Was 9/11 really that bad?

[colonel-fan]

Interesting article in the LA Times:

 

Was 9/11 really that bad?

 

IMAGINE THAT on 9/11, six hours after the assault on the twin towers and the Pentagon, terrorists had carried out a second wave of attacks on the United States, taking an additional 3,000 lives. Imagine that six hours after that, there had been yet another wave. Now imagine that the attacks had continued, every six hours, for another four years, until nearly 20 million Americans were dead. This is roughly what the Soviet Union suffered during World War II, and contemplating these numbers may help put in perspective what the United States has so far experienced during the war against terrorism.

 

It also raises several questions. Has the American reaction to the attacks in fact been a massive overreaction? Is the widespread belief that 9/11 plunged us into one of the deadliest struggles of our time simply wrong? If we did overreact, why did we do so? Does history provide any insight?

[bugatti]

Yet as the comparison with the Soviet experience should remind us, the war against terrorism has not yet been much of a war at all, let alone a war to end all wars. It is a messy, difficult, long-term struggle against exceptionally dangerous criminals who actually like nothing better than being put on the same level of historical importance as Hitler — can you imagine a better recruiting tool? To fight them effectively, we need coolness, resolve and stamina. But we also need to overcome long habit and remind ourselves that not every enemy is in fact a threat to our existence.

 

I would say that is a fair statement.

[Ram]

Interesting article in the LA Times:

 

Was 9/11 really that bad?

 

IMAGINE THAT on 9/11, six hours after the assault on the twin towers and the Pentagon, terrorists had carried out a second wave of attacks on the United States, taking an additional 3,000 lives. Imagine that six hours after that, there had been yet another wave. Now imagine that the attacks had continued, every six hours, for another four years, until nearly 20 million Americans were dead. This is roughly what the Soviet Union suffered during World War II, and contemplating these numbers may help put in perspective what the United States has so far experienced during the war against terrorism.

 

It also raises several questions. Has the American reaction to the attacks in fact been a massive overreaction? Is the widespread belief that 9/11 plunged us into one of the deadliest struggles of our time simply wrong? If we did overreact, why did we do so? Does history provide any insight?

 

What?

[Habib]

Interesting article in the LA Times:

 

Was 9/11 really that bad?

 

IMAGINE THAT on 9/11, six hours after the assault on the twin towers and the Pentagon, terrorists had carried out a second wave of attacks on the United States, taking an additional 3,000 lives. Imagine that six hours after that, there had been yet another wave. Now imagine that the attacks had continued, every six hours, for another four years, until nearly 20 million Americans were dead. This is roughly what the Soviet Union suffered during World War II, and contemplating these numbers may help put in perspective what the United States has so far experienced during the war against terrorism.

 

It also raises several questions. Has the American reaction to the attacks in fact been a massive overreaction? Is the widespread belief that 9/11 plunged us into one of the deadliest struggles of our time simply wrong? If we did overreact, why did we do so? Does history provide any insight?

 

I find this article offensive. 3,000 innocent people were killed in what is agreeably one of the worst days in our countries history, and this article tries to undermine it for political reasons. I say political reasons because he is making an argument against the war on terrorism and while his points are valid, I think he could have used a bit more tact than saying 3,000 people being murdered is essentially irrelevant. Also, by the same logic, "plunged us into one of the deadliest struggles of our time" is a gross overstatement since we lost over 50,000 in Vietnam compared to the 3,000 currently. I know that is callous, but the article demands that comparison since we can simply write off all tragedies that do not compare in death totals.

[5wide]

That's an interesting article.

 

I wonder what the body count would be if you added up all the people who have been killed by Islamic Terrorist attacks worldwide...

 

The world is at war against these people...I'm just not sure they're all aware of it yet.

[GottaRebound]

Considering the facts that the terrorists probably had some help in all of this, I would have to say yes that 911 was a horrible tragedy, much worse than even Pearl Harbor.

 

Just something to make you think a little bit. Do you remember the famous golfer Payne Stewart who was tragically killed in an airplane crash? It is very interesting to note that within 20 minutes of the Pilot announcing that they had plane trouble that a rescue plane was up and running and within those 20minutes caught up with their plane and witnessed the crash. But on 911, nothing was done to 4 high jacked planes. no search and rescue, just sit back and enjoy watch our country fall into terrorism. How does the Pentagon get attacked? Come on, call it conspiracy or theory or whatever, but there is no way a plane could fly into the pentagon without being shot down, and for the plane crashing in Penn., did you see the footage? Nothing left at all, that plane was IMO shot down. You can search the internet for plane crashes and there is always something after a plane of that size crashes, engine, wing, seat, etc...something but not that plane on 911.

 

I believe in some ways that 911 may be a prelude to many Bible prophecies being fulfilled. When someone takes a serious look at all the facts involved in 911, it really makes you wonder. Did you also know (Cite Refference CNN News) that world trade center 7 was demolished on 911? Ther is no way that a crew could have got in there within a 45 minute time table, study all the graphics of the building then decided where to plant the explosives. Those explosives were planted days ahead of time. Look this up on CNN News. The question is why? That building was never slated for demolishing.

 

Americans should brace themselves for what is coming. Dont ever forget what happened on 911!

 

Yes it is a pretty disturbing article. Whoever wrote must have learned to stir from the posters on BGP's

[Brewsky]

Poor Soviets did take it on the chin in WWII. 20 million people dead. It's a statistic that I have always remembered since first hearing it in middle school.

[Birdsfan]

Silly 9/11 conspiracy theories make me physically ill. It's been gone over a million times on here; so I won't bother debunking all the baloney yet again.

[HHSDad]

Poor Soviets did take it on the chin in WWII. 20 million people dead. It's a statistic that I have always remembered since first hearing it in middle school.

The official total of military deaths is 8,668,400; including 6,330,000 killed in action/died of wounds and 556,000 dead from non-combat causes[7,85] plus an estimated 500,000 MIA and 1,283,000 POW dead out of 4,059,000 total POW. However, the estimate by western historians of Soviet military POW deaths is about 3 million (out of 5.7 million total POWs). Richard Overy has noted that " The official figures themselves must be viewed critically, given the difficulty of knowing in the chaos of 1941 and 1942 exactly who had been killed , wounded or even conscripted". The official statistics do not include an additional estimated 1,500,000 conscripted reservists missing or killed, primarily in 1941, before being listed on active strength,150,000 militia and 250,000 Soviet partisan dead. Total Soviet population losses included approximately 13 million men aged 17 to 39.

 

Civilian losses are poorly documented and may include victims of Soviet as well as Nazi repression. Contemporary Russian historians estimate 2.5 to 3.2 million civilian dead due to famine in Soviet territory not occupied by the Germans, these deaths are included in Soviet civilian losses. Russian historian Vadim Erlikman has detailed Soviet losses totaling 26.5 million war related deaths plus 1.7 million victims of Soviet repression. Military losses of 10.6 million include 7.6 million killed or missing in action and 2.6 million POW dead (out of 5.2 million total POWs), plus 400,000 paramilitary and Soviet partisan losses. Civilian deaths totaled 15.9 million which included 1.5 million from military actions; 7.1 million victims of Nazi genocide and reprisals; 1.8 million deported to Germany for forced labor; and 5.5 million famine and disease deaths (including 3.0 million in the territory not under German occupation). Additional famine deaths which totaled 1 million during 1946-47 are not included here. These losses are for the entire territory of the USSR including territories annexed in 1939-40.

 

Total military and civilian losses of the individual Soviet republics were : Russia 13,950,000; Armenia 180,000; Azerbaijan 300,000; Belarus (1945 borders) 2,290,000; Georgia 300,000; Moldova 170,000; Ukraine (1945 borders) 6,850,000; Estonia 65,000; Latvia 250,000; Lithuania (1945 borders) 370,000; Kazakhstan 660,000; Kyrgyzstan 120,00; Tajikistan 120,000; Turkmenistan 100,000; Uzbekistan 550,000.

 

The Soviet Union lost 13.8 of its population. Some countries suffered even worse. Poland lost a staggering 16.1% of its 1939 population. Of the 5.6 million Poles that died, 3 million were Jewish holocaust victims and another 2.2 million were non-Jewish civilians.

 

I think the biggest problem with comparing 9/11 with Soviet losses or even Pearl Harbor is that the latter two were results of military action while 9/11 was an act of terroism against civilians during peacetime.

[GottaRebound]

Silly 9/11 conspiracy theories make me physically ill. It's been gone over a million times on here; so I won't bother debunking all the baloney yet again.

 

You can call it whatever you want. I am not calling it a conspiracy theory, I am just saying there are things that dont add up, and I dont believe in coincindences like this. Sometimes yes but in this case no. Call it silly if you want, all I am saying is that it dont add up. Not as simple that people high jacked the palnes and that was it. People that are narrowminded make me physically ill as well:argue:

[Birdsfan]

You can call it whatever you want. I am not calling it a conspiracy theory, I am just saying there are things that dont add up, and I dont believe in coincindences like this. Sometimes yes but in this case no. Call it silly if you want, all I am saying is that it dont add up. Not as simple that people high jacked the palnes and that was it. People that are narrowminded make me physically ill as well:argue:

There were no coincidences and there were no occurrences that couldn't be explained. Plain and simple. People can find "conspiracies" in anything. Just about every major event in history has been subject to question by revisionists, skeptics, and those who want to see things only as they wish them to be.

 

People are free to question the events of 9/11 all they want. But this type of fabricated doubt is an insult to those who were murdered, those that gave their lives, and those who are giving their all to see that it never happens again.

[GottaRebound]

There were no coincidences and there were no occurrences that couldn't be explained. Plain and simple. People can find "conspiracies" in anything. Just about every major event in history has been subject to question by revisionists, skeptics, and those who want to see things only as they wish them to be.

 

People are free to question the events of 9/11 all they want. But this type of fabricated doubt is an insult to those who were murdered, those that gave their lives, and those who are giving their all to see that it never happens again.

 

Time for me to end MO, before I get suspended, seeing how you have the power and I dont, I guess that is just being skeptical as well, have a great day and may God continue to bless you as you endeavor to subject others to your opinion. BTW, a I guess those at CNN, FOX, MSNBC and others are just insulting those that were murdered. Why even have an investigation right? BTW, there are several things that cannot be explained, as I previous stated. You are entitled to your opinion as well as I am entitled to mine but dont make me out to look like I am insulting those that died!

[H]

In some ways, the U.S. has overreacted. The doctrine of pre-emptive war has been dealt a serious blow with the invasion of Iraq. I would hope that the American public and politicians would be much more thoughtful about the repercussions and justification of starting a war. It is certainly debateable that the U.S. is any safer as a result of invading Iraq than it would be if other means had been pursued. I do not think the invasion of Afghanistan was in any way an overreaction. In fact, given the manner in which we pursued it (relying on limited numbers of Special Forces and local militias to chase down al Qaieda), I would argue that we underreacted to the true and proven terrorist threat that existed and may still exist in Afghanistan.

 

In a lot of ways, I think the U.S. underreacted to 9/11. I believe we still do not 100% x-ray checked baggage on commercial airlines. Many of the common-sense recommendations of the 9/11 Commission have not been enacted. We still have an incredibly porous border with Mexico across which terrorists could easily come into our country. Weapons such as hunting knives designed to evade X-ray detection are still legal for sale in this country (why?). We don't do much in the way of screening cargo containers coming into our ports by the thousands every day.

 

The author tries to make a case that 3000 deaths is not the 20,000,000 inflicted on the Soviets in World War II. But what makes a strong reaction justified is that fact that these people were civilians killed on American soil during peacetime. We cannot accept random, large scale murder of Americans on our own soil under any circumstances. We should not accept living in fear of attack during peacetime in our own country. It is also an unacceptable risk on our economy.

[Birdsfan]

Time for me to end MO, before I get suspended, seeing how you have the power and I dont, I guess that is just being skeptical as well, have a great day and may God continue to bless you as you endeavor to subject others to your opinion. BTW, a I guess those at CNN, FOX, MSNBC and others are just insulting those that were murdered. Why even have an investigation right? BTW, there are several things that cannot be explained, as I previous stated. You are entitled to your opinion as well as I am entitled to mine but dont make me out to look like I am insulting those that died!

I'm not subjecting anyone to anything. Simply pointing out the folly in trying to find ghosts where there are none. And I do feel that denying the true cause of the attack to be insulting to those who died. But this isn't the topic of the thread, and we've taken it off course with this long enough. So, I'll leave it at that.

[HHSDad]

In some ways, the U.S. has overreacted. The doctrine of pre-emptive war has been dealt a serious blow with the invasion of Iraq. I would hope that the American public and politicians would be much more thoughtful about the repercussions and justification of starting a war. It is certainly debateable that the U.S. is any safer as a result of invading Iraq than it would be if other means had been pursued. I do not think the invasion of Afghanistan was in any way an overreaction. In fact, given the manner in which we pursued it (relying on limited numbers of Special Forces and local militias to chase down al Qaieda), I would argue that we underreacted to the true and proven terrorist threat that existed and may still exist in Afghanistan.

In some ways, I too think we overreacted. Or maybe reacted in the wrong way would be more correct. While the government of Afganistan was controlled by the Taliban and the Taliban supported al-Quaida, I think it was a general mistake to declare war on Afghanistan. I think it would have been better to send forces in to Afghanistan to hunt down and find Osama rather than invade the entire country with the intent of overthrowing the Taliban. If the Taliban chose to interfere with our hunt, then we could deal with them. Instead, we've laid waste to a country and failed to achieve our primary objective. And yes, I originally agreed with the full-scale invasion of Afghanistan.