14 year old under arrest for tweeting bomb threat to American Airlines

[Katiebee]

Makes no difference.

You don't make jokes about guns or bombs in an airport, you don't yell fire as a joke in a theater. There are enough dead to warrant someone making a remark to be investigated. No one in a position of authority wants to answer the question "why didn't you investigate when you you were warned?" With the bodies of the victims being collected.

[watcher1]

One of them raised an interesting point for me. 9/11 was never 'announced', nor was the Boston bombing or many other bombings that were actually carried out. It made me curious about the ratio of non-announced carried out attacks and announced carried out attacks...

What terrorist would announce what they were going to do?  They use fear as their weapon and only "announce" it after it happens.

Post 9/11 here in the US has made everyone on edge.  Europe and other countries have dealt with terrorist acts before our 9/11 so they have systems in place.  Here we poured billions into a new department called Homeland Security, which, in my opinion, was pouring billions down a black hole.

Maybe Bin Laden was right.  The way to destroy America was doing it financially.  Hint at a terrorist attack and we will spend millions running around. Also why he chose the Trade Towers as his target.  They symbolized our financial wealth.

Yes, what the 14 year old did was stupid but in today's world, one would be very prudent not to mention in any form or shape the word bomb.

[Bexy]

Still curious about the ratio...

[phtlc]

One of them raised an interesting point for me. 9/11 was never 'announced', nor was the Boston bombing or many other bombings that were actually carried out. It made me curious about the ratio of non-announced carried out attacks and announced carried out attacks...

The IRA used to frequently warn the authorities in advance when they planted a bomb so the building could be evacuated. This was not so much an act of mercy but one of pragmatism. The threat of carnage can keep people submissive, but real carnage can make them jaded, and cause them to lose their fear and be willing to strike back. People who fear they have something to lose are more easily controlled than those who no longer feel they have much to lose.

[MissBarbara]

Maybe Bin Laden was right.  The way to destroy America was doing it financially.  Hint at a terrorist attack and we will spend millions running around. Also why he chose the Trade Towers as his target.  They symbolized our financial wealth.

This isn't a correction, but almost all of the "symbolic" motives attached to the 9/11 attacks are fictional, or made up by Americans.

The two WTC Towers were indeed symbolic of our wealth, our exploitative capitalist system, and, as one observer put it, only half joking, like two middle fingers raised to the rest of the world. But, according to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the reason why Bin Laden chose the WTC Towers was much more prosaic: They represented the chance to kill the greatest amount of people in the most effective manner.

On any given workday, there are as many as 50,000 people in the two towers. Fortunately, the terrorists' timing was off by about an hour, since had the planes hit around 10:00 am, the death toll would have been 10-15 times as high. In an ironic way, the fact that they killed "only" about 2,500 people was borderline miraculous.

[Katiebee]

2500 was bad enough. Could you imagine the fury generated if it had been in the tens of thousands?

Afganistan might have seen the deployment of tactical nukes.

Certainly a formal declaration of war against whatever country shielded Bin Laden

[Elizabeth]

2500 was bad enough. Could you imagine the fury generated if it had been in the tens of thousands?

Afghanistan might have seen the deployment of tactical nukes.

Certainly a formal declaration of war against whatever country shielded Bin Laden

Remember this?...Bin Laden was a Saudi.
The hijackers for the aircraft were Saudis.
So? who exactly was the enemy?..Afghanstan?....better guess again.
Love,
Liz

[phtlc]

Remember this?...Bin Laden was a Saudi.
The hijackers for the aircraft were Saudis.
So? who exactly was the enemy?..Afghanstan?....better guess again.

It's sort of like when we bombed the hell out of Germany despite the fact that everybody knew Hitler was an Austrian

[watcher1]

2500 was bad enough. Could you imagine the fury generated if it had been in the tens of thousands?

Afghanistan might have seen the deployment of tactical nukes.

Certainly a formal declaration of war against whatever country shielded Bin Laden

Remember this?...Bin Laden was a Saudi.
The hijackers for the aircraft were Saudis.
So? who exactly was the enemy?..Afghanstan?....better guess again.
Love,
Liz

They were trained in Afghanistan.  Better question was why Iraq?  Least Iraq kept Iran honest.

[MissBarbara]

2500 was bad enough. Could you imagine the fury generated if it had been in the tens of thousands?

Afghanistan might have seen the deployment of tactical nukes.

Certainly a formal declaration of war against whatever country shielded Bin Laden

Remember this?...Bin Laden was a Saudi.
The hijackers for the aircraft were Saudis.
So? who exactly was the enemy?..Afghanstan?....better guess again.
Love,
Liz

The ignorance expressed in this post is breathtaking.

15 of the 19 hijackers (plus Bin Laden) were Saudis. Saudi Arabia has a population of 30 million people. Let's see, 16 out of 30 million...

More to the point, they were Radical Muslims, their nationality notwithstanding. And part of their disaffection with Saudi Arabia was that nation's allowing the presence of American troops near Islam's holiest of places.

The enemy was neither Saudi Arabia nor Afghanistan. The enemy was Al Qaeda, which had a major presence in Afghanistan.

Etc....

[Elizabeth]

2500 was bad enough. Could you imagine the fury generated if it had been in the tens of thousands?

Afghanistan might have seen the deployment of tactical nukes.

Certainly a formal declaration of war against whatever country shielded Bin Laden

Remember this?...Bin Laden was a Saudi.
The hijackers for the aircraft were Saudis.
So? who exactly was the enemy?..Afghanstan?....better guess again.
Love,
Liz

The ignorance expressed in this post is breathtaking.

15 of the 19 hijackers (plus Bin Laden) were Saudis. Saudi Arabia has a population of 30 million people. Let's see, 16 out of 30 million...

More to the point, they were Radical Muslims, their nationality notwithstanding. And part of their disaffection with Saudi Arabia was that nation's allowing the presence of American troops near Islam's holiest of places.

The enemy was neither Saudi Arabia nor Afghanistan. The enemy was Al Qaeda, which had a major presence in Afghanistan.

Etc....

I'm only referencing nationality, not religious groups.
Al Qaeda has it's fingers in almost (if not) every middle east country.
The attacker's were from SAUDI, not Afghanstan, not Iraq.
Their Nationality was Saudi  (Bin Laden was from a wealthy Saudi family).
Hiding in Afghanstan does not make them Afghanstan, it makes them Saudi's hiding in Afghanstan, nothing more.
Love,
Liz

[MissBarbara]

2500 was bad enough. Could you imagine the fury generated if it had been in the tens of thousands?

Afghanistan might have seen the deployment of tactical nukes.

Certainly a formal declaration of war against whatever country shielded Bin Laden

Remember this?...Bin Laden was a Saudi.
The hijackers for the aircraft were Saudis.
So? who exactly was the enemy?..Afghanstan?....better guess again.
Love,
Liz

The ignorance expressed in this post is breathtaking.

15 of the 19 hijackers (plus Bin Laden) were Saudis. Saudi Arabia has a population of 30 million people. Let's see, 16 out of 30 million...

More to the point, they were Radical Muslims, their nationality notwithstanding. And part of their disaffection with Saudi Arabia was that nation's allowing the presence of American troops near Islam's holiest of places.

The enemy was neither Saudi Arabia nor Afghanistan. The enemy was Al Qaeda, which had a major presence in Afghanistan.

Etc....

I'm only referencing nationality, not religious groups.
Al Qaeda has it's fingers in almost (if not) every middle east country.
The attacker's were from SAUDI, not Afghanstan, not Iraq.
Their Nationality was Saudi  (Bin Laden was from a wealthy Saudi family).
Hiding in Afghanstan does not make them Afghanstan, it makes them Saudi's hiding in Afghanstan, nothing more.
Love,
Liz

Then, what's the point of emphasizing -- and re-emphasizing -- their nationality, especially since their nationality is clearly and completely beside the point?

Are you saying that the U.S. should have attacked, bombed, or invaded Saudi Arabia because of the actions of a small handful of Saudis -- all of whom had denounced their nationality? Should we also have attacked Egypt, Lebanon, and the United Arab Emirates, since those, too, were home countries of 9/11 terrorists?

The fact that Bin Laden was hiding in Afghanistan (actually, Pakistan) does not make him a "Saudi in hiding," it makes him a radical Muslim who had orchestrated the deaths of 3,000 people and the destruction of billions of dollars of U.S. property.

[phtlc]

The fact that Bin Laden was hiding in Afghanistan (actually, Pakistan) does not make him a "Saudi in hiding,"

I was under the impression that he was in fact living in Afghanistan up to and during 9/11 and only ran to Pakistan when the US invaded. Am I wrong? While I knew he in Pakistan in the years after the US invasion, this is the first time I have heard that he was already living in Pakistan when 9/11 occured

[Elizabeth]

I'm only stating that they were Saudis.
You yourself said it was a problem of American's in Saudi (Mecca/Medina..etc).
The attackers were from Saudi, There leader (of sorts) was a Saudi....do you see a lot of SAUDI in the discussion?....
Radical Muslims are everywhere, not just Afghanstan.
I'm not supporting Bin Laden or anything like that (what he did/planned was wrong).
But there seems to be an attempt to connect everything to Afghanstan (which is so poor they couldn't even fight a war with themselves let alone another country).
It seems like you are acting like Bush...make the connection...make the connection...we need to attack somebody (Iraq for example, Afghanstan).
I'm just saying, we are running around attacking countries when we should be chasing individuals.
Love,
Liz

[Katiebee]

Liz, the Taliban gave protection and safe haven to Bin Laden, and refused to extradite or expel him. That provided just cause for the US to consider them not only as a hostile nation but as complicit partners with Bin Laden. Thus making them complicit in an attack against the US. This was seen by the UN and by other nations, nearly universally, as an un-provoked act of war against the US.

And so the invasion of Afghanistan was legal in international law.

[MissBarbara]

The fact that Bin Laden was hiding in Afghanistan (actually, Pakistan) does not make him a "Saudi in hiding,"

I was under the impression that he was in fact living in Afghanistan up to and during 9/11 and only ran to Pakistan when the US invaded. Am I wrong? While I knew he in Pakistan in the years after the US invasion, this is the first time I have heard that he was already living in Pakistan when 9/11 occurred.

That's what I meant, he was in Afghanistan, under the protection of the Taliban, and fled to Pakistan after the U.S. invaded.

An interesting side note: Bin Laden was, for a time, our quasi-ally, since he fought with the Afghan Mujahedin against the Russian invaders -- with U.S. support.

[Elizabeth]

Okay, Now I understand it........Thanks.
Love,
Liz

[insatiable]

Liz, the Taliban gave protection and safe haven to Bin Laden, and refused to extradite or expel him. That provided just cause for the US to consider them not only as a hostile nation but as complicit partners with Bin Laden. Thus making them complicit in an attack against the US. This was seen by the UN and by other nations, nearly universally, as an un-provoked act of war against the US.

And so the invasion of Afghanistan was legal in international law.

Actually Taliban made offers to give up OBL, but not in the exact way which the USA wanted. By the time US and NATO supported war on Taliban started, I doubt OBL was the highest priority.

Also there was never an invasion of Afghanistan.

[Katiebee]

Certainly not as we did in Iraq, but there were troops and not just Special Forces A-Teams.

[watcher1]

An interesting side note: Bin Laden was, for a time, our quasi-ally, since he fought with the Afghan Mujahedin against the Russian invaders -- with U.S. support.

Didn't we supply arms to the Mujahedin in their fight against the Russians? And I am guessing, some of those arms we supplied were used against us when we went into Afghanistan?