Most those "changed" by 9/11 were in denial to begin with.

[JAbuchan08]

It reminds me of Columbine, sure it was a disaster and a tragedy, but was anyone really shocked that it happened? Neither of these events was so much surprising as startling. I don't know about you guys, but I wasn't "soft" or unprepared for 9/11. I was born during the nuclear age - I had been expecting something worse than 9/11 for my entire adolescent and adult life.
I know that we are all supposed to be changed by tragedy, but to admit that I've been changed is like admitting that I was living in a world of denial prior to 9-11. Okay for GW, not me.

[Intelsucks]

1. I think what shocked all of us the most was the fact that they were

willing to kill themselves in order to carry out the attacks. NO ONE ever expected anything like that to happen.

[neebob]

3. What shocked me

was how the Fraudministration did nothing but take advantage of it and most people thought that was OK. So, obviously, I'm still shocked.

[slor]

5. No one ever heard of Kamikazes?

And even more to the point, we were warned that people were going to blow up planes several years before 9/11. No my friend, the "shock" should come from the fact that this administration did NOTHING to protect ANYONE that day.

[Intelsucks]

8. Not during peace time against civilian targets with boxcutters as

weapons. No one saw this type of attack coming. If they claim that they did, then I will gladly call them a liar. They have excellent hindsight, and that's about it.

[specimenfred1984]

14. Call me a liar then...

I've lived near D.C. my whole life. Planes fly over the city constantly and all anyone ever needed to do was look up, and the idea that one of those planes could come crashing down is a common thought.

In NYC, the buildings are very tall, in case you didn't notice. The idea of a plane flying into one is so frikken commonplace that to deny it happening is just plain idiocy.

Boxcutters, guns, knives...whatever, planes have been hijacked and will continue to be.

What in the heck is so surprising about that?

[Intelsucks]

16. So you just shrugged when it happened, and told yourself

well, I knew it was just a matter of time. Not a question of if, but when.:eyes: Sorry, but I don't believe you. Excellent hindsight though.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

22. So, you believe the "official" story? Interesting.

[frylock]

26. don't feel badly that you couldn't foresee such an event..

even the military, in their infinite wisdom, couldn't have prepared for people flying planes into targets, kamikaze style. Even when they were planning for that very thing back in 2000.


http://www.mdw.army.mil/news/Contingency_Planning.html

[Bandit]

6. We have been watching suicide bombers for years in Israel and Jordan

Terrorist threatened to fly a plane into the Eiffel Tower in the nineties. There were two reports put on Bush*'s desk early in 2001 One from the gore commission and the other from the Rudman/Hart commission. Both were dealing totally with terrorism and both had scenarios where terrorists flew planes into buildings. Don't say No One ever expected such a thing It is documented. Bush* just felt he had other priorities like vacationing and campaigning.

[Intelsucks]

10. It never happened HERE, and that is the point.

We are very complacent in this country. We certainly got our wake-up call.

[neebob]

11. It never happened here because

we never had a president who saw it as an opportunity.

[Karenina]

21. To have not expected it

is only an indication of myopia.

It can't happen here
It can't happen here
I'm telling you, my dear
That it CAN'T HAPPEN HERE...

RIP, dearest Frank Z.

[whatelseisnew]

12. Wow. so Condi Rice was right after all? Bullshit! The Big Lie Again.

There was a direct threat of suicide airplanes in Genoa at the G8

in july 2001.

So who is the liar here?

[Intelsucks]

19. And you were all over that information back in July 2001, right?

What could they have done? Pre-emptively shut down the country? Round up every Muslim who knows how to fly a plane, and put them in camps or prison?

Everyone has a brilliant critique, but no solutions.

[whatelseisnew]

20. Bwaahaha! Changed your tune pretty quick.

So now you don't support Condi's line?

NOW it is" what could have been done?"

Pathetic.

Ashcroft stopped flying commercial.

How about if they had given a Fucking Warning! to the Airlines?

to the Public?

Goddamned Right I was all over this in July!

I was fucking terrified since the spring!

You are so full of accusations, what a waste of time.

Just keep calling people liars if that is what gets you off.

SeeYah! WWTBY

[Bridget Burke]

29. Let's look at what they did!

John Ashcroft announced he was no longer using commercial airlines & would use government planes. Security information led to this decision. (July 2001)

The government forbade pilots to arm themselves. This right was bestowed in the days of "conventional" hijackings but had never been widely popular. I've got mixed feelings about armed pilots, myself, but wonder why the ban occurred in July 2001.

Also in July 2001--Bush & Cheney both announced they were both going to be out of DC for the month of August.

However, once Bush releases the full records of his security briefings to all members of the commission investigating 9/11, I'm sure all these ugly suspicions will be cleared up.

[cosmicdot]

27. maybe they didn't expect voice/data transmission to take over the planes?

:shrug:

http://www.memes.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=index&catid=25

http://www.memes.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=2533&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0



imo, former Governor Kean should be under investigation, not heading up one

[carpetbagger]

2. I share your GenX fatalism.

Frankly, I was a little surprised that they didn't have anti-aircraft capacity over the center of Washington, but I thought it a bit odd that nobody thought about this mode of attack after that wacko plowed into the White House (or actually shattered himself against the White House) in his small plane in the late 90's.

It's really depressing how much the WTC attack defeated us as a nation. Nobody bats an eye when the attack is used for an excuse for permanent job losses, massive deficits, and the cracking of our network of alliances.

[charlie]

4. I was somewhat surprised

that it was perpetrated by Arabs instead of South and Central Americans. Our neighbors to the south have longstanding grievances from direct meddling in their affairs, arguably with more merit than any group in the Middle East. Not to mention that it would've been far easier for them to pass without notice through our security apparatus.

[enki23]

7. but they don't have the fundamentalist religion to lead them

so they aren't quite as fanatical about all of it. to do bad things is human, but to commit a *real* atrocity takes religion. or failing that, a *very* religiously held ideology.

[charlie]

18. "a very religiously held ideology..."

Considering the suffering they've endured from US supported and trained paramilitary groups and tinpot tyrants, I expected that whatever fervor for opposition ideologies like those of FARC or Shining Path would be amplified into reckless coldblooded strikes against us. Tim McVeigh was barely inconvenienced by his lot as an American, but he was fanatic enough to resort to mass murder.

[SmokeyBlues]

9. Yeah

It's similar to the South African (Afrikaner) woman who lived all her life just a few miles (no more than three) from the sprawling Black "township" known as Soweto and, after agreeing to take a tour of the "township", began sobbing uncontrollably because she "didn't know this was going on." She now clearly understood what other had been talking about for so long.

Yeah, right. Classic clinical denial!

And a lot of Americans honestly believe in that white picket fence, little yellow house, green manicured lawn, 'I never thought anything like that could happen here' bullshit! Also, as tragic as 9/11 was --and my heart goes out to all the families who lost loved ones in such a horrible way as what happened on that fateful day-- other countries have experience more acts of terrorism than us, but don't go around continually ramming the fact down everybody's throat like they are the only ones.

Over 250 people just died in Madrid as the result of terrorism, and our official (and from what I heard on cable and talk radio shows seem to be the general sentiment of many ordinary Americans) response to that tragedy is to call the Spanish people weak and appeasers to terrorists because they voted out a leader who they had no confidence in. American arrogance can sometimes be a very unattractive thing!

[JAbuchan08]

23. So I'm a gen-Xer?

What's the cut-off point?

Anyway's, it is obvious to me (and everyone else here I expect) that the "everything has changed" mantra is a way to conduct a stealth war on civil-liberties.

[JAbuchan08]

24. So I'm a gen-Xer?

What's the cut-off point?

Anyway's, it is obvious to me (and everyone else here I expect) that the "everything has changed" mantra is a way to conduct a stealth war on civil-liberties.

[ochazuke]

13. Sick of all that "9/11 changed everything" talk

The degree to which 9/11 shocked a person is correlated to the degree to which he was aware of world events. Most Americans had never heard of Osama bin Laden before 9/11, had completely forgotten about the 1993 WTC attack, 1998 embassy bombings, and USS Cole suicide attack.

It really takes a lot to get our attention!

[Lydia Leftcoast]

15. If you've traveled in Europe or Asia

you know that millions of people have experienced far worse than 9/11.

China: the Nanjing Massacre, the Cultural Revolution, the famine of the early 1960s, in recent years, floods that left ten million people homeless

Japan: having most of their cities flattened by conventional bombs, with 100,000 killed in a single night in the March 1945 firebombing of Tokyo, domestic terrorism from the 1960s onward (most recently the sarin gas attack).

Europe: most major cities bombed during World War II, large-scale starvation and homelessness in the aftermath, only 25 years after World War I killed off much of a generation. Lots of terrorism, mostly by homegrown groups, beginning in the 1960s.

We're an adolescent country compared to most in Europe and Asia, and we have had the adolescent's attitude, "Nothing bad can happen to ME."

[mr blur]

25. This makes very good sense.

speaking as someone who lived in London for 25 years during which time the IRA (supported financially and by supplies of weapons from, among others, some people in the USA who seemed to feel some kind of emotional/Romantic link with these murderers).

It was a terrible day when this thing happened to the US but many people in the rest of the world found themselves thinking, "Welcome to Reality". What you sow... etc.

[havocmom]

17. 50s 'duck and cover' denial is what I was remembering

As a six year old, way back in the neolithic age, I recall scrunching up under my school desk, dutifully shielding my eyes, and wondering how it would help me if the 'Rooskis' decided to make mushroom clouds over my town. It seemed pretty silly to me at six and it seems even sillier now.

I recall stories of the Kamikaze and saw news films of Buddhist monks and nuns setting themselves on fire for their beliefs during Viet Nam. Most asassins know they will pay with their lives. Suicide bombers have been around for a very long time in Ireland and the Middle East. Anyone who is shocked that people are willing to die for a cause has not paid enough attention to history.

You make good points. Anybody (besides those who actually lost loved ones) who was changed by the attacks of 9-11 was long overdue for a wake up call. Seems there are hundreds of millions living under the delusion that there is such a thing as security. Have long pondered about the mind set of those who do not realize life is fatal. Such people are too easily stameped into a frenzie, which is what makes terrorism work.

Fearful or brave, each of us dies. Once one goes through the grief of understanding that nothing in this world is guaranteed and no one gets out alive, one can reach a level of refreshing freedom from fear. Sadly, it seems many are not able to accept the realities of that freedom.

[sir_captain]

28. You're not from NYC, are you?

I can't speak for every New Yorker, obviously, but 9/11 changed my life forever, and not just because of the people I knew who died. I will never forget the smell of burning human flesh that lingered over Manhattan for weeks, and I will never forget the human kindness and decency that was shown by nearly every New Yorker. I think it's awfully judgemental to tell people that they were in denial, and I also think that the families of victims would be pretty offended at being compared to GW, and rightfully so.

[Bridget Burke]

30. It's the people NOT involved, using 9/11 as an excuse....

Who are disgusting. Certainly, anybody who was in NYC or was otherwise personally affected went through a powerful experience.

But so many who had no personal involvement use 9/11 as an all-purpose excuse. Want to invade Iraq? Want to reduce civil liberties? Want to end funding for social, educational or environmental projects? Hey, we've been at WAR since 9/11--don't ask questions!

Especially when some of those using the tragedy could have done more to prevent it.

[sir_captain]

31. No arguments here

I agree with your point, though I don't think that was the idea that the original poster was trying to get across