Were the 9/11 attacks successful?

[Valmy]

That's an interesting perspective Valmy and Beeb - one I hadn't considered.

I think that massive acts of terrorism, followed by restrictions on personal liberty, increases in intolerance for "others", and generational war are all pretty bad things as a matter of principle.

Yes. Those things were bad.

[The Brain]

I think it tends to get difficult to meaningfully say that event A caused B the more time passes (or more correctly the more other events that could impact B occur) after A. And which timescale are you gonna use to pass final judgment? 1 year? 10 years? 100 years? Sum up humanity when we're extinct (a job for our robot successors)?

[Berkut]

I think it tends to get difficult to meaningfully say that event A caused B the more time passes (or more correctly the more other events that could impact B occur) after A. And which timescale are you gonna use to pass final judgment? 1 year? 10 years? 100 years? Sum up humanity when we're extinct (a job for our robot successors)?

Lets narrow this a bit.

Assuming we are all liberal, progressive people. At least most of us, anyway.

And we all agree that states should show restraint when impinging personal liberty. 

Now, presumably we say that because we actually believe that when states do no respect personal liberty, and become more authoritarian, that results in something undesirable for their citizens and others, right? Now, the actual manner in which that undesireable thing manifests might be hard to predict. It could be that in some narrow cases, it could even appear to have a positive effect for some (probably transitory) amount of time. The GOP banning abortion might cause the left to unite, for example - but nobody would argue that we should ban abortion because it's a great tool for unity.

So back to personal liberty/the police state. After 9/11 the Patriot Acts were passed. There is little question that absent 9/11, they would never have been contemplated. In retrospect, most people who consider themselves liberally minded think much of that legislation was a mistake, and unduly impinged on personal liberty and unduly empowered the state.

OK.

Do we actually think those things are bad as a matter of principle, but only as a matter of principle? Or do we think they are bad because they actually lead to bad outcomes?

If we then observe the bad outcomes, is it irrational to consider that it is likely that absent those things, things would be better?

It's like finding out you have lung cancer after smoking two packs a day for 40 years. Sure, maybe you were going to get lung cancer anyway. You cannot *prove* that it was the smoking that gave you lung cancer, some people get lung cancer who never smoke, and others smoke like chimneys without getting lung cancer.

But if you actually believe that smoking does in fact increase the odds of lung cancer, it isn't really supposition to note that someone who gets lung cancer after smoking would have very likely been much better off had they not smoked.

[Barrister]

Now, presumably we say that because we actually believe that when states do no respect personal liberty, and become more authoritarian, that results in something undesirable for their citizens and others, right? Now, the actual manner in which that undesireable thing manifests might be hard to predict. It could be that in some narrow cases, it could even appear to have a positive effect for some (probably transitory) amount of time. The GOP banning abortion might cause the left to unite, for example - but nobody would argue that we should ban abortion because it's a great tool for unity.

So back to personal liberty/the police state. After 9/11 the Patriot Acts were passed. There is little question that absent 9/11, they would never have been contemplated. In retrospect, most people who consider themselves liberally minded think much of that legislation was a mistake, and unduly impinged on personal liberty and unduly empowered the state.

OK.

Do we actually think those things are bad as a matter of principle, but only as a matter of principle? Or do we think they are bad because they actually lead to bad outcomes?

If we then observe the bad outcomes, is it irrational to consider that it is likely that absent those things, things would be better?

You really come across as arguing:

A: Patriot Act was bad
B: Current GOP is bad; therefore
A contributed to B, because both are bad.


I have read and heard A LOT of #NeverTrump conservative navel-gazing over the last few years about what went wrong with the GOP.  It's a chunk of my media diet.  Contrary to what some of you may believe the parties involved take a lot of self-blame.  Names and topics that often come up are Rush Limbaugh, Next Gingrich, Pat Buchanan, Tea Party, birtherism, just to name a few.

I've never heard 9/11 mentioned as a source.  Not saying it's impossible, but I am saying it's not obvious.

[Sheilbh]

I think you could make the opposite argument.  The Global War on Terror, by forcing the US to work with international partners all while under a Republican president, slowed or hindered the GOP turning into a bigoted and populist party.  If the peace of the 90s continued into the 2000s the GOP may have gone insular and nativist even sooner.

We'll just never know.


Valmy snuck in with just the same point.

There is something to this - however there is a partiality here. The venn diagram of #NeverTrump conservatives and Bush-supporting neo-cons is basically a circle. There is as you say a degree of introspection, but of the examples you give they're all from other traditions to theirs/the neo-cons. It seems like there's a lack of introspection about their role and the contribution of two failed wars and a financial crisis in reaching Trump's GOP - but maybe I'm being unfair.

I also think this line almost makes Trump the inevitable end for the GOP, which I don't really buy. I think there's roots in the GOP for almost all of Trumpism but I don't think it was inevitable - and I think the intervening period of two failed wars and a financial crisis - are really crucial in explaining how those forces coalesce into Trump.

I think it's particularly important as there was still a degee of omerta about the Bush administration - I've mentioned it before but I remember the South Carolina debate when Trump said Bush didn't keep us safe, 9/11 happened on his watch, Iraq was a big fat mistake and Bush lied. There was outrage on the stage and from the commentariat and people writing that by crossing that line he might have doomed his campaign. But I think that was a really important moment because Trump was the only person on the stage saying it - everyone else in the party had to pretend.

[crazy canuck]

I agree with BB and Valmy. I don't think 9/11 had much to do with the current rot in the GOP. Both parties were in favour of creating the police state. The rot in the GOP started long before 9/11.

Berkut is arguing the creation of the police state in the US was bad. No one is disagreeing with him.  But BB and Valmy are making a different point.

[Valmy]

One of my biggest disappointments with Obama's inaction during his first two years in office is that he didn't roll back the Patriot Act and the surveillance state. Him being this constitutional law guy made it seem like that was something he was going to do, though I don't know if he ever actually promised to do that. Him not doing anything pretty much cemented all that shit into institutional tradition. It will be very hard to get rid of it now.

[Josquius]

They wanted to boost islamophobia in the west in order to recruit Muslims to their cause pending a final apocolyptic battle of the civilizations.

It would be wrong to say everything worked out entirely as they hoped but they certainly got a lot of it.

A big problem that they didn't, couldn't, forsee  is that their religious visions of a righteous apocalyptic battle of good vs evil are bollocks.

[Berkut]

If we then observe the bad outcomes, is it irrational to consider that it is likely that absent those things, things would be better?

You really come across as arguing:

A: Patriot Act was bad
B: Current GOP is bad; therefore
A contributed to B, because both are bad.

No, the Patriot Act was just an example. I am not arguing that both things are bad, therefor the second must be the result of the first. I am arguing that the *reason* crap like the Patriot Act is bad, is because (among other things) it weakens our trust in our own institutions and our society, which makes shit like the Conservatives becoming bigoted, racist assholes more likely.

I am saying that when we do things that are in opposition to principles we value, then we should not be surprised when things get worse. After all, we value those principles because we think they are important.

I am saying that it is not at all unreasonable to believe that bowing to pressure to compromise on principal will make any situation worse then it would be otherwise.

Literally,

1. I believe smoking is bad and greatly increases the chances of lung cancer
2. I smoked a lot.
3. I got long cancer.
4. I think I would have been better off had I not smoked at all, and very likely may not have gotten lung cancer.

Am I sure there is a casual link? Of course not.

Is it rational to throw up my hands and say "GOSH WE CAN NEVER KNOW MAYBE SMOKING HELPED!"?

No, it is not.

And I have long championed the idea that liberal values have actual value in achieving better outcomes.

[Barrister]

1. I believe smoking is bad and greatly increases the chances of lung cancer
2. I smoked a lot.
3. I got long cancer.
4. I think I would have been better off had I not smoked at all, and very likely may not have gotten lung cancer.

Am I sure there is a casual link? Of course not.

Is it rational to throw up my hands and say "GOSH WE CAN NEVER KNOW MAYBE SMOKING HELPED!"?

No, it is not.

#1 is not some abstract belief though.  The science between tobacco smoke and lung cancer has been established by decades of science.

So when you say

1. Someone smoked for 20 years
2. Someone got lung cancer

The idea that 3. smoking caused lung cancer, while true not 100% proven, is very heavily implied because of the extensive medical research.


Berkut, I get it.  The idea of personal liberty is very, very important to your conception of politics.    But the idea that each time we step away from your personal perception of personal liberty is one step closer to "The Abyss" says more about you then any useful political prognostication.

[grumbler]

I'd argue that the WoT aided the bigoted crazy wing of the Republican Party by discrediting the moderate Bushlike wing, leaving a power vacuum that the wingnuts were happy to fill. 

[crazy canuck]

I'd argue that the WoT aided the bigoted crazy wing of the Republican Party by discrediting the moderate Bushlike wing, leaving a power vacuum that the wingnuts were happy to fill. 

How and when?  The Tea Party folks were on about other things.

[Barrister]

I'd argue that the WoT aided the bigoted crazy wing of the Republican Party by discrediting the moderate Bushlike wing, leaving a power vacuum that the wingnuts were happy to fill. 

So again I'm not saying you're wrong (I'm saying it's mostly unknowable).

But the GOP still nominated fairly centrist candidates in 2008 and 2012 even after the faults of the Bush 43 Presidency.



In fact we might have to just say that Trump himself was the sui generis cause not of the wingbats in the GOP, but of their takeover.  The wingbats were always there.

[frunk]

Perun had a pretty interesting video about Air Defense this past week.  I found the contrast with western countries approach to air power, the difficulties with integrating the two, and how it has shaped post cold war developments fascinating.

[OttoVonBismarck]

To me the question is to what degree the events of 9/11 set off the chain of events that lead to the current level of danger to American democracy. If 9/11 hadn't happened, would the US still have Trump, the Jan 6th coup attempt, and the complete radicalization of the GOP?

I think there is little to almost no relationship between the rise of Trumpism and 9/11. Trumpism most immediately sprung out of the Tea Party movement in 2010, which itself was based on a long simmering truth--neoliberals, neoconservatives and traditional pro-market Republicans had long run the party--I myself identified with these groups, frankly. However, a devil's bargain was made--our sort ran the party, but we did not represent majoritarian positions, so we married ourselves to large movements that weren't intrinsically oppositional to us and that were sort of in search of a political home to begin with--immigration skeptics, racists who had lost a home in the Southern Democratic party after LBJ staked out an anti-Jim Crow position for the Dems in 1964, and Christian fundamentalists incensed about cultural grievances around things like gay rights, feminism, and most importantly abortion.

The Tea Party was really a declaration of war by this wing of the party on the typical "managers" of the GOP, and they won--which isn't surprising in retrospect because they outnumbered us, and most of the people from my class of the GOP were craven and immoral and would sooner acquiesce than leave the party.

Given that, you can really see the genesis of Trumpism as far back as the 1960s, and the fractured politics that time produced, it just took 50 years to finalize into this form.