# How would a world where the 4th plane hit its intended target be different? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 31, 2011, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-a-world-where-the-4th-plane-hit-its-intended-target-be-different/594705 "2011-08-31T01:10:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![joebuck20](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/74df32/32.png) [@joebuck20](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/joebuck20)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2011, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-a-world-where-the-4th-plane-hit-its-intended-target-be-different/594705/21 "2011-09-05T01:02:35Z")
> [@hocuspocusfocus](#): > > Obama would not have been the representative in the \*\*southern Illinois district \*\*and we would not be dealing with Obama’s Marxist crap today. Umm, you do know Chicago is in northern Illinois, don’t you? ---
**Author:** ![Stately\_Greek\_Automaton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aca169/32.png) [@Stately\_Greek\_Automaton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stately_Greek_Automaton)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2011, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-a-world-where-the-4th-plane-hit-its-intended-target-be-different/594705/22 "2011-09-05T02:58:29Z")
> [@joebuck20](#): > > Umm, you do know Chicago is in northern Illinois, don’t you? Oh no! The prediction is starting to come true! ---
**Author:** ![Tristan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tristan/32/18058_2.png) [@Tristan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tristan)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2011, 11:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-a-world-where-the-4th-plane-hit-its-intended-target-be-different/594705/23 "2011-09-05T11:45:08Z")
@hocuspocuspoof - You should really go check out the Elections forum… partisan politics go there. Also, you may receive some sort of education about what Marxism is, and why Obama ain’t it. Though, I doubt it. @OP - It really depends on what the target was. Capital building would have been another moral blow, but minimal casualties (other than the plane passengers, of course). I don’t think anything would have changed in any significant way. I agree that it would have made the attacks more of an attack on the US as a whole, rather than an attack on New York. If the target were the White House, I feel the same way. I haven’t read up on it, but by the time the first plane struck, I’m sure the powers that be knew that a large scale terrorist action was under way, and all the players were shuffled off to their various “undisclosed locations”. Plus, Bush himself was off reading to the gradeschoolers. Poor planning on the part of the badguys, imo. ---
**Author:** ![Brad\_the\_Impaler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8dc957/32.png) [@Brad\_the\_Impaler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brad_the_Impaler)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2011, 11:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-a-world-where-the-4th-plane-hit-its-intended-target-be-different/594705/24 "2011-09-08T11:41:54Z")
> [@hocuspocusfocus](#): > > Had the fourth plane struck it would have been America’s Waterloo and not America’s Pearl Harbor as it turned out. Err, wasn’t Pearl Harbor America’s Pearl Harbor? 😕 ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2011, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-a-world-where-the-4th-plane-hit-its-intended-target-be-different/594705/25 "2011-09-08T15:57:51Z")
> [@Brad\_the\_Impaler](#): > > Err, wasn’t Pearl Harbor America’s Pearl Harbor? 😕 **Serious Answer:** Hawaii wasn’t a state at the time, so it was the Hawaiian Territory’s Pearl Harbor. **More Likely Answer:** Obama is a Muslim sleeper agent and he was born in the godless Hawaii islands, not the greatest state in America, Alaskam like the greatest President-to-be who ever lived, Sarah Palin. ---
**Author:** ![Irwin\_Mainway](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/bb73d2/32.png) [@Irwin\_Mainway](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irwin_Mainway)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2011, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-a-world-where-the-4th-plane-hit-its-intended-target-be-different/594705/26 "2011-12-08T22:22:50Z")
Martial Law. Suspension of the Constitution as the dozens of dead legislators are mourned and all the Muslims are rounded up. The last part happened anyways to those not actual citizens. The fourth plane just left Boston too late is all. Some mechanical problem found during flight check. I am guessing that otherwise the plane would have headed directly to D.C. with the likely timing to inflict the most televised devastation by waiting until after the Pentagon was hit. Just as the world was horrified by the 2nd plane hitting, cameras trained on the Capitol would have broadcast its destruction preceded by terrified Senators running for their lives. CNN and Fox were ready with those camera shots after the Pentagon attack. Devastating worldwide propaganda for Al Queda. Here they would have clearly attacked America, not just towers of financial analysts. Would Bush have become a virtual dictator with Congress in shambles, or would the outraged citizens have blamed him for the outrageous and embarrassing Washington D.C. destruction, leading to calls for him to resign instead of being forced to back a wartime President no matter what? ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2011, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-a-world-where-the-4th-plane-hit-its-intended-target-be-different/594705/27 "2011-12-08T22:45:47Z")
> [@The\_Hamster\_King](#): > > Remember “Wag the Dog”? Clinton’s strikes against Al Qaeda were dismissed as political posturing to distract the country from the Lewinsky scandal. al-Queda was in Iraq when Clinton was being impeached? Interesting. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Neidhart](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Neidhart](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Neidhart)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2011, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-a-world-where-the-4th-plane-hit-its-intended-target-be-different/594705/28 "2011-12-08T23:12:32Z")
Wasn’t al-Qaeda’s original plan to hijack 12 planes and crash them simultaneously into just about every important building in the DC area? ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2011, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-a-world-where-the-4th-plane-hit-its-intended-target-be-different/594705/29 "2011-12-08T23:55:54Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > al-Queda was in Iraq when Clinton was being impeached? Interesting. > > Regards, > Shodan > **[Operation Infinite Reach](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cruise_missile_strikes_on_Afghanistan_and_Sudan_(August_1998))** > > Operation Infinite Reach was the codename for American cruise missile strikes on al-Qaeda bases that were launched concurrently across two continents on 20 August 1998. Launched by the U.S. Navy, the strikes hit the al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory in Khartoum, Sudan, and a camp in Khost Province, Afghanistan, in retaliation for al-Qaeda's August 7 bombings of American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, which killed 224 people (including 12 Americans) and injured over 4,000 others. Operation Infi... Or is this a woosh? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2011, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-a-world-where-the-4th-plane-hit-its-intended-target-be-different/594705/30 "2011-12-09T00:15:15Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > [Operation Infinite Reach - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cruise_missile_strikes_on_Afghanistan_and_Sudan_(August_1998)) > > Or is this a woosh? Hm. I thought “Wag the dog” referred to the 4 days Clinton bombed Iraq, but apparently it was referenced to his Afghanistan bombing. **Shodan** was probably thinking that, too. ---
**Author:** ![obbn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/d6d6ee/32.png) [@obbn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/obbn)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2011, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-a-world-where-the-4th-plane-hit-its-intended-target-be-different/594705/31 "2011-12-13T02:32:41Z")
> [@The\_Hamster\_King](#): > > 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. And Bush’s decision to go to war after and actual attack was ridiculed by the left and he was called a war monger. What’s your point. On one hand you are saying that Clinton was justified in military action against Al Qaeda and we have those in this thread that lean to the left making snide remarks about Bush’s rush to war. It can’t be both. Either Al Qaeda was a threat that both Presidents should have made an effort to eliminate or they weren’t. ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2011, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-a-world-where-the-4th-plane-hit-its-intended-target-be-different/594705/32 "2011-12-13T02:52:01Z")
> [@obbn](#): > > And Bush’s decision to go to war after and actual attack was ridiculed by the left and he was called a war monger He was ridiculed because he stopped going after al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, and switched to Iraq, which had nothing whatsover to do with 9/11. Did you actually not know this? ---
**Author:** ![BeaMyra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/2bfe46/32.png) [@BeaMyra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BeaMyra)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2011, 8:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-a-world-where-the-4th-plane-hit-its-intended-target-be-different/594705/33 "2011-12-13T08:30:22Z")
I agree with the poster who said it would’ve made it more a national thing. When you mention 9-11, almost everyone thinks of NYC and WTC. Most do not think of the Pentagon and the deaths there. As a Chicagoan, I don’t feel like Chicago would ever be a target for major terrorism. Oh sure a bomb in a crowd but not a major attack. Most foreigners know of the city but not anything about it. Heck the way their building skyscrapers, we won’t even have a building in the top 10 tallest, pretty soon. I could be very wrong, but had the terrorists managed an attack on the Capitol or Congress, or even a building in Pittsburgh or Philadelphia, I’d FEEL a lot more worried [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-a-world-where-the-4th-plane-hit-its-intended-target-be-different/594705.md?page=1)