Did you take Al Qaeda / bin Laden seriously before 9/11?

[Xyzse]

9. So, I did not know much about Al Qaeda before 9/11.

However, it was something that was discussed in Intelligence circles which was promptly disregarded by the Bush Administration.

Before then, as far as I knew, terror threats were taken cared of with increased intelligence gathering and security rather than military action.

I took it seriously for a few years, till I figured that the Bush administration was the bigger threat. They dickered the goodwill and opportunities they had at the first few months after 9/11.

After that, Al Qaeda became much less of a threat since what they pulled off was an extraordinary attack which had very little chance of actually being accomplished, other than the mass ineptitude and bungling of the prior administration.

What they did do however, is instill a culture of fear, which has been pushed on us constantly.
See, I don't disagree with some measures of protection within the country.

In fact, the best thing they could do is spend money on our infrastructure here, making roads more secure, not prone to crumbling.
Hell, if they build and improve infrastructure and planning on it at the event of a meteorological or whatever else natural disaster, the damage from those things are far more than anything a terrorist could do.

So no, I don't really take them that seriously any more.