The proper response to 9/11?

[MiamiRob]

boy this thread turned to crap rather quickly! How 9/11 and Iraq are still linked is beyond me.

We responded to 9/11 by going into Afghanistan which is something as a liberal I fully supported doing. I thought capturing Osama Bin Laden and Al Quaeda was the #1 priority. Apprehending Osama quickly would have sent a powerful message to terrorists all over the world but instead the man keeps making videos taunting us 6 years later.

[Willys]

He's
baaaaaccccckkkkkk....

[burdell]

IMO the proper response to 9/11 would have been to put aside the plans for regime change in Iraq that existed for months before 9/11, sit back and assess the situation, realize that 9/11 was not the work of a traditional nation/state enemy and formulate a strategy taking that fact into account. I believe this administration failed the country in that respect.

The old saying "Revenge is a dish best served cold" speaks volumes.

[TheHarvester]

Originally Posted by burdell

IMO the proper response to 9/11 would have been to put aside the plans for regime change in Iraq that existed for months before 9/11....

The Clinton administration had drawn up plans for an Iraq invasion long before Bush became president. This is a matter of public record.

Our government wanted to get rid of Saddam and nobody in the highest positions of power opposed this policy. They only differed on when and how. So it obviously had nothing to do with 9/11 other than the timing and convenience. Bush was assisted by the public support for warfare at the time when we invaded Iraq. In the absence of 9/11, the invasion would have been much harder to sell to the public.

Interestingly, Alan Greenspan is now claiming that we invaded Iraq for oil. He says that if we hadn't gotten rid of Saddam, oil prices could be in the range of $120-$130 per barrel as opposed to the current $80 level. I always hated the childish stupidity of the anti-war "no blood for oil" slogan, but maybe it wasn't as far from the truth as I thought...

[madicarus2000]

Originally Posted by rd2007

It gave the average Joe a taste of how things actually are and it was unscripted and uncensored.. The beginning of the war had full support and was yet another American success story, but then the mistakes started happening.. First we didn't get rid of the reporters. As soon as things started getting a little nasty they started showing it to the people back home.

It wasn’t even close to unscripted or uncensored. It was tailored to military specification on what was allowed to be shown. Yeah, show the military firing off weapons, show the dead Iraqi soldiers, show the explosions from far away. But what about the innocent victims of a war, the collateral damage, the innocent civilians… Don’t show that because that would sway public opinion or “used” against us. That was a type of censorship and you had to see if from other sources. The reality was war supporters were celebrating the explosions but turned a blind eye to the innocent civilians or didn’t question who was hurt in the explosions. It wasn’t always insurgents or Iraqi military that were hit.

Then when the original, then changing, “reasons” we went to war were proven to be false, it made the image of dead civilians and Americans unwarranted and unnecessary.

What should we have done after 9/11? In my opinion, finish the job in Afghanistan and then reassess the situation and figure out the next step based on the dynamics that may have been changed due to the work in Afghanistan being completed.