9/11 - was there an alternative response?

finnegann · 08-09-2011 06:40PM

Liam Byrne wrote: »

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.

\So you don't see any distinction between Saddam Hussein, Osama Bin Laden and George Bush? Not even a subtle difference? That's plain idiotic.
As was the oil comment. America only gets involved when there's oil up for grabs eh? They've never intervened in that region in the name of human rights in recent memory? Off the top of my head: they stopped Iran invading Afghanistan and a sectarian bloodbath in 1998 (the same year Clinton signed the Iraq liberation act by the way, you might want to read up on this too), wait, is there any point going on about what the Americans did to help the Kurds in Iraq or what Blair did for the people of Seirra Leone? I have a feeling you won't want to hear this. Do some research into this instead of regurgitating these tired Anti-American mantras. I was never a big fan of Bush but to call him a "terrorist war-monger" betrays your childish grasp of world affairs.

Liam Byrne · 08-09-2011 07:03PM

finnegann wrote: »

\So you don't see any distinction between Saddam Hussein, Osama Bin Laden and George Bush? Not even a subtle difference? That's plain idiotic.

As was the oil comment. America only gets involved when there's oil up for grabs eh? They've never intervened in that region in the name of human rights in recent memory?

I was never a big fan of Bush but to call him a "terrorist war-monger" betrays your childish grasp of world affairs.

Ah yes - throw out words like "idiotic" and "childish" towards anyone who doesn't disagree with you.

And nice try at claiming that I said that that is "ALL" they get involved in - absolutely nowhere did I claim or state that.

So less of the false claims; that approach to discrediting an opposing view or its author is far more childish and idiotic than anything that I posted.

RichieC · 08-09-2011 07:14PM

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.

Yep, Afghanistan asked for proof OBL was involved in 9/11 considering he denied any involvement initially. US in it's extreme hubris said "we are america and don't require proof" - it worked out well though because handily enough there was that pipeline business needing protecting. "lets send our poor kids to protect private interests with their lives!" said the Bush Junta and everyone waved their miniature flags.

Speaking of harbouring terrorists the US has quite a track record besides the twice elected Bush and Cheney, I mean.... do some digging on that topic.

Here's a name: Emmanuel Constant

RichieC · 08-09-2011 07:21PM

finnegann wrote: »

\So you don't see any distinction between Saddam Hussein, Osama Bin Laden and George Bush?

Yep, George Bush killed more people than the other two, while govenor of Texas he sentenced more people to death than any govenor in its history and has only recently been knocked off the top by Rick Perry who Ironically enough signed the pro life pledge.

finnegann · 08-09-2011 07:37PM

Nothing to say in response to anything else in my post? That's a derisory straw your grasping to, but I won't even let you have that... If you'll read back over my post you'll notice I was careful not to use quotation marks. It's the implication of your sentence I was picking up on: "of course with no oil there, America couldn't care less". We both know exactly what you're implying there and that's all I was addressing. I don't throw terms like idiotic and childish around lightly, but that's exactly how your post came across so I won't retract them. How about you formulate more sensible opinions grounded in facts and prove me wrong?

latenia · 08-09-2011 07:38PM

Fr Tod Umptious wrote: »

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

15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudis.

Osama bin Laden was a Saudi.

Funding for the attacks came from Saudi Arabia.

Maybe the US should have dropped a MOAB on Mecca to give them something to think about...

finnegann · 08-09-2011 08:16PM

RichieC wrote: »

Yep, George Bush killed more people than the other two, while govenor of Texas he sentenced more people to death than any govenor in its history and has only recently been knocked off the top by Rick Perry who Ironically enough signed the pro life pledge.

I'm not going to stay going with this because I feel a bit uncomfortable defending George W. Bush... But come on, you're talking absolute nonsense. Perhaps you have access to secure data that I don't -regarding how many people George Bush killed against Saddam Hussein or Bin Laden. If so would you please cite it. While we're waiting though I'm going to go out on a limb and say that during the First Gulf War, during his various genocides against the Kurds not to mention his own notorious treatment of prisoners, Saddam probably tops him. By a lot. I'll leave you to think about Bin Laden on your own. Again, I'd freely admit that Bush made a great many mistakes in his domestic and foreign policies, but to suggest he inflicted anywhere near as much misery on humanity as the aforementioned monsters is ridiculous.

Manic Moran · 08-09-2011 08:26PM

cavedave wrote: »

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.

Umm...

Lifespan and child mortality both seem to be improving nicely. Can't help but notice the flat bit where the Taliban were in power, and improves again starting 2001.

Also can't help but note that a lot of the figures aren't up to date. Further, there's plenty of other important things to think about. For example:
http://www.stoptbafghanistan.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/Annual_report_2010.pdf
Death due to TB down to just over a third of what it was in 2006, let alone 2001.
http://www.who.int/malaria/publications/country-profiles/profile_afg_en.pdf
Confirmed cases of malaria, down to about 10% of the figure of 2002.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/59321956/5/Challenges-to-education-in-Afghanistan

Between 2001 and 2009, primary school enrolment rose from 0.9 million to nearly 7 million (a sevenfold increase in eight years) and the proportion of girls from virtually zero to 37 per cent

Nope, no hope for the Afghans at all.

And that's not counting the various infrastructural things I've seen being built. Like these odd things called 'roads'. Sortof vital for economic development, and it's amazing how few there were. At least the district centres are generally connected by roads now. Water pumps for wells. Basic stuff.

NTM

sxt · 08-09-2011 08:29PM

Fr Tod Umptious wrote: »

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

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.

Afghanistan did not attack the U.S.A .

sxt · 08-09-2011 08:57PM

finnegann wrote: »

I'm not going to stay going with this because I feel a bit uncomfortable defending George W. Bush... But come on, you're talking absolute nonsense. Perhaps you have access to secure data that I don't -regarding how many people George Bush killed against Saddam Hussein or Bin Laden. If so would you please cite it. While we're waiting though I'm going to go out on a limb and say that during the First Gulf War, during his various genocides against the Kurds not to mention his own notorious treatment of prisoners, Saddam probably tops him. By a lot. I'll leave you to think about Bin Laden on your own. Again, I'd freely admit that Bush made a great many mistakes in his domestic and foreign policies, but to suggest he inflicted anywhere near as much misery on humanity as the aforementioned monsters is ridiculous.

You do realise that America Sponsored Saddam Hussein for decades, and gave him billions of dollars of weapons ,including the ingredients to make chemical weapons

According to the lancet report approx 655,000 dead Iraqis between 2003 -2006 .Why are they dead? because 19 people ( as mentioned above, 14 from Suadia Arabia) fuelled with hatred against America, commited a horrific attack on the twin towers and the pentagon. Eye for an eye?

There are were estimated 4-5 million refugees as a result of this illegal war on Iraq .The crippling sanctions on this country and the bombing of all its infrasture mean Iraq is a devastated hell hole now, and will remain so for generations to come.

Madeleine Albright, Secretary of State under President Bill Clinton, goes down in infamy not only for admitting that 500,000 innocent children were starved by sanctions on Iraq but also for admitting the atrocity

Her notorious answer was later answered by Bill Richardson, who has now been tapped to serve under Obama.

Do you think about starving 500,000 children has a place in US policy?

When did America decide it was OK to wage war against children?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4PgpbQfxgo

Liam Byrne · 08-09-2011 09:07PM

finnegann wrote: »

It's the implication of your sentence I was picking up on: "of course with no oil there, America couldn't care less". We both know exactly what you're implying there and that's all I was addressing.

And in the context of a thread that saw America invade Iraq because Hussein wanted to trade oil in euro, that was 100% accurate.

Sept 11 had nothing to do with the so-called "war on terror" that put so many Iraqis in their graves; Bush had to lie about WMDs and convince Americans of a non-existent link between Hussien and the atrocity at the twin towers in order to manipulate popular opinion.

My phrasing was related to how - IN THIS PARTICULAR INSTANCE - Bush decided to use it as an opportunity to get control of oil, and so we're lucky we don't have any.

I made no reference to other scenarios in which America's choices were less despicable, or even beneficial.

Nodin · 08-09-2011 09:50PM

cookies221 wrote: »

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

This would be the regime that held the most expensive party in history while its people were in poverty, that ran a police state, that ruled by force and torture, whose leader paid out a large percentage of his states oil revenue to Foreign powers as "thanks" for the coup that placed him in power,

cookies221 wrote: »

Kill him, and allow free elections to take place under the supervision of the UN..

Funny enough the last time there was free elections in Iran, the US, Britain overthrew the winner and installed the Shah. Which led us to where we are now.

patsman07 · 08-09-2011 10:42PM

Question Time special on BBC1 on this very issue right now

cavedave · 08-09-2011 11:09PM

Lifespan and child mortality both seem to be improving nicely. Can't help but notice the flat bit where the Taliban were in power, and improves again starting 2001.

My looking at the gapminder graph for child mortality still has it really high. Saying your doing better then the Taliban is not that impressive. Pre enlightenment people had about 1/200 the growth rate we have.

Fair point on the Malaria and TB.

The ratio of girls to boys in education still seems pretty poor in the gapminder data.

Manic Moran · 09-09-2011 01:07AM

cavedave wrote: »

My looking at the gapminder graph for child mortality still has it really high. Saying your doing better then the Taliban is not that impressive. Pre enlightenment people had about 1/200 the growth rate we have.

You are correct, but I'm not sure it's possible to comprehend just how desperate the condition of Afghanistan is. It's supposedly, what, the third poorest country in the world? Such a line is still academic until you go there and you realise just what that means in practice. At least Iraq had an infrastructure, dilapitated though it was. Rural Afghanistan is nearly an 18th Century civilisation with mobile 'phones. Any improvement at all is an achievement because there was nothing really to base that improvement on in the first place. It's not as if you could just go and build a new clinic somewhere if you had no electricity going there, and you couldn't put electricity there until you have a road. And we're not talking about the arse end of Helmland here, I'm talking about a central province which is the 'breadbasket of Afghanistan'

NTM

Mr.Micro · 09-09-2011 12:01PM

It appears too that torture of prisoners and terror suspects is routine with the secret service acting with impunity. So Afghanistan is not only in the 18th century infrastructurewise as a previous poster suggested, it is as well with regards to human rights. Many people even believe that justice was fairer under the Taleban, and that is saying something. So much for liberty.

I still believe this this phony war on terror is a cynical ploy adapted by Bush and continued by Obama. Homeland security now continues to justify its existence and tighten its grip on US society. Like all monsters it feeds on power and paranoia.

JustinDee · 09-09-2011 12:27PM

sxt wrote: »

Afghanistan did not attack the U.S.A .

No, it protected the attack's co-ordinators.

JustinDee · 09-09-2011 12:29PM

sxt wrote: »

You do realise that America Sponsored Saddam Hussein for decades, and gave him billions of dollars of weapons ,including the ingredients to make chemical weapons

According to the lancet report approx 655,000 dead Iraqis between 2003 -2006 .Why are they dead? because 19 people ( as mentioned above, 14 from Suadia Arabia) fuelled with hatred against America, commited a horrific attack on the twin towers and the pentagon. Eye for an eye?

There are were estimated 4-5 million refugees as a result of this illegal war on Iraq .The crippling sanctions on this country and the bombing of all its infrasture mean Iraq is a devastated hell hole now, and will remain so for generations to come.

Madeleine Albright, Secretary of State under President Bill Clinton, goes down in infamy not only for admitting that 500,000 innocent children were starved by sanctions on Iraq but also for admitting the atrocity

Her notorious answer was later answered by Bill Richardson, who has now been tapped to serve under Obama.

Do you think about starving 500,000 children has a place in US policy?

When did America decide it was OK to wage war against children?

The Pilgerist argument.
"Do something about this Saddam Hussein of yours as he's massacring his own people and neighbours"
followed by...
"What have you done? Your sanctions are killing the people" etc etc

careca11 · 09-09-2011 01:51PM

RichieC wrote: »

Yep. US in it's extreme hubris said "we are america and don't require proof" - it worked out well though because handily enough there was that pipeline business needing protecting. "

and don't forget since the american invasion of Afghanistan ......................the heroin epedemic that has plagued the world since , ........................a coincedence ????? definitely not

JustinDee · 09-09-2011 02:02PM

careca11 wrote: »

and don't forget since the american invasion of Afghanistan ......................the heroin epedemic that has plagued the world since , ........................a coincedence ????? definitely not

"since"??

cookies221 · 09-09-2011 03:45PM

careca11 wrote: »

and don't forget since the american invasion of Afghanistan ......................the heroin epedemic that has plagued the world since , ........................a coincedence ????? definitely not

Are you suggesting that heroin only became a problem in the world since the American invasion of Afghanistan 10 years ago? Jesus, some people will try to blame America for everything....

edanto · 09-09-2011 03:56PM

JustinDee wrote: »

The Pilgerist argument.

That is the most disingenuous and frankly shameful representation of Pilgers work that I've ever seen.

I'm assuming because of what you type that you have no interest in learning about Pilger and the great work he does. For the sake of those you tried to mislead, his latest film details those war-related stories that are practially ignored by TV networks either side of the Atlantic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Ah20IAyYxg

Mr.Micro · 09-09-2011 04:02PM

edanto wrote: »

That is the most disingenuous and frankly shameful representation of Pilgers work that I've ever seen.

I'm assuming because of what you type that you have no interest in learning about Pilger and the great work he does. For the sake of those you tried to mislead, his latest film details those war-related stories that are practially ignored by TV networks either side of the Atlantic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Ah20IAyYxg

Just remember edanto, some people do not see grey areas, its all black and white. You are with us or against us.

edanto · 09-09-2011 04:09PM

Mr.Micro wrote: »

Just remember edanto, some people do not see grey areas, its all black and white. You are with us or against us.

Only a Sith deals in absolutes.

Mr.Micro · 09-09-2011 04:38PM

edanto wrote: »

Only a Sith deals in absolutes.

as in the dark side.

RandomName2 · 09-09-2011 09:31PM

This thread descended into excessive silliness pretty much immediately

nacho libre · 09-09-2011 11:25PM

Liam Byrne wrote: »

And in the context of a thread that saw America invade Iraq because Hussein wanted to trade oil in dollars, that was 100% accurate.

.

He was trading oil in Euros at the time of the invasion.

A Financial Times article dated June 5, 2003, confirmed Iraqi oil sales returning to the international markets were once again denominated in U.S. dollars – not euros.

The tender for which bids were due by June 10 of that year, switched the transaction back to dollars - the international currency of oil sales - despite the greenback's recent fall in value. Saddam Hussein in 2000 insisted Iraq's oil be sold for euros, a political move, but one that improved Iraq's recent earnings thanks to the rise in the value of the euro against the dollar

the Bush administration implemented the currency transition despite the adverse impact on profits from Iraqi’s export oil sales a the time. this fact provides insight into one of the crucial – yet overlooked – rationales for 2003 the Iraq war.

Liam Byrne · 09-09-2011 11:31PM

nacho libre wrote: »

He was trading oil in dollars at the time of the invasion.

Sorry - that was a mistake in my post. I meant euro.

edanto · 10-09-2011 01:48AM

nacho libre wrote: »

He was trading oil in Euros at the time of the invasion.

.... this fact provides insight into one of the crucial – yet overlooked – rationales for 2003 the Iraq war.

It's a compelling theory and to my mind the most plausible.

Best explained in Robert Newmans (surprisingly funny) History of Oil on YouTube.

Because of all that I think Iraq would have been invaded even if there was no 9/11, it just might have taken until 2005. Gotta strike while the iron is hot if you want to build big military bases around oil fields!

nagilum2 · 10-09-2011 06:24AM

RichieC wrote: »

Yep, George Bush killed more people than the other two, while govenor of Texas he sentenced more people to death than any govenor in its history and has only recently been knocked off the top by Rick Perry who Ironically enough signed the pro life pledge.

Governors don't sentence people to anything in the US criminal justice system.

9/11 - was there an alternative response?

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