Federal authorities were notified more than once that several Saudis or other foreign nationals were taking light lessons in the US, yet were strangely uninterested with the whole “landing safely” bit of the flight instruction.
Even if true, this isn’t surprising. We spent several years prior to the 9/11 attacks debating using military force against the Taliban. Lots of people all over the political spectrum were in favour of taking them out.
Knowing something is going to happen without knowing the where and when it will happen is kind of useless, and in this case the something that is predicted seems to have been pretty vague. For instance, the contents of a speech Bush gave in May of 2001 made me pretty sure that the US was going back into Iraq, but I couldn’t tell you when or exactly what form that attack was going to take.
As was mentioned earlier, most countries have plans for all kinds of eventualities. The US has developed more than one plan to go to war with Canada, no matter how unlikely that is to actually happen. So when 9/11 happened, they just pulled out the folder for Afghanistan. They also pulled out the folder for Iraq, because they figured they could work that into their war plans while everyone was excited, and I finally had my answer for when the US was going there. I doubt anyone in the administration knew that information before 9/11.
Good points.
I have said the same thing about Conspiracy Theories that the US knew the IJN would attack Pearl Harbor on Dec 7th.
Intelligence is like a jigsaw puzzle. So, give someone the box showing the completed puzzle (post facto, that is to say with Hindsight), and all the pieces Intelligence had that were relevant- and yes, they can show half of the picture- and say “SEE!”. But sadly, Intelligence services do not get the box top showing the completed picture, and besides the relevant picture, they have a bunch of pieces from another puzzle. Or three.
Looking back with 20/20 Hindsight, knowing what actually happened and what pieces of info are relevant is a meaningless exercise. American Intelligence did not have that info.
In both cases- Pearl Harbor and 9/11- they knew something was up- and relatively soonish. They did not know what was actually going to happen.
Right.
Yeah, that’s part of why I listed that possibility as “maybe”. They knew that bin Laden intended to hurt us, and they knew that that was one possible way that a terrorist could hurt us. Did they know, or guess, or suspect, that bin Laden would actually use that method? Or should they have known, guessed, or suspected that given the information they had? Unsure.
One thing that struck many as strange, the Emergency Alert system (tested once a month for decades now) was never activated. I suppose it could be argued that all anyone had to do was turn on a TV or Radio logon to the web, and would be alerted that way. But if they don’t activate this system while this sort of carnage is going on, at the Pentagon, and potentially the White House, Capitol, what’s the point?
Also good points.
A few months after 9/11, rumors started going through the intelligence community about an equally big planned hit in the U.S. by Al Qaeda.
Details were vague, but some mentioned an attack at a large public event. Maybe the Super Bowl. Maybe New Year’s Eve at Time Square. Maybe multiple attacks.
Official reports stressed the need to keep things hush hush. I asked my family about their holiday plans, and when they said they were mostly staying home, I didn’t tell them anything.
The government (to include the intelligence community) is and was made up of human beings, not Mr. Spock.
It was never activated where? I imagine it probably was activated in New York City. But there was no more reason to alert, say, Kansas for this, than there is to alert them for a hurricane.
What I suspect is that the Bush admin always intended to go to war against the Taliban and/or Iraq. Bush wanted to be able to say that he finished the job his daddy started, which Bill Clinton was too much of a chicken to do. They figured there would be some kind of pretext even that they hopefully could disrupt and expose, justifying the war.
Basically their whole policy unfolded as intended, but they gambled badly on the risk calculus. If they knew how spectacular, audacious, and destructive the event would be, they probably wouldn’t have risked it. I think they had no idea it would unfold on 9/11, or that hijackers would pilot the aircraft into buildings, or who was involved.
So while I don’t think they were “happy” about the 9/11 attacks, nor were they expecting that specific event, it more than served their pre-existing agenda of war in the middle east, and they made the most of it (as they had been preparing to do)
LOL.if you say so.
That’s like saying the US government was building a case against an escaped murderer before he murdered someone else, stole their truck, and led police on a high-speed chase. I mean, wow, no kidding? They already expected the known murderer was up to no good!
Because, you know, the US government had already taken action (or tried to) against Bin Laden and Al Queda before September 11, 2001. Because he and his network were known or suspected to be behind a number of terrorist attacks against the US prior to 9/11. Not least of all the bombing of USS Cole on October 12, 2000.
For some reason, that particular strain of Islamic terrorists had some sort of boner for the WTC, having tried to blow it up with a truck bomb a decade or so earlier. All I can guess is that they were the tallest buildings in New York City, so therefore held some kind of prestige value for them.
So I suppose from a certain perspective, the target choice was obvious. But for the rest of us, the WTC didn’t have that much significance. I don’t think the reaction would have been any different had they crashed airliners into any other large building in NYC and killed 3000 people. Or in any other US city for that matter.
I think at best, they were willing to use some sort of terrorist attack as a pretext for war. But I don’t for a minute believe that they intentionally planned to let any of those things happen; just catching them and preventing an attack would have been good enough. And the sheer scale and audacity of 9/11 caught everyone by surprise, especially the government and their counter-terrorist types.
So what purpose do you think it would have served to activate it and stir up the whole country? It’s not like it wasn’t on the news minutes after it happened.
The reaction here, maybe.
I’ve read that it’s believed that New York was chosen as a target due it being the biggest U.S. city, and the most prominent and best-known U.S. city on the global stage, as well as being the heart of the U.S. financial industry. The WTC towers were targeted because they were the tallest buildings in NY (and the second- and third-tallest in the U.S. as a whole), as well as the financial symbolism.