9/11 - was there an alternative response?

edanto

I've just come across a link to a Noam Chomsky article of that name and I'm about to read it. But what are your first - 3 line - reactions to whether or not there was a better alternative response to 9/11? If you were the leader of the free (trade) world, what course would you have chartered?

I would have considered it a police matter, not a war excuse. Interpol and UN police agencies would have had an international mandate to follow all money trails and evidence and those responsible would have been caught and tried.

MagicMarker

Bombing the right country would have been a good start.

edanto

Noam Chomsky wrote:

As discussed in my book 9-11, written shortly after those attacks occurred, anyone with knowledge of the region could recognise “that a massive assault on a Muslim population would be the answer to the prayers of bin Laden and his associates, and would lead the US and its allies into a ‘diabolical trap’, as the French foreign minister put it”.

Well actually it might not have mattered.

By the way - which do you think was the 'right' country?

mike65

The right approach would have been to have kept the gun in the holster and to use all that intelligence that hadn't been corrected collated and disseminated to track down the leadership of Al-Qaeda (not just Bin Laden). At that time the US would have had the goodwill of just about everyone, bar the likes of North Korea and Afghanistan to work with. As such the actual military invasion might not have ever been considered necessary (even though the Taliban were quite clearly a bloody awful regime).

While I was perfectly happy to see Saddam toppled at the time that was of course a completely separate matter from Sept 11, 2001. Bush/Cheney conflating the two was idiocy of the highest order.

cookies221

Bush reacted too soon by invading Afghanistan, but he was just giving the American people what they wanted. There was a thirst for revenge among the public.

I would have taken the time to gather intelligence on the leaders of Al-Qaeda and their whereabouts. The co-operation of most world leaders would have been guaranteed at the time, as Mike65 has already said. Then send in snipers to assassinate the perpetrators quietly, as was rightly done with the eventual murder of Bin Laden . There was no need to send in ground troops or launch a full scale invasion which just needlessly wasted lives, both American and Afghan.

The same tactics should be employed to take out Gaddafi and Ahmadinejad. America should never have to fight another conventional war ever again.

Matt Holck

I'd discuss why world trade center was targeted

badabing106

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The same tactics should be employed to take out Gaddafi and Ahmadinejad. America should never have to fight another conventional war ever again.[/QUOTE]

Are those two baddies in Al Qaeda too?

godspal

The correct response would have been a lot more effective, which is:

-Cut military spending and invest in the infrastructure of terrorist hubs, such as Afghanistan, Sudan etc. Therefore allowing for easing of the poverty that creates a hostile environment for America.

-Work with the local police and government to arrest and put on trial known terrorists. While this may seem initially distasteful to some people (colluding with near-genocidal governments etc.) two things must be acknowledged; that these governments would have eventually fallen (Arab Spring) and the war in Afghanistan and Iraq killed nearly 2 million people.

-Unify the intelligence network in America. NSA, CIA, and several other intelligence agencies had partial information about the 9/11 attacks, cutting the funding to these agencies and working to a centralised system so that these "mus-communications" would have become non-existent would have been far more effective than increasing the spending of each Agency and introducing the PATRIOT act.

However 9/11 became an excuse to increase military spending, and therefore re-boot the American economy after the dot.com bubble, it almost meant that military action would allow for construction companies to gain footholds in new, untouched markets ($1,000,000,000,000 of investment went into the initial phases of "re-constructing" Iraq.)
Bushes and Blair's whole system of government was based around re-inflating the economy and assering western dominance in the newly Globalist economy.

Chuck Stone

Matt Holck wrote: »

I'd discuss why world trade center was targeted

Off limits.

the_big_shmoke

all the lessons dat had been learnt from vietnam went out the window after 9-11, thats why they so readily invaded afghanistan and iraq.

blorg

cookies221 wrote: »

The same tactics should be employed to take out Gaddafi and Ahmadinejad.

This displays a startling lack of understanding of the Iranian political structure. Assassinating Ahmadinejad would do absolutely nothing to end the regime there. He is not a dictator. He is an elected president (albeit in a far from free election) and has quite limited powers being subservient to the Supreme Leader, Ali Khamani, and to the Islamic Revolution. Frankly he is a populist who has a wide range of opinions depending on the prevailing domestic mood. At the moment for example he is fighting attempts by conservatives to gender segregate Iran's universities.

If he were killed by a foreign power they would just hold another election and replace him, business as usual. The real leadership aren't too enamored with him right now and we would probably get someone worse. They would also milk it to further stoke opposition to the West and progress, as if there is one thing Iranians hate more than their government it is foreign interference in their country. I don't expect everyone to have an understanding of the politics there but it is a prerequisite in my mind if you are going to be calling for assassinations.

cookies221

badabing106 wrote: »

...Gaddafi and Ahmadinejad...
Are those two baddies in Al Qaeda too?

No they're not. But they are openly hostile to America and pose a threat. You may be aware of the current crisis currently underway in Libya, where 8000 rebels have died trying to overthrow Gaddafi's cruel and unpopular regime. These lives could have been saved had the dictator been killed via a single sniper's bullet to the head.

blorg wrote: »

Ahmadinejad...is not a dictator. He is an elected president (albeit in a far from free election) and has quite limited powers being subservient to the Supreme Leader, Ali Khamani, and to the Islamic Revolution.

Iran's "Green Revolution" of 2009 showed that the majority of the population do not want Ahmadinejad in power. He used violence to squash the protests and there were fatalities as a result. He is a racist, homophobic lunatic who enjoys playing his own version of the Cold War with America by sending troops and weapons to kill US soldiers in Iraq. Please don't tell me you actually believe Iran is better with him in power? I won't insult your intelligence and assume you know how progressive and successful Iran was prior to the 1979 revolution. Kill him, and allow free elections to take place under the supervision of the UN.

Frankly he is a populist who has a wide range of opinions depending on the prevailing domestic mood. At the moment for example he is fighting attempts by conservatives to gender segregate Iran's universities.

I wasn't aware of this. Have you a link so I may read up on it? While it is a welcome policy, it hardly outweighs Ahmadinejad 's crimes against humanity.

Liam Byrne

cookies221 wrote: »

No they're not. But they are openly hostile to America and pose a threat. You may be aware of the current crisis currently underway in Libya, where 8000 rebels have died trying to overthrow Gaddafi's cruel and unpopular regime. These lives could have been saved had the dictator been killed via a single sniper's bullet to the head.

And 100,000 Iraqs could have been saved if someone had put one in Bush's head - do their lives not matter ?

Or - if you apply your logic consistently - would you speak as directly and glibly about assassinating an American president ?

Chuck Stone

cookies221 wrote: »

I won't insult your intelligence and assume you know how progressive and successful Iran was prior to the 1979 revolution.

I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic or horribly selective in the point where you want to tell the story of Iran.

Why don't you begin your little history lesson back when Iran's democratically elected government dared to to nationalize it's hydrocarbon industry against the wishes of 'the west' (Anglo-American oil interests) and was toppled within two years (by the UK/USA) and replaced with an authoritarian regime.

So which was it? Sarcasm or selective amnesia?

cookies221

Liam Byrne wrote: »

And 100,000 Iraqs could have been saved if someone had put one in Bush's head - do their lives not matter ?

Or - if you apply your logic consistently - would you speak as directly and glibly about assassinating an American president ?

We are going around in circles. Bush wouldn't have to be assassinated to prevent the Iraq war if Saddam was assassinated first, thereby negating the need for the invasion of Iraq. Do you deny that assassination tactics were effective for killing Bin Laden? Many lives could have been saved if America went down this route in the first place.

blorg

@cookies- I spent three months in Iran at the end of last year and am well aware that the population there are not happy with their government. They are quite open about that with foreigners. I am also aware of its history before 1979.

You may be surpried that it is actually still, even with the current regime, the most socially liberal country I have been to in the Middle East, the others being (eastern) Turkey, Syria, UAE and Oman. There are more women college graduates than men, and women drive and work. Young women came up to me in the street just to chat because I was a foreigner. Marriages are not arranged and young couples date. In families we stayed with men and women sat down together for dinner and the husband would often help in the kitchen. This did not happen in any of the Arab countries I visited where women were utterly hidden, or indeed in Kurdish Turkey.

I am not defending Ahmedinejad. My point is simply that he is NOT an all-powerful dictator. That is not how the political system in Iran works. It is a theocracy with the real power held by the (religious) Supreme Leader (currently Ali Khameni) and the Guardian Council. Assassinating the civilian president, who has relatively limited power, would do little to change how the regime there works. They would just replace him. Iran is not Libya or North Korea.

If you were going to assassinate anyone it would be Khameni, but even that would be of questionable use. He would be replaced from within the ranks of the clerics.

Iran also had nothing to do with 9/11, so I don't see the merit in assassinating Ahmedinejad in response.

Do you think America should start assassinations of all non-democratic leaders? There is a certain very populous country across the Pacific from them that certainly isn't a democracy.

cookies221

I realize that Iran had nothing to do with 9/11. Although I doubt they were upset when the attacks took place. If you re-read my post, I only mentioned Ahmadinejad and Gaddafi as an aside at the end as possible candidates for future assassinations if needs be. I think everyone accepts that Al-Qaeda with Bin Laden as leader was responsible for 9/11 (except for a few crackpots who insist that it was an inside job despite their claims being proved disproved countless times).

I take on board your comments regarding modern life in Iran. Life may be improving for heterosexual Muslim citizens of Iran, but it doesn't change the fact that Iran remains a threat to the USA. It continues to defy the UN with it's nuclear program despite sanctions being imposed time and time again. And I still maintain that Gaddafi should have been assassinated months ago. There was no need for NATO forces to enter Libya. Do you deny that assassination tactics were effective for killing Bin Laden?

And no I don't think America should start assassinations of all non-democratic leaders. America is not a world police, but it does have the right to deal with threats to its security. China doesn't pose a threat to America as far as I can see. Taiwan may have a different opinion. Also, like Iran, China is not ruled by a single individual dictator. It is the established regime that must be overthrown.

Manic Moran

cookies221 wrote: »

I would have taken the time to gather intelligence on the leaders of Al-Qaeda and their whereabouts. The co-operation of most world leaders would have been guaranteed at the time, as Mike65 has already said. Then send in snipers to assassinate the perpetrators quietly, as was rightly done with the eventual murder of Bin Laden . There was no need to send in ground troops or launch a full scale invasion which just needlessly wasted lives, both American and Afghan.

It took years for them to quietly find and kill OBL. A response both more immediate and more public was required. This was not just a criminal incident, it was basically a declaration of war against the US. The response was required to both sate domestic requirement and to reinforce to other nations that annoying the US to that level is going to get you a -very- vigorous response before they started getting any ideas.

That response was not the immediate invasion of Afghanistan. It was the demand that Afghanistan hand over OBL and cease harboring AQ. It was made clearly, forcefully, and on world wide TV, and I don't think many people doubted the resolve behind the demand. Had that occurred, the point would have been made, honor satisfied, and Afghanistan not invaded.

Instead, the Taliban must have been the only government on the planet not to think that the leader of a very pissed off and very powerful nation meant what he was saying, and the rest was history.

NTM

finnegann

1. Although it might sound like a good excuse, poverty (an unavoidable consequnce of insular medieval ideologies) is the all too easy scapegoat.
Their grievances are largely theological. Have you ever listned to what they actually say? Things like "infidels" infringing on holy sites, Polytheism in India, Democracy in East Timor and "insulting" Cartoons seem to be the major problems for our Islamo-terrorist friends.
I'm not even going to mention the existence of the Israeli state...

2. America has been "working" or at least trying to work with a lot of countries that end of town for quite some time. Doesn't usually make for a great story at the cooperation conference. Every year billions are pumped in to countries like Pakistan. I don't know about you, but they don't really come across as team- players to me. I'm not saying it's a categorically bad idea to try to work with places like this, but if you're America you're dammned if you do and damned if you don't aren't you? Work with Mubarak... Bad America! Don't talk to Hamas... Bad America! So should they get involved with the Arab Spring or sit on their hands and let the whole thing magically sort itself out? Which governments in the middle east right now should be considered our "partners
in crime-busting"? and how much longer will they remain so? I don't think there's a simple solution either way but I'm fairly sure you'll be outraged by whatever course America takes regardless.

3. I actually agree with a lot of your third point. I think a huge amount of the defence budget could be saved with some simple measures not unlike the ones you've
outlined. Better move swiftly to another disagreement! Keep the frugal ethos in mind for your last point though...

4. Bush and Blair's colonialist quest for world domination. Of course! I'm glad you stopped short of saying it was "all about the oil". Or dropped some Jim Corr twist at the end. A common fork of contradictory argument against evil America's response to 9/11 runs: "they're wasting trillions on another Vietnam" whilst at the same time "they're making trillions out of the (rebuilding contracts/oil/etc.)" As a side note- Jacques Chirac solved this "war is wasteful/ war is lucrative" quandary years ago by doing a deal with Saddam and buying cheap oil off him.

I don't think any sane person could claim that the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan were unbridled successes but do you honestly think the world would be a more cheery place if
Saddam was still gassing the Kurds and the Taliban were still holding the throat of an entire country? Come on, most your alternatives fly head first against several solid
facts that can't be danced around with this "see it from the terrorist's point of view" attitude. You'll have to do better than that.

Chuck Stone

Manic Moran wrote: »

That response was not the immediate invasion of Afghanistan. It was the demand that Afghanistan hand over OBL and cease harboring AQ. It was made clearly, forcefully, and on world wide TV, and I don't think many people doubted the resolve behind the demand. Had that occurred, the point would have been made, honor satisfied, and Afghanistan not invaded.
NTM

The Taliban offered to hand OBL over to a neutral country if the US could provide evidence.

finnegann

godspal wrote: »

The correct response would have been a lot more effective, which is:

-Cut military spending and invest in the infrastructure of terrorist hubs, such as Afghanistan, Sudan etc. Therefore allowing for easing of the poverty that creates a hostile environment for America.

-Work with the local police and government to arrest and put on trial known terrorists. While this may seem initially distasteful to some people (colluding with near-genocidal governments etc.) two things must be acknowledged; that these governments would have eventually fallen (Arab Spring) and the war in Afghanistan and Iraq killed nearly 2 million people.

-Unify the intelligence network in America. NSA, CIA, and several other intelligence agencies had partial information about the 9/11 attacks, cutting the funding to these agencies and working to a centralised system so that these "mus-communications" would have become non-existent would have been far more effective than increasing the spending of each Agency and introducing the PATRIOT act.

However 9/11 became an excuse to increase military spending, and therefore re-boot the American economy after the dot.com bubble, it almost meant that military action would allow for construction companies to gain footholds in new, untouched markets ($1,000,000,000,000 of investment went into the initial phases of "re-constructing" Iraq.)
Bushes and Blair's whole system of government was based around re-inflating the economy and assering western dominance in the newly Globalist economy.

That last one was for you Godspal by the way!

JustinDee

Afghanistan should have been a far larger force than 11,000 troops and all efforts focussed on there and NW Pakistani border.

Iraq should have been left alone as it was nothing more than opportunism.

irishh_bob

MagicMarker wrote: »

Bombing the right country would have been a good start.

al qaeeda dont have a country

Matt Holck

Chuck Stone wrote: »

Off limits.

why the hell would the terrorist strike the World Trade Center?

was world trade upsetting someone?

Liam Byrne

cookies221 wrote: »

We are going around in circles. Bush wouldn't have to be assassinated to prevent the Iraq war if Saddam was assassinated first, thereby negating the need for the invasion of Iraq. Do you deny that assassination tactics were effective for killing Bin Laden? Many lives could have been saved if America went down this route in the first place.

Why assassinate one terrorist warmonger and not another ?

By all means take out the likes of Saddam & Bin Laden, but that would still have left one psychotic warmonger on the loose, and I can never understand why people put American presidents separate to other countries' leaders who have similar mindsets.

And as we're at it re "taking out" dodgy leaders, there's a few around the Korea region that probably had as much to do with Sept 11th as Saddam - i.e. SFA - but the same argument could apply....of course with no oil there, American couldn't care less.

I'm just glad that Ireland doesn't have any oil, because otherwise Bush would have blamed the IRA for Sept 11th and we'd be in the same boat as the innocent Iraqis - bombed to bits and kidnapped and tortured, regardless of whether we either support or detest them.

Chuck Stone

Matt Holck wrote: »

why the hell would the terrorist strike the World Trade Center?

was world trade upsetting someone?

In the post 9/11 months you were allowed to talk about the who and the how but not the why.

No Siree Bob.

'They hate us for our freedom' was the only answer for the 'why' question.

Manic Moran

Chuck Stone wrote: »

The Taliban offered to hand OBL over to a neutral country if the US could provide evidence.

There are times when playing political posturing games is not appropriate or advisable. The Taliban apparently seemed to think this was a great opportunity to big it up on the world stage, without stopping to think about some of the real-world issues: Would the US in that situation really feel like negotiating with, or even acceeding to, the demands of a government which it (and no other country barring two US allies, so they weren't too pushed about it) even recognised? Did any government on the planet, even the Taliban themselves, really think that OBL was not the culprit? In any case, OBL was on the US's want list for some time courtesy of earlier events, the decision to demand OBL from the Taliban pre-dated the 9/11 attacks by a month. This just made the demand which would have been delivered privately far more public.

NTM

cavedave

Things have gotten much worse for the Afghan people. I believe unless their standard of living improves it will continue to be a source of terror and misery. any response to 9/11 should have improved the life of Afghans. They were not starting from a high base so this was not hard to do.

Go play with gapminder Afghanistan and see how little progress has been made in lifespan, child mortality and all the other metrics.

Birthrate has improved somewhat but is still 6.5 per woman. Aid given has gone up to nearly 5 billion dollars a year.

What could have been done better? Thats a difficult question. One simple thing would be to buy their Heroin and use it to relieve pain of millions in the third world..

Dannyboy83

godspal wrote: »

The correct response would have been a lot more effective, which is:

-Cut military spending and invest in the infrastructure of terrorist hubs, such as Afghanistan, Sudan etc. Therefore allowing for easing of the poverty that creates a hostile environment for America.

That can be a preventative measure, but it can never be a reaction.

Someone punches you in the face, you have to break their jaw.
If you instead put 5 euro in their pocket, you might have a queue of people lining up to punch you.

MagicMarker

MagicMarker wrote: »

Bombing the right country would have been a good start.

the first move was to bomb Afghanistan, which was the 'right' country

cookies221 wrote: »

Bush reacted too soon by invading Afghanistan, but he was just giving the American people what they wanted. There was a thirst for revenge among the public.

I would have taken the time to gather intelligence on the leaders of Al-Qaeda and their whereabouts. The co-operation of most world leaders would have been guaranteed at the time, as Mike65 has already said. Then send in snipers to assassinate the perpetrators quietly, as was rightly done with the eventual murder of Bin Laden . There was no need to send in ground troops or launch a full scale invasion which just needlessly wasted lives, both American and Afghan.

The same tactics should be employed to take out Gaddafi and Ahmadinejad. America should never have to fight another conventional war ever again.

I was in a local neighbourhood working class bar/restaurant in Boston on the early evening of 9/11/2001.

I big shout went up at about 7pm when pictures appeared on the TV screens of what looked like bombs going off in Kabul.

Everyone though the response had stared, 10 hours after the attacks.

As it turned out in was November by the time the US invaded.

wes

I think the invasion of Iraq was a huge mistake, and personally, the people behind are criminals imho, who should be tossed in jail. Invading Iraq, destroyed any good will that the US had at the time, and they also took there eye off the ball in Afghanistan, and as a result things simple got worse there.