Six years later

[Arkaron]

God, they're showing all these documentaries on TV and such. Today I heard the worst audio from 9/11 that I've ever encountered--Kevin Cosgrove on the phone with an emergency dispatcher--he was trapped on the 100th+ floor of the first tower to fall with three other people, and you can hear him scream before the cell phone cuts out. I've studied some gruesome things, but this is really, really difficult to watch. I don't know why it gets worse for me every year.

[Fallakin Kuvari]

*Seven years later.

[Arkaron]

Hah, I'm a dork. I've been reading reports from 07 all day, so that's where my head's at.

[Harlowe]

Man, why do you even want to listen to it? You know it's going to be gruesome.

[Arkaron]

I was skimming through a debunker site and sort of ran into the clip =x I don't rewatch the same thing each year.

[Ariannda Kusanagi]

It still makes me want to cry because they replay all the calls with the songs and all... and I remember Kestri contacting me first thing when I woke up (I'd worked the night before) and telling me to put my kids in another room, and turn on the tv. I cried all day.

[Rsak]

There was so much talk right when it happened that we would be having many more such attacks. You can argue about the politics or how it was done, but you have to give credit to the administration that there has not been another attack since 2001.

[Select]

I remember seeing the smoke and the broken skyline from my hometown. I believe this is the last year they're letting families enter the site to grieve because construction is finally getting somewhere.

[Rsak]

Had a coworker visit the site 2 weeks ago. So far construction has been focusing on the metro line underneath, but it will soon be above ground.

[Ddrak]

There was so much talk right when it happened that we would be having many more such attacks. You can argue about the politics or how it was done, but you have to give credit to the administration that there has not been another attack since 2001.

They haven't needed to attack. The US, among others, has been furthering the terrorist's agenda much better than they could have managed it themselves.

Dd

[Rsak]

Sorry, but that is not true. Not with the Al-Queda in Iraq group trying to hurt US or US interests. They are still trying, but have not struck American soil again.

[Garrdor]

The saddest part was when Dale Earnhardt crashed into the base of WTC building 1

NEVER FORGET

[Ddrak]

Sorry, but that is not true. Not with the Al-Queda in Iraq group trying to hurt US or US interests. They are still trying, but have not struck American soil again.

They don't need to, and it's a strange thing to claim given that AQ:I didn't even exist pre-2003 and came into being solely BECAUSE of US action. That's the point - the US is hurting its own interests in much the same way the terrorists would try to push it. Their goals aren't to "kill people". That's the common mistake people make. Their goals are to use fear to effect political and policy change, which America is quite happily doing all by itself.

Right now, the terrorists are using the flypaper theory - fight the Americans at home so we don't have go to America to fight them.

Dd

[Beestyall]

Right now, the terrorists are using the flypaper theory - fight the Americans at home so we don't have go to America to fight them.

Dd

Shhhhh don't you know those that like to rattle sabres will be upset you let cat outta bag?!? Hide from the black helos!


We're worse off today, in every international political sense now then prior to 9/11 and we weren't great back then. A group of say 4000 (and that's being highly generous) managed to sway 600k people into taking the liberties this country was built on and happily give them back to the government AND syphon millions of dollars every day from the US coffers. One hundred years from now, this (and USSR in Afganistan) will be used in military war colleges around the world as a smashing successor of the evolution of guerilla tactics of the Viet Cong.

[Kulaf]

Right now, the terrorists are using the flypaper theory - fight the Americans at home so we don't have go to America to fight them.

Dd

Shhhhh don't you know those that like to rattle sabres will be upset you let cat outta bag?!? Hide from the black helos!


We're worse off today, in every international political sense now then prior to 9/11 and we weren't great back then. A group of say 4000 (and that's being highly generous) managed to sway 600k people into taking the liberties this country was built on and happily give them back to the government AND syphon millions of dollars every day from the US coffers. One hundred years from now, this (and USSR in Afganistan) will be used in military war colleges around the world as a smashing successor of the evolution of guerilla tactics of the Viet Cong.

Umm.......no. Actually the control of Iraq has been pretty good all things considered. There is no will in this country to actually do what it would take to fully pacify Iraq so I think all in all it has been very successful from a military perspective.

The Soviets had 13k dead and 450k wounded, sick or injured and they were in country 11 years. US loses in Iraq are about 4k dead and 50k wounded, sick or injured and we should be out of country in 7 years, and leave the country in much better shape than the Soviets left Afghanistan.

[Harlowe]

and we should be out of country in 7 years

That's amusing, since none of the experts who are actually there believe this.

[Beestyall]

Umm.......no. Actually the control of Iraq has been pretty good all things considered. There is no will in this country to actually do what it would take to fully pacify Iraq so I think all in all it has been very successful from a military perspective.

The Soviets had 13k dead and 450k wounded, sick or injured and they were in country 11 years. US loses in Iraq are about 4k dead and 50k wounded, sick or injured and we should be out of country in 7 years, and leave the country in much better shape than the Soviets left Afghanistan.

And apparently no one in the current administration remembers Viet Nam, because that was the EXACT SAME PROBLEM. We could have, in time, eliminated the VC/Chinese incursion but at the cost of virtually all the humanity of the soldiers. Television brought war much further into the lives of the average American and the JCoS should have recognized that based on the end of the Korean Whatever you want to call it. Further, we're out of Iraq in 7 years, so that's a total of 12 years, to kick the butts of some 300k Iraqi soldiers (most of whom laid down their weapons easily) and maybe half as many agregate freedom fighters (aka Taliban/Al Queda/whateverthefucktherealligenceis), make democracy gogo and to build basic services (presumably). That's a banner win folks no matter how you slice it! *cough* The better shape arguement is too subjective, my main hope right now is that every place we've touched has a stable infrastructure, period. That's a win for me. Nothing I've read in the last year, seems to indicate that is possible or even probable at this time.


And Kulaf I know you know why the human cost was so high in Afghanistan, if the Russian Federiation were supplying Al Queda with similar weapons the US supplied the muhajiden we'd suffer similar death tolls too. The fact that these guys are killing US soldiers with old AK47s, 1980s left over munitions and misc crap they can put together into an IED is pretty impressive from a tactical stand point.

[Ddrak]

Although I've never been a supporter of the Iraq war, I think Kulaf's statement was pretty much correct. We were both predicting 10-20 years and to leave/be tossed out in 7 is a decent outcome. Iraq is definitely in a better state than Afghanistan at the Soviet withdrawal, but it's not really comparable either as Afghanistan was a proxy war between superpowers while Iraq was basically an overwhelming occupation followed by a civil war/resistance movement.

I know this is changing topics, but what bothers me about Iraq is the fact there's really been no political reconciliation between the civil war sides, other than to agree to be quiet until US troops leave. I strongly suspect the whole thing will go to hell come 2010/2011 once the stabilizing force is gone (and they will be), at which point you can expect Iran to move in and eliminate the Sunni resistance in a less diplomatic way.

Why do I think the US will be gone in 2010/2011? Simple - the only thing Iraqis seem to agree on is a timetable for every last US soldier to be gone, and the US will not stay longer than that because they simply can't without the Iraqi government's permission (do I really have to spell out why?)

Dd

[Rsak]

Television brought war much further into the lives of the average American and the JCoS should have recognized that based on the end of the Korean

The sad thing is that the North Vietnamese flat out said this is how they were going to win and we let them do it anyways.