I’m wondering if the day chosen for the attacks last year was just random, or if it was as carefully chosen as its targets.
Obviously the WTC and the Pentagon were/are both important symbols of American economic and military power. The reasons for their being the targets are obvious.
But the date of Sept. 11 seems to be a particularly poignent one as well:
Ground was broken and construction on the Pentagon on September 11, 1941.
Henry Hudson discovered the island of Manhattan on Sept 11, 1609.
General William Tecumseh Sherman took military action to the civilian population when he burned Atlanta on Sept 11, 1864.
There seem to be too many relevant reasons for attacking on that day for it to be a coincidence.
So my question is: Was it? Or did he really do his homework and choose it carefully?
One flaw in your theory is that the Pentagon was almost certainly not the primary target at all. Most experts agree that the White House was the target for that aircraft but the planners failed to take into account how hard it is to see the White House from thousands of feet in the air going hundreds of miles per hour. The terrorists knew that American fighter aircraft were closing in on them and they needed to hit something so they went with the huge and easy to see Pentagon as a secondary choice.
You forget Ford introducted the Pinto on September 11, 1970 a car notorious for exploding or something!!!
IMO, those are all rather weak rationales for picking that date. I mean, Sherman burning Atlanta? Besides, I don’t think the hijackers considered themselves military men attacking a civilian target. I’m guessing they thought they were agents of Good attacking Evil.
Considering that the attack would have been much harder to pull off had the weather been crappy, I’d assume the terrorists needed to be a little flexible on the date.
Bin Laden certainly does seem to consider himself a military man. Unless I’m mistaken, he was armed and trained by CIA to fight the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. I don’t see how we can fail to call the people who turned the Soviets back in defeat are not military, regardless of their choice of tactics.
Whether he considered his victims to be civilians is another matter, obviously. But given his history, I think it’s at least roughly synonymous in his own mind to the burning of Atlanta:
Sounds not dissimilar to the terrorists’ rallying cry against the west, doesn’t it? Just replace Kentucky and Tennessee with Afghanistan, Pakistan, Palestine, etc.
Very funny. Obviously an ugly car’s introduction date is just as relevant as the discovery of Manhattan island and groundbreaking for the Pentagon. :rolleyes:
September 11 is also the birthday of Lola Falana (an unveiled woman with a career- well, at one time), Kristy MacNichol (an open lesbian), and Moby (bald and beardless).
I’ve wondered if there’s any connection between the assault and Black September (the group responsible for the murders of the Israeli Olympic team 30 years ago this week). On both chances I doubt it. My personal belief about Osama and history is that he believes he’s the modern incarnation of the Old Man of the Mountains and that he governs himself in some ways like the Order of the Assassins. (Certainly he has suicidal disciples indulged in a garden of earthly delights before going on their mission.)
Anyway, maybe you’re right. It could be just random coincidence.
But it struck me as rather odd that that particular date was significant for both the city of New York and for the Pentagon itself, and also the anniversary date of an American General burning an American city and telling the residents that “War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it; and those who brought war into our country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out.”
For that matter, we could guess that September was chosen because it’s typically a rough month on Wall Street, which made it easier to short airline stocks.
And don’t forget 911 Emergency! Has William Shatner been questioned yet? Didn’t he slip into the USA across the Canadian border?
Sure, especially the “I want peace” part. Fits right in with Osama’s manifesto which states “To kill Americans and their allies, both civil and military, is an individual duty of every Muslim who is able, in any country.”
If the goal was to pick a a date that had important significance to America, or to the people in America, the discovery of the island of Manhattan wouldn’t make my Top 100.
I still maintain that had the weather on September 11 included thunderstorms up and down the east coast, the terrorists would have waited for the next clear day, rather than stubbornly hold out for September 11, 2002.
There’s only 365 days per year (excluding leap years), and a whole lotta history has already happened. Any single day will have a wide assortment of ‘important’ events associated with it.
I vote for “you find conincidences when you’re looking for them”
Plus, while Sherman destroyed private houses and churches (I live in a city whose Episcopal Church proudly shows visitors the U shaped scars on the floor left when he stabled his horses there), he didn’t intentionally target civilians as casualties.
OTOH, stranger things have happened, and Osama had access to excellent education and books. (It’s not believed that he availed himself of it save for the Qur’an, but so little is really known about the man himself that even his brothers are divided in their descriptions of him.)
I agree. I bet one can take any day of the year, and a historically knowledgable person (which doesn’t describe me) could find at least as many historically significant events as described in the OP.
Not only isn’t Bin Laden an expert in American history, but it’s not even odd coincidences.
Coincidences do happen; and sometimes their aptness is a little eerie, but meaningless.
However, there are people who believe that where no probable causal connection can be demonstrated, no possible causal connection exists. That’s not logical.
That OBL chose this very date for some obscure but definite reason remains a possibility.
The OP speculated that the date was selected because of specific events having occured on that date, and attempting to draw ‘eerie’ coincidents from them.
I contend that on any date, you’ll have significant events and non significant events. I’m quite certain more happened on that particular date than the OP spelled out but whoever was suggesting this theory didn’t think that (making up an example) the day “Kentucky Fried Chicken” was founded would sound particularly relevent to the audience here.
I see absolutely no evidence that the day was selected for any other reason than "we want it to be in mid week vs. weekend, have to wait til all the guys are trained etc etc etc, and probably quite a few other logisitcal concerns. The point made above re: the weather is dead on target as well.
Until there is something evidentiary suggesting that the date was not a logisitical selection and was, instead a theoretical/philosophical decision, my vote remains the same.
I’d say that unless you look at all the days in August, September and October and find no better “reason” to attack the US, that this is all just a coincidence.
Let’s see:
[ul]
[li]September 7: American submarine Turtle commits the first submarine attack in history, 1776. The Blitz begins on London with 300 Nazi planes attacking in 1940. Tupac Shakur was shot in 1996. Sherman orders Atlanta evacuated (I don’t think you can localize this to September 11), 1864. Also Corbin Bernsen’s birthday.[/li][li]September 6: McKinley assassinated. Israeli athletes killed in Munich, 1972.[/li][li]September 5: Jesse James, famous outlaw, born in 1847.[/li][li]September 4: Los Angeles founded. (certainly ranks with “discovery of Manhattan”)[/li][li]September 3: Treaty of Paris signed. This is when Great Britain recognized American independence.[/li][/ul]
My point is that I think this is just an example of the “white van on the corner” phenomenon. We find these coincidences and attempt to attach significance. If the attack had been on just about any other day we could have found similar coincidences.
I’d say that unless you look at all the days in August, September and October and find no better “reason” to attack the US, that this is all just a coincidence.
Let’s see:
[ul]
[li]September 7: American submarine Turtle commits the first submarine attack in history, 1776. The Blitz begins on London with 300 Nazi planes attacking in 1940. Tupac Shakur was shot in 1996. Sherman orders Atlanta evacuated (I don’t think you can localize this to September 11), 1864. Also Corbin Bernsen’s birthday.[/li][li]September 6: McKinley assassinated. Israeli athletes killed in Munich, 1972.[/li][li]September 5: Jesse James, famous outlaw, born in 1847.[/li][li]September 4: Los Angeles founded. (certainly ranks with “discovery of Manhattan”)[/li][li]September 3: Treaty of Paris signed. This is when Great Britain recognized American independence.[/li][/ul]
My point is that I think this is just an example of the “white van on the corner” phenomenon. We find these coincidences and attempt to attach significance. If the attack had been on just about any other day we could have found similar coincidences.