And how many in the previous 50? Timothy McVeigh in Oklahoma springs to mind, as does the Atlanta Olympics bombing. Don't remember a "war on terror" after those. If we broaden the scope of "America" to include attacks on US assets overseas, there were plenty before and there have been plenty since.9while9 wrote:Riddle me this: How many balls out terrorist attacks on America in the last 5 years?
I live in New York now, I lived here then, had been scheduled to move in to 1WTC in June 01 but with holdups and construction issues the date was moved to September 14. The company lost people, but not people I knew, people I knew worked in there and got out, other friends of friends didn't.
Was Bush's repsonse justified? Did it make sense to go after the bases in Afghanistan? Yes, I believe it did. Did it make sense to go in half-arsed with a plan scribbled on the back of an envelope, and assume that once the Taliban had been ousted then the people would live in peace as opposed to the warring tribal factions that had been the case for the previous 1000 years? Probably not.
Does a war on terror give any government carte blanche to do whatever it pleases, so long as it can be justified to the US as "going after terrorists"? It shouldn't, but it does.
Did it make sense to use "the war on terror" to justify going into Iraq, a country that posed no threat to the US then, on intelligence that was questionable then and has lately been proved to be completely fabricated, on the understanding that ousting Saddam would turn the country into a haven of peace, tranquility, love and flowers? Nope.
Does categorising Syria as part of the "Axis of Evil" make sense when the Syrian security forces put themselves in harm's way to defend US assets overseas? Maybe not - Syria is happy to promote "terrorism" elsewhere (assuming you consider Hizb'Allah to be a terrorist group - the definition is a little too fluid for my mind) but takes a dim view of it in its own back yard.
So did "Nine Eleven" change the world? Yes, it did - it demonstrated that there were hawks in Washington and in London that were spoiling for a fight, and were prepared to use any and every excuse to start one. It demonstrated that Tony Blair, who had come in on a wave of national support, was incapable of thinking without Bush's hand up his arse. It created a Jihadi theme park (Rummy-World, as one cartoonist described it) in Iraq where ne'er-do-wells from all over could go and practice their craft. It made people stop and look every time they saw someone who they thought looked "middle-eastern". It resulted in the deaths of a couple of sikh convenience store owners in Texas, who were beaten to death by rednecks who thought they were muslim, so their lives were changed quite dramatically.
Are we safer today than we were then, as a result of the "war on terror"? Nope, but nor are we in greater danger.
I cannot rationalise flying a plane into an office building. I cannot rationalise planting a bomb on a plane, a bus, or the tube. I cannot rationalise someone running into a crowded cafe and detonating a suicide bomb.
But likewise I cannot rationalise a response to any of these acts that results in the loss of tens of thousands of other innocent lives as the government of the country that has been wronged seeks to exact terrible revenge.
If, after 10,000-some years of human history, we cannot find a better way of solving our problems than killing people who disagree with us, then that meteor cannot come soon enough.
Just sayin'.
only asking)
