is Muslim but not Arabic. It may seem trivial to you but tell that to an Afghan. We are still "innocent" since the Taliban clearly was holding Osama bin Laden and even admitted as much and refused to turn him over. In Iraq I think the terrorist activities show that fundamentalist groups did support Hussein's government otherwise they wouldn't be upset about our presence. Furthermore, at the least we ended the genocide of hundreds of thousands of Kurds.
2. I think we would see something similar to the post 9/11 support.
3. Continue what we are doing and instead of being prepared to fight "the last war" find our own weaknesses and solidify those weaknesses before they can be exploited. I say this because I find it unlikely that airliners will be used again because bin Laden likes to use a different approach each time.
4. Yes, to the extent that its acceptable now.
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posted
Nfl, when you say "4. Yes, to the extent that its acceptable now", I take that to mean that you don't consider this thread's topic to be entirely acceptible. Can you tell me why (or if I'm misunderstanding you, explain what you meant)?
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posted
I think if there is another attack, then Bush will be reelected. I hope the potential terrorists take that into account and hold off.
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posted
If there's another attack, judging from the last time, the country will plunge into kneejerk lockstep patriotism. The Right will condemn anyone who speaks against Bush's policies as unpatriotic at best, and traitors at worst. There'll be a drastic reduction in freedoms and the national IQ, and this time around Bush will almost certainly use the immediate aftermath to declare war on a new oil-intensive country of his choice -- this time, probably Iran or Syria.
Osama bin Laden has been, thus far, Bush's greatest benefactor. I hope Bush's puppetmasters don't realize that, lest security be neglected for an Al-Queda-opportune day or two.
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quote: We could (God forbid) actually start working with allies to a much greater extent, but that might be a bit awkward after all we've done.
What allies?
I mean, a lot of countries say they are our allies, but aren't allies actually supposed to help out? After the reaction we got with Iraq, I'm not sure we have any particularly reliable allies.
Keep in mind, we did not want to invade Iraq alone--we just couldn't persuade anyone to get on the bandwagon.
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posted
Allies are only allies if they do something to help when we have a problem and ask for a hand. They don't necessarily have to do what we want, but they have to do something useful.
Posts: 1041 | Registered: Feb 2002
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posted
Weapons inspections that were going nowhere?
As for what problem we had, almost anything I say will get a "That's not why Bush said we were going to war". My perspective on the issue is still that Saddam was our responsibility because we put him there in the first place. We should have gone in and ousted him the moment the Cold War ended (if we take for granted that he was a necessary evil while it was going on), but we waited. I would not have necessarily expected any military aid while doing this--it was our job--but a little appreciation that we were finally doing the right thing would have been welcome.
Afterwards, when it became clear that there was going to be more ongoing resistance than we had expected, we asked for some assistance in dealing with it. Our "allies", who were against starting the war, seem strangely uninterested in ending it. What sense does that make?
Posts: 1041 | Registered: Feb 2002
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quote:Weapons inspections that were going nowhere?
...possibly because there were no weapons to find? You do realize the US invaded the country nearly a year ago and has found as many weapons of mass destruction that the weapons inspectors did?
And before you start reading from the pamphlet, yes, Iraq may be the size of a state -- but if weapons inspectors never found anything for years, and Bush declared he knew for a fact that the weapons existed, shouldn't we have some sort of clue as to where they are by now?
Granted, this is assuming Bush won't magically "find" weapons in Iraq two months before the election -- a lucky circumstance I'm willing to put money on -- but don't you think we've been remarkably unlucky thus far?
quote:As for what problem we had, almost anything I say will get a "That's not why Bush said we were going to war".
...which means, what, you can't think of any real problems we had with Iraq? Did they declare war on us? Have they ever attacked us? Were they making a military move against an ally? I'm pretty confused on this point, really.
quote:My perspective on the issue is still that Saddam was our responsibility because we put him there in the first place. We should have gone in and ousted him the moment the Cold War ended (if we take for granted that he was a necessary evil while it was going on), but we waited. I would not have necessarily expected any military aid while doing this--it was our job--but a little appreciation that we were finally doing the right thing would have been welcome.
I'm a bit fuzzy on my history, but I could have sworn Hussein led a coup against a former king of Iraq and served as the second-hand man to a relative until the relative retired and Hussein took over. But I could be wrong. How did you say the US installed Hussein?
quote:Afterwards, when it became clear that there was going to be more ongoing resistance than we had expected, we asked for some assistance in dealing with it. Our "allies", who were against starting the war, seem strangely uninterested in ending it. What sense does that make?
...
Yes. If they didn't want to start the war, why didn't they want to fight in it?
I might add, the US was in no desperate straits. We're losing soldiers, which is a tragedy, but thus far we've lost several hundred. Thousands, if not tens of thousands, of Iraqis have died thus far. I think Europe has some confidence that the US will win the war, and sees no urgent need to send their own soldiers to die for the Bush's hubris.
If the US was in genuine peril, I'm pretty freaking confident Europe would rush to aid us against an invasion from, say, China. Just as I like to think the US would be willing to do for them.
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quote:I think if there is another attack, then Bush will be reelected.
So you don't think the Bush administration would be held accountable for such a failure?
I'm inclined to agree, just based on the irrationality that arose after 9/11 towards the terrorism threat. People would rather fight back at some enemy in such moments, rather than look inward and ask real policy questions. It just feels better in a moment of terror and fear to think there's some irrational evil out there intent on destroying us no matter what we do. It's far less comforting (although far more productive) to look to see if one's own actions are partially to blame.
The truth is, we are not an innocent nation - especially not after what we've done in the past two years - no matter what we tell ourselves. We don't deserve terrorist attacks - nobody deserves that. But we would be deluding ourselves if we once again claimed to not know why they hate us. We know - or at least should know by now. are attacked.
This is why the prospect of another knee-jerk reaction bothers me. Could the cycle continue forever? We get attacked -> we lash out -> they get angry -> they attack more. Will we learn our lesson? I hope so, but at this point I'm not too hopeful that it will happen any time soon, or without more violence against us.
I think our best hope may be to hope al Qaeda isn't competent, or that we can stop them.
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posted
Macc, I think you may be confusing Hussein with bin Laden, whom we did equip and train to fight against the invading Soviets.
Posts: 3293 | Registered: Jul 2002
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posted
Why bring morality into a situation where honestly morality should not be an issue. Morality should only be accounted for in the political situation and what being moral will bring you in the end. This isn't a game of right or wrong, it is a game of getting what one wants. We want a stable western friendly democracy in the arab world. I don't care if Saddam Hussein lived here or anything else, thats simply our goal so we will do what needs to be done for that goal to be met. Case Closed. Also another major terrorist attack happens. Well then we tighten down some more and try to stop it from happening. The fact is someone is going to someday do something bad to the USA again, lets just try to minimize the damage.
Posts: 1753 | Registered: May 2001
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quote:Lalo said: There'll be a drastic reduction in freedoms and the national IQ…
Can anyone tell me why knee-jerk questioning of someone’s intelligence based on their support for the Iraq invasion is more acceptable than a knee-jerk questioning of someone’s patriotism based on their opposition to it?
(Although maybe the suggestion is that a cut down in public discourse as a result of political correctness would result in the people being less informed.)
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quote:Can anyone tell me why knee-jerk questioning of someone’s intelligence based on their support for the Iraq invasion is more acceptable than a knee-jerk questioning of someone’s patriotism based on their opposition to it?
I can't tell you, either. Who the hell was talking about support for the invasion of Iraq? Did I mis-speak somewhere?
Posts: 3293 | Registered: Jul 2002
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posted
I have no idea. But, I didn't and still dont agree w/ the whole Iraq invasion. As for being attacked again, that would be a big wake up call to many Americans, and I think it is going to happen. A lot of people here are so cocky and all, and frankly, it's ironic that we've been attacking many nations for quite some time now, and we get one attack and go ballistic. Eh well.
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quote:Lalo said: I can't tell you, either. Who the hell was talking about support for the invasion of Iraq? Did I mis-speak somewhere?
No, you didn’t. The “National IQ” portion of your comment just got me thinking about a trend I’ve seen constantly over the last 12 months: explicit and implicit statements that supporters of the Iraq invasion are somehow stupider than opponents. Such arguments have generally been lumped in with other opposition to Bush policies. I decided to comment here, but in doing so was responding to more than your explicit comments – I realize the way I quoted you absolutely (and unintentionally) obscured that intent. Sorry about that.
I think both the “opposition indicates a lack of patriotism” and “support indicates lack of intelligence” arguments have been muted, to the extent they’ve existed at all, here on Hatrack. I’m probably more sensitive to the latter and have overlooked some implied suggestions of the former (although I’ve never made them myself), but the “cattle” comments and several others of similar ilk from opponents have stood out to me over the last few months.
Nationally, however, I’ve seen at least as much categorization of supporters as “dupes,” “sheep,” and such as I have of opponents as “unpatriotic.”
quote:Tres wrote: People would rather fight back at some enemy in such moments, rather than look inward and ask real policy questions. It just feels better in a moment of terror and fear to think there's some irrational evil out there intent on destroying us no matter what we do. It's far less comforting (although far more productive) to look to see if one's own actions are partially to blame.
I'm kinda split about this. On the one hand, our imperialistic arrogance in the media and our foreign policy in the middle east have definitely caused some major arab enmity towards the US. On the other hand, if we reexamine our policies because of 9/11, aren't we then doing exactly what the terrorists want which will then encourage other terrorists to commit other terror acts to get the US to change our other policies?
quote:Tres wrote: I think our best hope may be to hope al Qaeda isn't competent, or that we can stop them.
Al Qaeda have already definitely proved their competence with a well coordinated, well planned attack on 9/11. That we didn't stop them then is a testament to how difficult it'll be to stop them the next time.
quote:Black Fox wrote: Why bring morality into a situation where honestly morality should not be an issue.
Because by invoking morality in this situation we might gain international credibility when we make statements about human rights abuses in other countries. And it's a great backup reason for the invasion of Iraq. Already, it seems we ignore the sovereignty of independent nations. I agree that it is totally in the US interests to have a more peaceful Middle East and to have Iraq under the control of a gov't friendly to US interests because of our dependence on oil. That doesn't mean it's right to become the world's bully and replace anyone we don't like with someone we do. We invoke morality, although it's not the reason we invaded.
Has anybody compared 9/11 to the Oklahoma City bombing? Are they similar? I'd be interested in people's thoughts on this...
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quote:On the other hand, if we reexamine our policies because of 9/11, aren't we then doing exactly what the terrorists want which will then encourage other terrorists to commit other terror acts to get the US to change our other policies?
Yes, but the terrorists can say the same thing: That if they give in now it will only encourage the US to continue using violent military invasions in the future. Thus if nobody is willing to compromise, the war will go on forever, or at least until one side or another is destroyed. And the truth is, it's difficult to think of any way to destroy all the terrorists, short of convincing them to stop voluntarily.
quote:Tres said: The truth is, we are not an innocent nation - especially not after what we've done in the past two years - no matter what we tell ourselves. We don't deserve terrorist attacks - nobody deserves that. But we would be deluding ourselves if we once again claimed to not know why they hate us. We know - or at least should know by now
I agree completely Tres. But I think that this knowledge would not prevent a similar reaction to 9/11.
I think that people's awareness of US foreign policy and actions is one thing - but trying to understand why that has been responded to in a personal attack on civilians is another thing all together.
The actions of a government are, to an extent, removed from the everyday life of people. Take even the war in Iraq: some people may have opposed it vehemently (or supported it) but when it actually happened the impact it had on their personal lives was neglible (except, of course, those people with connections to the armed forces).
Contrast this to the impact of a terrorist attack: because it is aimed at civilians, it directly impacts people's lives. Not just those who knew victims, but everyone: through heightened security, changes in flights / travel, even stocking up on duct tape.
I think it's this that means that people won't be able to say "Yes, we understand why they hate us enough to do this". Because even if people are aware of foreign policy and actions, it doesn't impact on their lives: the death of civilians in Afgahnistan, the accidental bombing of children - they're all removed because they are done by the government, and they don't affect most people's everyday lives.
What I'm trying to say is that all the knowledge in the world can't prevent the shock, and then the subsequent reactions, when it happens on home turf. In a way it's a lack of empathy: 3000 people dead at home is much more shocking and horrifying than 40 0000 people dead in another country halfway accross the world.
(Nb - I think that's true of every country, not just the US.)
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posted
1. There is no justification for terrorism. To suggest otherwise, as Tresopax does in his opening post, is wrong. The US can not claim that it was surprised, but certainly no sane person will say the attack was justified. You don't come right out and say it, but by implying that America might in some way be responsible for the actions of terrorists is saying that terrorism can be justified.
2. If another attack happened, and it was on a similar scale to 9/11, I suggest that it would possibly give our allies a little more backbone. Perhaps France and Germany(not allies, but opponents) will remain silent instead of trying to protect their own under-the-table deals.
Also, there is a fairly high probability that the next large scale attack will not happen in the US, but UK, Italy, Spain, or another ally country. Such an attack would be likely to have more of an effect in Europe than another attack on America would have.
3. React in whatever way is appropriate. Locate the source of funds, locate the source of training, etc etc. There is plenty to be done. When an attack happens, it exposes the supply/communications lines.
4. A thread like this will be acceptable no matter what happens. It is totally acceptable now, no one is stopping the thread. I cannot imagine how that would change.
Posts: 859 | Registered: Oct 2003
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quote:1. If such an attack occurs, can we still claim innocence?
If you think the attacks of 911 were designed to destroy the US, you are making the AlQueda out to be much dumber than they are. They knew that it would anger the US, but more importantly, it would give them legitimacy and pride that could be used to recruit new members. This is what Bin Laden boasted of on his hidden video.
There were reasons given for the attack, US Troops in Holy Saudi Arabia, US backing of Isreal, etc. These reasons were accurate, though we have good reasons for our actions.
So, we will be no less innocent of what the terrorists accuse us of than we were before. Only now the accusations will be closer in scale to the attacks they are making.
And yet, the things we are guilty of have been done for reasons that attempt to help the common Muslim, and by those we've managed to help, it has been appreciated. The biggest request made by people in Afghanistan is not "Get out" but "Do more."
(As far as Korea goes, there is not a country in the world, except North Korea, that does not want North Korea to stop their nuclear bomb making. How is our hard line with them a bad thing?)
quote:2. If an attack occurs, what does it mean for our foreign policies?
I would say that too much depends on who attacks us for us to make a general statement about what it means of our foreign policy.
9/11 was successful because a lot of training and planning was able to take place in the Al-Queda safe compounds of Afghanistan.
This infrastructure has been removed.
Al-Queda is spending much more of its resources moving and hiding and maintaining its integrity. This means that a similar attack will be more difficult for them to accomplish.
If it succeeds, then either they were lucky, or we need to readjust the pressure we are applying to make sure their infrastructure is removed.
quote:3. How should (or will) we react if another attack occurs?
I agree that a new stronger campaign needs to be organized to win the hearts and minds of the muslim world.
I agree that the war on Iraq was a misstep in the war on terror.
However, just because two invasions were part of the war on terror, does not mean that they have been the only reactions to it. You are ignoring the work the US has done in attacking Al-Queda financing, capturing Al-Queda operatives, cleaning up Al-Queda cells from the Phillipines to Germany.
This work does not get the press of Iraq, or even Afghanistan. It will continue with new dedication and stronger effort should we be attacked again.
The politicians will want graphic proof of our anger and power, so I expect to see video of the executions of Al-Queda leaders from around the world.
quote:4. Will a thread like this still be acceptable if an attack occurs?
Yes it will be.
Protests will be acceptable.
Elections will continue as scheduled.
There will just be a few loud people who call you names and question your patriotism. Stick a flag on your car. That is as patriotic a gesture as they will make, so you will be even.
I would also like to apologize for what Maccabeus said about us not having any allies. To Kama and all the others out there from countries that have been loyal and generous allies. From Poland, and from Italy, and from England, and from Australia and from the other brave countries who have supported our call to arms, thank you. To leaders from around the world who have risked their carreers to suppor the US, thank you.
You see, alliances go two ways, as does frienship. Sure, allies come to your aid when in need, but allies don't forget about you while you are aiding them, nor do they belittle you because you are not as loud or as big or as well reported as those who have chosen not to come.
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