9/11

[Debaser]

i just don't why, every single time an event is mentioned, that people HAVE to analyze and politicise and dispute.

Cider....usually

[emilystrange]

oh yeah... hee

[EvilBastard]

Speaking as someone who
(a) was there when the brown sticky stuff hit the whirly thing,
(b) walked out of WTC at about 8.35am that morning,
(c) still lives in NYC, and
(d) works across the street from the location
(not that this makes me an expert on anything by any means, but it informs my perception), it's clear the Americans have a peculiar habit of "personalising" things like this. Compare and contrast their reaction to 9/11 with how other countries deal with similar events.
In the rest of the world it's a political thing - a group of people have done something unpleasant to a sovereign entity. This group needs to be dealt with as a group, not as a collection of individuals, and the government takes whatever steps are deemed appropriate. These steps may include military, diplomatic, or economic action.
In the US, it's personal - "Bin Laden did this, let's go and kill him," ignoring the why and focusing on the who. Did the UK seek to assasinate Gerry Adams or Martin McGuinness while the IRA was waging its mainland bombing campaign in the 80s? No, because it wouldn't have made any difference to the situation.
This personalisation of a situation has its roots in the wild-west, "I'm looking for the man who shot my pa", sense of identity that the US reaches for whenever it isn't sure how to handle something. It appeals to the emotions, to acting in the heat of the moment without considering what the consequences might be.
This behaviour is understandable - the US has not benefitted from the experience that other countires have of terrorism on their own shores. It is, let's not forget, a very young and in many ways a politically immature country, one which vacillates between isolationism and unilateralism, which was founded by people who didn't want to deal with everyone else (religious extremists) and frequently by people that no-one else wanted to deal with (peasants), which continues to see the world from a very un-nuanced perspective - something is either right or wrong, there are very few grey areas - which leads to some uncomfortable awakenings (East Timor with Suharto, Iraq with Saddam, Panama with Noriega) later on.
And as with immature people (let's use a teenager analogy), the US is unwilling to listen to the advice of others - lots of people with more experience offered help, advice, counsel, and expertise in the wake of 9/11, which without exception was refused and ignored by the US. "We know better, when we want your help we'll ask for it."

Could things have been done differently? Certainly.
Will the US learn from the mistakes that have been made? Possibly.
Has it made efforts to understand the "why" rather than the "who"? Not at all.
Did the US have it coming? Absolutely. Not from a "they deserved it", but from a law of averages - you p*ss enough people off for long enough, there will be repercussions. In this case it just took a little longer for the chickens to come back to roost, and it was one big motherfucking chicken.

[Izzy HaveMercy]

Speaking as someone who
(a) was there when the brown sticky stuff hit the whirly thing,
(b) walked out of WTC at about 8.35am that morning,
(c) still lives in NYC, and
(d) works across the street from the location
(not that this makes me an expert on anything by any means, but it informs my perception), it's clear the Americans have a peculiar habit of "personalising" things like this. Compare and contrast their reaction to 9/11 with how other countries deal with similar events.
In the rest of the world it's a political thing - a group of people have done something unpleasant to a sovereign entity. This group needs to be dealt with as a group, not as a collection of individuals, and the government takes whatever steps are deemed appropriate. These steps may include military, diplomatic, or economic action.
In the US, it's personal - "Bin Laden did this, let's go and kill him," ignoring the why and focusing on the who. Did the UK seek to assasinate Gerry Adams or Martin McGuinness while the IRA was waging its mainland bombing campaign in the 80s? No, because it wouldn't have made any difference to the situation.
This personalisation of a situation has its roots in the wild-west, "I'm looking for the man who shot my pa", sense of identity that the US reaches for whenever it isn't sure how to handle something. It appeals to the emotions, to acting in the heat of the moment without considering what the consequences might be.
This behaviour is understandable - the US has not benefitted from the experience that other countires have of terrorism on their own shores. It is, let's not forget, a very young and in many ways a politically immature country, one which vacillates between isolationism and unilateralism, which was founded by people who didn't want to deal with everyone else (religious extremists) and frequently by people that no-one else wanted to deal with (peasants), which continues to see the world from a very un-nuanced perspective - something is either right or wrong, there are very few grey areas - which leads to some uncomfortable awakenings (East Timor with Suharto, Iraq with Saddam, Panama with Noriega) later on.
And as with immature people (let's use a teenager analogy), the US is unwilling to listen to the advice of others - lots of people with more experience offered help, advice, counsel, and expertise in the wake of 9/11, which without exception was refused and ignored by the US. "We know better, when we want your help we'll ask for it."

Could things have been done differently? Certainly.
Will the US learn from the mistakes that have been made? Possibly.
Has it made efforts to understand the "why" rather than the "who"? Not at all.
Did the US have it coming? Absolutely. Not from a "they deserved it", but from a law of averages - you p*ss enough people off for long enough, there will be repercussions. In this case it just took a little longer for the chickens to come back to roost, and it was one big motherfucking chicken.

One of the most rational takes on events I ever heard. Kudos to that!

IZ.

[Sita]

Thanks, EvilBastard! That was very interesting. If i may be so curious - has this always been your way of looking at these events? Or did you get to this opinion over the past few years?

[EvilBastard]

It's mostly been the way I've always seen it, probably the result of my parents being political and deciding that when all my friends were watching The A Team I should be reading Chomsky and going to demonstrations against anything you can think of - not so I would agree with what they believed, but so that I understood what the issues were and could make up my mind. The downside is that I was the argumentative little bugger in the classroom that every teacher can't stand ("Sir? You know you were saying that WW2 started when Hitler invaded Poland in 1939? Didn't it really begin with Britain's imperial ambitions in Africa in the 19th century and the unification of Germany under Bismarck, not to mention the lingering hostilities from the franco-prussian war? Sir?").

Since I moved to the US 12 years ago my view has been refined a little. It's easy to see things in broad terms when you're a long way away, but up close the fine detail sometimes comes as a surprise. But my opinion of 9/11 has been unchanged since the event - cooler heads should have prevailed in the days after, a cohesive plan should have been in place, and W should have set the tone - one of "we will demonstrate our power in a way that will amply demonstrate why these people were wrong. We will show the world that, while we mourn our losses, we are not seeking biblical retribution for this event. We will come together with our friends and allies and act decisively but without haste." Instead he drew a line in the sand, "you're either with us or against us", and didn't give himself any room to maneuvre. This is the Frontier Lawman approach to politics, which doesn't lend sit well when you're trying to deal with people who are used to subtle diplomacy. And it makes you look like the kind of starry-eyed idiot who can't believe he got the job in the first place and who holds press conferences on the golf course shortly before committing tens of thousands of lives, and billions of dollars, to a war which will never be won through force of arms.