Monday, September 11, 2006

What If 9/11 Never Happened?

I just found Andrew Sullivan's what-if scenario here. It's part of a feature from a couple of weeks ago, in which several columnists were invited to speculate.

I did something similar on usenet a few years ago. Here it is:

Suppose, at 9:00am on September 11th, 2001, you flipped on CNN and saw this report:

"In a lightning pre-dawn raid, the FBI and local police arrested 19 suspected would-be hijackers at motels in the Boston, Newark, and Washington D.C. areas. Acting on information received from Interpol and German federal police, the agents apparently thwarted an attempt to hijack four airliners, possibly with the intention of crashing them into major U.S. landmarks. An FBI spokesman would not divulge details of the hijackers' plans, but said that analysis of handwritten materials and other literature in the suspects' rooms was "under way". The spokesman said it was "very possible" that the suspects, mostly arabs, were linked to Al-Qaeda, the terrorist organization headed by Osama bin Laden, who is believed to be responsible for the bombings of the U. S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, and the bombing of the USS Cole.

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said that President Bush was "deeply troubled" by the news of the alleged plot, and said that the President would consult with national security officials before commenting further. Meanwhile, in the Chandra Levy case..."

Based on that hypothetical scenario, would you have supported the President if he later called for the country to invade Afghanistan, overthrow the Taliban, and kill as many Al-Qaeda as possible? Why or why not?

2 comments:

  1. I like Lileks essay on it.

    http://www.lileks.com/screedblog/

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yeah, Lileks is always a great read on topics like this.

    ReplyDelete

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