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Comment by bobsy | Hacker News Reader

If this is true doesn't it mean that Bin Laden won the war on terror?

Every time I go to the airport I think this. Those full body scanners? Thanks to Bin Laden, now you practically get strip searched for every flight. You have to take off your shoes. You cannot take drinks on a plane.

You then have everyone on edge no matter where you go. You and a friend play CounterStrike. You get on the bus and start talking about good locations to plant the bomb. You will probably be wrestled to the floor by some over-zealous commuter.

It doesn't surprise me if this is true. The US attitude to privacy and civil rights have been becoming more like China's every year since 2001.

View on HN

Muslim here.

I never understood both sides and their actions. I mean I find both Islamic fundamentalism and American actions all round globe both equally dumb.

I don't think OBL ever had it as an explicit aim to pull down US militarily or culturally transform US into a Islamic state. That is impossible, and I assume somebody like him already understood that. I guess his aim was to drag US into a war and then reduce them to a state USSR, now russia was in 1990 post Afghanistan war. Long wars benefit nobody. They are a huge drain on man power, economy and morale of a nation. Its actually surprising that US fell for it. I was expecting more of a Intelligence based response where the CIA would hunt him down and kill him, instead of wasting trillions dollars.

On the other hand. Afghans seem to be very stubborn people. They don't give up easily no matter how shitty state they are in. Its just in their blood and culture to not accept foreign occupation over them. Even the British that had the entire Indian subcontinent under them couldn't conquer them. In the recent history alone, every body knows what has happened of USSR after going there. So no matter how bad the Taliban is, they still consider them as their own country men compared to Americans who actually released them from their bondage.

As a moderate muslim, I feel bad every time I'm pulled up for an ideology which I have nothing to do with. I've been a subject of religious discrimination many times since 911. I've been asked to come for extra rounds for job interviews, pulled up separately and checked at building security points, had troubles to open bank accounts, asked to delay visa filing for visiting abroad etc innumerable number of times. I feel having an arabicized name a huge liability to carry, a kind of burden for which you have to pay no matter even if you have nothing to do with their ideology.

On the other hand I see so much turmoil in the west, due to the war ordinary people like me having to pay for no mistake of theirs. Wars, economics crisis etc.

When I look at all this, I can't help but wonder that perpetrators of these crimes actually won.

Its actually surprising that US fell for it.

Yep. Bush would have been a hero if he hadn't fallen for it. Compassionate conservatism, expressed in Medicare Part C. Tax cuts combined with modest military expansion would have held the deficit in check.

But remember the pundits saying, "this one calles for boots on the ground"? Even Jon Stewart showed a clip of Bush or someone making a compassionate statement, and commented "you're killing my blood lust." And he meant it!

I don't guess Clinton wouldn't have fallen for it -- he didn't during all of OBL's significant attacks in the 90's.

Clinton would have done the same. 9/11 was much different than the attacks in the 90s.

Clinton would have attacked Afghanistan, sure. But would he have stayed in Afghanistan and/or attacked Iraq? Those are the two items that have cost dearly.

There were two big reasons reasons the US went into Iraq. One was Saddam Hussein and WMD. Everyone believed that he had them, and it's a matter of fact that he had used them in the past. Though they were never found, it's not illogical to believe that he was simply able to move them elsewhere or destroy them before they were discovered. And taking out his regime would remove a large destabilizing factor in that part of the world (in theory anyway).

The other reason was to create a local distraction. To keep "the terrorists" occupied, their violence and attacks confined to that part of the world, and not in the US. In that sense, they "fell for it" too.

If the public need for "revenge" had been satisfied by attacking Afghanistan, I think Clinton would have stopped there. He was not a risk-taker, and he was totally driven by polls.

This was the narrative toed by the Bush administration and Fox News, but many Americans and the international community by and large did not agree.

I think that's largely a case of selective memory. People often have a rosy memory of what they believed.

Bush said he had clear evidence of WMD's in Iraq, that he showed this to Blair and Blair confirmed. I think it would be fair to say that most people would agree that Hussein wanted WMD's.

So I think it's fair to think that most Americans and most in the international community believed that Iraq had WMD's. The argument was mostly over whether an invasion was an appropriate response.

It was only "crazies" who believed both that Bush lied and that he was able to either snooker Blair or convince him to join in the lie.

Sometimes the crazies are right, though.

> So I think it's fair to think that [...] most in the international community believed that Iraq had WMD's.

Hm... "A proof is a proof. What kind of a proof? It's a proof. A proof is a proof, and when you have a good proof, it's because it's proven." - Jean Chretien, discussing what type of proof Canadian government wanted before assisting in a war with Iraq (which it ultimately did not)

I remember recently seeing polls that showed a large group of Americans still think (were brainwashed into thinking) that Iraq was largely responsible for 9-11.

Of course a (different?) large majority also believe the Earth is only around 10K years old.

So maybe selective/programmed memory is a more accurate term?

Um... I was on anti Iraq war demos when I was 18, because it was obvious to me Saddam Hussein had no WMDs. And I was _not_ alone in this assumption:

"In London, at least 750,000 people demonstrated in what police called the city's largest demonstration ever." Source: http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/2003/Protest-Iraq-War16feb03...

But I bet that most of those 750,000 believed that Iraq had WMD's of some sort, perhaps very limited in capability.

But they also believed that a war was an inappropriate response to the existence of those WMD's.

No, it was more or less assumed to be bollocks. (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Blix#Iraq_disarmament_.27... for an idea of what we were hearing).

*Correction: and those who didn't assume it to be bollocks generally had not made up their mind one way or the other, and wanted the weapons inspectors to be given time to find out. When they were given the bum's rush out of Iraq by the Coalition, that persuaded many of the fence-sitters the skeptics were right.

I think the selective memory comes in when people claim that there weren't a huge number of people that thought and proclaimed loudly that the evidence was bunk at the time. It's the same type of historical retcon that happens when people say that no one could see the housing bubble coming, and that everyone during slavery/segregation thought black people were inferior, so no one should be judged terrible for it because they were "of their time."

The television was always sure that the war was necessary, that Powell's speech was coherent, and that the government always knows best because it has access to secret sources that it can't reveal and our best interests at heart. Of course, the television is also in the arms business.

"...Everyone believed that he had them, and it's a matter of fact that he had used them in the past." - I am European and I clearly remember the feeling that the US openly manipulated the rest of the world. But it did not work, at least in Western EU, excluding UK.

Look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_invasion_of_Iraq. There are lot of sources for some of the quotes that I will take here:

* "Four countries participated with troops during the initial invasion phase, which lasted from 19 March to 9 April 2003. These were the United States (148,000), United Kingdom (45,000), Australia (2,000), and Poland (194)." - So out of all the EU countries only UK and Poland went to the war.

* "The invasion of Iraq was strongly opposed by some long-standing U.S. allies, including the governments of France, Germany, New Zealand, and Canada."

* "On 15 February 2003, a month before the invasion, there were worldwide protests against the Iraq war, including a rally of three million people in Rome, which is listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the largest ever anti-war rally."

Saddam was planning to sell his oil only in euros and bush and company could not stand for that.

I think the invasion of Afghanistan was inevitable, but not Iraq. Afghanistan was a big mistake (even Rthe USSR, with a land border, couldnt handle it) but Iraq was worse and bizarre.

>I think the invasion of Afghanistan was inevitable

Inevitable as in "in response to 9/11"? I don't think so, it was planned months, if not years before September 2001. [edit, corrected typo to 2001]

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2001/nov2001/afgh-n20.shtml

US planned war in Afghanistan long before September 11 By Patrick Martin 20 November 2001

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/1550366.stm

Tuesday, 18 September, 2001, 11:27 GMT 12:27 UK US 'planned attack on Taleban'

A former Pakistani diplomat has told the BBC that the US was planning military action against Osama Bin Laden and the Taleban even before last week's attacks.

Niaz Naik, a former Pakistani Foreign Secretary, was told by senior American officials in mid-July that military action against Afghanistan would go ahead by the middle of October.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26410.htm U.S. government documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and recently posted on the website of the George Washington University National Security Archive shed some additional light on talks with the Taliban prior to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, including with regard to the repeated Taliban offers to hand over Osama bin Laden, and the role of Pakistan before and after the attacks.[1] ... It is already known that the U.S. had demanded in secret discussions with the Taliban that bin Laden be handed over for more than three years prior to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The talks continued “until just days before” the attacks, according to a Washington Post report the month following the attacks. But a compromise solution such as the above that would offer the Taliban a face-saving way out of the impasse was never seriously considered. Instead, “State Department officials refused to soften their demand that bin Laden face trial in the U.S. justice system.”

http://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=80482&page=...

U.S. Rejects New Taliban Offer Oct. 1 [2001]

The United States today rejected yet another offer by Afghanistan's ruling Taliban to turn over Osama bin Laden for trial in a third country if the U.S. presents evidence against bin Laden and stops air attacks. ... "There's no need to discuss it," Bush said. "We know he's guilty. Just turn him over. … There's nothing to negotiate about. They're harboring a terrorist and they need to turn him over."

Couldn't Osama claim that he knew there were criminals in those buildings that he attacked and that there is nothing to negotiate about?

I'm not arguing justice or decency. Simply that in response to the 9/11 attack the US was going to do something, and Afghanistan was that something. I think in pure pragmatic terms it was a stupid something.

From his own point of view. Osama had declared war on the US and picked what he considered to be strategic targets. In purely military terms I think he picked his targets very well.

This is largely hindsight bias--because we did go to war with Afghanistan in response to 9/11, you look back at planning prior to 9/11 and perceive it as proof that war with Afghanistan was inevitable.

Prior planning is not proof of future action. For instance the U.S. spent decades planning in great detail how to go to war with the USSR, but we never did it.

Put another way--every war-like situation the U.S. has ever entered was pre-planned to some extent. But we also planned for a great many wars that never happened.

Richard Clark (who had worked for Reagan, Bush Sr., and Clinton) had the right idea of small targeted attacks rather than a widespread military invasion. He even warned the WH about al Qaeda months prior to 9/11, but he got demoted and vilified under Bush's administration and supporters.

What the hell are you talking about man? They bombed the crap out of Iraq during Clinton's term.. 93, 96, 98 And almost continuously from 99-01.

Really? Are you talking about the Clinton whose sanctions killed half million Iraqi infants from 1991 to 1996 alone and his the secretary of state though the cost of sanctions was worth it? The Clinton who in 1998 knowingly bombed an aspirin factory in Sudan that supplied cheap medicines to millions of Africans?

http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1084/

Lesley Stahl on U.S. sanctions against Iraq: We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that's more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright: I think this is a very hard choice, but the price--we think the price is worth it.

--60 Minutes (5/12/96)

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/chatterbox/2...

But a British engineer, Thomas Carnaffin, who worked as a technical manager during the plant's construction between 1992 and 1996, emerged to tell reporters there was nothing secret or heavily guarded about the plant at all, and that he never saw any evidence of the production of an ingredient needed for nerve gas. The group that monitors compliance with the treaty banning chemical weapons announced that Empta did have legitimate commercial purposes in the manufacture of fungicides and antibiotics. The owner of the Shifa factory gave interviews in which he emphatically denied that the plant was used for anything other than pharmaceuticals, and there was never persuasive evidence to contradict his assertion. At the same time, members of the administration retreated from claims they made earlier that Osama bin Laden had what [Defense Secretary William] Cohen called "a financial interest in contributing to this particular facility." It turned out that no direct financial relationship between bin Laden and the plant could be established.

Nobody thinks of Clinton as committing us to the kind of war which drains our resources. Everyone thinks of Bush that way. Remember Bosnia? That was Clinton style.

Its actually surprising that US fell for it.

The US didn't fall for anything - 9/11 was an opportunity to advance military goals in the Middle East. We planned to invade Afghanistan before the event[1]. About three weeks afterward this plan was expanded to include seven countries in ten years ("Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran")[2]. Some of those were accomplished by the "Arab Spring", but the State Department wasn't uninvolved in that and asked twitter to reschedule maintenance so that it would be "an effective communications tool" during the 2009 Iranian election[3].

The only confusing actor is Bin Laden, who attacked a superpower that had already expressed a desire to invade his people.

[1 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/1550366.stm]

[2 http://www.salon.com/2007/10/12/wesley_clark/]

[3 http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/06/16/us-iran-election-t...]

I agree for the most part, with a minor disagreement on the following statement:

>The only confusing actor is Bin Laden, who attacked a superpower that had already expressed a desire to invade his people.

The superpower was already occupying much of his people through puppet dictators; the Saudi, Egyptian, Yemeni, Bahraini, Jordanian and Lebanese for example. Israel was created out as a "Jewish state" on 78% of Palestine while the population of Palestine was still only 34% Jewish after mass-migration campaign of the 1900s (1905 Jewish population of Palestine was 3%) but their bombings on Palestinian villagers successfully cleansed some 80% of the native population. The refugees still aren't allowed to return while any Jew (born Jewish or converted) can instantly migrate to Palestine and get a US-subsidized home in a Jewish only settlement.

The US diplomatic, monetary and military support for this 60+ year old occupation and denial of injustice was a major motivation for Osama.

Every year the US and Israel vote against this UNGA resolution while the rest of the whole world votes for a peaceful settlement (i.e. normalization of relations and recognition of Israel in return for a Palestinian state on 22% of original Palestine and a symbolic return of some refugees, some compensation for the rest of the refugees, which would give Israel the chance to preserve a Jewish majority rather than equal rights for all). https://www.google.com/search?q=peaceful+settlement+of+the+q...

http://unispal.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0/997AAD7178DBFD6685257995...

A/RES/66/17

26 January 2012

http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2008/ga10791.doc.htm

"The Assembly also adopted by a recorded vote of 164 in favour to 7 against ( Australia, Israel, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, United States), with 3 abstentions ( Cameroon, Canada, Tonga) (Annex IV), the resolution on the “Peaceful settlement of the question of Palestine”."

http://unispal.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0/cd358b22995a4b078525767e...

Peaceful settlement of the question of Palestine A/64/L.23 23 November 2009

http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/resolving-the-israel-palest...

Year

Vote

[Yes-No-Abstained]

Negative votes cast by… 2005

156-6-9

Israel, United States , Australia, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Palau

2006

157-7-10

Israel, United States , Australia, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau

2007

161-7-5

Israel, United States , Australia, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau

I understand his impetus, but not his actions. It would be foolish to expect his actions to promote the Islamist cause, and in hindsight they are the worst possible actions one could take to advance his cause. However, given his connections to western intelligence agencies I don't think that he was acting on the behalf of Islam.

Indeed, killing civilians is not an "Islamist" act, Islam prohibits the killing of non-combatants even during war, 9/11 was not even an official war. It didn't help the Palestinian cause nor did it help the Afghans or Iraqis who got killed after that (even though no Afghans nor Iraqis had anything to do with 9/11).

>I don't think that he was acting on the behalf of Islam.

His acts were as much about Islam as Vietnam war or any American President's mass-murders were about Christianity. The US was supporting Osama and buddies to kill USSR by proxy. The US was also supporting Iraq's Saddam in 1980s to get rid of Iranian regime (after 1979 when Iranians toppled the 1953 US-UK-installed puppet King), the US continues to support Saudi misogynists who present their fanatic views as Islamist, Obama supported Islamists in Libya (even supported some Al-CIAda terrorists who were on US terror list) and now they are supporting the so-called Islamists in Syria.

Responding to update glanch that his profile is probably marked as a spammer and all comments made by him are greyed out (he probably is seeing them ok.

Begin quote:

glanch 35 minutes ago | link [dead]

"Fell for it"?

It's easy to "fall for it" when you are in the position to make a LOT of money for that fall. Cheney. Halliburton. Exclusive government contracts. Sickening.

>I don't think OBL ever had it as an explicit aim to pull down US militarily or culturally transform US into a Islamic state

Actually, if you read his letters, he did state some of these as his goals, but more importantly, his advisor, Ayman al-Zawahiri, had this goal in mind, as it was made explicit in "The Shade of the Quran" by Sayyid Qatb who was Zawahiri's mentor in Egypt after they spent time in prison together.

"I was expecting more of a Intelligence based response where the CIA would hunt him down and kill him, instead of wasting trillions dollars."

You have to realize, while the money is wasted from the perspective of tax payers, it's a profit from the perspective of, say, weapons manufacturers (just taking those as an example).

Sure, they "wasted" money, that wasn't theirs, on things that enhanced their control. The time and resources of common people actually do get wasted, but other than that, the whole thing was and continues to be a success. Just don't lump a whole nation, the citizens and the policy makers, together. That can only lead to confusion. War is a racket, so is the war on terror - and if these fundamentalists didn't conveniently exist, others would have to be created.

"The War on Terror"

I wish that people would learn what "The War on Terror" really is.

The United States IS like other countries, including China, now and in the past.

In 2001 there was an event in the United States which was very similar to the 1933 Reichstag fire in Berlin. Very few people can accept that reality, so this comment will probably be buried.

I don't think people even know what a State is. The harsh truth is that the State is not your friend.

People are truly living in a make-believe fairy tale land.

Alternatively, if your post does get buried, it might be because you bald-faced assert that people who don't agree with you lack learning, can't accept reality, don't know what a state is, and are living in a make-believe fairy tale land.

In other words, "if you disagree, you're a big stoopid thicko". You're clearly not up for reasonable discussion, you're just soap-boxing.

Well, that and whining about the possibility of being buried, as some kind of reverse-psychology downmod defence.

You're right, that was an insulting way to put it. Sorry if I offended people unnecessarily.

I have made similar comments before, hoping for some type of discussion, and had my comment buried so that no one would even see it, which makes discussion impossible. So I was actually hoping that my comment would somehow remain visible.

This is really about what people believe, which isn't something you can reason about. You just can't reason someone into having different beliefs.

I think that for people to take on a radically different worldview usually requires some extraordinary circumstances, maybe some luck, and some type of emotional subconscious trigger.

Anyway, if you actually want to discuss it, which likely will go in circles since these are belief systems, what do you think a state is, or what the war on terror is?

Whoa!!! Hold on there a second:

"This is really about what people believe, which isn't something you can reason about."

I would hope that reason and logic take precedent over existing belief. At least among the somewhat rational subset of individuals that tend to lurk in these corners.

I think its possible for reason and logic to take precedent over existing belief, but like I said it takes extraordinary circumstances, no matter how rational you are.

That's just the nature of beliefs. They are default terminals in our reality comprehension frameworks. Not easily replaced.

I would hope that reason and logic take precedent over existing belief. At least among the somewhat rational subset of individuals that tend to lurk in these corners.

Depends on what you mean by "belief"/ Some things that people refer to as "beliefs" are probably more properly called "principles". And if two people disagree on fundamental principles, it's hard for them to reach any sort of agreement, even if they both use rational reasoning and logic. They're starting from different places, and trying to go to a different place, and overlap may be rare.

Take, for example, somebody with a utilitarian "what matters most is the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people" view, vs. an individualist anarchist whose fundamental principle is "no one should use force or fraud to force someone to do something against their will."

On many issues, those two people just aren't going to be able to agree on much, even if they both use logically sound arguments.

Also, on a different note, there is research out there (I don't have citations at my fingertips, sorry) suggesting that it's pretty rare for people to change deeply held beliefs, even when confronted with overwhelming evidence. It seems to be a facet of human nature that we don't change beliefs very easily.

You neglected to add those all important words "wake up sheeple".

You're making extraordinary claims regarding the parallels with the Reichtag fire. I won't ask for extraordinary evidence, just reasonable evidence.

You're making extraordinary claims regarding the parallels with the Reichtag fire. I won't ask for extraordinary evidence, just reasonable evidence.

The part I don't get is why it seems to matter so much whether 9/11 was an unexpected attack or a planned conspiracy, or whether it was anticipated but not orchestrated by the government. The effect is all that matters, and the effect was, in fact, exactly the same as the Reichstag fire... which is itself not universally agreed to have been sanctioned by the Nazis.

> The part I don't get is why it seems to matter so much

Oh, may be to start doing something to stop such horrible things from happening again. No?

But the acts perpetrated by the US in retaliation for 9/11 were far worse than the act itself. That would still be true regardless of whether or not the tinfoil-hat brigade is right.

It wsnt the NSDAP that set the fire it was a lone wolf (who was unfortuatly sufering from metal health issues).

Some Nazis on the night where terifed that it was the start of a counter revolution from the left - read Alex Kershaws Bio of Hitler.

> the effect was, in fact, exactly the same as the Reichstag fire...

Really? Exactly the same? Socialists taking over and dismantling democracy?

I'm not a historian, but my understanding is that within the context of the Nazi's rise to power, they were actually a right wing party.

> I won't ask for extraordinary evidence, just reasonable evidence.

You may want to start with the part 2 of the very questionable zeitgeist movie, not claiming anything. It may be fruitful to assume that what you believe in is not true (no matter what) and try to look at it with a different angle.

How about 1500+ experts including Registered Architects, Structural Engineers, Scientists, etc who are willing to go on camera and agree that there is no way the official story 9/11 is possible. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBCu_pvhnzQ

OK, I haven't personally checked into every one these guys, but every time I've seen a list like this, when anyone has bothered to actually check credentials on the people listed, it's turned out that they were either specialists in totally unrelated fields with little knowledge of building construction and collapse, or they were "professors" at Devry Institute or University of Phoenix, or they were total quacks, or they specialized in building stick built wood-frame construction single-family homes, which have almost nothing in common with skyscrapers, etc., etc., etc.

OTOH, I was a firefighter for a decade or so in the 1990's, and we spent a lot of time studying building collapse, because collapsing buildings are one of the biggest threats to firefighter health & safety on the fireground... and everything I saw on TV on the morning of 9/11 was 100% consistent with what we were taught about how and why buildings collapse.

So color me extremely skeptical of any of this "9/11 conspiracy" stuff, at least as far as the details about the tower collapse.

Here is a list of all of Architects/Engineers. They each include credentials, license numbers, etc. The list if overwhelming. Graduates (and professors) from top schools in the country are included. http://www2.ae911truth.org/signpetition.php

I am not an expert and I have no idea what actually happened on 9/11. It is up to each of us to form an opinion using the evidence that we have available.

"It is up to each of us to form an opinion using the evidence that we have available."

This sounds noble, but in fact it is the way of madness.

Information does not stand on its own. Without the right background knowledge and experience you cannot assign any level of certainty to a deduction you make from a piece of information.

Just because you are capable of interpreting some of the information and forming reasonable deductions from those pieces does not mean you have an accurate holistic assessment. Your ignorance of the entire picture, while unintentional, will invariably lead you to make incorrect assumptions about the pieces you have not considered or do not understand.

An informed populace is, on the whole, a good thing, but the adage "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing" still rings true. You simply have to accept that you will not, in your lifetime, be able to understand absolutely everything that anybody knows (never mind all that there is to know), and that you must cede your opinions about such matters to those who do, and if there is reasonable dissent, then you will have to reserve judgment altogether.

Ceding your opinions to those who "know" requires first identifying them as such. So yeah, it may sound smart to the layman, but that was just a bunch of pointless sophistry and FUD. Moving on...

Pointless sophistry? To which your counterargument is "moving on..."?

Yes, of course you have to identify the "experts" in order to know what their perspective is. In this case, the vast majority of knowledgeable people have settled around the consensus that the "official" explanation (two planes crashed into the WTC) is indeed plausible.

But you ignored my second point entirely: if there is (reasonable) dissent, then you can't just pick one side and say they're correct. In fact, by not knowing the underlying science, you can't even participate in the debate. So there's no point in saying "a bunch of engineers and architects have signed their names to this paper saying it's all a conspiracy" when you have no idea why that's the truth (if it were).

Finally, spreading uncertainty and doubt (what about what I said is spreading fear?) is a good thing where false certainty and false wisdom prevail.

"Yes, of course you have to identify the "experts" in order to know what their perspective is. In this case, the vast majority of knowledgeable people have settled around the consensus that the "official" explanation (two planes crashed into the WTC) is indeed plausible."

See? That's sophistry. Instead of explaining (or rather, thinking about) how one would identify knowledgeable people, you skip to what they are allegedly saying. Also, citation needed.

"In fact, by not knowing the underlying science, you can't even participate in the debate."

But here's the thing, I do, and I do have eyes. So I'm all up for the debate, but it's mostly hand-waving like you just did. 9/11 was stonewalled and swept under the rug. I payed attention back then and nothing new came up since then, you didn't post anything either.

"what about what I said is spreading fear?"

You cannot possibly know everything, better ask the experts. (Who are the experts? Ask the expert experts?)

I am not a qualified (knowledgeable in relevant disciplines, formally tested, fairly competent) engineer. I can:

1. Defer to the majority opinion of qualified engineers, if one exists.

2. Hold no opinion whatsoever.

3. Become a qualified engineer.

I am currently doing (1) because I believe a majority opinion exists and that opinion is "airplanes hit the WTC on 9/11". If that is not true, then I would accept evidence to the contrary (high statistical confidence, random sample, repeated by multiple sources).

I could do (2), which would be perfectly legitimate, but I do not feel it is necessary (I am not aware of any dispute among even a sizable minority--I define sizable here to be at least a third who either disagree or are uncertain).

In order for me to do (3), I would need to take a few years off work and study engineering full time. Even then, I may not have what it takes to become a qualified engineer. Unless you are willing to pay for this option, you can't fault me for it. I am not pretending to be an engineer.

We live in a world of finite possibilities. I am no more demanding that you should understand advanced mathematics (what I know most about) than you should demand I understand civil engineering and materials science. I would expect you to accept a consensus of mathematicians on such matters, just as I've accepted (what I believe to be) the consensus of engineers.

That's what I like to call living in the realities of an imperfect world.

1500 is a meaningless number without knowing how many are on the otherside. If 1500 represents 1% of qualified expert opinion, then it's not very convincing.

You're making extraordinary claims regarding the parallels with the Reichtag fire. I won't ask for extraordinary evidence, just reasonable evidence.

Evidence of what, exactly? Comparing 9/11 to the Reichstag fire is an analogy, and - to anyone familiar with the history of both - the analogy seems to fit. No, the outcome here hasn't (yet) been as dramatic as electing a Hitler and establishing a Nazi empire. But the generalized point of "dramatic event seen as attack on country is used to justify expansion of government power, new limitations on civil liberties, etc." seems to clearly be common to both situations, no?

> If this is true doesn't it mean that Bin Laden won the war on terror?

Not exactly: http://www.reddit.com/r/WTF/comments/wcpls/this_i_my_friends...

It was pretty quickly concluded that that guy was straight out bullshitting.

The quotes are from OBL's videos that he made and leaked out to mainly Al Jazeera. They were made after all of this made happened, and OBL obviously knew to read the papers and know how to make good propaganda.

Be sceptics, fokes!

Actually those quotes reflect the same sentiments that I recall were expressed in an interview with OBL that either Time or Newsweek published prior to 9/11. I wish I could find a definite pointer to that issue, to check my recollection.

As a rule, most of history's bad actors -- Hitler, Lenin, bin Laden, G. W. Bush (via PNAC), and others -- have telegraphed exactly what they intend to do, years beforehand. Is it really their fault when nobody cares?

Hardly. Bin Laden's aim was to end the "corrupting influence" of the western world on the Islamic world, and to achieve that by getting the US and other western powers to withdraw from military, economic, and cultural interaction with the Islamic world.

As far as what happened within the western world, whether it destroyed itself or continued on in some aspect, he didn't much care (at least in the short-term, in the long-term I'm sure he believed that the whole world would be under the power of a new Caliphate).

What I think it actually means is this:

It has given the United States an excuse to do that they are doing to its people.

The whole system is based upon fear, which is exactly what the so called "terrorists" wanted to do.

The government(s) of this world don't particularly enjoy the thought of its population having to ability to think for themselves. How can they (temporarily) suspend this? Fear.

The U.S (or the West) did not change its politics in the Middle-East and is still not an Islamic country so I don't think Bin Laden won.

Now maybe the U.S citizens lost ...

It's true that the US hasn't changed its Middle-East policies (although I'd argue that's the only way to eradicate Islamic terrorism), but it's important to note that bin Laden did not target the US due to its secularism, but for its foreign policy. He even said that if he wanted to attack a country just for being secular, he'd have attacked Sweden.

I don't think Bin Laden ever wanted to "convert" his "enemies", but rather to destroy or frighten them.

Considering the amount of money thrown into the Afghan pit (which still is a factor affecting the ability of Western countries to sustain periods of economic turmoil, and even to replenish their own arsenals -- see UK defence cuts) and the hysteric approach to public spaces since 2001, I'd say he's been fairly successful in his endeavours.

Which is not that surprising, to be fair. After all, he was originally trained by the CIA, and was backed by Saudi money and the Pakistani military.

Why do you think that the ultimate goal of Bin Laden was to increase surveillance in the US and to annoy travelers at airports?

This and the other comments refer to "battles" in the war on terror, if you will.

I'm not sure it's how OBL planned but it does kind of look like he might have been happy with our trajectory.

Only if you buy into "because they hate our freedom". In reality OBL couldn't care less about US domestic civil rights and liberties. He cared about US presence in the middle east and support for Israel.

The "the terrorists have won"-notion is based on the viewpoint that terrorists are just evil and want "bad things" to happen to their enemies. So whatever unpleasant consequence for you means that the terrorists have won. In reality, terrorists have specific agendas and goals. None of OBL's goals have been achieved, so he didn't win. If anybody won it was the NSA, DHS etc.

If you believe that the US spending isn't infinite, then spending on this helps aid his cause. Eventually, the spending shuts off and the US pulls out, right? We're talking about healthcare spending vs. military spending at some point. Other than shipping lanes and some oil supplies, all other middle east presence seems optional.

This NSA database has to cost a lot and a) they aren't supposed to admit it to the American people and b) they aren't supposed to even use it. Under what circumstances does it become useful?

If US pulls out of Iraq and Afganistan (not even leaving bases), then we are just back to pre-9/11 status. Only if US furthermore pulls fully out of the middle east, including cutting support to Israel, then OBL have achieved a goal. This is very unlikely to happen.

Sure, NSA is expensive, but come on, it is not going to bankrupt the US to the extend they have to give up strategic influence in the middle east!

Again, OBL does not care about US healthcare spending. That something is bad for ordinary americans does not mean that it further the terrorists agenda.

I read most "the terrorists have won" arguments as in-kind rebuttals of the silly "because they hate our freedom" rhetoric used to defend the War on Terror. In other words, I see those arguments like this: if terrorists really are exactly as we're told, and they just hate us and want to hurt us, then they've accomplished that goal.

Bin Laden's aim was to push the US into a war that would bankrupt them. I'd call that mission accomplished.

Importantly, to remove their presence out of the middle east and change their foreign policy. This is not happening though so not accomplished.

According to the document referenced on the al-qaeda wikipedia page (which, you know, may or may not be accurate), their goals stretched all the way out to 2020. They didn't intend for the US to change its policies or willingly withdraw, they intended for it to slowly destroy its own economy to the point of collapsing entirely (like the USSR).

Well, they are backing out of the middle east now that the popularity of the wars has plummeted. (Albeit withdrawing the army and leaving private contractors in place, but they are still slowly withdrawing)

there was an interesting discussion on this on reddit -

"technically Osama bin Laden himself stated that 9/11 was to wake up the american people, to commit an act so harsh towards actual Americans, that they would say "why me" and then research the situation.."

Poster then links to the source quotes from Osama where he explains his motives and reasons. Interesting read, if only for the direct quotes, which are pretty essential for this discussion. Until he linked it, I never realized how strange it was that these discussions happen all the time, without many people actually being able to pull up the source material.

Link to source: http://www.reddit.com/r/WTF/comments/wcpls/this_i_my_friends...

Bin Laden said he wanted to bankrupt the US by drawing them into quagmires, I think he won on that front as well.

Incorrect, you can take drinks on the plane. I call them "Freedom Cokes" and "Freedom Water." As long as you buy them on the other side of the TSA, you can take Cokes on planes. Sure, the Cokes probably came from the same truck as your local gas station, but that doesn't matter.

> If this is true doesn't it mean that Bin Laden won the war on terror?

in all fairness, it's not like the American people put up much of a fight ...

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