There have been a lot of news stories recently about the 9/11 attack. Each September there is a flurry of stories that come out trying to look at it from a different angle.
From reading the stories and watching the TV shows they usually say that OBL was hoping that such a massive attack would somehow destabilize our economy and perhaps frighten us from mounting a counter attack. And even though the attack caused more death and destruction than he could have ever imagined, it certainly didn’t weaken our resolve to see that justice was done.
It turned out the US economy did not collapse, although there was a measurable impact on industries such as the airline industry and travel in general.
What OBL did create was a very real unease about moving about the country with the thought that another attack could be imminent, but since any other attacks were thwarted that sense of insecurity slow disappeared over time.
So what exactly did OBL think would happen if his attack on the WTC was successful?
Did he expect American Muslims to rise up against the government and bring it down?
Did he expect non-Muslim Americans to side with him and attack the government on his behalf?
Did he expect to scare Americans so badly that we would leave him alone in Afghanistan to freely attack other western nations?
Did he expect to destroy the US economy by taking out 3,000 people and our 2 largest buildings?
I’m trying to figure out if he was stupid to think we wouldn’t fight back, or was too arrogant to think that the world wouldn’t rally behind him. Or was it simply a suicide mission to show how bad ass he was to his followers?
Does anyone know what he was thinking was the likely outcome of the 9/11 attack?
I realize that one of his goals was to hit either the Capitol Building or the White House, I don’t think we know exactly which one. But I don’t think that would have changed the outcome if he had been able to do that. We still would have launched a massive attack on wherever we thought he was at the time.
One of the key points about terrorism is often overlooked in the rush to try and “make sense” of attacks as if they have military purpose and meaning. They very often do not. Clearly, there is NO military value in attacking two skyscrapers full of offices.
Terrorism’s primary goal is almost always to provoke the government to over-react, oppress more of their own people, and thus provoke a large-scale revolt that is more or less in step with whatever the terrorists want to achieve. This secondary revolution does not have to have anything in common with the terrorists’ beliefs or aims for it to be effective.
In theory, at least. I don’t know of a single case of any scale where a terrorist act had this result, although you could make a good and not entirely cynical case that on that level, OBL won. We are unquestionably “more oppressed” under the Patriot Act and all its kittens than we were in August 2001, and it has every sign of being a self-perpetuating and continually stronger oppression.
I think we sometimes overestimate the intelligence or logic or individuals who commit notorious acts. Steve Coll’s excellent book on the BL family describes OBL (based on interviews with individuals close to the family) as a deeply religious individual who at times appeared naive and easily persuaded by others. OBL was a high school graduate who happened to inherit a significant amount of money after his brother Salem’s unexpected death. This inheritance (and his ability to bring in donations during fight against the Russian occupation of Afghanistan) was one of the main reasons he attained a leadership role. He wasn’t necessarily a strategic genius.
As I remember it, ObL was pissed off that infidels had military bases in Saudi Arabia. After we didn’t leave after the Gulf War, he wanted to show his displeasure.
You need to understand something about the Arab mindset- time means next to nothing, and memories are infinite. To al Qaeda, it’s a long war. I mean a loooooooong war…they’ve been fighting it for 1,400 years and don’t plan to win it for another 1,000. Reestablishing the caliphate is a such a long-term goal that Westerners have a hard time comprehending the psychology of Wahabi terror groups.
So if you’re trying to interpret 9/11 as somehow intent on causing an uprising in this generation, you’re not going to succeed.
I believe his message was “The Great Satan”, the U.S. could be struck. His intended audience, mostly Arabs in the Middle East, could now see that the U.S. homeland was vulnerable to attack, not just things like the barracks in Beirut or the Khobar Towers. I also believe that OBL thought he could drive a wedge between the House of Saud and the US government, hence the use of Saudi Nationals as hijackers. I think he expected to be welcomed home to S.A. as a hero. I hope he was expecting to be invited home when we shot him.
I interpreted the attacks as an end in themselves rather than a means to anything in particular.
That is, hurt America as much as possible. Strike out against capitalism.
I would think that he was satisfied with the accomplishment.
AFAIK there is no indication that OBL made statements indicating that he had any aversion towards capitalism. In fact, his family’s wealth stemmed from the construction business started by his father, and the Bin Laden companies are heavily involved in international business.
I think his plan was to show that he could strike the United States and get away with it. To a certain extent he succeeded - the attack was in 2001 and he was still around in 2011. He probably hoped this would serve as an inspiration to other terrorists.
The Caliphate has been disrupted for 1,263 years, not 1,400. (For that matter, “a” Caliphate was only founded 1,381 years ago, and did not rise to become a truly established power until 1,352 years ago. There has never been a continuous core of adherents throughout those 1,263 years who have been “fighting” to restore the Caliphate. Rather, the Caliphate is a religious goal that picks up political adherents, from time to time, (each “re-establishing” a Caliphate that fails to be recognized by other Muslims), and then loses them when their current leaders burn out or attain more localized goals.
The Wahhabists might be longing for the Caliphate, but they are barely 200 years old and they only got onto the political bandwagon regarding the Caliphate a bit over a century ago.
Your original claim about an “Arab” mindset is also a bit odd, propagating a stereotype that has no serous basis in reality.
I believe he was hoping to build on the lesson of Vietnam - hurt them badly enough, often enough, inflict enough casualties, and the Americans will back away from the fight like they did there and pretty much since. (Remember Lebanon? Blow up over 200 marines and everyone starts asking “why are we there?”)
What he misread was that foreign adventures that seem to be a waste of time without a chance of winning, are what discourage Americans. Sticking it to them on their own soil has the complete opposite effect. The Taliban probably have figured out the strategy better… and might eventually win. The Palestinians figured out many years ago, not long after Munich, that terror against targets in Europe and America was counter-productive.
However, don’t give Osama too much credit for thinking out his strategy deeply or all the way through. I suspect he was winging it from one provocation to the next.
I assume you’re talking about govt surveillance. But the thing there is, I’ve been driven to use VPN’s and strong encryption not to hide myself from the black helicopters but from the RIAA and MPAA. If I feel oppressed, it’s not because of anything OBL or BHO has done but because of some of the bullshit those assholes are constantly trying to pull.
He surely considered the possibility that we’d back down and leave him in peace, but he was willing to take that risk. It’s not at all what he was hoping for. What he was hoping for was that we’d lash out in blind rage and start a massive war of the West vs. Islam. And he got pretty close to just that.
There is no conclusive evidence that he earned a degree. On the other hand, there are interviews where Abdullah Azzam’s widow described OBL a high school graduate and “not a very educated man.”