Talk:9-11 Attack

Returning to previous edits

A year on, much of this article remains problematic, particularly the 'immediate response' and 'world response' sections. There is this collection of edits by myself that were editor-reverted in 2007. They sought to remove much exaggeration and present a more balanced picture (e.g. contrary to what it currently says, there were reports of looting after 9/11, and burglaries were higher than during the same time period in 2000 - see WNBC). There were also edits by Stephen Ewen on the overthrow of the Taliban that tried to bring this article back to neutrality. Edits like these should be reincorporated, or new ones made in a similar vein. John Stephenson 20:04, 22 September 2008 (CDT)

I've just incorporated some of these previous edits by Stephen and myself back into the text. However, I then removed the links because they're dead and replaced them with various others covering the argument about looting. See here for all the edits. John Stephenson 11:59, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Time for major rework

I removed what I consider, as a Military Editor, a strained attempt to explain al-Qaeda motivations. At best, this belongs in the al-Qaeda article.

Sedgwick (2004) argues the goal was to provoke a response from the United States that would have a radicalizing impact on al-Qaeda's constituency. Reference to public opinion in the Middle East, especially in Egypt, shows that this is indeed what has happened. Such an impact is a purely political objective, familiar to historians of terrorism from at least the time of Errico Malatesta and the "propaganda of the deed" in the 1870s. While no direct link between Malatesta and al-Qaeda exists, al-Qaeda was certainly in contact with contemporary theories that Malatesta would have recognized and seems to have applied them. Even though its immediate objectives are political rather than religious, al-Qaeda is a distinctively Islamic group. Not only is its chosen constituency a confessional one, but Al-Qaeda also uses - and when necessary adapts - well-known Islamic religious concepts to motivate its operatives, ranging from conceptions of duty to conceptions of ascetic devotion. Terrorism that can be understood in political terms, Sedgwick argues, is susceptible to political remedies.

There is an abundant amount of primary and secondary information about why al-Qaeda carried out this operation, and I can say, quite confidently, that Malatesta did not enter into their thinking. See al-Qaeda. It is, I believe, intellectually dangerous to try to force al-Qaeda into molds of Western thinking; while I do not always agree with Michael Scheuer; his book, Through our Enemies Eyes, has a pertinent title. Howard C. Berkowitz 22:50, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

In addition, I removed material that deals with 2005 and later, which is much better covered elsewhere. Further, neoconservatism does not have anything particular to do with counterterrorism and counterproliferation; if anything, it deals more with preventive war.

Referencing needs considerable work. Note that there is no mention of National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, which issued the 9/11 Commission Report. EBSCO deep web material simply isn't needed with the enormous amount of data that is freely available. Howard C. Berkowitz 22:56, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

===Domestic American politics===

Neoconservatism came under increasing attack by 2005. In the past national defense had focused on threats from a major nation state. Now the threat was invisible, insidious and of uncertain dimensions. Bush expanded the response to include Iraq, winning Congressional approval (but not UN approval) for an allied invasion of Iraq in 2003, which overthrew Saddam Hussein, established a democratic regime under UN auspisces, and attempted—without success—to stabilize the country against a Sunni-led insurgency. Bush's image soared in the polls, enabling his reelection in 2004.

===Reaction against Bush===

Starting in 2005, after years of stalemate and frustration in Iraq, American public opinion turned sharply against the war. Democrats won control of both houses of Congress in Nov. 2006 in large part by attacking the Bush policies, and saying the war in Iraq had diverted attention away from al-Qaeda, which had relocated to remote mountains in western Pakistan. The Democrats were unable to change Bush's policies in 2007, and Congress voted to continue funding the war in Iraq. The instability of Pakistan added complexity to the challenge.

In 2008 Bush continued to defend his Iraq war policies as necessary to prevent future attacks by Islamic radicals like those of 9-11. The main GOP candidates for president generally supported Bush's policies, especially Senator John McCain, who took personal credit for the "surge" policy that reduced the level of violence in Iraq in 2007. The Democratic candidates continued to oppose the war Eventually, however, Barack Obama, a Democrat, was to win over McCain.

Next, this article should be concentrating on the attack and its immediate aftermath, not things that happened weeks and months later. There is, for example, relatively little detail about the immediate emergency services and military response — I was several miles from the Pentagon on 9/11, and the sounds of the crash, the just-too-late fighters, and the sirens are things I shall never forget. I am intimately familiar with the work to reconstitute telecommunications and financial systems in New York, and, again, there's no mention -- or of Continuity of Government. There is, I'm afraid, too much academic digression about reasons and international motivations.

The Authorization for the Use of Military Force is certainly worth discussing. I can even see an objective discussion of indications and warnings that may have been missed.Howard C. Berkowitz 23:08, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

==Overthrow of Taliban in Afghanistan==

President George W. Bush, after a few hours of embarrassing confusion on September 11, found his voice. On September 20, 2001, President Bush told Congress that the attacks were an act of war. He laid responsibility upon al-Qaeda and said its goal was to impose its beliefs upon the entire world. Bush stated that al-Qaeda practiced a form of extremism that perverted the peaceful teachings of Islam and commanded them to murder Christians and Jews, and to kill all Americans. He went on to explain how the political-Islamic group had established a base in remote Afghanistan, protected by the Taliban regime. Bush issued an ultimatum: the Taliban must immediately turn over the al-Qaeda leadership to American justice, or share their fate.

Bush stated numerous times that Americans respected the Muslim religion but he promised to systematically destroy terrorists--to hunt them down cave-by-cave and destroy them everywhere in the world, as he stated. No government would be allowed to harbor them. "Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists," he proclaimed. "From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime." Bush called on Congress to authorize military action in Afghanistan, which it did with near unanimous support. Meanwhile, U.S. pollsters confirmed that a strong majority of Americans supported the action.