Once again, Krauthammer nails it.

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The 9/11 'overreaction'? Nonsense.

By Charles Krauthammer, Published: September 9

The new conventional wisdom on 9/11: We have created a decade of fear. We overreacted to 9/11 — al-Qaeda turned out to be a paper tiger; there never was a second attack — thereby bankrupting the country, destroying our morale and sending us into national decline.

The secretary of defense says that al-Qaeda is on the verge of strategic defeat. True. But why? Al-Qaeda did not spontaneously combust. Yet, in a decade Osama bin Laden went from the emir of radical Islam, jihadi hero after whom babies were named all over the Muslim world — to pathetic old recluse, almost incommunicado, watching shades of himself on a cheap TV in a bare room.

read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-911-overreaction-nonsense/2011/09/08/gIQAc727CK_story.html

I found the following a tad alarmist:

"Al-Qaeda again is seeking to harm Americans and in particular to target New York and Washington," Mrs Clinton said on Friday.

"This should not surprise any of us. It is a continuing reminder of the stakes in our struggle against violent extremism, no matter who propagates it, no matter where it comes from, no matter who its targets might be."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-14857416

As much as the tin foil hat crowd amuse me, I don't sit with them. But something about this just doesn't feel right. .

Alarmist? It is just plain common sense in these times.

Alarmist? It is just plain common sense in these times.

I'm sure I read a verbatim post several years ago defending the intention to search for WOMD in Iraq.

And?

Of course the reaction to the 9/11 attacks was an overreaction.

Any hindsight perceived good results (whether real or exagerated) can not refute the reality ten years ago.

Knowing the truth as they did, they knowingly overreacted.

And?

And this is just another related issue that has had it's propaganda well and truly implanted in the American psyche.

Americans were so horrified that anyone, let alone a measly Arab, would dare to attack not merely America, but New York itself, that of course they over-reacted. That's Americans, at least how much of the rest of the world perceives them. The same about the Iraq war (and I shall never be convinced that Bush and Powell did not know that there were no WMD in Iraq).

Americans were so horrified that anyone, let alone a measly Arab, would dare to attack not merely America, but New York itself, that of course they over-reacted. That's Americans, at least how much of the rest of the world perceives them. The same about the Iraq war (and I shall never be convinced that Bush and Powell did not know that there were no WMD in Iraq).

Bush, Powel, Rumsfeld, Rice, et al.

I forget the name of another one....a chip-toothed raspy voiced, stocky chap...you get the sense that he's a real tough guy (in the nicest sense), actually someone I respect for his intelligence and plain regret in retrospect of his complicity. W.........?

Our memories and history in general is highly manipulated.

Something like 3,000 people were killed and there were many other attempts to kill Americans. It is no secret that Iraq had WMDS at one time and that UN Nuclear inspectors were prevented from looking for them. Payback was more than justified.

However, in retrospect, I do think that we over-reacted in the attempt to "nation build". We should have gone in and gotten revenge and then left. Bash and Bolt as the English used to say.

The day of the attacks, I hadn't seen the news when I arrived at work, so I knew nothing about it. I was told by some co-workers and my first thought was of Bush and how he was going to react. I said "Someone is going to pay for this. I really hope it is the right ones."

I had seen no pictures or heard no reports to override my thoughts. My fear was much more of Bush & Co. than of the attackers. Within a few days of having the images burned into my brain, I was equally afraid of both.

I don't know that there was an overreaction to 9/11. It was just a convenient excuse for a lot of things he wanted to do.

It was a perfect storm. A not very bright President surrounded by advisors with ill intentions and AQ, an equally ill intentioned group of people.

Alarmist? It is just plain common sense in these times.

Yes it is common sense

But the rhetoric is still very, very alarmist.

The day of the attacks, I hadn't seen the news when I arrived at work, so I knew nothing about it. I was told by some co-workers and my first thought was of Bush and how he was going to react. I said "Someone is going to pay for this. I really hope it is the right ones."

I was watching at a bar in Eastern Europe. While the buildings were still burning I told some European friends that if they thought that America wa a "bully" before, they haven't seen anything yet. We (the USA) wasn't going to just sit back and do nothing.

Alarmist? It is just plain common sense in these times.

Yes it is common sense

But the rhetoric is still very, very alarmist.

You really think it was a little over the top?

I was watching events unfold in my house in Saudi Arabia. I spent the next 7 years in walled, barricaded and guarded compounds except when I had to go out in public. My office was in the compound but I still had to go to the military base daily to conduct business.

Did you know concrete barriers one meter long, one meter high were selling for $100 each? We had to put 25 of them at the entrance to our compound and it was a small compound. Of course we also had to build a 3 meter by 3 meter building to house the Saudi military guards and pour a nice parking place with a roof over it to park the humvee.

Since I lost one employee to an Al-Qaeda assassination, maybe we should have overreacted a little more.

Well in many ways I would say OBL achieved his goal of bankrupting the US

He had not forgotten what happened to the USSR after their folly in Afghanistan

I agree with others who say it was an over reaction, continues to be so & now is kept alive by fear mongering.

This last month or two there has been show after shows on TV in the US reminding everyone of the need to FEAR !!!

Maybe some day common sense will prevail & we will look at some of our own actions that caused the hatred towards us & which in turn causes our fear of retaliation. I will tell you this....It is not the tired old cliche that they hate us for our freedoms.

Nice timing as we will once again hit the debt ceiling next week & also nice timing because if the so called super committee does not come up with over 1 Trillion in cuts by Thanksgiving ....Automatically triggered spending cuts will be put into motion. Defense spending among them.

There is much money to be made supplying tools of the trade. Don't ya know

Edited September 10, 201114 yr by flying

Nice timing as we will once again hit the debt ceiling next week & also nice timing because if the so called super committee does not come up with over 1 Trillion in cuts by Thanksgiving ....Automatically triggered spending cuts will be put into motion. Defense spending among them.

The US Senate , by a vote of 52-45, has already approved an increase of $500 Billion in the debt limit.

http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2011/09/08/senate-approves-500-billion-increase-in-borrowing-authority/?mod=google_news_blog

Nice timing as we will once again hit the debt ceiling next week & also nice timing because if the so called super committee does not come up with over 1 Trillion in cuts by Thanksgiving ....Automatically triggered spending cuts will be put into motion. Defense spending among them.

The US Senate , by a vote of 52-45, has already approved an increase of $500 Billion in the debt limit.

http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2011/09/08/senate-approves-500-billion-increase-in-borrowing-authority/?mod=google_news_blog

As they said in your link....

The U.S. Senate, in an unusual procedure

Yet nothing seems unusual to the continued devaluation/default on our currency that we see today.

We will see now what the trip wire does if the super committee <sic> does not find the called for trillion+ in cuts.

We are even now in a controlled descent/default. We will see if any possible landing exists in the future.

Edited September 11, 201114 yr by flying

Given that I reject the conspiracy theory that one very sick man on dialysis and 19 bumbling arabs armed with boxcutters successfully managed to suspend the laws of physics resulting in the events of 9/11 a decade ago, I would say that America definitely over reacted to the situation, but the over reaction was very much intentional.

But however you look at it, the world today is different and America's actions are spawning counter actions throughout the world. Independent of who started it, it appears likely that a nasty war will finish it. It seems at this point you can't rescind the security restrictions put in place a decade ago, because now people really would try and take advantage of it.

I for one don't believe the current offensive by the US is in any way respecting the thousands of people who died in that terrible tragedy. But I also don't believe America has the moral courage to admit it is an empire in decline and turn the torch over voluntarily to China. I think the events that have occurred over the last 10 years are the events that everyone wants.

Other choices were possible and actually still are, but people don't want to go that way because it requires facing some truly distasteful realities. Mych easier just to say we are fighting for freedom and we are the good guys, no matter how much tyranny we create at home and abroad in the process.

<br />Something like 3,000 people were killed and there were many other attempts to kill Americans. It is no secret that Iraq had WMDS at one time and that UN Nuclear inspectors were prevented from looking for them. Payback was more than justified. <br />However, in retrospect, I do think that we over-reacted in the attempt to "nation build". We should have gone in and gotten revenge and then left. Bash and Bolt as the English used to say.<br />

About as justified and logical as going on a shooting spree in a kindergarten.

Hundreds of thousands of people died in the Iraq war. Now, how many of these people were somehow responsible for the three thousand deaths in 9/11?

Using that "logic" the Allies should have left Nazi Germany alone too as civilians were killed trying when trying to free the people that they conquered made into slaves, tortured and slaughtered.

Edited September 12, 201114 yr by Ulysses G.

I do not think the over reaction to 9/11 can in anyway be compared to WWII/reaction to the Nazi's

Starting with the supposed reason for 9/11

Then realize it was not a country declaring war on America.

Yet we have basically ravaged two countries with a third in progress.

Then we could also look at the event itself & realize it has been

10 years of killing reaction to 9/11

WWII lasted 6 years & 1 day

As meadish_sweetball pointed out it has gone well beyond any reasonable point of retaliation.

This has sadly become something else well beyond any justifiable logic.

Edited September 12, 201114 yr by flying

Afghanistan harbored terrorists who declared war on America and sneak-attacked (much like Pearl Harbor) and intended more attacks.

Iraq was worrisome because of their threats and Nuclear and Chemical Weapons programs - which they had actually used on their own people - and their support of many terrorist groups.

You do not have to actually declare war in order to murder another countries' citizens.

WWII lasted 6 years & 1 day

from the OP link;

9/11 was our Pearl Harbor. This time, however, the enemy had no home address. No Tokyo. Which is why today’s war could not be wrapped up in a mere four years. It was unconventional war by an unconventional enemy embedded within a worldwide religious community. Yet in a decade, we largely disarmed and defeated it, and developed the means to continue to pursue its remnants at rapidly decreasing cost. That is a historic achievement.

Afghanistan harbored terrorists who declared war on America and sneak-attacked (much like Pearl Harbor) and intended more attacks.

Iraq was worrisome because of their threats and Nuclear and Chemical Weapons programs - which they had actually used on their own people - and their support of many terrorist groups.

You do not have to actually declare war in order to murder another countries' citizens.

Well I do not know that it could be called a sneak attack in the sense that there was a reason for it. That reason was not something new.

That reason was the result of many years of what was seen to the attackers as a form of invasion/manipulation on their home soil.

I am in no way condoning what they did & agree the perpetrators should have been hunted down period.

Yet I think back to comments that the US bombing Japan was justified because it sent a message & ended that war earlier.

I would think the folks who thought that was justified would have less of a problem with an enemy of America thinking the same thing.

Who is to say this enemy did not want to show basically the same thing the US did?

ie: We can hit you were you live too?

As for the 2nd part of your reply....Again I do not condone attacking countries because they are worrisome.

Following that form of thinking again would support 9-11 rather than condemn it.

Edited September 12, 201114 yr by Scott
spelling

WWII lasted 6 years & 1 day

from the OP link;

9/11 was our Pearl Harbor. This time, however, the enemy had no home address. No Tokyo. Which is why today’s war could not be wrapped up in a mere four years. It was unconventional war by an unconventional enemy embedded within a worldwide religious community. Yet in a decade, we largely disarmed and defeated it, and developed the means to continue to pursue its remnants at rapidly decreasing cost. That is a historic achievement.

I understand that but at the same time going back to what meadish_sweetball was saying....Does it justify killing so many others?

Because the attackers don't have an address we should attack 3 countries with impunity?

I should add that they are also attacking the rights of their own citizens here in the US with this war called the war on terror.

Are we really addressing the cause of the problem

(not just the attackers) Or are we creating more problems/attackers?

As for a decade later of killing for them to feel any better about supposedly disarming them....I would remind that

1) many weapons come from us in the first place

and more importantly

2) Realize that weapons they used on 9-11 is not one that can be disarmed

Edited September 12, 201114 yr by flying

Well I do not know that it could be called a sneak attack in the sense that there was a reason for it.

As for the 2nd part of your reply....Again I do not condone attacking countries because they are worrisome.

The Japanese had "reasons" too. However, IMO they were both just manufactured excuses for doing something evil that had little to do with the justifications that they gave.

Iraq was not attacked because they were "worrisome", they were attacked because they refused to allow nuclear weapons to do their job. Many people seem to conveniently forget that if they had done so, they never would have been invaded.

Edited September 12, 201114 yr by Ulysses G.

Iraq was not attacked because they were "worrisome", they were attacked because they refused to allow nuclear weapons to do their job. Many people seem to conveniently forget that if they had done so, they never would have been invaded.

Sorry I used the word worrisome after reading your post

Iraq was worrisome because of their threats and Nuclear and Chemical Weapons programs

I understand the nuclear weapons reason to be debatable from all I have read they were after all inspected heavily & at great costs.

link

Contradicting the main argument for a war that has cost more than 1,000 U.S. lives, the top U.S. arms inspector reported Wednesday that he had found no evidence that Iraq produced weapons of mass destruction after 1991. He also concluded that Saddam Hussein’s weapons capability weakened, not grew, during a dozen years of U.N. sanctions before the U.S. invasion last year.

link

There were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq

1,625 UN and US inspectors spent two years searching 1,700 sites at a cost of more than $1bn

Most articles claim yes he had ambitions but....again that is the same as Iran & their current stance.

Hopefully we or Israel will not make the same mistake twice.

I even remember Bush joking about it later ( and getting heat for the joke) about wishing there had been or they had found some.

I forget the exact context.

At the end of the day I am sorry to say...What ever the reasons were for Iraq it was not nukes/chem weapons

It seems as well thought out an argument as backing the Libyan rebels. There is a reason but it is not the one we the general public are

privy to. Which to me means it is probably not an acceptable reason.

As I said, "Iraq was worrisome because of their threats and Nuclear and Chemical Weapons programs", but they were attacked because they did not allow UN nuclear weapons inspectors to do their job and it was well known that they had both a nuclear and Chemical Weapons programs in the recent past and had actually used chemical weapons on their own people.

Edited September 13, 201114 yr by Ulysses G.