WikiLeaks and 9/11: What if? | Hacker News Reader

WikiLeaks and 9/11: What if?

latimes.com

68 pointsresdirector38 comments

Dear god. It's been 9 years. About ~3,000 random people died. Do you have any idea how many random people have died in the last 9 years? Could we maybe solve car accidents rather than potential terrorist attacks?

I'm sorry for being callous, but damn, let's agree to prioritize...

3000 people died, but if you don't think the events changed the world you're delusional. We're talking about two prolonged wars, trillions of dollars, thousands of american lives being lost, countless civilians being injured or killed in war, a loss of civil liberties, hundreds if not more afflicted with illness due to the toxicity of ground zero, questions about our governments ability and willingness to protect against terrorism, possibly hundreds tortured in the name of fighting terrorism, and I could go on.

That's my point. All of that is a consequence of people being so massively upset about this one particular event. And for what? Exactly what you said: for no good reason!

Let us please learn to put things into perspective so that we can avoid the true tragedies which you described:

- two prolonged wars

- trillions(!) of dollars spent

- countless civilians being injured or killed in war

- a loss of civil liberties

- possibly hundreds tortured in the name of fighting terrorism

Those tragedies were not caused by 9/11. They were caused by our perception of how terrible 9/11 was. In reality, the 3,000 lost lives pales in comparison to the bone-chilling list you assembled.

Without going into what are probably the actual reasons for these war the public justification for them has never been that people are "upset about this one particular event". The US and its allies aren't directly avenging the deaths of those 3,000 people.

Rather it's recognized that if the perpetrators had the chance they would probably have killed 30 thousand, or 3 million. So the public justification for the "War on Terror" has been to prevent similar future events.

See e.g. this interview with Tony Blair where he makes that exact point:

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-september-14-2010/excl...

This is something I want to deeply understand some day. 1.8 people die around the world every second, and here we are getting pissed over a few thousand dead 9 years ago, the US media is drumming up an old fashioned religious war, and meanwhile 150,000 humans each with their own lives and family die every day. Human psychology is a funny thing.

The thing is, those 150,000 humans don't all die of the same cause. These 3,000 did.

Also, this has been stated multiple times, but 9/11 wasn't about killing 3,000 people, it was about attacking America as a whole, making people feel that they weren't safe in their own country. Surely you don't feel that way just by knowing that 150,000 humans die of random causes each day.

This is major speculation, but what do you think would've happened if the fourth plane reached the White House/Capitol Building ?

Also, this has been stated multiple times, but 9/11 wasn't about killing 3,000 people, it was about attacking America as a whole, making people feel that they weren't safe in their own country.

They aren't safe in their own country. Huge numbers of them die prematurely of random causes every month.

Surely you don't feel that way just by knowing that 150,000 humans die of random causes each day.

I look both ways when I cross the street. I don't check my car for bombs every morning. That should tell you something about which I fear more.

Disclaimer: IANAA (I Am Not An American). Perhaps they feel differently than I do.

Huge numbers of them die prematurely of random causes every month

Indeed, but you face life in prison for intentionally killing someone.

There is a big, big difference between the two

  > They aren't safe in their own country. Huge numbers of them
  > die prematurely of random causes every month.

The crux being that people have either accepted those random causes of death, or they feel that they have enough control to avoid them (even if that isn't true). Terrorist attacks (though rare on American soil) are something that people have not (yet) accepted as unavoidable, or are something that they feel they have control over avoiding.

The following also contributed:

- The attack was perpetrated by Muslims against a predominantly Christian country. Especially a country with a lot of 'born-again'/Evangelical Christians that are rabidly religious. This helps to form a "Us vs. Them" mentality as well as a "They are attacking our way of life; our very identity." I have a strong feeling that the reaction would be less severe (though maybe not by much) if it had been perpetrated by members of another religion (or at least people that didn't use their religion as a reason for their actions).

- The attack was perpetrated by a group. A group that has members that are still 'at large.' (i.e. "It could/will happen again.") By contrast, the Oklahoma City Bombing was easy to dismiss as some random crazy guy.

- It came from outside of the country. If the attack had been from a group that was based in the US (i.e. some political group that resorted to terrorism), then the reaction probably wouldn't have been so severe. It's easier for form an "Us vs Them" mentality when there is a greater distinction between "us" and "them." If the people behind the attacks were Americans, people would still be outraged, but it would be a hell of a lot easier for them to picture those people as just 'crazies.' I think that a number of people also view Arabs/Muslims as 'below' them (i.e. "a bunch of rag-heads living out in the middle of god-forsaken desert") even if they consider themselves to be more enlightened than that.

They aren't safe in their own country. Huge numbers of them die prematurely of random causes every month.

That can be said for every country. Not every country is a target of a terrorist attack though.

I look both ways when I cross the street.

If you don't look, there is a higher probability of being hit by a car. Therefore, you're trying to control the probability of being hit by a car. You can't do that in regards to a terrorist attack.

I don't check my car for bombs every morning.

Of course not. A bomb on your car would be an attack directly towards you, and you know there is a low probability of that happening.

You weren't directly affected by 9/11, but many people were (or by the London and Madrid bombings, for instance). Of course people are also affected when someone close to them dies prematurely, but as pyre already replied to you, people accept those random causes better than they do accept a terrorist attack.

You are assuming they are separate incidents. Did you read the article on how many leads were 'shut odwn'? I think it's worth questioning [elements in] our government's willingness to protect against terrorism when it can have such far reaching consequences besides just a terrible loss of life.

Indeed. Politicians used 9/11 as a vehicle for all manner of dubious agendas, but in the wider scheme of things there are far more serious threats than terrorism but they're often just not as photogenic or glamorous.

It's just much easier to have someone specific to blame than just concepts (like hunger, poverty, war, etc). Specifically when these concepts tend to be far away from developed countries. Much easier to feel a direct threat if your enemy has a name or a face and invades/attacks your space. And for that reason governments can get away with these agendas you mention :/

The psychological bottleneck is a good point. People aren't well adapted to thinking about large complex issues such as poverty or traffic systems, and are much better adapted to a tribal style of thinking.

Does anyone have any data/estimates on dollars spent per lives saved for various different bad-things? (I could google it myself, but I'm burnt out googling http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1781941)

(Offtopic: the article you linked to was killed. It's depressing to see the "flag" feature of HN used to suppress topics that are intellectually interesting, but killed just because the ignorant masses happen to find the topic distasteful.

For what it's worth, I know exactly what you mean by "burnt out googing". It's the feeling you get when you wish other people loved to talk about how to solve random problems as much as you love to talk about solutions to random problems. It's the lack of human-to-human interaction to accomplish a shared goal. It's the sour taste in your mouth from realizing just how little thinking most people you're forced to interact with actually do, and consequently conclude that most people don't care about being stupid. And since most results of most google searches result in wading through wave after wave of stupidity, sometimes your brain says enough and forces you to actually talk with someone who will hopefully make the whole process just a little bit enjoyable.

I have personally felt "burnt out googling", just like you.)

Couldn't agree more :).

<off-topic>

I've tried Quora and Vark. But until I'm able to ctrl-t and type a question into a chrome-like omni-bar those Q&A sites will be a last resort

</off-topic>

I agree that the priorities of the US, and other western govts may be awry. But terrorism is a problem that needs a solution. And the debate on whether the bureaucracy around intelligence gathering and analysis has improved to an adequate level is an important one.

Great article! You want to talk priorities? I am sorry but I think you reasoning is a little flawed, let me explain: It's not the ~3000 9/11 dead that this article should make you think of but the 100s of 000s of deaths that ensued in wars and other post-9/11 me-hem.

I've said it before, and I've said it again: the entire "War on Terror" is an anaphylactic reaction to the bee sting of 3000 deaths.

You're not behing callous...you're being a nihilist. Do you really see no distinction between the deliberate mass murder of 3,000 innocent people, and random accidental deaths? Where are your values??

How many husbands have killed their wives (or vice versa) in the last 9 years? We should ban marriage and investigate the religions that promote it!!

I honestly don't know how to respond to someone who genuinely feels the way you do. Our thought processes are so divergent that I don't think it's possible for us to have a productive debate.

The original post was trying to talk about the (over)reaction of people to 9/11. Your argument against that was to take up an ad hominem attack on the poster's values. Your argument implies that you feel that it is impossible to over-react to loss of life if that loss was intentionally perpetrated by a person (or group of people). I provided a counter-argument by bolstering the original poster's point using a statistic of (mostly) intentional murders instead of a statistic of accidental loss of life. Now you have to argue against the original point on other grounds if you wish to proceed.

tl;dr Don't attack people personally, and don't try to make an emotional appeal to win an argument. Those tactics might work for some people, but they sully the debate/discussion so far as I'm concerned.

Since you're into elevated debate, I'll tell you why I responded very negatively to your original post. You said "How many husbands have killed their wives (or vice versa) in the last 9 years? We should ban marriage and investigate the religions that promote it!!". You were clearly trying to make me look bad by using heavy sarcasm to draw a parallel between the number of deaths caused by spousal murders vs the 9/11 attack. But it's a very bad comparison because murder is not a fundamental property of marriage. No one gets married in order to murder their spouse, or murders their spouse to bring glory to marriage. On the other hand, jihad terrorism is a defining property of the brand of Islam practiced by the 9/11 attackers and thousands of other people throughout the world.

Nihilism is the rejection of meaning, and if you can't see that the 9/11 attacks had meaning well beyond the death toll, both to the attackers and the victims - and I'm not talking about the reactions to the event - then you're a nihilist. It was an unprecedented military-style mass murder of civilians by organized, motivated enemies who also had their own set of beliefs. They weren't just some guys who randomly decided to fly two aircraft into downtown Manhattan. It wasn't a human mistake. And it wasn't an earthquake that killed a lot of people.

9/11 was used to justify the invasion of Iraq which killed ~1 million people. Stopping 9/11 would have at least postponed these deaths.

> There were a lot of us in the run-up to Sept. 11 who had seen warning signs that something devastating might be in the planning stages.

With 20/20 hindsight, yes. Intelligence services are constantly going through massive amounts of information trying to pick out credible threats. When they eventually miss one, sure, it looks obvious in retrospect. But I bet there's dozens of "kill the evil Westerners" speeches happening in third world countries around the world right now. And then when there's a military raid or drone attack on someone who gives such a speech, people get outraged. It's a no gratitude, no-win business for the intelligence services, who actually seem to be doing a pretty outstanding job that's really difficult and important.

Argh - sorry - I meant to upvote this from 1 and clicked down to 0 instead! :o( Wish there was a way to undo that click, given how small the arrows are...

Did you even read the article? This wasn't about some random chatter happening in some far corner of the globe it was about:

- An actual identified terrorist showing up at a US flight school. The agents who had him in custody were begging for permission to investigate what was on his laptop and they were denied.

- The team that was charged with the job of testing airport security were actively prevented from doing their jobs (and later, after 9/11, disbanded)

I don't see how anyone could brush this off as just "20/20 hindsight".

The problem is, you're ignoring false positives. Reports of potential threats happen frequently. The overwhelming majority of them are false positives.

> Did you even read the article? ... An actual identified terrorist showing up at a US flight school.

Did I read the article? "A foreign intelligence service promptly reported that he had connections with a foreign terrorist group" -> Not exactly an actual identified terrorist.

"Had connections with a foreign terrorist group" could be anything. And which foreign intelligence service? Britain? Israel? South Africa? Mexico?

In retrospect, it's obvious, sure. But at the time, not so much. He wasn't a convicted criminal. He was someone who was probably friends with another guy they suspected, or went to the same mosque. If he was someone with a criminal record, of course he'd have gotten a more thorough treatment.

> The agents who had him in custody were begging for permission to investigate what was on his laptop and they were denied.

Probably those damned civil rights and limited search and seizure things.

> The team that was charged with the job of testing airport security were actively prevented from doing their jobs

Again, your read of the article is questionable. They identified weaknesses in the system, and no resources were spent on those weaknesses. But there's other weaknesses too, lots of them. Yes, in retrospect, it seems obvious that there were weaknesses. But there's many potential targets, and there's not an unlimited budget. Yeah, after things go wrong it's very easy to say something should have been done beforehand.

> I don't see how anyone could brush this off as just "20/20 hindsight".

It is 20/20 hindsight. There's thousands of false positives. The article is written with an assured tone because they know how history happened. How many times have there been warnings of an imminent North Korean strike into South Korea? Dozens? I do know the stats on Israeli warnings about their neighbors mobilizing near them - over two dozen times in the last 50 years, full military mobilizations... how many became invasions? 2 out of those 24+?

There'll probably be clues after any bad event happens that it was going to happen... that doesn't necessarily mean anyone was being negligent. Also, a little more friendliness and less snark when you comment? Something like, "I disagree with your interpretation" instead of "Did you even read the article?

You seem to suggest that it is all due to hindsight. Much of that suggestion is of course your own opinion from thin air as I assume you do not have any experience in intelligence service work. Even if you do, do you not think that at least some of the things mentioned in the article are mistakes even if the person is placed in the position they would have been before the attacks and used only his foresight?

Unfortunately this doesn't look to be an issue you've thoroughly researched. Other agencies and investigations got much more specific than 'plane into WTC'.

Look into Able Danger, there is some interesting information on how closely they identified the future hijackers but were prevented from following up. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Able_Danger#Comments_by_members...

>"Had connections with a foreign terrorist group" could be anything. And which foreign intelligence service? Britain? Israel? South Africa? Mexico?<

French authorities began monitoring Moussaoui in 1996 when they observed him with Islamic extremists in London. In 1998, he attended the Khalden training camp in Afghanistan, allegedly returning the next year as well. In September 2000, he visited Malaysia and stayed in a condominium owned by Yazid Sufaat who, in October 2000, signed letters identifying Moussaoui as a representative of his company. Two of the September 11 hijackers lived in the same condominium in January 2000. Jemaah Islamiah leader Riduan Ismauddin sent cohort Yazid Sufaat to provide Moussaoui with $35,000 and travel documents in Malaysia in October.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zacarias_Moussaoui#Militant_tra...

I don't think either i) the agents that weren't permitted to scrutinise the suspected terrorist's laptop would have thought it remotely worth posting to Wikileaks ii) if they had, it would have made the slightest difference to what actually happened

Am i misreading the article? Is the suggestion that 9/11 was a false-flag operation in so far as some actors high in the intelligence chain of command ALLOWED a very real cell of terrorists to carry out their mission by suppressing their subordinates?

It's easy to get that from your summary, but the article itself still skirts around saying this explicitly.

Yes, you are. The only thing I inferred from the article was the existence of inter-agency political conflicts, turf wars, and bureaucratic risk-averse officiousness.

The truth is that people see only the failures. We never know what apocalypses have been avoided.

In this case, the rot had spread from the top. There aren't really any formal organizational remedies for that, beyond changing the regime at the top. Check out the first two pages of the preface to The One-Percent Doctrine (http://books.google.com/books?id=gV3m6sYhnrsC&printsec=f...)

  ...at an eyeball-to-eyeball intelligence briefing during this urgent Summer, 
  George W. Bush seems to have made the wrong choice.

  He looked hard at the panicked CIA officer.
 
  "All right," he said.  "You've covered your ass, now."

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