Or would it be different at all? Could anyone in the upcoming events have been killed, with their likely replacement likely to handle things differently? Or would the only changes be a higher body count and slightly different press releases/history books?
There’d be a feel good heroic movie and a country song that didn’t get made, the phrase “Let’s roll” would not have had its fifteen minutes of fame, and the higher body count/slightly different minor details in the history books, but otherwise no real difference.
It would have made it less of a NYC thing and more of a national one. I know the Pentagon was hit, but it was not as dramatic as the WTC or as a hit on the Capitol would have been. Somehow I think we would have been more “at war”. Maybe it would have led to more of a focus on Al Qaueda and less on Iraq.
The presumed 4th target, AFAIK, was the Capitol. And Congress was in session on that crystal-clear morning.
If we had ended that day with just fragments remaining of a legislative branch, things could have been far, far worse than they were. With respect to anything having to do with national security, Bush and Cheney could have pretty much ruled by fiat. Lord knows it was bad enough as it was, but imagine no restraints at all.
What did they want to do that the surviving Congress prevented?
Not by the time the plane would have made it there. The Capitol was evacuated 20 minutes before Flight 93 even crashed in Pennsylvania.
From the thread title I was imagining something like an intersection of the fourth dimension or something with our three-dimensional world. The title isn’t very descriptive. (Yes, I know that’s not how dimensions work.)
I thought the last target was the White House. Nobody of real political importance was there at the time.
Some were in the bunker at the time I think, but the a plane couldn’t damage that right?
Alternatively, imagine the third plane hits the Capitol, and leaves the Pentagon for the fourth plane. We can’t know what the pilot of the third plane had in mind since he killed himself along with a bunch of other people, but he went past the Pentagon and then came back.
That doesn’t fit the letter of the OP, but I’d say it’s in the general spirit of the inquiry.
So what if the hijackings had been better coordinated time-wise or even took out the Capitol before the WTC?
I’ll always wonder if there were a fifth, sixth, or seventh plane. Once the hijackers realized the gig was up, they could have just cancelled their plans.
Weren’t the actual cockpit raids done at roughly the same time? Yes, it took longer to get the Pentagon plane and Flight 93 to where they ended up, but the cockpits had already been taken before that, obviously. I’d imagine that any additional planes would have been taken over already, and none were. It’s tough to walk back a raid on the cockpit and dead flight crew when it looks like things have gone bad.
That’s my take, too. It seems to me that there were only four planes because that’s all the hijacking crews that they had at their disposal. I’m guessing the reason there were only four crews was because they only had four guys who could steer a passenger jet. The muscle guys are a dime a dozen, they’ve probably got hundreds of them that could have overpowered a flight crew. If there was a 5th hijacking crew, it’s doubtful they would have known about the success or failure of the other crews and would have proceeded as planned.
Had the fourth plane struck it would have been America’s Waterloo and not America’s Pearl Harbor as it turned out.
There was so many accounts of heroism by passengers of 93 nearly daily for months and years including that movie that the American people were stirred from their somnambulism to act. Such an outcry arose spurring some wanting to retaliate in vengeance and some just to clean up the mess left by the namby pamby Clintons. It showed that America could fight back and win. That heroism still reverberating was what carried Bush to his second term despite the efforts by the democrates to nullify votes from military service personal and intimidation at the voting booths. Knowing that you can take a fight to the enemy and win puts more backbone in a person than any other motivation. The battle cry was akin to Pearl Harbor and 93 will live in infamy.
Had the symbol of America, the capitol building, probably the most photographed edifice in America been destroyed and the full plan been 100% successful a wave of disheartenment and sense of failure would have swept the nation and of course Hollywood would have spewed some crap like “Birth of a Nation” to highlight America’s failures in hopes of striking a common chord for ticket sales which as with “Birth of Nation” would have unleashed putrid racism.
So as it was the retaliation that the American people wanted was tempered by understanding and Bush focused wisely on the evil regimes and not innocent populations. The heroism of 93 and the media play made Bush’s job to go to war easy. Had the symbolic Capital building been destroyed his speech before the joint session would hold no power or authority missing the back drop of the symbol.
The back of the Dollar bill would have been changed so as not remind us of the failure.
The whole dynamic of legislating would have changed. The long tradition of behaving in hallowed halls of congress that no longer existed would cause the rats to find other scurry paths. Legislative sessions would have been moved from DC. Probably a lot of the old legislators would have been voted out in 2002 and more in 2004.
With all the pride that American’s have in America the destruction of their symbol of “By the People, For the People, and Of the People” would be akin to their Waterloo of past battles to right the wrongs of the world.
It is beyond me why the WTC was chosen as the primary and first target. In conventional warfare your first object is to take out the means for the enemy to retaliate (Pentagon) and to take out the enemy’s leadership(Capital) then take out the enemy’s means of production(WTC). Hitting the WTC amounted to killing a few thousand non-essential personnel, a strategic blunder. But who said that those who hide behind women are brave and smart.
Obama would not have been the representative in the southern Illinois district and we would not be dealing with Obama’s Marxist crap today.
Well, that was an interesting take. :rolleyes:
How convenient your memory is. Clinton’s efforts to respond more aggressively to Al Qaeda were thwarted by Republicans who treated the terrorist threat we faced as a big joke. Remember “Wag the Dog”? Clinton’s strikes against Al Qaeda were dismissed as political posturing to distract the country from the Lewinsky scandal.
Please tell me this is a whoosh 'cause that’s just…bizarre.
Do we know for sure that the Capitol was the target? If so, how? I’m ashamed to say I’ve forgotten . . .
They would aim for the largest most recognizable high value target that they could see from the cockpit, the Capitol rotunda.