all these fantasies are nice, but they ignore the major problem:
the inability to stop the attacks wasn’t due to failure of
intelligence gathering–it was due to a failure of the IMAGINATION.
If you could somehow have notified the FBI, CIA and the American public in general, nobody would have believed you–because it would seem too improbable.
Try to remember just how deeply shocked you were for those first few hours, wherever you were that morning. Even with the live TV coverage in front of your face, it was hard to comprehend the disaster. Now that we are all “accustomed” to thinking about terror, the next attack won’t be such a shock.
Example–imagine that next year, a series of bombs explode in senstive locations, or poison gas is released in New York subways. We will all run to the radio and TV, and immediately ask “how many victims are there?”. On Sept 11, nobody asked how many victims there were. We all just stood there gasping in shock, wondering “what the hell is going on”.
When nobody knows what is going on, nobody is prepared to react.Our firemen were heros, when they were called to be.But if you could have told them 3 hours earlier to get ready for collapsing towers, no reasonable people would have believed you.
I’d bitch and moan because I didn’t have the presence of mind to write down that week’s winning lottery tickets before my magical trip.
I wouldn’t do a thing. If I said anything or tried to warn people I’d be under closer scrutiny than any Arab would be having that kind of prior knowledge. If I was able to stop it then what’s to say something worse wouldn’t happen down the line and I would be denied a magical journey through time to stop that.
Chappachula is right. If you told someone before it happened that it was going to happen no-one would have believed you. You’d probably have been bundled off by the men in white coats!
Sorry, if you gave the FBI specific flight numbers you bet your butt they’d look into it.
I’d try to notify the FBI anonymously, telling them I overheard some people on a bus discussing the plan.
If that fell through or I thought they were beginning to suspect me of being a part to the terrorism, I’d stock up on little flags and patriotic bumper stickers. Eff lottery numbers, thems where the big bucks were.
In this current climate, the Authorities do not take threats to the President, no matter how whimsical, very lightly. Do not post in this manner again, please.
You don’t run around like Tech Sgt Reece in The Terminator raving about the future so they can lock you up in a mental asylem. You make up some shit that sounds reasonable so someone checks into it.