Simplistic… body count plain and simple wasn’t an objective in itself.
Surley they could have targeted something more effective then the Pentegon and the Capitol buildings then. I think it’s obvious that in those two choices, anyways, symbolisim was a far greater concern then maximizing body count.
Could it simply be that the WTC was the biggest, and therefore easiest target? Judging by the angle of one of the planes it looked like the nut flying the plane had to bank sharply in order to hit it.
The 9/11 Commission Report stated that, had they not been able to hit the WTC, their Plan B was to crash the planes in Midtown Manhattan. Right where I work.
That gave me a bit of a chill.
I remember watching video of the Taliban destroying the rock carving Buddhas in Afghanistan, in, I think it was in May of 2001. They said they had destroyed these ancient works of art because they were blasphemy or some such rot. I have always thought it was a clear signal that 1) they were nuts; and 2) they were going after symbolic representations of things they found to be evil, or anti Islam. I think they picked the 911 targets on the basis of symbolic value, but I still have never heard a good reason for WHY they felt the attacks needed to be carried out at all. Who did it profit? What was gained? Now three years later, I wonder if precipitating a global Islam–Christian conflict was the real goal.
The Pentagon, I’ll give you. That was a symbolic target. But the WTC contained the largest concentration of people per square foot in New York, possibly the entire country. Where else would you attack if you wanted to kill as many as possible?
Sometimes the simplest answer is correct. Body count is always a prime objective.
Well now, the Pentagon is huge, and it’s sited right next to the Potomac River. Even if the building were a simple square shape instead (obviously we wouldn’t call it the “Pentagon” then) it would still be easy to spot and hit from an airplane. Unfortunately.
This really amuses me — or amuses me as much as anything can coming from an earnestly depraved person reveling in mass slaughter. I’ll add this to Bin Laden’s public boast that the World Trade Center’s destruction had done over a trillion dollars of damage to the U.S. economy. (Really, that much? Should have been an instant depression then. Where is it?)
Anyway it amuses me because this “mastermind”, along with some other foreigners who aren’t terrorists at all, obviously think that Manhattan is the fusion core of the American sun, the lynchpin of the national economy, or something like that. I’m sure a few New Yorkers think this too. Yank the pin, and the whole thing should instantly blow up.
There was some real damage of course, and I don’t mean to trivialize it. (And I’m not even addressing the immeasurable human loss, I’m just focussing on this one guy’s remarks.) Obviously though the U.S. still chugs along about as well as it ever has. It would seem this terrorist mastermind needs a new economic theory.
I suppose we should be grateful that, if there are going to be terrorists, some of their managers are this dumb. There’s just no escaping the Peter Principle, no matter where you work.
I recall a recent story about one of Bin Laden’s broadcast videos: In it, he mentioned the attack on the two towers in Beirut. Lebanon as some sort of motivating factor.
Can anyone fill in the gaps here?
You might be right. As I said before, the reason for bombing the WTC in 1993 certainly seemed to have been to cause as much death and destruction as possible. This may have been the only reason for choosing it in 2001. But if I recall, the list of other buildings Osama had planned to destroy in the original plan (there was something like 10) were, like the Pentagon, the Capitol and the WH, almost certainly choosen for symbolic value. Does anyone know what the other building were?, I can’t find the list now.
This makes me think that the WTC was choosen at least partially for symbolic value as well as body count. Perhaps as a point against American economic dominence, or perhaps just because it represented a past Al-Queda attack that failed, and thus was a symbol of their own persistence.
I’m skeptical of reports that Al-Queda attacked the WTC in hopes of crippling the US economy, just as I doubt they though that they would cripple the US army by bombing the Pentagon. They are crazy, but the leadership is intelligent and fairly well educated.
I’ve got a slightly different take. By attacking well known and highly visible, in sense of being in the public eye, they could cause considerable panic and cost the US dearly.
And so far their plan, if that was it, has worked. Panic has resulted in the creation of a whole new government department by an administration that claims that the private sector can always do things better, except that private airport security must be replaced by government employee airport security. In addition, our elephantine airway security program has virtually bankrupted the major airlines who already had plenty of financial troubles.
So far their plan has resulted in the government taking a deep interest in what people read, and what opinions are expressed on boards like this.
So far their plan has shown that creating a lot of message traffic costs the US large sums as a hedge against the possibility that something might happen.
So far their plan has resulted in the runination of whatever infrastructure Iraq had and inserted the US military into a politically volatile region where we already had enough enemies even among our nominal friends like Saudi Arabia.
I could go on but I think the idea is clear.
If we reacted to the 50000 or so annual automibile deaths like we reacted to the 3000 at the WTC, autos would be restricted to 10 mi/hr with a minimimum separation between cars of half a mile.
Good analogy… but careful though… they might call you “weak” on terror for saying that though! :eek:
bin Laden mentioned in one of his manifestos that he thinks the US and most of the global economy is based on something he refers to as “lending at interest” and what the rest of us think of as the stock market. He considers this un-Islamic.
Therefore he attacked the WTC both in 1993 and in 2001 because they were symbolic of the secular, non-Islamic basis for the US and the world. And they were large targets.
He attacked the Pentagon because it is symbolic of the US military dominance. And, he attacked either the Capitol or the White House because that is where the American leadership is centered. In other words, he attacked the WTC because the US has a secular economy, and the Pentagon and Washington DC because we have a secular government.
All of them were symbolic targets. I can’t imagine even a magical thinker like bin Laden and the like are deluded enough to really believe we were going to surrender, or do what he wants, because of 9/11.
Regards,
Shodan
Osama basically wanted to attack the major branches of the US Government:
Executive power (White House), Corporate Power and Military power.
(They shouldn’t have excluded the Supreme Court IMHO)
I always figured the twin towers were picked because if the second plane into NYC hit elsewhere the cameras would miss it. I thought that the gap in hitting the towers was to let the media arrive.
Oops.
We only have footage of the first plane by fluke. We have multiple shots of the second plane.
Your belief in the origins of Al Qeada is horrendously incorrect. Please try reading any books on the matter like this. From my summer reading, I gleaned that Al Qeada began with the Russian war with Afghanistan. With the successful driving out of the Russians, which Al Qeada took credit for, the group began recruiting and amassing money. Bernard Lewis points out that getting the Russians out of Afghanistan gave Al Qeada their first taste of victory which they have hungered for ever since. You are correct that stationing troops in Saudi Arabia did piss off ObL. To the point that he got in trouble with the Saudi royals and got kicked out of the country.
Its also true that radical muslims despise skyscrapers. They consider them inherently western. Mohammed Atta was supposedly infuriated when western-style skyscrapers began appearing in Saudi Arabia.
Which is why its important that we build the world’s tallest on top of his grave.
What American corporation is invested here? In-investment is hardly need in a country awash in money and not welcome in one so corrupt. No, their enemies are modernity and moderation.
If I might say this gentle, Z, do not attribute to other people that are similar or comparable to your own. AQ’s philosophy is as different from your life experience (I presume) as chalk is from cheese.
They may be opposed to many of the things you (forgive me again) are, but they are coming at it from a whole 'nother direction.