The remaining questions about 9/11

[Oliver]

A lot of people here still have questions about the unanswered questions. People like Cihldlike also aked this in here:

What about the foreknowledge which could be a sign of LIHOP?

I´m still sceptic about this one since i have no logical explanation of the DIA-knowledge and their forbid to use their able-danger knowledge. I´m also sceptic about the "Mohammed Atta" foreknowledge from german and international observations within the "al kods moschee" (hamburg mosque) before 9/11. How could these guys, observed from german and international secret services, travel to america without any problems? (they should have been recognized thru the security-database (german: Zoll))

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammed_Atta

[Popeholden]

hindsight is 20/20

there may have been warnings, but they only stand out from the thousands of other warnings now because we watching the attacks unfold.

i don't see how that means they knew it was going to happen. not every threat is treated like a sure thing.

[Oliver]

hindsight is 20/20

there may have been warnings, but they only stand out from the thousands of other warnings now because we watching the attacks unfold.

i don't see how that means they knew it was going to happen. not every threat is treated like a sure thing.

I also think that the gov didn´t know what exactly would happen - but they should have used precautions to avoid any threat.... Nothing really happend before 9/11 to increase security-actions... This is what makes me sceptic... :boggled:

[Josh Redstone]

I only agree with the 'hindsight's 20/20' argument to a certain extent. Obviously an event like this is not something you'd expect to happen, but as the world's miliatry leader, I think the US could probably have done a little more, as far as anti-terrorism funding and the like goes.
Nevertheless, I believe the good folks in the military and air traffic control stations did everything they could have, given the circumstances, and I hold absolutely nothing against them.

[Oliver]

I only agree with the 'hindsight's 20/20' argument to a certain extent. Obviously an event like this is not something you'd expect to happen, but as the world's miliatry leader, I think the US could probably have done a little more, as far as anti-terrorism funding and the like goes.
Nevertheless, I believe the good folks in the military and air traffic control stations did everything they could have, given the circumstances, and I hold absolutely nothing against them.

Mhmm, i personnally think that there is no "good leadership" within the US-Military. I still think it depends on national interests what the Military is going to do... This has nothing to do with "good or bad"... Don´t you agree?

Cheers,
Oliver

[Josh Redstone]

Mhmm, i personnally think that there is no "good leadership" within the US-Military. I still think it depends on national interests what the Military is going to do... This has nothing to do with "good or bad"... Don´t you agree?

Cheers,
Oliver

I suppose you're right, but given my lack of knowledge about how the US military works, I should probably look into that a bit more before actually commenting. However, philosphically, I would agree with you.
Also, instead of saying military, I probably should have clarified that I was referring to the pilots from NORAD who flew to intercept the airliners, but were unable to reach them in time, that was bad terminology on my part. Like I said, given the circumstances (their leadership being one of them) they probably did the best they could.

[Muckar-duva]

To be fair, precautions were taken overseas before 9/11, due to the threatlevel. It looks to me, as the only specific threats were embassies and the like, that the possibility of the attack occurring within the USA seemed improbable(which isn't exactly excusable, but hindsight...). Some info about staying alert in regards to possible hijackings was given and distributed further by FAA, but as far as I can recall this was the only domestic precaution taken.

[Oliver]

To be fair, precautions were taken overseas before 9/11, due to the threatlevel. It looks to me, as the only specific threats were embassies and the like, that the possibility of the attack occurring within the USA seemed improbable(which isn't exactly excusable, but hindsight...). Some info about staying alert in regards to possible hijackings was given and distributed further by FAA, but as far as I can recall this was the only domestic precaution taken.

I remember the interview with Anthony Shaffer from the DIA who said that they had all data and structures from Al Qaeda (able danger project) but they were not allowed to use these data prior to 9/11. I still miss the reason for this forbiddance and who forbid it...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lt._Col._Anthony_Shaffer

[Muckar-duva]

To ensure peoples' right to privacy?

[Gbob]

Two big factors there.

The first is that in the presidental daily briefings there are thousands of potential threats outlined each week. Given months and months of work we can dig through records and say "A-ha! There's a reference to the hijacking!" but as many have mentioned, that's all 20/20 looking behind us stuff. In truth almost all nations have managed to stop major terrorist acts. It's just not something that makes a headline. If Joe Terrorist is stopped by airport security because of a warning, or detained by immigration officials it's not going to be noticed because nothing happned. How many terrorists do we stop each day in the US? I would be surprised if we find out years from now that we stopped less than a hundred. It's impossible to say, however.

The other factor, besides too much data, is any systems inability to deal with potential threats rather than realized one. We don't expect a police officer on patrol to be able to stop a burglary. We do, however, expect him to deal with it once it happned. A police officer can't arrest someone because they look suspicious, or because of rumors of what they might do. The problem is tenfold when you get into international juristictions.

Imagine if American officials demanded the extradition of Atta from Germany because of a rumor that he might be involved in a militant islamic group. Would we have recieved cooperation pre-9/11? I know that in America we would not have reciprocated German demands for something like that.

It's a very different world today than it was back then, and it's hard to fault this administration or the previous for what happned.

[Muckar-duva]

Very nicely put, Gbob. And, as for the PDBs: the possibility of hijackings within the states seem to have been mentioned briefly in the same PDB and other writings as more specific targets of attack overseas are mentioned.

And as the threats received during 2001 were so many, it's probably impossible to act on them all, or all that seem probable.

Imagine if American officials demanded the extradition of Atta from Germany because of a rumor that he might be involved in a militant islamic group. Would we have recieved cooperation pre-9/11? I know that in America we would not have reciprocated German demands for something like that.

I think that would have been disastrous for the US and its relations with other nations. It would have appeared slightly insane, and no doubt racist.