What if 9/11 never happened?

I came across an interesting 'what-if' article in the New Yorker recently posing that very question. Andrew Sullivan was the main contributor, and posits that 9/11 came at a good time, all things considered, because it warned us and woke us up to the Islamofascist threat.

--George W Bush would not have been reelected; rather, he would have focused almost entirely on a domestic agenda

--Al Gore would be the current US President

--Iraq would not have been invaded

--Afghanistan would have been bombed to take out Al Qaeda training camps

--Al Qaeda would be found to be thoroughly prepared for a devestating simultaeous terror attack on western cities, such as poisonous gases being released on the metro in London, Moscow, New York and Tel Aviv during rush hour, killing tens of thousands.

--Al Qaeda would by now have smuggled nuclear material into certain western countries

Thoughts?

[Universal_001]

--Al Qaeda would by now have smuggled nuclear material into certain western countries

Thoughts?

Maybe they would have killed us with the dirty bombs, you know, the ones that if made would cause almost no damage.

Or perhaps they would have used liquid explosives which are nearly impossable to take down a plane?

all of course organised through their careful top down command structure, which does not exist because they are not a unified network as they have been potrayed.

The US would have kept ************************************g around with the middle east and thus created the conditions in which fanatics radicalised young men and a 9-11 would have happened one way or another it was inevitable.

[forest]

If the attacks on 911 did not take place, yes the invasion of iraq may not have happened although there is a lot of conspirisary theories that Bush and co wanted to invade Iraq and had planed to before they got elected.

I don't quit understand the augment if 9/11 did not happen Al Qaeda would have attacked New York at a later date. The date is irreverent

also were does the idea come about that Al gore would be president if 9/11 did not happen

Al Gore lost the 2000 election to Bush just short a year before the attacks on NY

A more interesting question is how would the US response have been different if Al Gore was president at the time

[rkeane]

A similar 9/11 style event was always going to happen...it will happen again! The US response to the attacks has been shocking...it has created the biggest terrorist training ground in the world - Iraq. I have absolutely no doubt that thousands of innocent Americans will die as a result of crazy foreign policy decisions.

[KeithM]

If the attacks on 911 did not take place, yes the invasion of iraq may not have happened although there is a lot of conspirisary theories that Bush and co wanted to invade Iraq and had planed to before they got elected.

I don't quit understand the augment if 9/11 did not happen Al Qaeda would have attacked New York at a later date. The date is irreverent

also were does the idea come about that Al gore would be president if 9/11 did not happen

Al Gore lost the 2000 election to Bush just short a year before the attacks on NY

A more interesting question is how would the US response have been different if Al Gore was president at the time

He'd probably have done the exact same as Clinton did when the WTC was first attacked.....SFA.

[Catalpa]

TBH I thought a hijacked airliner being used as a human bomb on a major public building inside the US was on the cards months before it actually happened.

When that day came though the scale of the attack was much larger than I expected.

For sure things would have been different if 9/11 had not taken place.

A new attack on Iraq was being mulled over even in the Clinton Era - recall he authorised a number of air strikes there and kept up a blockade of that Country in which many innocent kids died because of lack of medical supplies.

The fallout from 9/11 isn't over yet.

Iran looks to be next on the Hit List.

Did somebody mention Fallout?

[sackville]

The fallout from 9/11 isn't over yet.

Iran looks to be next on the Hit List.

Did somebody mention Fallout?

as long as you don't mention it being 'nuts' or you might lose your job

[Catalpa]

The fallout from 9/11 isn't over yet.

Iran looks to be next on the Hit List.

Did somebody mention Fallout?

as long as you don't mention it being 'nuts' or you might lose your job

Straw was right.

But TBH I don't believe nukes will be used by the USA.

It will be high intensity conventional bombardment on selected 'choke-points' of Iran's economy and infrastructure.

While suspected Nuclear sites will be hit it is just possible they might be token in nature.

The US would wish to examine them intact if possible. That might mean the hub of each site will be left untouched till Iran accepts defeat.

If the USA does nothing (unlikely I admit) then Israel will go it alone. In which case all bets are off! :twisted:

[daithimac]

I would have thought that US foreign policy would have taken a much mor isolationist tone as prior to 9/11 the bush administration took a scornful view of notions such as nation building and acting as a world police man. Bush would most likely have still won a second term just through the nature of his political machine and the nature of american politics and the idea of Gore running again would not be thought plausable as the would be much less emphasis on the what if of the past few years

[rkeane]

whatever about nuking Iran or anywhere else, Al-Qaeda and similar groups will only get stronger in accordance with US foreign policy *uck ups. Its biggest mistake is its support for Israel....that really gets the Islamic groups rattling. Forget Iran - I can actually see the Americans running from Iraq..they are being slaughtered by the Insurgency...not even the green zone is safe.