Did the terrorists achieve their goals?

Great Debates
21

I cannot possibly imagine what they could have done to cause more damage. Perhaps destroy the WTC simultaneously so that no one could get out? Hit the Empire State building instead of the Pentagon? I think they got the maximum amount of damage for their punch. Yes, they were looking for a statement, but this is one of the single most devastating attacks in history, in or out of wartime. Sure we levelled Dresden, sure Hiroshima and Nagasaki were pretty bad too, but this did a huge amount more damage to the US as a whole than Pearl Harbor did, and the other things I mentioned were during wartime where the goal was to level the said areas. America was almost on it’s knees after these attacks.

Erek

22

RTFirefly – All right, if you’re not happy with the murderer/suicide comparison, then consider the organized serial killer. The organized serial killer often “spends years carefully plotting and preparing for the moment” and also typically has a desire for self-aggrandizement. The majority of serial killers aren’t as clever as the ones in the movies, but some of the organized ones are. Serial killers also often have elaborate rationalizations that “explain” their actions. Many organized serial killers want their victims to be found so that the world can admire their handiwork.

What the modern terrorist has in common with both the murderer/suicide and the serial killer is a narcissistic need to brutally assert himself. Rationalizations are secondary, while the need for recognition is primary: look at me, look at me, look at me.

And we look. We can’t help but look. So the killer wins every single time, in his terms.

Yet his terms are not our terms. Looking on in horror may grant the killer recognition, but the sane person realizes what the killer cannot: recognition is not approval.

23

Wow this is the best thread I have read by far.

Especially the posts by Elucidator, Phobos, Whack-a-Mole and the OP RTFirefly.

I have found myself kind of feeling about this situation, how these posts have so eloquently described, but I kind of lost myself in my emotional reaction to the emotional reactions, I’ve been seeing back home. When it first happened I had a few days of clarity unlike I have had in a long time, but the fact that I focused on this almost exclusively I think it clouded my judgement. I’ve even been listening to music that fits the current situation. So I am glad to see this thread that very eloquently and rationally addresses that which I’ve been twisting myself in knots for and coming across as irrational half the time.

Anyhow, with that said, I think that Al Qaeda is a thing of beauty and majesty. Now before you all jump on me and I get this thread moved to the Pit let me explain that I think this in the, “This explosion is one of the most beautiful sights ever seen by man.”, sense. I think it is beautiful and majestic in the sheer destructive capability of it all. This was crafted by a group of artists, whose genius is hardly ever paralleled throughout history, and we are gladly waltzing into their hands as a people because, while I don’t know who’s who in Washington necessarily, but I think they are being truly underestimated in their Machiavellian game.

I think the Art of War should be shoved down the throats of all of our leaders. If you know your enemy and know yourself then you can achieve victory. It does not seem to me that this country knows itself, nor knows it’s enemy. Our enemy is an insane unthinking monster…wrong. He is neither insane nor unthinking, he is brilliant, or they are brilliant. They know what they are trying to accomplish, and it seems that they know their enemy, US, better than we know our enemy, them. They knew where to hit us, they knew how to hit us, and they knew how to make a profit off of it. There is no insanity, there is no unthinking creature. There is a cold calculating malevolent being that makes up this terrorist organization, and until we recognize that, they will win, and I think that requires a fundamental shift on our part as a society. I think that they know EXACTLY who they are, and they know EXACTLY who we are. While many of us in this discussion have given more thought to the middle east, our policy there and the existance of Osama bin Laden before the last two weeks, 95% of Americans have not, and this is represented by our leaders as well, IMO.

I think it’s time to stop using words such as evil, stop apologizing for not thinking these people are cowards, insane, evil, animals, madmen, whatever buzzword is applicable and start to look at them with our minds and be as calculating as they are. We need to see these people as they truly are, and not as we paint them, or they will win many more battles in the path ahead.

A quote that has stuck with me for a long time and has been going through my head as I’ve been reading about Al Qaeda is this from the movie Backdraft from Robert DeNiro about fighting fire, “It’s a thing of beauty, to truly beat it you have to love it a little.”, and I think that applies to the enemy we have now. We need to listen to Sun Tzu and realize that our enemy is not small potatoes, that it is the first real threat to the United States since the Soviet Union, and we have to act accordingly, with cunning, and without sacrificing that which makes our society what it is. As I said before, we need to stop thinking in buzzwords, or soundbites as someone else said. It’s time to start thinking of them as they are, and not as how it would best help us emotionally to think of them.

Then, and only then will we truly be able to annihilate them. The only action I am willing to support so far that has been proposed is the lifting of our assassination rules. It’s time to start taking people out, because it is individuals that are attacking us, not nations, no matter how closely aligned hte governments of those nations may be to our killers.

Erek

24

I think in this act the belief came before the act.

Erek

25

I am definitely not trying to suggest that the terrorists are blind, unthinking demons. I do, however, think that they’re insane, because their alleged goal is not rationally connected to their means. Saying someone is insane is not the same as saying they are unthinking. Serial killers are, by any common* definition, insane, and yet many are capable of planning in detail.

I wouldn’t describe the terrorists as brilliant. It didn’t take genius to pull off the WTC attack. What it took was planning, a supply of people who were willing to die for their cause, and a whole lot of patience. If you have those things, then sooner or later you will be able to kill a large number of unsuspecting victims. (One thing we forget, mesmerised by the recent “success,” is how many many terrorist plots go awry. The first WTC attack, the millenium plots, the Paris plane hijacking, the planned attack on the EU Parliament–it took a lot of tries to finally pull it off.)

Open societies just aren’t very good at catching moderately clever people who wish us ill. Serial killers aren’t the hardest killers to catch because they are brilliant Dr. Moriartys who think ten steps ahead of the police. They’re hard to catch because they kill unsuspecting strangers, and take rudimentary precautions to avoid capture. That’s really all it takes in a mobile, impersonal society.

We need to know our enemy, but that’s no reason to believe our enemy. There are millions of people who believe in some form fundamentalist Islam, but only a small number of fundamentalists believe that a bloody jihad against the West is inevitable. And of that small number, only a handful are actually willing give up their lives to bring the apocalypse about. To understand that handful, I think we need to move beyond the terrorists’s tracts and press releases (which frankly encourage us to think of them as brilliant supervillains), and look deeper into their souls.

*Serial killers aren’t insane in the legal sense of the term because they try to avoid capture.

26

To Wumpus,

I would tend to disagree, I think you are trying to oversimplify. Being a terrorist does not make one brilliant. Being THESE terrorists is what says they are brilliant. Planning an attack of this magnitude, pulling it off, and turning a profit, implies brilliance to me. I think insanity is a misnomer because, while to you and me their means aren’t all that kosher, but to them they make complete sense, and not to just one or two people, I think that calling someone’s actions insane because they don’t think like you, or even like your society, is kind of oversimplified. I think these people have a reason that is perfectly logical and reasonable within the context of their experience. I do not think they are killing Americans through some deepseated need to kill, I think they truly believe in their cause, which I would not qualify as insanity.

In my mind paying $120 for a pair of nike’s when you can get equally comfortable, sometimes more durable, and similar looking shoes for 60 bucks when you know that your nike’s were made by a 12 year old in Malaysia during his 13th hour that day after his second meal of gruel, is kind of insane. In fact I think that the people who have perpetrated this violence against us have given A LOT more coherent thought as to why they are doing it, than the person who thinks they MUST have Nike’s. This applies to the leadership not necessarily the soldiers.

Erek

27

Why, instead of leaving their goals to be somehow conjured in the minds of confused Americans, didn’t the terrorists leave a manifesto, suicide note, or calling card? Why hasn’t anyone claimed responsibility?
Is it possible the terrorists aren’t interested in modifying America’s behavior but instead want to destroy us as much as they possibly can?
The anonymity of the enemy gives me the creeps.

28

Yeah, I agree wholeheartedly with that one. It made me think it WASN’T bin Laden until I heard that bin Laden often does not take credit. I think that whoever did it probably does not have as much of a national interest and a much farther reaching goal in mind. The sheer magnitude of it makes it different from most terrorist actions and htat is most likely why there has been no claim to it.

Erek

29

That, I believe, is the second level of the psychology of the attacks. If Bin Laden claimed responsibility then we could be focused on him as the rogue asshole responsible. But as long as he doesn’t, the doubt that it was him is still alive. Which provides the uncertianty that he hopes will provide in wide U.S. retaliation against Islam in general, and will help him devide the world.
The part that is truly ironic,at least if my guess is right,is that while the Taliban is protecting Bin Laden, he is using that protection to try and goad the U.S. into destroying Afganistan to further his ideals.

30

damn fine thread, folks! this is the best kept secret on the boards! keep up the good work, i am enjoying the reading. i dont agree with all of it, but the arguements are well put and thought out. good job!

here is my meager contribution:

i cant even imagine what “they” thought they would accomplish. i am too ethnocentric and ignorant of thier culture/religion to even grasp what they are thinking. i can only say that the impact has been enormous, even stupifying and almost beyond comprehension, in lives lost, property destruction and economic damage now and in the future. un-fucking-believable! i don’t think i will ever forget the sight of those planes hitting the towers or the towers falling down.

i said it before, and i’ll say it again: fuck bin laden

31

Yeah, it kind of seems like when Churchill allowed Coventry to be bombed so as not to give the Germans an idea that they had broken their code. While, I don’t think anything about the current conflict is as noble a goal as Churchill’s I thought that would be a good comparison.

Erek

32

Actually, I think many Wall Streeters tend to be the arrive early-leave late type. Often at their desks by 8:30.

Not that the terrorists were necesarily thinking about anyone’s work habits. If they wanted to hijack sparsly populated planes, maybe they needed to pick early-am flights? (Presumably, if you want to pull off a hijacking with knives and boxcutters, you want as few people on the plane as possible.)

And as it worked out, if you worked in or near the WTC, you emerged into peril if you arrived via subway or Path train at 9:00 or 9:15.

33

I think they achieved more than they wanted to. The worker-bees among them may have been jumping up and down in glee when the towers fell. But any leader with a brain (assuming they have a brain) would have felt his stomach knot up when the towers came down.

Their mission was obviously to hit us on our own soil, prove to us that we’re not safe just because we’re half way around the world from them. They hit an obvious target of our prosperity, then hit the military at its very heart. They timed the attacks on WTC so the eyes of the media would be on the towers when the second plane hit. Specifically so we could all see on live television that it was an intentional attack, not an accident.

I don’t think anyone realistically expected the towers to come down. Even watching them engulfed in flame I expected to see burned out skeletons but not a pile of rubble.

When the towers came down it insured a hard response on our part. It brought the death toll into the thousands, at first potentially tens of thousands. If massive death had been their goal they would have hit the towers a couple hours later in the morning, and both at the same time. And they wouldn’t have wasted a plane on “symbolic” targets like the pentagon, they would have hit the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta. Lots of nasty bugs stored there.

The plane which was being diverted to Washington could have more easily been diverted to Chicago to hit the Sears Tower.

I think their goal was obviously fear, which they got, but they didn’t intend such a massive degree of destruction that we would unite to prevent it and target the one government which openly protects them. Any sane leader (again making an assumption with the “sane” remark) would have seen his own doom sealed when the towers came down.

It’s like hitting someone to hurt them, but accidentally killing them instead. You go from an assault charge to a murder rap, and the authorities take a much stronger approach to tracking you down.

34

Excellent debate, RTFirefly
Bin Ladin has himself spoken in interview many times about what he perceives to be his short and medium term goals on behalf of Islam and the Arabs (US presence in Saudi – the home of the two Holy Shrines – and the Arabian Peninsula, Israel-Palestine, the Iraqi No-Fly zone, Bosnia, the Beirut camps massacres, etc.)
However, I wanted to point to two additional objectives/consequences of 9/11.

One

What is, perhaps, interesting is how other Muslims and Arabs interpret Bin Ladin’s objectives (as seen in his actions like the WTC/Pentagon attacks) to suit their agenda’s – like any action, others take what they want from it.

Reading the Arab/Muslim press and listening to the voices coming out of both the Intellectual elite and the educated classes, I believe it is quite apparent that as the response to 9/11 matures, the events themselves have acted to focus and even define the previously latent consensus against US Foreign Policy.

For example, one of the tactics employed by the US has been, traditionally, to ‘divide and conquer’ Arab/Islamic nations individually (one deal with Saudi, another with Egypt, another with Pakistan, etc.) with the result that much Arab/Muslim energy has been employed on inter-nation bickering, distrust and non-communication. Thus, Arab/Muslim voices have been deeply divided and disparate - 9/11 could, perhaps, be seem to have opened cross-border debate on the ‘Big Picture’, something that has been absent for decades.

In short, 9/11 appears to have bridged the pettiness of Aran/Muslim national politics in a way hitherto unimagined (if the phone lines between DC and London/etc seem busy right now, they are certainly mirrored throughout the Middle-East) and to no small extent restored a sense of common objective, perhaps even confidence in facing down US Policy – the very thing the CYA and others have been working to avoid for 30 plus years.

Two

Another less acknowledged effect of 9/11 is to signal to everyone (but especially the West) the fact that extremism is no longer the sole preserve of uneducated, state-less, fundamentalist, easily manipulated and nothing-to-lose youth – thus far the photokit ID of any Arab/Muslim terrorist.

These terrorists were of the educated middle classes. Men with families, post-Grad qualifications and (presumably) rich lives ahead of them.

If these people – all be them the extreme - are now actively signing up to a Bin Ladin type agenda (as opposed to non-participatory support) , we are in a different ball game and it is time to take note – (the beginning of) radicalisation of the middle classes in any society signals, IMHO, the end of the beginning of dissent (example: US Policy in Vietnam).

It’s also interesting that Egypt, probably the most democratic of Arab nations and therefore a probable fair weather indicator – one in which political rhetoric must take account of popular opinion – has been nearly silent on 9/11. Nor is, as far as I’m aware, is any support to be forthcoming. That should also tell us something about where grassroots (voting) opinion lies.
I believe those two aspects also constitute Bin Ladin getting part of “what he wants” (the OP) in so far as they feed into his ultimate goal, pressure from both within the US and internationally for a reconsideration of US Foreign Policy methods and objectives.

35

…but y’all have been doing fine without me, so I don’t feel at all guilty.

Still, it’s definitely time to come back and say that events, and more info about bin Laden’s agenda, have proved me wrong.

While it’s hard to argue against the idea that bin Laden wanted to show that America wasn’t beyond his reach - that he was capable of reaching out and doing serious hurt to us - it’s pretty clear now that he’s got a deeper agenda. His ultimate goal - at least as far as we’re concerned - seems to be expulsion of the US from the entire Middle East. And the means? Apparently the hope that we’d retaliate in a way that got the leaders of the other Islamic countries mad at us, rather than at him.

If that reportage is accurate, it’s a good thing we didn’t “invade their countries, kill their leaders, and convert them to Christianity,” in Ann Coulter’s stunning phrase. Kudos to Bush and his team. [sub]Did I actually say that?![/sub]