9/11 was scary, why act as we did?

[smallsheep]

I was just thinking about 9/11 and that it was really scary. I was scared, I wanted everyone to do whatever it takes to be safe. I admit that I was blinded by that fear and was a supporter of the patriot act and expansion of executive power, and the invasion of Afghanistan, but they lost me with the war in Iraq.

Why did we take the actions we took? I was pondering what the government could have done to react to the threat at hand better.

First, some numbers:

There were over 175,000 soldiers in Iraq (as of June 2007)
According to anti-war.com, there have been 3900 US military deaths in Iraq since the invasion. (and 28711 wounded)
According to Flightaware.com, there are currently 4925 aircraft they are tracking in the air at this moment (Dec 30 2:14 PM). Why don't we round up to 6,000 non-military aircraft in the air at one time?

Merely by taking the wounded and dead in Iraq, we could put 5 soldiers on EVERY plane in the sky.

By using all of the troops sent to Iraq, we could put over 29 soldiers on every plane!

Which protects us from a future 9/11 more? A platoon on every airplane? Or a platoon on every street in a country 5000 miles away?

I can't believe I never thought of this line of reasoning before.

[liberty_rp08]

Did you know that the Afghanistan invasion was announced to other countries by the US Government several months before 9/11 and Israel connected Iraq to 9/11 before 9/11?

http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/preplanned.html

Mossad: there were strong grounds for suspecting Iraqi involvement
News Telegraph UK (Sept. 16, 2001):

The Telegraph has learnt that two senior experts with Mossad, the Israeli military intelligence service, were sent to Washington in August to alert the CIA and FBI to the existence of a cell of as many of 200 terrorists said to be preparing a big operation.

"They had no specific information about what was being planned but linked the plot to Osama bin Laden and told the Americans that there were strong grounds for suspecting Iraqi involvement," said a senior Israeli security official.

http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;
$sessionid$C41J2IVRA45KHQFIQMGSFF
OAVCBQWIV0?xml=/news/2001/09/16/wcia16.xml&sSheet=/news/
2001/09/16/ixhome.html&_requestid=178722

Also...

"The New York Times reported Thursday that a group of five men had set up video cameras aimed at the Twin Towers prior to the attack on Tuesday, and were seen congratulating one another afterwards."

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,34250,00.html

Of course, it turns out the part about the Israelis having no specific information turned out to be an obvious lie since it was revealed that five Israeli Mossad agents impersonating Arabs were caught filming the Twin Towers prior to the attacks and celebrating afterwards.

http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/fiveisraelis.html

[smallsheep]

All circumstances surrounding the catastrophe aside, doesn't defending the location of the attacks make a lot of sense?

I play a team ball sport and there are two things you can do while the other team has the ball: 1. cover them close to make it so they can't pass/shoot. or 2. Cover their target, so that you can intercept the pass/shot. If you are caught in between the ball-carrier and their target, then they can simply loft the ball over your head.

If we want to protect versus further exploitation of a certain target and we have significant force to do so (as seen in my numbers above), why leave ourselves open to get caught between the enemy and their target again?

[Pharoah]

I've made this point before, but it's worth repeating. Cars kill far more people that terrorists - so where's the war on cars? Terrorism is a massively overblown threat. It's merely a justification for attempting to dominate Middle East resources.

@smallsheep - You're right about it making more sense to put the troops where they can do the most good - instead of somewhere almost entirely unrelated.

[B9vot3r]

i had perhaps the exact opposite reaction. I was very much in disarray and disbelief until i started hearing news of 2, 3, no wait now 4 planes going down. An anger swept over me of the likes that ive never experienced before. And the sad part was, i wasnt angry at the terrorists, i was angered by our obvious, utterly complete lack of military or governmental action. I had felt at the time that the news media was basically contacting the government to tell them what had happened while they were off on their morning executive breakfast complete with bacon and waffles with icecream. I think if i were in NYC my first instinct first and foremost would have been fear. but sadly the only fears that were reinforced that day were my own personal fears of flying, and thats it.

[tropicangela]

i had perhaps the exact opposite reaction. I was very much in disarray and disbelief until i started hearing news of 2, 3, no wait now 4 planes going down. An anger swept over me of the likes that ive never experienced before. And the sad part was, i wasnt angry at the terrorists, i was angered by our obvious, utterly complete lack of military or governmental action. I had felt at the time that the news media was basically contacting the government to tell them what had happened while they were off on their morning executive breakfast complete with bacon and waffles with icecream. I think if i were in NYC my first instinct first and foremost would have been fear. but sadly the only fears that were reinforced that day were my own personal fears of flying, and thats it.

Some say that it was entirely miltary and governmental action.

[Man from La Mancha]

My first reaction was that this looks like a controlled demolition and then I heard about the Air Force stand down, I was fearful but not of extenal terrorists but internal.
.

[johngr]

Psy-op.

[idiom]

You don't need to be the land of the Brave if you are the land of the Safe.