If 9-11 Hadn't Happened, Where Would the World Be?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

By GWYNNE DYER
LONDON -- Five years since 9/11, and we are still being told that the world has changed forever. But the attack on the United States on Sept. 11, 2001, was a low-probability event that could just as easily not have happened. The often careless and sometimes incompetent hijackers might have been caught before boarding those planes, and there were not 10 other plots of similar magnitude stacked up behind them. Would the world really be all that different now if there had been no 9/11?

There would have been no invasion of Afghanistan, and probably no second term for President George W. Bush, whose main political asset for the past five years has been his claim to be leading the U.S. in a Global War on Terror. Deprived of the opportunity to posture as a heroic war leader in the mold of Winston Churchill or Franklin D. Roosevelt, Bush would have had great difficulty in persuading the American public that his first-term achievements merited a second one.

Would Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz & Co. have succeeded in invading Iraq anyway? That was high on their agenda from the moment they took office, but without the 9/11 attacks eight months later, they would have had great difficulty in persuading the American public that invading Iraq, a country on the other side of the world that posed no threat to the U.S., was a good idea. Whereas after 9/11, it was easy to sell the project to geographically challenged Americans: Maybe no Iraqis were involved in 9/11, but they're all Arabs, aren't they?

So no Afghanistan, no Iraq -- and probably no Israeli attack on Lebanon either, because that was pre-planned in concert with the U.S. Hezbollah's kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers and the killing of three others in a cross-border raid in late June was a major provocation, but the Bush administration had already signed off on an all-out Israeli air assault to destroy Hezbollah months before. All they needed was a suitable excuse, which Hezbollah duly provided. But assume no Bush second term, and that also doesn't happen...

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/eo20060913a1.html

[vicman]

1. So, the question is, once again...

MIHOP or LIHOP?

[Redstone]

2. OK, until the point when the article veers into anti-semitism.

Which makes me NOT want to follow the link and read the rest of it.

Redstone

[Lydia Leftcoast]

5. Any criticism of the Israeli government is anti-Semitism?

:wtf:

[Redstone]

6. No, bullshit statements like this are:

"that was pre-planned in concert with the U.S."

Got some proof? Or does the author of that article have some proof?

Redstone

[Lydia Leftcoast]

7. I don't know what his sources are, but Gwynne Dwyer is

usually pretty well-informed. His commentary for CBC (on the late, lamented Newsworld International) during the initial invasion of Iraq was comprehensive, with lots of historical and recent event background, and no love for the Bushies.

His PBS series on War many years was excellent. He's no ideologue.

Who knows, his sources for that assertion may be from inside Israel itself, but as I said, I don't know. I certainly have no trouble believing that the Bushies would encourage Israel to invade Lebanon.

[DianeG5385]

3. We, most definitely would still be in Iraq

I don't know what ploy would have been necessary to get us there, but there would have been a catalystic event. This was a KNOWN item, that Bush was going to Iraq, before Bush was elected so NO ONE can claim ignorance.

Many in the news media lusted after war reporting and fake heroism. Plus, it boosts ratings. It had been 10 years since the last big cable news event, the 1991 Gulf war, which MADE cable news and CNN. Makes you wonder where these folks loyalties lie...

[Bitwit1234]

4. 9/11

If we did not have the attack on the twin towers, no amount of fudging would have re-elected bush. The totals against him would have been too darn great for them to make up.

[watercolors]

8. In a war in Iraq

it was a given when bush got in!

[CJCRANE]

9. There would've been bigger anthrax attacks!...n/t

[Name removed]

10. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Dinger]

11. How Weak You Are

[CJCRANE]

12. Very Rovian.

Well done.