Well, what about it?
This could also be put into IMHO, so Mods, have at it.
Obviously that’s very hard to say, but I assume that other terrorist activity would have continued and Bush wouldn’t have reacted in the same way that the prior admin. had. IOW we’d have been at war somewhere in 2004. Then you would have to wonder how that impacted the election and what the next presidential admin. would have done.
Well, the issues that prodded those who carried out the 9/11 attacks into action, and the supporting structure to finance and train them, would still have existed, even if those specific attacks had not happened, or if the plotters had been arrested before carrying them out. Chances are some other sort of spectacular outrage might have been planned or carried out between then and now.
If said outrage were indeed carried out but had not taken place in the USA, it seems unlikely the US would have invaded Afghanistan. Without a 9/11 event, in addition, it is less sure that the administration would have won a second term. After all, the most recent presidential election was pretty close even with any possible rallying boost that 9/11 might have provided.
OTOH, it seems pretty clear that the administration had a plan dating from well before 9/11 that if a sufficient excuse presented itself, it was going to topple at least one of the more disreputable regimes in the Middle East and impose a government more amenable to US interests there. Iraq would always have been the first choice, due to Saddam’s sorry record, lack of friends, and Iraq’s potential for economic growth (read: oil and gas resources), but if the administration had run into tougher sledding than it did selling its case for invasion, perhaps Syria, Iran or (at the outside) Libya might have ended up the target instead. Just my opinion, but even without a 9/11 event, and assuming the current administration still won a second term, the US would likely have found itself occupying one of these countries sometime before 2008.
I expect that someone else would be President. Without 9-11 as a propaganda tool, he would have been the one term minor disaster he was shaping up to be, instead of the two term major disaster he is.
Remember, the Bush administration was floundering until Sept. 11. The Republicans had just lost control of the Senate, Bush was taking a month long vacation, and the news was fascinated with Chandra Levy and Gary Condit.
I agree with Der Trihs. (There’s something I don’t say every day. 
) Without 9/11, Bush would have pursued a far more domestic agenda. And given how uniformly unpopular his domestic agenda has been (other than tax cuts), Democrats would have picked up a few seats in the House and Senate in 2002. That, coupled with the fact that he would have absolutely no real excuse for doing it, would have made it harder for Bush to take us into Iraq. I believe he still would have tried, however. And when 2004 rolled around, the Dems would not have nominated John Kerry. And the Dem would have won. From there, it’s anyone’s guess.
I think that even if there had been no 9/11 attack, there still would have been an Iraq invasion. WMDs would have been used as justification. On the plus side, I think a lot of domestic overreach like Homeland Security and the Patriot Act wouldn’t have happened; Iraq would be regarded as a war being fought “over there” that has no direct impact on what’s happening in America. On the negative side, I think America’s international reputation would be lower; without the lingering threat of terrorism and sympathy from the 9/11 aftermath, the decision to invade Iraq would look even more arbitrary to other countries.
To be fair, the Prez usually does vacation for all or most of August, when Congress is out of session and there’s little need for him to hang around Washington looking for bills to sign or veto.
Good gods! I agree with you. As unbelievable as that is. 
Had there been no 9/11 the world obviously wouldn’t have changed. We wouldn’t be in Iraq or Afghanistan. Bush probably wouldn’t now be president. I always saw him as a one term domestic policy care taker type president. So, we’d probably have a Democrat in office atm (probably Kerry), we wouldn’t be at war with anyone (most likely…Iran though…), wouldn’t have a large percentage of our deployable force tied down in the shooting gallery that is Iraq, etc etc.
I think that without the drag of the war our economy would be doing even better than its currently doing as well. The DOT COM recession would most likely have been briefer and less deep, and Kerry would probably be presiding over a second boom (which would have made the Dems look even better after the Clinton Years :)).
Another thing is that the US would have obviously been free to put more pressure on Iran, and most likely they wouldn’t have done what they did…at least not in the open (they had restarted their covert development before Bush was president IIRC). If they had, the US would probably have been in a much stronger position to deal with them when the Euro’s began dithering.
-XT
If 9/11 hadn’t happened…
There would have been far less people joining the military…
I would be able to show up thirty minutes before my flight and not risk not making it due to security restrictions…
I wouldn’t have to worry about my phone calls and e-mails being monitored…
I wouldn’t have to write so many obituaries for soldiers who have died overseas…
I wouldn’t have to worry every day about my friends who enlisted…
I’d be able to focus on home problems like chronic homelessness, hunger, and child abuse, instead of overseas problems like WMD’s, hunger, and bombs.
We would have several thousand more people alive…
We would still have the World Trade Centers…
Little girls and boys wouldn’t have had to cry at their mother and fathers’ funerals, asking the surviving parent why someone would do something like that…
I probably would have found something else to bitch about how my tax dollars are being used.
I think the terrorists may have won a little more than we thought they did. O.o At the very least, we’re all very inconvenienced by the post-9/11 world. However, in the days directly following Sept. 11, I saw some of the most heartwrenching and amazing photography, some of the most heroic and brave acts, and some of the most amazing writing ever (and in sharp contrast, I saw some of the worst ugliness out of a human soul that you can get - and NOT from the terrorists). If it weren’t for Sept. 11, I never would have gone into journalism. My life, personally, would be a lot different, as well as the world at large.
Also, if Sept. 11 had never happened, this would never have been written.
~Tasha