9/11 Footage

[Panther Al]

FTI:

The internet archive has posted non-stop tv footage of 9/11 of 19 different TV stations footage (From sources across the US as well as Russia, China, Mexico, Iraq and more) from 9/11/01 8:00AM EDT till 9/17/01 in handy 30 Sec bites.

http://www.archive.org/details/911/day/20010911#/

[mikeo80]

I did not know this at the time. There was an American on board the International Space Station during the attack. He took some very eerie pictures.

http://news.yahoo.com/astronaut-in-s...e-of-9-11.html

My $0.02

Mike

[95th Rifleman]

as an Englishman seeing all these 9/11 reactions is kind of odd.

[Webstral]

At the risk of offending my countrymen, I feel like the media's need to capture attention to generate sales of ad time, combined with the particularly American unwillingness to look away from things that we say horrify us, is on the verge of creating a fetishistic attitude towards 9-11. The attacks on the World Trade Center were indeed terrible events. That much said, we're giving al-Qaeda exactly what they want: a long-lasting feeling of fear and anger. From the standpoint of psychological warfare, the enemy is trouncing us with our willing--nay, eager--complicity.

[Panther Al]

A very good point: What I found most interesting about it all is less the repeat of what some of us watched live on TV, but watching the reactions of the media. For example, I watched the first hour of the Beeb, and it was interesting how, even though they saw the second plane, took minutes to accept that was a second plane and report it as such. This time around, having lived the past ten years and dealing with the leftovers give a different perspective on the whole thing.

[mikeo80]

Originally Posted by Webstral

At the risk of offending my countrymen, I feel like the media's need to capture attention to generate sales of ad time, combined with the particularly American unwillingness to look away from things that we say horrify us, is on the verge of creating a fetishistic attitude towards 9-11.

I agree. And if you look at history, you will see this pattern repeated time after time. THe Lincoln assasintation and grieving took from april 15, 1865 to May 6. Granted a lot of that time was needed for transportation, but still.

The JFK assasination and grieving took four days. The discussions still re-verberate.

Pearl Harbor attack grieving could be said to last until the end of WWII.

The American Civil War is still being discussed and re-hashed 150!! years later.

It seems that we Americans will fixate on a historical happening that is negative and dwell on it seeingly forever. I guess it the the antithisis of our normal outlook of tomorrow is a better day, or Go West Young Man, or Put a man on the moon and return him to earth safely by the end of the decade or Remember the Alamo or THe Maine....

We tend to be a forward looking, optomisitc bunch... but I guess the fanatical obcession with negative events is the price we pay.

My $0.02

Mike

[95th Rifleman]

I was born back in 1980 (July), my Father was in the RAF and made sergeant before he did his time. I grew up with terrorism, constant attacks and violence to a point where British servicemen where not allowed to wear uniform in civvy street!

When you live with the reality of terror, from birth, you tend to develop a thick skin. One of the reasons the 7/7 attacks in london don't have anything near as much of a resonance in our culture as 9/11.

Now I know somebody is going to come up with a cheap line like "But we lost 3000 people, you didn't lose that many!". Numbers are essentialy meaningless over time. America was hit once and went crazy, the UK was hit, on a constant basis for over FIVE decades and the violence in NI is still ongoing.

I was watching some of the 9/11 stuff on TV. I warn you know,the following is controversial so if your easily offended don't read.

9/11 took out over 3000 people, conservative reports estimate that double that many civilians have died in Afghanistan. I felt that there was a blatant need for blood after 9/11, which was most likely the desired goal of the attacks in the first place.

10 years on, what has beeen achieved? I think bin laden died laughing because he won this war. Public opinion in other nations regarding America is at an all-time low, America has been dragged into a ten year conflict that has cost the lives of over 1600 US troops and 380 British.

This is the legacy of 9/11.

[Targan]

Originally Posted by 95th Rifleman

9/11 took out over 3000 people, conservative reports estimate that double that many civilians have died in Afghanistan. I felt that there was a blatant need for blood after 9/11, which was most likely the desired goal of the attacks in the first place.

How about the 300,000+ civilian dead in Iraq? And Iraq had nothing at all to do with the 9-11 attacks. That just blows my mind.

[95th Rifleman]

Originally Posted by Targan

How about the 300,000+ civilian dead in Iraq? And Iraq had nothing at all to do with the 9-11 attacks. That just blows my mind.

Iraq was a different matter. Bush used his 9/11 credit card to push through a conflict against Iraq. At the time America was ready to go after any Muslim nation just to avenge 9/11.

[Targan]

Originally Posted by 95th Rifleman

Iraq was a different matter. Bush used his 9/11 credit card to push through a conflict against Iraq. At the time America was ready to go after any Muslim nation just to avenge 9/11.

I agree on all points. I brought it up as an example of how the world as changed since 9-11. Many people (even here in Australia) think that invading Iraq was a reasonable thing to do because Saddam Hussain was such a nasty piece of work. I agree that Saddam was a piece of sh*t but burning through 300,000 people on the way to destroying 1 man is... well, it's madness IMO. Either that or its an example of one group of people thinking of another group of people as not really being 'people'.

[Webstral]

I agree completely that the thought process of the Administration that initiated the Iraq war had some serious flaws, regardless of whether one accepts the thesis that the White House of the day was motivated principally by the desire to control Iraqi oil. However, while there is a certain visceral satisfaction in tarring the younger Bush Administration with not seeing the Iraqis as people (a satisfaction to which I have given in more than once), there is an explanation better suited to development of events. President W. Bush and his senior people genuinely seemed to believe that the Iraqi people in effect were Americans just waiting for liberation from Hussein, the Ba’ath Party, and the Ba’athist state security apparatus. With the noteworthy exception of General Powell, these are men who a) ducked out of Vietnam and b) matured in Reagan’s America. Both these factors led to the debacle in Iraq.

Like so many men of the Vietnam generation I meet these days who did not serve, the W. Bush Administration looked back at their youthful decisions with regret. They decided against the discomfort of basic training and toting a rifle when they were young men, and this decision didn’t square with the self-image they would have preferred to have. Engineering a great conquest for America seemed like a good way to set straight the record regarding their manliness. As an added bonus, Iraq offered the opportunity to secure oil for America and show up that dirty Democrat Clinton, as well as finish family business. Never mind that Rumsfeld and others were hip deep in dealings with Hussein when he was a useful counter to revolutionary Iran.

Reagan’s America gave rise to the neocons. Among the Reagan tenets is the idea that capitalism is sacred and natural. It’s a half-baked behavioralist notion. All peoples want to live in free market societies, according to the neo-con outlook, because the free market allows people to use their gifts and motivation to create success and wealth for themselves. In theory, a market economy uses resources more efficiently than any other. Since everyone wants personal success, and since a market economy creates the maximum space for personal success, the market economy is the natural goal and outcome of human behavior and aspirations. An important underlying assumption, of course, is that Western individualism is universal and that wherever Western individualism is not in evidence the cause is an artificial control of some sort that need only be removed for a given society to assume its natural state.

Another critical part of the neo-con attitude is the idea that the ideals of the Founding Fathers are truly human ideals. If all men are created equal, this means all men—not just Americans or Westerners or whatever subcategory of humanity one wants to identify. All men. For Americans to enjoy the blessings of freedom while nodding at the lack thereof for large segments of humanity is hypocritical. Whereas the traditional conservatives are wary of rocking the boat, neo-cons see rocking the boat as the only course consistent with American values. Just as the US was anti-colonial before and after WW2, neo-cons are anti-totalitarian. It’s our job to set people free whenever we can bring it off—according to neo-con thinking.

Take all these things together, and you get a willingness to believe that Iraq was ready to be a virtual Middle Eastern America. All that was needed was enough force to kick out Hussein and the Ba’athists (sounds like an Arab rock band, doesn’t it?). Freed from the state security apparatus, the Iraqis would promptly start behaving like freedom-loving Westerners.

Of course, as we know this notion was horribly misguided. My point is that the W. Bush Administration didn’t mean to kill 300,000 (or more; I’ve read figures as high as 600,000) Iraqis. They bungled their way to it. The deaths of so many Iraqi civilians is a result of parochialism, not a deliberate policy of extermination. The distinction is probably lost on the Iraqis themselves. However, if we hope to learn anything from history we have to get the narrative driving history right.

[Sanjuro]

Invading Iraq was a mistake- but the invasion of Afghanistan was reasonable; the Taliban were, up to that point, sheltering bin Laden, and not only refusing to hand him over but boasting of their ability to defy the rest of the world, and continue to support terrorist attacks.
History shows that invading Afghanistan can be done relatively easily- just don't hang around. Sure, the British lost an entire invasion force there in 1842- what is less well-known is the punitive invasion of 1843; invade, do some damage, kill your desired target, then get out before the country unites against you.

[Targan]

Originally Posted by Sanjuro

Invading Iraq was a mistake- but the invasion of Afghanistan was reasonable; the Taliban were, up to that point, sheltering bin Laden, and not only refusing to hand him over but boasting of their ability to defy the rest of the world, and continue to support terrorist attacks.
History shows that invading Afghanistan can be done relatively easily- just don't hang around. Sure, the British lost an entire invasion force there in 1842- what is less well-known is the punitive invasion of 1843; invade, do some damage, kill your desired target, then get out before the country unites against you.

I agree entirely. I'm by no means anti-war. I think under many circumstances war is entirely justified. The invasion of Afghanistan was one of those circumstances. Getting bogged down there for 10 years wasn't surprising at all. Some of the world's greatest military powers have tried and failed to pacify Afghanistan. The Soviet Union, the British Empire... heck, even Alexander the Great.