What IF: 9/11 Hadn't Happened?

[Ecthy]

Afghanistan? Aren't you in the Navy?

[Patroklos]

Thats what I said

Alot of jobs over there just require a competent manager, not anything service specific. If I go I will be in charge of allocating money for reconstruction projects. Not actually picking the projects, just making sure the money gets where it is supposed to the way it is supposed to. And some unrelated convoy work as well.

Of course that can change on a whim.

[Dr Strangelove]

How about the anthrax scare? Would that have happened, and would it have sufficed to trigger the war on terror?

[chequita guevara]

Without 9/11, Bush would have been a one-term wonder like his father.

[Dr Strangelove]

I don't know about that. His ratings were pretty good before 9/11. Without 9/11 he might have pressed forward harder on behalf of his conservative social agenda.

Without 9/11 would gas prices be as high today?
Would the handling of Katrina have cost him the 2004 election?
Would he have gone after Saddam Hussein anyway?

[Patroklos]

Without 9/11 would gas prices be as high today?

Yes.

Would the handling of Katrina have cost him the 2004 election?

No. Though alot of things would be different about that disaster without 9/11. No DHS, for example.

Would he have gone after Saddam Hussein anyway?

Don't know, but lean towards yes.

[Arrian]

Hmm.

No 9/11 means, IMO, no Afganistan.

Iraq, on the other hand, was a problem distinct from 9/11. 9/11 was used to sell Iraq to the public, but as we all know, it had nothing to do with Iraq.

Iraq was about the inspections & sanctions situation. The inspections had been unsatisfactory due to "monkeying around" in the past. The sanctions were a mess - both because of "monkeying around" on the part of many involved in the "oil for food" program and because sanctions often just suck because they don't get at the people we're trying to get at. And of course the US was being blamed for the deaths of [insert wild number here] Iraqi children due to the sanctions.

Something would likely have happened. Would it have been an invasion? Probably not. Maybe just airstrikes.

-Arrian

[Ecthy]

What Ifs are stupid, throw rocks at them.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Ecthy
What Ifs are stupid, throw rocks at them.

No, some what ifs are phrased or explored stupidly.

Just because history turned out one way doesn't mean it necessarily would have done.

Chance versus causality, as Cabaret Voltaire put on the B-side of their excellent single, 'Silent Command'...

[Ecthy]

I know that Molly, the basic question at hand fits my approach to history. An event, a course of action cannot be judged without any estimate of an alternative, consciously or subconsciously. What annoys me is people deveop entire timelines andthink through decades after the key point in their What Ifs, rather than focussing on immediate consequences and potential development. It's the pretended pretended accuracy of What Ifs that annoys me.

[Ekmek]

My 2 cents...


Iraq was going to happen at some point during Bush's presidency. How do I know?

I was in the army stationed in the mideast at the time.

#1 In Feb '01 (pre-9/11) we bombed the hell out of Iraq. Most bombing since the Gulf War. They were trying to provvoke a response from Saddam.

#2 In 18 September 2002 I get my new assignment with ARCENT, the Army's component to CENTCOM. I go to work in the plans section. The LTC there tells me they've been working on this invasion plan since Sep 13th...I say fine Sep 13, 2002...He says no, Sep 13th 2001. This thing is going to happen regardless.

#3 Jan-Feb 2003. I'm in Kuwait waiting for this thing to kick off. Saddam breaks down and lets inspectors in. I think that means I get to go home early. I look behind me and the same LTC is there. He tells me "trust me if its not today, someday we are going in." So this officer who worked in "secret bunker" that made the plan knows this I figure he saw or heard something to come tothat conclusion, and I never heard "because of 9/11"


Last notes related to my experience on the WMD.

#1 Pre war intel I saw pictures of warehouses getting cleared out then the next 24 hour photo showed the UN inspectors coming. So something was being hidden and we know the rooms were bugged

#2 While we ar going in we kept fine football field burial areas of pesticides. Most pesticides have a diluted nerve agent base. Not that had to up to nerve gas.

#3 Yellow Cake in Iraq was stored by IAEA. Before we got there some stole a lot of this yellow cake uranium. Never heard that on the news.


So what do I think happened to the WMDs? Moved. And look at the Bush admin behavior, the Dems and the opposition get to poke the admin constantly for not finding WMDs and the adminstration just shrugs. This is the same administration that rabidly attacks any oposition to any policy. No one sees that as odd?

My best guess: In the three months Saddam buried but mostly shipped the WMDs out of country, mainly to Syria. The Bush admin has been quiet because remember the invasion was supposed to make America safe from Saddam arming terrorists with WMDs. But what happens? Because we invaded (and Saddam guessed three months in advance) Bush actually accelerated the loose WMD problem. Before the invasion we knew Saddam had WMD, after the invasion we have no idea where WMDs are. Not much safer right?

So if the Bush admin said its gone and we don't know where or to who it undermines the Pre-Emption doctrine (remember that one?) it undermines that military intervention is the only way to America safe, and it undermines that Bush's global war on terror has made America safer.

So thats my guess...the WMDs are loose and the admin prefers saying "whoops they aren't there but better safe than sorry" instead of saying "whoops, we don't know where they are, guess we're sorry your not safe vote in '04"

[Patroklos]

#1 In Feb '01 (pre-9/11) we bombed the hell out of Iraq. Most bombing since the Gulf War. They were trying to provvoke a response from Saddam.

You have that backwards.

#2 In 18 September 2002 I get my new assignment with ARCENT, the Army's component to CENTCOM. I go to work in the plans section. The LTC there tells me they've been working on this invasion plan since Sep 13th...I say fine Sep 13, 2002...He says no, Sep 13th 2001. This thing is going to happen regardless.

Hmmmm....

CENTCOM (you know what that stand for right?) making plans to invade a country run by a dictator that regularly illuminates our aircraft? Do you think we didn't have plans to do that since 1991? How long do you think we had plans for Iran? Plans to bail out Isreal? How about what happens in an Indian/Pakistan nuclear war?

Planing is what the military does. If we went to war with Mali and there wasn't a plan in place, most of the usuals here would go WTF?

#3 Jan-Feb 2003. I'm in Kuwait waiting for this thing to kick off. Saddam breaks down and lets inspectors in. I think that means I get to go home early. I look behind me and the same LTC is there. He tells me "trust me if its not today, someday we are going in." So this officer who worked in "secret bunker" that made the plan knows this I figure he saw or heard something to come tothat conclusion, and I never heard "because of 9/11"

Yeah I can't see why senior officers would want their rank and file ready and prepared for invading regardless of what was going on outside of your unit at that jucture in history.

[Ekmek]

Originally posted by Patroklos
You have that backwards.

Since I was there, no I don't

[/quote]
Hmmmm....

CENTCOM (you know what that stand for right?) making plans to invade a country run by a dictator that regularly illuminates our aircraft? Do you think we didn't have plans to do that since 1991? How long do you think we had plans for Iran? Plans to bail out Isreal? How about what happens in an Indian/Pakistan nuclear war?

Planing is what the military does. If we went to war with Mali and there wasn't a plan in place, most of the usuals here would go WTF?
[/quote]


Guess you haven't served in a snior hq. I saw our war planes we hade a contingency plan called Sudden Lightning - incase Saddam invaded Kuwait first. Iran plan nope. We cleaned out our safe in 2004. Found stuff about Iran in '89...thats it. After Baghdad fell we had a few weeks where we didn't know where to plan next. Thoughts thrown around were syria, pakistan, and Iran. Guess which we settled on.

Have you worked on war plans before? I did for North Korea when I was stationed at the DMZ and other plans in this headquarters. Planning, and deliberate planning, is a resource intensive process. We don't have the manpower or resources to plan for action with every country. Y?ou may get concept documents, but they aren't plans with full section assistance and staff esimates and full blown MDMP.

Yeah I can't see why senior officers would want their rank and file ready and prepared for invading regardless of what was going on outside of your unit at that jucture in history.

I'm not a junior officer and I was working with the guy for several months. Have you worked with Colonels before? (or even the military?) its not like that not from my active years.

but thanks for the input. I'm just putting out the real facts as I experienced them and i didn't mention anything about the classified stuff