# What if we had ignored 9/11? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 30, 2016, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-had-ignored-9-11/756103 "2016-05-30T17:41:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![baccer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b77776/32.png) [@baccer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/baccer)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2016, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-had-ignored-9-11/756103/21 "2016-05-31T00:20:09Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > I think the response to 9/11 should have been to treat it as a crime and involve police tactics and the intelligence community to identify those responsible and bring them to justice. Invading Iraq and Afghanistan in response was clearly a mistake. You’re exactly right, it should have been treated as a crime and properly investigated, but it wasn’t and never will be. That would defeat the whole purpose of the event. Now we just wait till the next event, probably much bigger in scope. ---
**Author:** ![PhillyGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2016, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-had-ignored-9-11/756103/22 "2016-05-31T00:27:32Z")
> [@boffking](#): > > Instead of ineffective airport security and wars that only added to the body count, what if we had just gone back to business as usual? You mean, what would have happenned if the US declined to adopt the increase in airport security that occurred in most countries? To answer your question, the US tourism and aviation industries would have suffered much more economic harm. Unwillingness of Europeans to fly here would, combined with safety concerns, have led to many world airlines refusing to fly here. Eventually, airlines would have gotten together to do voluntarily what all the other developed countries were doing by government edict. However, if law enforcement, let’s say, refused to back up airlines when they took away knives from passengers – you know, second amendment – US aviation would massively decline. However, I do think that Bush, given the enormous popularlity boost he got during the mourning period, had the political capital to delay the attack on Afghanistan. Instead, he could have given Mullah Omar a choice between being invaded, and extradicting bin Laden. Don’t laugh before [reading this:](http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2004/09/inside-al-qaeda-s-hard-drive/303428/) > [@](#): > > Letters found on the computer reveal that relations between the Arabs and the Taliban had grown so tense that many feared the Taliban leader, Mullah Muhammad Omar, would expel the Arabs from the country. > [@boffking](#): > > To put things in better perspective, more people die _every month_ in car crashes than died on 9/11. This is totally unacceptable to me. I drive little and deliberately live where I can get to work with transit. But almost all of my co-workers drive. There’s some kind of lesson there. It’s human nature that there is a greater horror when someone deliberately drives into crowd than when traffic death is accidental. You can try to change that, but I don’t think it will fly. If Mullah Omar hadn’t given up bin Laden after an ultimatum, it would have become politically impossible for Bush not to invade. Just making the threat would put him in a position where it would be politically impossible not to follow through. But I still wish we had tried the threat-first approach, as it might have worked. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2016, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-had-ignored-9-11/756103/23 "2016-05-31T00:35:48Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > > [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > > > I think the response to 9/11 should have been to treat it as a crime and involve police tactics and the intelligence community to identify those responsible and bring them to justice. Invading Iraq and Afghanistan in response was clearly a mistake. > > First of all, Iraq was unrelated to 9/11. > Second, how do you “bring them to justice” without some form of action in Afghanistan? This isn’t like arresting criminals in Chicago, which is US soil. Al-Qaeda was located largely in the Middle East. The Taliban wasn’t going to hand bin Laden over to the United States. “Identifying those responsible” is one thing. How do you actually get those terrorists in American custody? There was going to be zero cooperation from the Taliban. _Of course_, Iraq was unrelated to 9/11. But the Bush White House clearly took advantage of the hysteria after 9/11 to push the invasion of Iraq through Congress. And as for how we could have brought them to justice, the SEALs _were_ able to execute a commando raid into Pakistan and kill Bin Laden. They _might_ have been able to capture him alive instead, if that was the goal. And the US had a bounty of $25 million on Bin Laden. They could have increased that to $250 million or even a billion dollars and it still would have been cheaper than those two wars. ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2016, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-had-ignored-9-11/756103/24 "2016-05-31T14:24:35Z")
Ignoring it wouldn’t have been appropriate, but just about any reaction would have been better than what was chosen. Immediately after the 9/11 we enjoyed unprecedented international support. If only we’d used that in some creative way to advance the desirable aspects of the American way of life - rather than succumbing to the worst aspects of TAWOL - interventionism and fear. Our reactions to 9/11 - casting off personal liberties, pissing a fortune down an endless hole in the desert, and antagonizing existing and potential allies, caused the US more harm than 9/11 itself did. Self inflicted wounds. We are strong enough to have absorbed 9/11 - and more. ---
**Author:** ![E-DUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/e-dub/32/403_2.png) [@E-DUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-DUB)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2016, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-had-ignored-9-11/756103/25 "2016-05-31T14:32:59Z")
We did not _ignore_ the attack on the Cole. It happened in October, 2000. By the time blame was fixed, President Clinton did not feel it appropriate to take a course of action that would commit his incoming successor. (To be fair, this was during a time when we thought it important to actually know _who_ attacked us before retaliating.) ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2016, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-had-ignored-9-11/756103/26 "2016-05-31T14:45:26Z")
> [@Dinsdale](#): > > Ignoring it wouldn’t have been appropriate, but just about any reaction would have been better than what was chosen. Immediately after the 9/11 we enjoyed unprecedented international support. If only we’d used that in some creative way to advance the desirable aspects of the American way of life - rather than succumbing to the worst aspects of TAWOL - interventionism and fear. The people who caused 9/11 (Bin Laden, in particular) mostly came from countries that are swimming in oil wealth. Similarly, Venezuela and Russia have been troublesome for the US, albeit in more minor ways. Basically, aside from Norway, every country with an oil economy causes problems. So after 9/11, I thought the proper response was to ask the homefront to engage in a massive energy efficiency campaign, combined with a great increase in the use of alternative sources of energy. The ultimate goal would be to reduce or eliminate the dependency of the US on foreign oil. In World War II, the homefront was asked to sacrifice and contribute to the war effort. But we weren’t asked to make any sacrifice in the cases of the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan. I think that was a mistake. ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2016, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-had-ignored-9-11/756103/27 "2016-05-31T14:53:08Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > I think the response to 9/11 should have been to treat it as a crime and involve police tactics and the intelligence community to identify those responsible and bring them to justice. Invading Iraq and Afghanistan in response was clearly a mistake. And just how would we have brought those responsible to justice? Ask the Taliban nicely? And just how could we have treated it as a police matter when we had no access to witnessed and suspects? Remember, Pakistan wouldn’t hand bin Laden over and they were our ally. ---
**Author:** ![up\_the\_junction](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/f1d935/32.png) [@up\_the\_junction](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/up_the_junction)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2016, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-had-ignored-9-11/756103/28 "2016-05-31T14:58:01Z")
> [@boffking](#): > > Instead of ineffective airport security and wars that only added to the body count, what if we had just gone back to business as usual? The War on Terror has killed well over a million people, and is still not over. It has also added trillions of dollars to the national debt. I am starting to think that doing nothing at all would have been better. It’s hardly radical to suggest this but on 9/11 the terrorists got exactly what they were aiming for - perfectly rationally, they sought a reaction from, according to their narrative, the oppressor. Since then everything has gone according to plan; the enemy is drained, can’t afford another war, the population is tired and circumspect, the empire has passed its zenith, the empire is reduced to explaining and justifying inhuman acts, the society is frightened and increasingly watching itself. Bush should have responded politically, not ever, ever militarily. If they could be beaten militarily it would have happened long ago. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2016, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-had-ignored-9-11/756103/29 "2016-05-31T15:33:52Z")
> [@madsircool](#): > > > [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > > > I think the response to 9/11 should have been to treat it as a crime and involve police tactics and the intelligence community to identify those responsible and bring them to justice. Invading Iraq and Afghanistan in response was clearly a mistake. > > And just how would we have brought those responsible to justice? Ask the Taliban nicely? And just how could we have treated it as a police matter when we had no access to witnessed and suspects? > > Remember, Pakistan wouldn’t hand bin Laden over and they were our ally. So what did the US do when Pakistan wouldn’t hand bin Laden over and they were our ally? As for “asking the Taliban nicely”, what about a big, fat reward of $100 million or more on the heads of bin Laden and the other organizers? ---
**Author:** ![akrako1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c77e96/32.png) [@akrako1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/akrako1)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2016, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-had-ignored-9-11/756103/30 "2016-05-31T21:39:27Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > So what did the US do when Pakistan wouldn’t hand bin Laden over and they were our ally? > > As for “asking the Taliban nicely”, what about a big, fat reward of $100 million or more on the heads of bin Laden and the other organizers? Except the Taliban \*did \*offer up Bin Laden: [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20011014/aponline135016\_000.htm](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20011014/aponline135016_000.htm) > [@](#): > > Sunday, Oct. 14, 2001; 1:50 p.m. EDT > > JALALABAD, Afghanistan –– A senior Taliban leader said Sunday that the Islamic militia would be willing to hand over Osama bin Laden to a third country if the United States halts the bombing of Afghanistan and provides evidence against him. > > President Bush quickly rejected the offer. > > “The president has been very clear, there will be no negotiations,” White House spokeswoman Anne Womack said. Washington has repeatedly rejected any negotiations or conditions on its demands that the Taliban surrender bin Laden and his al-Qaida terror network. Also: > [@Velocity](#): > > 1. The “fighting terrorism is giving terrorists what they want!” argument is nonsensical. So by this logic, if a serial killer wants to be imprisoned and/or executed by the government in order to make him a “martyr,” then the FBI should just ignore the serial killer and let him keep on doing his thing? To me, it’s the \*manner \*in which we fight terrorism which makes the difference… If we believe Bush’s line about them “hating our freedoms”, then why did we react by limiting such freedom ala the Patriot act? Instead of trying to hold some moral high ground, we gave them all the recruiting propaganda they’d even need - and it was all true! Did we _need_ to have people disappeared into secret prisons? How about ‘enemy combatants’ that have been cleared of all charges, yet are still imprisoned? Collateral damage aside, Guantanamo Bay is one of their best recruiting tools, and we still have it why? Because congress is too scared to try folks in actual, domestic courts? Growing up in the 80’s, i never would have imagined the US would adopt these practices… Torture? It seemed to be an accepted truth that it didn’t work - people would say anything to stop the torture. It seems our intelligence community had to rediscover this ‘fact’. Waterboarding? That was something we hanged the Japanese for inflicting on our (actual) troops over 1/2 century ago… ''Show me your papers" and disappearing into “the Goulag” were commonly used as propaganda against the evil USSR - to demonstrate the characteristics of a repressive society. Now they are commonplace in the US. Sigh… ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2016, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-had-ignored-9-11/756103/31 "2016-05-31T23:38:57Z")
The claims that we gave the terrorists what they wanted are nonsense. First off, “the terrorists” are no more a monolith than “the communists” were; there were and are numerous different terrorist organizations and they have a wide variety of goals. Al Qaeda was quite clear about what their goals were: the withdrawal of American forces from the Middle East. Did we give them that? ---
**Author:** ![up\_the\_junction](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/f1d935/32.png) [@up\_the\_junction](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/up_the_junction)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2016, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-had-ignored-9-11/756103/32 "2016-05-31T23:39:57Z")
Err, yes? ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2016, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-had-ignored-9-11/756103/33 "2016-05-31T23:44:25Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > As for “asking the Taliban nicely”, what about a big, fat reward of $100 million or more on the heads of bin Laden and the other organizers? We offered $25,000,000. I have to feel that if they said no to that, they were pretty much taking financial rewards off the table. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2016, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-had-ignored-9-11/756103/34 "2016-05-31T23:45:31Z")
> [@up\_the\_junction](#): > > Err, yes? You feel no American troops were sent to the Middle East after 9/11? ---
**Author:** ![up\_the\_junction](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/f1d935/32.png) [@up\_the\_junction](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/up_the_junction)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2016, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-had-ignored-9-11/756103/35 "2016-06-01T05:35:10Z")
Oh they were sent. $2 trillion later those that could came back again. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2016, 9:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-had-ignored-9-11/756103/36 "2016-06-01T09:40:18Z")
> [@boffking](#): > > Instead of ineffective airport security and wars that only added to the body count, what if we had just gone back to business as usual? The War on Terror has killed well over a million people, and is still not over. It has also added trillions of dollars to the national debt. I am starting to think that doing nothing at all would have been better. > We should have treated it like a natural disaster. Just rebuild and move on. I know that it was a horrible tragedy. That doesn’t give us the right to kill several hundred people for every one that we lost. The worst part of all this is we are giving the terrorists exactly what they want. They want to cause disruption, which they got when we starting taking away rights from our own citizens. They also want to become matryrs. Al-Qaeda and ISIS only got bigger as the war went on. War against the USA was a recruiting tool for them. > Drunk drivers cause far more deaths than Al-Qaeda did, and we don’t blow them up. To put things in better perspective, more people die _every month_ in car crashes than died on 9/11. If Dubya had done that and a few dozen Al-Qaeda terror attacks later, the American people would have elected a President in 2004 that would make Donald Trump look like Dorothy Day. I suspect at this point in time, everything from Morocco to Pakistan with the exception of Israel would be radioactive ruins by now. ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2016, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-had-ignored-9-11/756103/37 "2016-06-01T13:13:56Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > So after 9/11, I thought the proper response was to ask the homefront to engage in a massive energy efficiency campaign, combined with a great increase in the use of alternative sources of energy. The ultimate goal would be to reduce or eliminate the dependency of the US on foreign oil. In World War II, the homefront was asked to sacrifice and contribute to the war effort. But we weren’t asked to make any sacrifice in the cases of the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan. I think that was a mistake. boffking: > [@](#): > > It’s hardly radical to suggest this but on 9/11 the terrorists got exactly what they were aiming for - perfectly rationally, they sought a reaction from, according to their narrative, the oppressor. > > Since then everything has gone according to plan; the enemy is drained, can’t afford another war, the population is tired and circumspect, the empire has passed its zenith, the empire is reduced to explaining and justifying inhuman acts, the society is frightened and increasingly watching itself. I agree with both of these sentiments wholeheartedly. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2016, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-had-ignored-9-11/756103/38 "2016-06-01T14:08:37Z")
God help me, I’m finding myself in agreement with neocons. Something that is easily forgotten in the wake of all that happened since then is that Dubya ran on a platform of American isolationism: let the rest of the world handle their own damn problems, we aren’t interested in boosting y’all out of poverty or being the world’s policeman. No more of these Clintonesque antics like jumping into Bosnia or risking the bodies of American military personnel being put on gruesome display in places we don’t belong and aren’t appreciated, like Somalia. The Al Qaeda strategy was not a pushback against then-current American interventionist activities, it was a deliberate provocation and a show-offy macho act to impress the true believers back home: lo, check this out, we bearded the lion in his den, we’re brave and tough and we ain’t scared of shit! There’s no way we were going to ignore 9/11 but if we had there would have simply been more of the same until we didn’t. ---
**Author:** ![E-DUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/e-dub/32/403_2.png) [@E-DUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-DUB)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2016, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-had-ignored-9-11/756103/39 "2016-06-01T15:32:18Z")
A deliberate provocation, yes. Intended not merely to provoke action but _overreaction_. QED. Attacking an uninvolved _secular_ state was probably still too much for them to hope for. They understand us a whole lot better than we understand them. In fact, the very suggestion that we should _understand_ the enemy is portrayed as vaguely squishy-soft, despite the fact that understanding the psychology and motivations of your enemy can lead you to better predict his actions and make it easier to kill him. ---
**Author:** ![thx1139](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/9fc348/32.png) [@thx1139](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thx1139)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2016, 7:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-had-ignored-9-11/756103/40 "2016-06-02T07:54:59Z")
[QUOTE] Posted by E-DUB Attacking an uninvolved secular state … The US was involved … **Deaths In Other Nations Since WW II Due To Us Interventions** The overall conclusion reached is that the United States most likely has been responsible since WWII for the deaths of between 20 and 30 million people in wars and conflicts scattered over the world. [http://www.countercurrents.org/lucas240407.htm](http://www.countercurrents.org/lucas240407.htm) … that’s about 10,000 9/11s, or an average of about 1,000 people killed per day … for the past 71 years. Some of those deaths may be ‘justified’, but an awful lot aren’t, attacks on foreign countries are usually in breach of that country’s sovereignty and against international law … given the scale and duration of US intervention overseas … the amount of blowback has been remarkably light. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-had-ignored-9-11/756103.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-had-ignored-9-11/756103.md?page=3)