Around the TIME magazin there is a (unscientific) question if Americans believe that the 9/11 attack could have been prevented.
http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101020812/story2.html
Surprise, surprise, the mood is changing and (currently) 60% of respondents (probably after having read the article) believe it could have been prevented.
If “ifs” and “buts” were candy and nuts, oh what a merry Christmas it would be.
Sorry, no direct link, the unscientific ‘Quick Vote’ is in the left column, third section down.
This sort of second-guessing never seems to do any good, and only makes an edgy populace edgier.
IMHO, of course.
That was supposed to read “an edgy populace angrier”
I give up.
Hinten, do you have a question?
Could they have been prevented? Obviously. Who are the stupid 40% that think they could not have been? The question is whether they could have been foreseen.
The sinking of the Titanic could have been prevented if they’d known there was an iceberg in front of them, and took steps to avoid it. But they didn’t.
After my initial surprise at this apparent change in US mood (again, this Quick Vote is probably not representative) I am interested in the actual question of blame but for the purpose of this thread I am wondering about the following:
This potential change in attitude comes very late, almost one year late. There has been very little public discussion (besides some voices that were considered to come right out of the X-files) on whether everything possible and reasonable was done to avoid the attack. I am wondering what has contributed to the lack of fault finding? Was the event and its deadly results so dramatic that people are actively choosing not to search for a guilty party because of what we might find? No, I am absolutely not suggesting any conspiracy but I find it rather remarkable that we have no problem attributing fault and blame in cases of minute consequences but in this case it doesn’t seem to come easy.
Even in this thread the excuse of ‘nobody could have guessed this’ is expressed rather quickly in my mind. Just because YOU cannot imagine something this elaborate and horrible doesn’t mean that somebody else (whose job this might be) cannot.
I guess, I am surprised that in this case the pendulum of public opinion is swinging rather slowly between consternation and fault finding.
Hindsight is 20/20. From a historical perspective, there are very few things that could not have been prevented had the right actions been taken. Asking this question now is an appeal to the inevitable need of people to assign blame for the purposes of recovering as a nation. This is exacerbated by the fact that we never really got to satisfy our vengeful impulses because there isn’t really a target to go after.
What was it that The Onion had written on its site? Something to the effect of “Why isn’t enough being done to prevent the August 2nd Attack?”
if you do a search on:
algerian terrorists paris 1994 hijack
you will find sites talking about a hijacking in 1994 where algerian terrorists aboard a french airliner were planning a kamakaze attack on the eiffel tower. french riot police were able to board the plane, kill the hijackers and 7 passengers.
it is debatable who should have known and done what.
i think the FAA should have known about this in january of 1995, they should have seriously considered the possibility of a successful copycat. they should have started reinforcing the cockpit doors and warning all airline crews by 7/95. what happened?
the only televised mention of this incident that i know of was a Frontline episode named TRAIL OF A TERRORIST. this was on months ago. what’s with CNN and MSNBC? why aren’t the republicans blaming the clinton administration?
Dal Timgar
Because it happened on their watch.
You’ve got some explaining to do. I thought we already knew who the guilty parties were. Aren’t they dead? I read the Time article, interesting. Some of it seemed like the usual partisan blame shifting to me. Especially where the unnamed Democrat said that the Bush White House was not interested in terrorism. How convenient.
I think there is plenty of blame for Clinton, Bush, and any of the many alphabet soup federal agencies in charge of our national security.
And we still don’t know all the facts and probably never will.
Be better to think about toady and tomorrow than to complain about yesterday.
I am glad people are not reacting in the normal ways. This shows me that the U Sof A might be growing up at last. Now, wanting to stir up old stuff and go back to finger pointing and wondering why the old ways are not… seems like… ca’pice?
The title of this thread’s kinda misleading. Actually, it should really be “The majority of responses to one of those on-line ‘quick polls’ were that the attack could have been prevented” (which doesn’t even necessarily mean the majority of people who have self-selected to respond to the “quick poll” agree with that statement, since for all anyone knows, one guy with an axe to grind and way more free time than is really healthy for him could have voted 10,000 times).
And, as Jodi points out, it’s kind of a stupid–or at least poorly phrased–question. Obviously the attacks could have been prevented, if there had been a team of elite Ninja Sky Marshals on each of the planes that was hijacked. Or if all 19 hijackers had been rounded up on September 10 by the Department of Pre-Crime. The 40% who said “No” were probably mostly trying to respond to some other question, like “Was the Administration* negligent in its duties in not detecting and preventing the attacks?” Or perhaps the 40% are just extreme fatalists of one sort or another: “It was ordained by God from the beginning of Creation that all of those people should die at that time and place and in that manner as part of His grand, inscrutable Plan.”
*Whichever Administration you prefer.
Seems to me there has been a lot of public discussion on the subject. Congressional hearings, news articles (I remember a cover-story article in Newsweek, for example), and lots and lots of Monday-morning quarterbacking.
Yes, absolutely.
I am just surprised that only now people are talking about details in the US that could have contributed to the lack of defense against the attack (please note my careful wording).
There is probably no GD here, just expressing my surprise and didn’t think it was mundane.
I always felt that ‘nobody could have expected that’ is so unsatisfying of an excuse because it leaves the door wide open for repetition. There is always things we cannot think of in advance, doesn’t absolve us from being prepared, now or before.
‘Accident’ is defined as an unforeseen incident or and unexpected and undesirable event.
By my definition this was no accident, by yours?
The statement made by the OP is an argumentum ad populum. 'Nuff said.
I’ll go along with that definition if we can modify it thusly:
‘Accident’ is defined as an incident that is
•unforseen
•unexpected
•undesireable
by all parties involved.
Clearly 9/11 was no accident. Who (if anybody) has gone on record as calling 9/11 an accident?
You want to think about that one a bit more?
I suspect that if you are able to work through the “logic” of these sentences(or more accurately, the lack thereof), you may realise why it is that people are not looking for someone to blame over 9/11 to the degree that you seem to expect they should.
Certainly the issue we’re concerned about is “Should the attacks have reasonably been foreseen, and should more pro-active measures taken?”
That’s the point at which the faction accustomed to blaming Clinton for everything becomes uncomfortable and evasive.