Remembering 9-11

[jordan179]

Ten years ago today, it was the morning after an all-nighter. I was taking out the garbage outside my apartment in Little Egg Harbor, NJ. The skies were clear. Thunder rolled out of a cloudless sky. I looked around, but could see neither a stormcloud nor a supersonic airplane. And the sound was strangely protracted. I shrugged, went back

Comments

[hastka]

Why do you feel America has been trying to convince itself of the threat being unreal? I feel the opposite is the case -- it seems like there's always new justification for why someone's luggage should be searched, phone tapped, etc. Until you can legislate thought, I'm sure enough laws, committees, rules, and money can approximate the experience. ;)

Don't get me wrong, I know there are reasons for some of these things, but as the saying goes, you can't kill an idea, and that's exactly the issue at hand. How does one even define "the enemy" any more? Let alone while strictly adhering to the laws in place to protect innocent people. And if/once you do that, how do you fight them?

Once something firms up into an actual group, there are specific ways to address that, but ultimately, anyone who wants to cause trouble for someone and doesn't care about their own life or consequences is increasingly able to do something disruptive. This only gets worse as we rely more and more on external infrastructure, while at the same time technology empowers individuals (be they "good" or "evil" whatever those things even mean) with more and more information and resources with which to operate.

While I don't consider myself part of "the left," you need to admit that fear -- especially directionless fear from a vague enemy who could be anyone -- is a great motivator to give carte blanc to people who say they can stop it, regardless of whether their actions really have any effect. After all, no civilians here are really equipped to measure the effect.

But yeah, glad it's been 10 mostly uneventful years since, hopefully we'll have a long time until the next time....

[gothelittle]

The problem isn't so much that the threat is unreal as that it is mislabeled, misunderstood, and people are using it to try to gain power for themselves. Note that the Patriot Act, for instance, was a temporary power with a time limit, and Obama chose to extend it under a Democrat Congress.

Ever seen the movie The Dark Knight? What do you think would've happened if Lucius Fox hadn't typed his name into that new machine?

Yes, luggage is being searched... luggage of 60-year-old women with all of the indicators - religion, ethnicity, demeanor, personality - that mark her as being distinctly non-terrorist. And for what?

Israel deals with security by acknowledging the people who want to kill them, acknowledging that those people really do want to kill them, and profiling for warning signs such as moving loads of cash and writing online blog entries about how much they want to kill them some Jewz. Unfortunately, our best and brightest are being hamstrung by people who advance theories such as the one that the militant extremists are only bombing us because they don't have free health care... and thus should be treated as gently as the juvenile delinquent who shoots cops because obviously it's not his fault, he has anger issues...

I'd go on, but I think you get the idea. :) Add onto that the vilification of anybody supporting the notion of clearing terrorist elements out of the places in which they flourish the most, and you've got a nation that really isn't acting like one that has been, ya know, attacked on their own soil.

[polaris93]

The answer is, we've been sold out. The question is, by whom? Who among our own people, our neighbors, in our government and elsewhere, have done the selling-out? Ah, for the good old days of the necktie party . . .

[hastka]

The other funny thing with all of this, all of America's intelligence somehow managed to not only miss the Trade Center stuff, which I kind of understand given the communications problems, etc, of the time... but as mentioned earlier on CNN today they also managed to for the mostpart miss many events leading to the dissolution of the USSR, the so-called "Arab Spring" situation, and a few other fairly major political events... which -- if I'm to believe things at face value -- the U.S. played essentially no direct role in, yet in many cases it resolved in a direction favoring democracy.

It does kinda make ya wonder, sometimes.

[polaris93]

According to a dear late friend of mine who was in training for the US State Department not long before he died, and hwo had been in Air Force Intelligence at one point, our intelligence agencies became riddled with Soviet undercover agents by the 1960s, and it only got worse and worse as time went on. Of course, we did the same to their intelligence agencies, and great confusion was had by all. Whose word did you trust about anything? Whose reports were trustworthy, which ones were damned lies? That could only have added to the madness, especially since the Soviets and now the Russians have used the Islamic world as a buffer against the West.

Three-Named Wonders

[ilion7]

That’s because the US “intelligence community” isn’t so much about gathering and making sense of foreign intelligence so as to protect Americans and the interests of the US as it is about providing life sinecures for the ‘Three-Named Wonders’ of the (mostly) East Coast Elite.

[polaris93]

PS: I'm on your side in this. I agree with you. The tone of that comment is a little ambiguous, so just to clarify.

[gothelittle]

Always appreciate someone on my side. :)

[polaris93]

:-)

[polaris93]

Why do you feel America has been trying to convince itself of the threat being unreal?

Which America? We've become divided into the sane and the insane, and also into the government and everybody else (which aren't the same as that first dichotomy, since each of the latter overlaps both of the former). You pick.

Explicit and Implicit Arguments

[jordan179]

Why do you feel America has been trying to convince itself of the threat being unreal?

Because of the repeated argument, explict and implicit, that this isn't a "real" war, or that the Muslim terrrorists aren't the "real" enemy.

For an example of the explicit argument that this isn't a "real" war, note the claims that one cannot declare war or authorize warlike operations against a non-governmental organization. This is untrue, as even a cursory examination of the history of military and naval campaigns against bandits and pirates illustrates.

For an example of the implicit argument that this isn't a "real" war, note the idea, now officially accepted by the US government (though fortunately rarely acted-upon) that we must provide "trials" for captured enemy personnel. In war, one normally holds prisoners until the cessation of hostilities or an agreed-upon exchange of captives.

For an example of the explicit argument that the Muslim terrorists aren't the real enemy, note the popular conspiracy theories that seek to blame someone (anyone!) other than Al Qaeda for the 9-11 attacks. I have also heard certain Democratic Party activists explicitly state that the Republican Party is the "real" enemy.

For an example of the implicit argument that the Muslim terrorists aren't the real enemy, note the attempts to argue that George W. Bush (or the CIA, or the FBI, or whoever) was "really" responsible (due to incompetence) for 9-11 in that they failed to intercept the attacks. The implication here is that we shouldn't blame the terrorists for attacking us.

Counter-Insurgency

[jordan179]

Don't get me wrong, I know there are reasons for some of these things, but as the saying goes, you can't kill an idea, and that's exactly the issue at hand.

The saying is false: many ideas have been killed by killing their adherents. Furthermore and more importantly, many ideas have been prevented from realization by acting forcibly against those who would attempt to realize them.

How does one even define "the enemy" any more?

Those States, NGO's and individuals who undertake or tangibly support warlike operations against the United States of America: in practice, this means up to a dozen or so Terrorist States, some larger number of organizations, and a loose group of individual sympathizers. Specifically including but not limited to Iran, North Korea, the Sudan, Syria: and Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

Note that Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya are no longer on this list, because we rather decisively removed their Terrorist regimes.

Let alone while strictly adhering to the laws in place to protect innocent people.

The laws are less restrictive than you may imagine. In particular, the Laws of War accept the fact that civilians and enemies attempting to surrender may accidentally be killed: this is not a war crime.

And if/once you do that, how do you fight them?

Through normal military operations. This should be obvious when we are talking about fighting Terrorist States. If you want a more detailed answer specifically adressing how to fight guerillas and terrorists, try

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counter-insurgency

Anti-guerilla and counter-terrorist operations antedate organized warfare, and were particularly important during and after World War II. Contrary to the common popular imagination, such operations have long since been systematized, and many insurgencies successfully defeated. In fact, most insurgencies are normally defeated: it is rare for guerillas or terrorists to actually win, though the instances in which they do win tend to attract much attention for the obvious reason that it results in regime change.

[jordan179]

Once something firms up into an actual group, there are specific ways to address that, but ultimately, anyone who wants to cause trouble for someone and doesn't care about their own life or consequences is increasingly able to do something disruptive.

Lone nuts aren't the main problem, because lone nuts rarely agree on goals or strategies. Where lone nuts are acting on the orders or advice of organizations, it is possible to go after those organizations (as we have motivated Yemen to do in the case of the traitor al-Awalaki).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anwar_al-Awlaki

This only gets worse as we rely more and more on external infrastructure, while at the same time technology empowers individuals (be they "good" or "evil" whatever those things even mean) with more and more information and resources with which to operate.

Technology increases both the powers of attack and destruction, and of defense and reconstruction. This is obscured from popular awareness by a lack of understanding of just how fragile were the infrastructures and limited the powers of repair of pre-Information Age or pre-Industrial Age societies, because we are more aware of the cities and nations that survived (and are therefore still with us today) than we are of those that failed to survive.

Note that World War II, which in Europe and against Japan was fought in a late Industrial / early Information Age technological setting, saw the destruction of whole cities by aerial bombardment, and the strangling of whole nations by naval blockades. Yet no combatant Great Power, not even the Soviet Union, lost even 20 percent of its population: most lost less than 10 percent. And yes, raiding and sabotage were common tactics in that war.

While I don't consider myself part of "the left," you need to admit that fear -- especially directionless fear from a vague enemy who could be anyone -- is a great motivator to give carte blanc to people who say they can stop it, regardless of whether their actions really have any effect. After all, no civilians here are really equipped to measure the effect.

The fact that there have been no major Terrorist attacks on US soil since 9-11 -- and only a scattering of minor ones -- strongly implies that at least some subset of our actions have been effective. Do you really believe that Al Qaeda, in particular, wouldn't be repeating 9-11 scale attacks on a regular basis if they could?

Mind you, a lot of what we're doing counts more as security theater than as effective response. And I wish we'd stop doing this, since we merely inconvenience ourselves in the process.