The new spin: 911 was not really important

http://u2r2h-documents.blogspot.com/2007/01/was-911-really-that-bad.html

Was 9/11 really that bad?

The attacks were a horrible act of mass murder, but history says we're
overreacting.

By David A. Bell

David A. Bell, a professor of history at Johns Hopkins University and a
contributing editor for the New Republic, is the author of "The First Total
War: Napoleon's Europe and the Birth of Warfare as W
January 28, 2007

IMAGINE THAT on 9/11, six hours after the assault on the twin towers and the
Pentagon, terrorists had carried out a second wave of attacks on the United
States, taking an additional 3,000 lives. Imagine that six hours after that,
there had been yet another wave. Now imagine that the attacks had continued,
every six hours, for another four years, until nearly 20 million Americans
were dead. This is roughly what the Soviet Union suffered during World War
II, and contemplating these numbers may help put in perspective what the
United States has so far experienced during the war against terrorism.

It also raises several questions. Has the American reaction to the attacks
in fact been a massive overreaction? Is the widespread belief that 9/11
plunged us into one of the deadliest struggles of our time simply wrong? If
we did overreact, why did we do so? Does history provide any insight?

Certainly, if we look at nothing but our enemies' objectives, it is hard to
see any indication of an overreaction. The people who attacked us in 2001
are indeed hate-filled fanatics who would like nothing better than to
destroy this country. But desire is not the same thing as capacity, and
although Islamist extremists can certainly do huge amounts of harm around
the world, it is quite different to suggest that they can threaten the
existence of the United States.

Read the rest here:
http://u2r2h-documents.blogspot.com/2007/01/was-911-really-that-bad.html

Comment's please. What do you think?

He might be right

You go ahead and have our President give us back our Constitution and Bill of Rights and then we should have a debate on the importance of 9/11
___________________
Ignorance is NOT Bliss

Well said

Let me just add to that list to let us bring orange juice on planes again.

The Eleventh Day of Every Month

not really spin

I don't think this article is "spin"; rather, it's a liberal attempt to diminish the Bush regime's central myth, the "world-changing" nature of 9/11. In purely numerical terms, the death toll on 9/11 was insignificant. The American government kills more foreigners before breakfast than most terrorists do in an entire lifetime. For a book-length study of this hypothesis, see Mueller's Overblown.

Of course, if one sees 9/11 as an inside job, then Bell's position is obscene.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, Bell is suggesting in his own way that the War on Terror is completely bogus; he simply does not believe 9/11 was an inside job. I wouldn't classify this as spin, because it tries to diminish the mythology of the War on Terror (it just does so in a way we might disapprove of).

Either intentional or

inadvertant misdirection. There is but one accurate premise. Elements of our government were complicit in the planning and execution of 9/11. Various permutations followed from that and those can be argued. Mossad, Pakistan, MI6 as well as the significance of various events in the chain of the argument. But the government conspiracy theory relies upon a false premise. Demonstrably and incontrovertibly false.

Subsequent premises may be true.... such as: The damage resulting from 9/11 was not as great as the damage incured during the invasion of the USSR. But when associated with the false govt. premise regarding the externality of the attack of 9/11, it leads to a false conclusion, (i.e., The attack by external enemies upon the United States was less damaging than the attack by external enemies (Germany) upon USSR. ) ... a conclusion which gives the impression that the first half of the argument is true because the second half of the argument -is- true. Thus it is misdirection.

One correct response to the author would be that he is comparing apples to oranges. Since 9/11 was a false flag, it cannot be compared logically to the invasion of Russia which was not a false flag.

Other issues, such as media coverage, the existence of TV, the psychological theater of 9/11, the build-up of fears about Isamic terrorists preceding 9/11, the differences in the cultures, the differences in histories of each nation etc. also make this ahistorical comparison with a war 60 years ago inappropriate.

Of course the response to 9/11 was massive overkill

That was the main point!

The primary purpose of 9/11 was a PsyOp on the American people to get them behind the "endless war on terror" and to frighten them into giving up their rights.

Our job is to shred the government myth about 9/11before the perps finish shredding our Constitution and plunge us into WW4.

Let's get busy, brothers and sisters.

The truth shall set us free. Love is the only way forward.

Be well.

I wonder if Mr. Bell

would be willing to explain this to the families of the victims of 9-11? Gee, the brutal murder of your loved ones just isn't that big a deal. Neither is the deaths of 100,000's of Iraqi civilians, who have been killed because Bush used 9-11 to give him the excuse he needed to invade Iraq, I suppose?

He's not saying it's

He's not saying it's unimportant. He's saying it has been overblown, and it has (because it is being used as a prop for the establishment of a new world order).