# 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:** 3
**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 2, 2016, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-had-ignored-9-11/756103/41 "2016-06-02T15:50:11Z")
To clarify, I was referring to _our_ attack on an uninvolved (in 9-11) secular state (Iraq) as a part of our (over?)reaction to 9-11. Sorry if this was not clear to you. ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2016, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-had-ignored-9-11/756103/42 "2016-06-02T16:38:15Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > 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. Alternatively, we could have invested in producing our own oil using a process called fracking. This would have set the price of oil internationally plummeting depriving all of the troublesome countries hundreds of billions in money while making billions for the US while adding thousands of high paying jobs. That is what actually happened and the result has not been a quiet middle east full of peaceful people singing Kumbaya. ISIS is killing people by the thousand in Syria and Iraq while sending terrorist to kill people in the West. The Taliban is resurgent in Afghanistan and Libya is involved in a bloody civil war. ---
**Author:** ![obbn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/d6d6ee/32.png) [@obbn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/obbn)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2016, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-had-ignored-9-11/756103/43 "2016-06-02T16:59:14Z")
> [@bump](#): > > I’d argue that we essentially DID ignore the East African embassy bombings and the USS Cole bombing, and it got us 9/11. This! If you ignore a terrorist act, you are just sing yourself up for more. That is why it is imperative that we retaliate each and every time. Make it so costly to the other side that they won’t dare try it again. Sorry, but words, hugs and understanding don’t work. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2016, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-had-ignored-9-11/756103/44 "2016-06-02T17:09:50Z")
I can never quite figure out the liberal talking point on Al Qaeda’s take on Americans’ civil rights. On one hand, Bush is wrong for saying “they hate us for our freedoms,” but on the other hand, terrorists rejoice when our freedoms are taken away. I’m also puzzled by the dichotomy displayed on the relative view of the worth of American lives. On one hand, losing 3,000 Americans is portrayed as not such a big deal because more people die from drunk driving; on the other hand, 4,500 Americans killed in Iraq is a big deal, even though it, too, is fewer deaths than drunk driving causes. For the record, I think all of those 7,500 deaths is a damn big deal. ---
**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 2, 2016, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-had-ignored-9-11/756103/45 "2016-06-02T17:56:39Z")
> [@obbn](#): > > This! If you ignore a terrorist act, you are just sing yourself up for more. That is why it is imperative that we retaliate each and every time. Make it so costly to the other side that they won’t dare try it again. Sorry, but words, hugs and understanding don’t work. That’s what they wanted though, retaliation. Look where it got everyone: ISIS, a resurgent Taliban, a failed Syria, a still failing Iraq, and an empowered Iran. Plus $2 trillion of debt, not being able to afford a war, and several hundred thousand dead Iraqi civilians. That was good. ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2016, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-had-ignored-9-11/756103/46 "2016-06-02T20:25:17Z")
> [@up\_the\_junction](#): > > That’s what they wanted though, retaliation. > > Look where it got everyone: ISIS, a resurgent Taliban, a failed Syria, a still failing Iraq, and an empowered Iran. > > Plus $2 trillion of debt, not being able to afford a war, and several hundred thousand dead Iraqi civilians. That was good. What did they actually want? They wanted the USSR scenario where a superpower gets bogged down in an unwinnable war and then fall as a global superpower. Then the governments in the Middle East fall to fundamentalists and the caliphate is restored. What did they accomplish? The taliban may be resurgent in Afghanistan but before they had the whole country as a base for Al-Queda. The civil war in Syria has not much to do with the US retaliation, it is an outgrowth of the Arab spring. While Al-Queda would team up with Shiites now and then, an empowered Iran was never a goal and was more likely to be seen as a rival to the Sunnis in Al-queda. As for the US not being able to afford a war, the US only spends 4.5% of GDP on defense. That could be doubled and it still would not be as much as was spent in Vietnam. The two trillion in debt is only a little more than 10% of the total US government debt so it is not a big deal economically. I don’t think Al-Queda ever cared about Iraqi civilian deaths one way or the other. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2016, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-had-ignored-9-11/756103/47 "2016-06-02T22:05:37Z")
> [@E-DUB](#): > > 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.) Not to mention it’s ridiculous to bring up the Cole attack at all in a discussion of 9/11. It was a military target in a foreign country. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2016, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-had-ignored-9-11/756103/48 "2016-06-03T04:03:39Z")
OP conflates the War in Afghanistan, which cost less than 100,000 lives, much less than a trillion dollars, and was necessary because the extremist government there was harboring criminals, with the War in Iraq, which cost millions of lives and trillions of dollars, and inflamed the region, leading to the rise of Daesh. Secular Saddam was already in a box before we attacked, and was not a threat. Fourteen years later why do people still not grasp the distinction between Bush’s two Wars? 😕 > [@XT](#): > > What gave them the ‘right’ to come over here and destroy billions of dollars worth of stuff, kill thousands of our people and cause us hundreds of billions in economic downturn? Have you heard the schoolyard expression _Two wrongs don’t make a right?_ You go on to point out that cheeseburgers kill many more than 9/11, while supporting the Bush-Cheney misadventure. :smack: By your logic you should kill a hundred innocent civilians next time a cheeseburger displeases you. > [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > The claims that we gave the terrorists what they wanted are nonsense… > > Al Qaeda was quite clear about what their goals were: the withdrawal of American forces from the Middle East. I hope it isn’t a hijack to refute this train of thought with a political analogy. Many politicians rant against some injustice or “political correctness” as a _wedge issue_ — but _the last thing they really want is for that issue to go away_. Similarly, Islamic terrorists’ agenda of a militant Caliphate requires inflaming fellow Arabs with wedge issues. Why do you think they deliberately exacerbate rather than ease the suffering of the Palestinians? U.S.'s over-reaction to the 9/11 tragedy played right into their hands. ---
**Author:** ![coremelt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@coremelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coremelt)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2016, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-had-ignored-9-11/756103/49 "2016-06-03T04:27:18Z")
I think we should turn the question around. What if Bush hadn’t ignored the warnings from his own intelligence agencies that a large attack was imminent? > **[The Pre-9/11 Warnings Bush’s Team Ignored Were Way More Intense Than We Thought](https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2015/11/george-w-bush-s-white-house-ignored-these-extremely-dramatic-pre-9-11-warnings-george-tenet-and-cofer-black-reveal.html)** > > The threat warnings that George W. Bush’s White House received—and ignored—prior to the 9/11 terrorist attacks were more dire than previously known. Maybe the NSA and CIA could have rounded up the hijackers and stopped 9/11. I think thats a much more interesting question to discuss. ---
**Author:** ![Giraffes\_Can\_t\_Dance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/5e9695/32.png) [@Giraffes\_Can\_t\_Dance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giraffes_Can_t_Dance)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2016, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-had-ignored-9-11/756103/50 "2016-06-03T05:05:12Z")
The ignoring strategy in response to terrorism employed by Bill Clinton birthed 911. ---
**Author:** ![Giraffes\_Can\_t\_Dance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/5e9695/32.png) [@Giraffes\_Can\_t\_Dance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giraffes_Can_t_Dance)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2016, 5:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-had-ignored-9-11/756103/51 "2016-06-03T05:13:37Z")
The OP’s question is truly about the wars that followed 911. Such wars were not the result of 911. Anyone believing so is a mediocre revisionist History professor at a third-rate community college. Those wars were the result of dysfunctional intelligence, and a Tyrant who balked at the UN’s inspection demands. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2016, 6:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-had-ignored-9-11/756103/52 "2016-06-03T06:46:50Z")
> [@Giraffes\_Can\_t\_Dance](#): > > The ignoring strategy in response to terrorism employed by Bill Clinton birthed 911. Bizarre ignorance! Clinton made fighting bin Laden a priority, even proposing a December 1998 strike on Kandahar to take him out. (The Joint Chiefs dissuaded him, citing collateral damage.) He tried to explain his concerns to the incoming Bush-Cheney Administration. But their overriding philosophy seemed to be “Whatever Clinton did, do the opposite”, so the terrorist threat was ignored until 11 September 2001. (And even when Cheney did respond, it was the opportunity for profit and experimentation in non-terrorist Iraq that drove the military planning.) ---
**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 3, 2016, 7:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-had-ignored-9-11/756103/53 "2016-06-03T07:26:34Z")
> [@Giraffes\_Can\_t\_Dance](#): > > The OP’s question is truly about the wars that followed 911. Such wars were not the result of 911. Anyone believing so is a mediocre revisionist History professor at a third-rate community college. My irony meter melted through the floor at “mediocre revisionist”. ---
**Author:** ![Giraffes\_Can\_t\_Dance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/5e9695/32.png) [@Giraffes\_Can\_t\_Dance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giraffes_Can_t_Dance)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2016, 12:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-had-ignored-9-11/756103/54 "2016-06-03T12:29:25Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > Bizarre ignorance! Clinton made fighting bin Laden a priority, even proposing a December 1998 strike on Kandahar to take him out. (The Joint Chiefs dissuaded him, citing collateral damage.) He tried to explain his concerns to the incoming Bush-Cheney Administration. But their overriding philosophy seemed to be “Whatever Clinton did, do the opposite”, so the terrorist threat was ignored until 11 September 2001. (And even when Cheney did respond, it was the opportunity for profit and experimentation in non-terrorist Iraq that drove the military planning.) It’s fun to spin things after the fact; and it’s nice that Clinton “wanted to do something, but was dissuaded”, but the truth is, he actually did very little. Clinton’s lack of action fueled their rise. ---
**Author:** ![Human\_Action](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@Human\_Action](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Human_Action)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2016, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-had-ignored-9-11/756103/55 "2016-06-03T13:49:28Z")
> [@Giraffes\_Can\_t\_Dance](#): > > The OP’s question is truly about the wars that followed 911. Such wars were not the result of 911. Anyone believing so is a mediocre revisionist History professor at a third-rate community college. Not an _inevitable_ result of 9/11, but clearly a result of them. 9/11 was necessary, but not sufficient, for the two wars. > [@](#): > > Those wars were the result of dysfunctional intelligence, and a Tyrant who balked at the UN’s inspection demands. Now who’s the revisionist? In my 27 January update to the Council, I said that it seemed from our experience that Iraq had decided in principle to provide cooperation on process, most importantly prompt access to all sites and assistance to UNMOVIC in the establishment of the necessary infrastructure. This impression remains, and we note that access to sites has so far been without problems, including those that had never been declared or inspected, as well as to Presidential sites and private residences. [Hans Blix (head of UNMOVIC at the time)'s report to the Security Council, February 14, 2003.](http://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/feb/14/iraq.unitednations1) ---
**Author:** ![Giraffes\_Can\_t\_Dance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/5e9695/32.png) [@Giraffes\_Can\_t\_Dance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giraffes_Can_t_Dance)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2016, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-had-ignored-9-11/756103/56 "2016-06-03T14:58:56Z")
I’m not sure who’s worse: The guy suggesting that Clinton’s non-action in opposition to terrorism was justified by his post-presidential tough talk; or the guy who just linked nonsense providing no insight as to his opinion. The ignorance of revisionist history is bliss! ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2016, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-had-ignored-9-11/756103/57 "2016-06-03T16:54:41Z")
> [@Giraffes\_Can\_t\_Dance](#): > > I’m not sure who’s worse: The guy suggesting that Clinton’s non-action in opposition to terrorism was justified by his post-presidential tough talk; or the guy who just linked nonsense providing no insight as to his opinion. > > The ignorance of revisionist history is bliss! What right-wing site do you get information from? 'Fess up! [Snopes isn’t infallible, but they know more than you.](http://www.snopes.com/rumors/clinton.asp) ---
**Author:** ![Human\_Action](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@Human\_Action](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Human_Action)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2016, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-had-ignored-9-11/756103/58 "2016-06-03T18:19:06Z")
> [@Giraffes\_Can\_t\_Dance](#): > > I’m not sure who’s worse: The guy suggesting that Clinton’s non-action in opposition to terrorism was justified by his post-presidential tough talk; or the guy who just linked nonsense providing no insight as to his opinion. > > The ignorance of revisionist history is bliss! If you don’t have the facts on your side, pound on the table, right? You’re wrong that Clinton took no action on terrorism, and you’re wrong that Saddam Hussein didn’t cooperate with UNMOVIC’s inspectors. No amount of bitching about other posters will change that. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2016, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-had-ignored-9-11/756103/59 "2016-06-04T03:57:12Z")
> [@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. There once was a TV show called _The West Wing._ One of the characters was a fictional president of the USA. There’s a scene where he’s calling for vengeance against some country for an attack of some kind, and wants to kill 1000 of their people for every American life lost. His chief of staff tries to calm him down and accept proportionate response. I thought President Bartlett came off as a racist (or nationalistic if you will) ass in that scene. I see Bartlett held up as a “good” fictional president, which I see as a misreading of the show’s text. He’s arrogant and deeply flawed. The people around him have to keep him in line, and spend a lot of time covering up his lies and mistakes. But many Americans love him. There’s your problem. Conservatives think they know better than liberals, liberals think they’re better than conservatives, and they almost all call like howling cannibals for the blood of the foreigners. The USA isn’t a nation; it’s a psychotic cult. Those of us who can see the USA as she looks from outside, and accept the rule of law, the rule of treaty, and acting as a responsible peer to the other polities of the world–I’m afraid we’re not the norm, somehow? ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2016, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-had-ignored-9-11/756103/60 "2016-06-04T04:07:49Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Why not apply the same logic to drunk drivers? Just ignore it. Why bother trying to decrease drunk driving by arresting people who do it and taking away their licenses? That costs money. You’re right. We should totally find persons with alleged ties to the alcohol trade and imprison them without trial. I don’t think it needed to be\* ignored,\* as such. But somehow we’ve had named multiple “20th hijackers” and “9-11 masterminds.” The USA’s successive paranoid versions of events lack credibility. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-had-ignored-9-11/756103.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-had-ignored-9-11/756103.md?page=4)