Languish.org

For those who wish to discuss the topic.

It's hard to see Russia managing any further successes of note in this war. And winter is gonna be real bad for the Russian forces.

If the goal was to terrorize and kill people, well mission accomplished.

If their goal was for that terror and killing to serve some higher purpose, I can't say. I don't know what exactly they hoped to accomplish here.

So voted maybe a little. Osama Bin Laden, the guys who carried out the attack, and the other leaders are not around to claim victory or admit defeat so far as I know.

I think I said everything I had to say already.

Successful in the short term, unsuccessful in the long term.

I went with "Maybe a little bit", I think it succeeded in the immediate sense but did not result in developments going the way ObL would have wanted--in fact some things like the toppling (even if just temporarily) of the Taliban was never to AQ's interests. The toppling of Saddam likely was--even though they were somewhat friendly with Saddam, he still represented the sort of power they wanted to end in the Middle East, but they could not capitalize on that in a meaningful way because of their inability to operate effectively in Iraq due to more entrenched sectarian forces, and then eventually they were outmaneuvered by ISIS.

Quote from: Barrister on October 19, 2022, 01:30:41 PMI think I said everything I had to say already.

Successful in the short term, unsuccessful in the long term.

It's kind of weird that it is even a debated point.

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?

If yes those things would still have happened, then 9/11 was IMO momentarily successful, but long term insignificant. If, however, 9/11 contributed significantly to the current state of affairs, then I think it was wildly successful.

But like I said, hard to untangle the counterfactuals from this.

Quote from: Jacob on October 19, 2022, 01:46:38 PMTo 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?

That's "a butterfly beating its wings in China causing a hurricane on the other side of the world" kind of causation.  Not saying it may not be true, but utterly impossible to measure.

Quote from: Barrister on October 19, 2022, 01:53:27 PMThat's "a butterfly beating its wings in China causing a hurricane on the other side of the world" kind of causation.  Not saying it may not be true, but utterly impossible to measure.

I think it'd be challenging, but not impossible to analyze it sufficiently. I suspect there's a pretty strong thread, but it's beyond my level of knowledge and scholarship to assess appropriately.

Relatedly, I do kind of think that the West in general is overly blithe about external hostile influence operations of all kinds (including but not limited to terrorist attacks), and the degree to which they may be effective in shaping what happens on our societies.

Quote from: Barrister on October 19, 2022, 01:53:27 PM

Quote from: Jacob on October 19, 2022, 01:46:38 PMTo 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?

That's "a butterfly beating its wings in China causing a hurricane on the other side of the world" kind of causation.  Not saying it may not be true, but utterly impossible to measure.

Yeah, I don't think it is possible to measure, but I do think there is pretty obvious and rational arguments that can be made about the impact.

The radicalization of the Conservative agenda was a thing before 2001, but how much of its traction was assisted by the attack and the ensuing War on Terror that lasted a generation?

I think it is far LESS rational to argue that it did not have an effect on turning the GOP into a bigoted, populist, anti-intellectual ideology.

Quote from: Jacob on October 19, 2022, 01:46:38 PMTo 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?

The GOP started going off the rails in the Clinton era, I think the radicalization had nothing to do with 9/11.

Actually, if anything 9/11 moderated things a bit for awhile. We had this temporary era of national unity.

Quote from: Berkut on October 19, 2022, 02:08:58 PM

Quote from: Barrister on October 19, 2022, 01:53:27 PM

Quote from: Jacob on October 19, 2022, 01:46:38 PMTo 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?

That's "a butterfly beating its wings in China causing a hurricane on the other side of the world" kind of causation.  Not saying it may not be true, but utterly impossible to measure.

Yeah, I don't think it is possible to measure, but I do think there is pretty obvious and rational arguments that can be made about the impact.

The radicalization of the Conservative agenda was a thing before 2001, but how much of its traction was assisted by the attack and the ensuing War on Terror that lasted a generation?

I think it is far LESS rational to argue that it did not have an effect on turning the GOP into a bigoted, populist, anti-intellectual ideology.

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. :hug:

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

Quote from: OttoVonBismarck on October 19, 2022, 01:40:43 PMI went with "Maybe a little bit", I think it succeeded in the immediate sense but did not result in developments going the way ObL would have wanted--in fact some things like the toppling (even if just temporarily) of the Taliban was never to AQ's interests. The toppling of Saddam likely was--even though they were somewhat friendly with Saddam, he still represented the sort of power they wanted to end in the Middle East, but they could not capitalize on that in a meaningful way because of their inability to operate effectively in Iraq due to more entrenched sectarian forces, and then eventually they were outmaneuvered by ISIS.

I think the other point that should be noted is that we are talking about terrorists, right?

All the arguments that amount to "It didn't work" are not really arguments against 9/11, they are arguments against terrorism as a tool itself. I agree with those arguments, by the way - terrorism has a rather astoundingly bad track record at actually accomplishing anything long term in the modern world. 

But almost by definition terrorism is an act of desperation taken by the weak against the strong. It's not like they have some other list of obvious things to do instead. Even if they did, and they did those things....then they would just be all the other people out there doing non-terrorist things to try to effect change, and we would be talking about some other group who decide that political violence and terror is better then doing nothing.

If you want to argue that the most successful, spectacular, and effective (in the sense that it effected things) terrorist attack to ever be staged was a failure, and they should have done something else....what is the something else? Smaller terrorist attacks?

Quote from: Jacob on October 19, 2022, 02:26:23 PMThat'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.

I don't think we have to say "Gosh, we just can never know!" When it comes to observing that things happened that everyone agrees are very, very bad for society, then watching society devolve in ways that sure do seem at least tangentially related to the terrible things, and then wonder if maybe things would have been even worse had the terrible thing not happened (which is, then, arguing that the terrible thing actually wasn't that terrible after all - maybe we could arrange for another several thousand dead civilians and some more 30 year wars so we can have some additional maybe awesomeness!).

Quote from: Berkut on October 19, 2022, 02:33:20 PM

Quote from: Jacob on October 19, 2022, 02:26:23 PMThat'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.

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)?

Quote from: The Brain on October 19, 2022, 02:39:51 PMI 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.

Quote from: Berkut on October 19, 2022, 02:49:30 PMNow, 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.

Quote from: Barrister on October 19, 2022, 02:25:13 PMI 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. :hug:

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.

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.

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.

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.

Quote from: Barrister on October 19, 2022, 02:59:19 PM

Quote from: Berkut on October 19, 2022, 02:49:30 PMIf 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.

Quote from: Berkut on October 19, 2022, 03:40:40 PM1. 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.  :hug:  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.

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. 

Quote from: grumbler on October 19, 2022, 04:46:53 PMI'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.

Quote from: grumbler on October 19, 2022, 04:46:53 PMI'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.

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.

Quote from: Jacob on October 19, 2022, 01:46:38 PMTo 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.

Quote from: Barrister on October 19, 2022, 03:50:42 PM

Quote from: Berkut on October 19, 2022, 03:40:40 PM1. 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.  :hug:  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.

Personal liberty is one small part of what we are talking about. Global war, jihadism, and the rise in authoritarianism among traditional "conservatives" goes well beyond personal liberty.

But if this is just going the route of the ad hom, it is suddenly a lot less interesting to talk about.

Quote from: Barrister on October 19, 2022, 03:50:42 PM

Quote from: Berkut on October 19, 2022, 03:40:40 PM1. 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.

This is the interesting part.

I think the difference between us is that I think the link between western liberal social values and actual outcomes in politics, economics, and human well being is just as "heavily implied" as the link between smoking and lung cancer.

Indeed, I am rather amazed that people who claim to be "conservative" would dismiss the idea that liberal western values have actual meaning and consequence, and hence it is entirely rational to presume casual relationships between not adhering to those values and actual outcomes.

I continue to find myself surprised at how little faith? (not sure if that is the right word) people in the modern west have in their own social and cultural values. We preach the importance of free elections, free speech, education, etc., etc., etc., but never seem to accept that those values actually result in anything, or that the lack of them matter.

Something I think that is worth mentioning that often isn't--I don't think that much has changed in America in terms of percentages of people holding certain types of views, in regard to it leading to Trumpism. I actually think if anything those sorts of views were probably a little more common 30 and 40 years ago.

What I think really happened is these toxic forces were not hyper-concentrated into just one of the two parties, and that party was not entirely dependent on those toxic forces for its political existence, and further that toxic coalition did not control more than 70% of most rural areas and more than 60% of many suburbs (giving them a geographic dispersion that massively enhances their electoral power.)

Of the three broad parts of Trumpism that I see, each was fairly split for a long time:

- Christian fundamentalists until the 1980s, were not strongly identified with either party. There were tons of pro-life and pro-choice politicians in both parties, and neither party really built its apparatus around appealing massively to this group, so Christian fundies tended to be spread between both parties and were probably also voting on a more diverse set of issues because of it. The work of Reagan's time was corralling this group into the GOP, something that was more or less entirely complete by the end of Clinton's Presidency.

- White Nationalists, or more crudely "all the white bigots", were if anything still more likely to be in the Democratic party than the Republican until about 1972, and the shift to where almost 100% of them were in the GOP didn't happen overnight, it was a long, long process that was only fully complete in the 2000s.

- Immigration skeptics, who probably are in venn diagram where they significantly overlap White Nationalists, but not 100%, didn't have an obvious home until after 2010, remember that Bush tried to pass immigration reform with McCain's backing, and Reagan actually did an amnesty on illegal immigrants. Due to the Chamber of Commerce Republicans being fairly pro-immigration, especially from countries south of us, this significantly muddied the GOP's positioning on this topic. After 2010 most of the immigration reformers who decided to stay in the GOP entirely abandoned that position, and shortly after anti-immigration candidates became not only the norm but almost universal.

Either through luck or divine providence, these historical groups of shitty asshat Americans were split apart across both parties for a solid 100 years or so until the 1970s, and now they are entirely concentrated in one party, and it has given them more power than they've really held since probably the Civil War.

Quote from: Berkut on October 19, 2022, 05:30:18 PMI continue to find myself surprised at how little faith? (not sure if that is the right word) people in the modern west have in their own social and cultural values. We preach the importance of free elections, free speech, education, etc., etc., etc., but never seem to accept that those values actually result in anything, or that the lack of them matter.

Those things are paeans, I see little evidence from American history they have ever been cultural touchstones most people identify with. America is largely a liberal country but in the wing of liberalism that is primarily concerned with limiting government power so that private locuses of power can freely operate. It have never, ever, ever been a majority position to hold humanist, egalitarian etc values in the United States. I also don't really think it has ever been a majority position to genuinely care that much about free elections. We let the South run unfree elections for over 100 years with little concern. We also allowed political machines and other entities to corruptly control elections for the same span of time. Before that we used to conduct even less free forms of elections prior to the Civil War (when there was not an anonymous ballot, and you would literally get assaulted if you publicly voted for the wrong party in a certain district.) America has never been pluralistic, we have just had people who say pretty things along those lines, but it's like the pledge of allegiance: "with liberty and justice for all", millions of school kids grew up saying it, almost none really meant it.

I similarly see next to no relationship between 9/11 and Trumpism.  It also has the problem of falling back into the pattern of "if we surrender X then the terrorists have won."  Bin Laden didn't give a shit about free elections in the US and neither did the dudes who hijacked the planes.

I similarly agree that Gingrich was not the start of Trumpism.  Gingrich started a fight about which branch has the controlling power in the budgetary process.  That has nothing to do with Trumpism.

Gingrich was definitely an accelerationist because he setup the idea of being on a "war footing" with Democrats in Congress. He was notable for actually calling freshman Republican Congressmen into his office and lecturing them against having dinners, lunches etc with Democrats, and was against a lot of the "low impact bipartisanship" that often occurred outside of core contentious issues because he didn't want his people associating with or helping Democrats ever as that undermined the "war" effort. But Gingrich was a product of the way things were moving, if he had been ran over by a bus in 1992 another Republican very likely would have taken the same set of decisions.

Quote from: Admiral Yi on October 19, 2022, 05:59:24 PMI similarly see next to no relationship between 9/11 and Trumpism.  It also has the problem of falling back into the pattern of "if we surrender X then the terrorists have won."  Bin Laden didn't give a shit about free elections in the US and neither did the dudes who hijacked the planes.

The wind doesn't care who wins a sailboat race, but it certainly does have an impact on it.

Quote from: Berkut on October 20, 2022, 10:00:05 AM

Quote from: Admiral Yi on October 19, 2022, 05:59:24 PMI similarly see next to no relationship between 9/11 and Trumpism.  It also has the problem of falling back into the pattern of "if we surrender X then the terrorists have won."  Bin Laden didn't give a shit about free elections in the US and neither did the dudes who hijacked the planes.

The wind doesn't care who wins a sailboat race, but it certainly does have an impact on it.

No one says if we lose this race the wind has won.

There has long been a nativist, isolationist, protectionist core in the Republican party; that element was often dominant before WW2.  The Cold War marginalized that wing because the need for internationalist engagement was so obvious and because elements of that wing were discredited by linkages to Nazism.  But it survived on the margins, indulging in conspiracy theories. It was kept down by Reagan and his legacy (who although conversative enough to attract the Goldwaterites was an open internationalist) and temporarily by 9-11 which again forced the US to engage with allies overseas.  Thus, its more modern standard bearers like Pat Buchanan remained marginal figures.

As the Cold War and Reaganism slip deeper into memory and the international environment is more favorable to nationalist expression, it created a space for that old nativist strain to re-emerge.  And Trump's campaign was in the right place at the right time to give it a boost.

Quote from: The Minsky Moment on October 20, 2022, 04:03:39 PMThere has long been a nativist, isolationist, protectionist core in the Republican party; that element was often dominant before WW2.

It was there from birth. The Republicans were born from a union of Free Soilers and the American Party (aka the Know Nothings). Practically the second the Democrats walked out during secession they were falling over themselves to pass tariffs.

Quote from: Admiral Yi on October 20, 2022, 02:46:06 PM

Quote from: Berkut on October 20, 2022, 10:00:05 AM

Quote from: Admiral Yi on October 19, 2022, 05:59:24 PMI similarly see next to no relationship between 9/11 and Trumpism.  It also has the problem of falling back into the pattern of "if we surrender X then the terrorists have won."  Bin Laden didn't give a shit about free elections in the US and neither did the dudes who hijacked the planes.

The wind doesn't care who wins a sailboat race, but it certainly does have an impact on it.

No one says if we lose this race the wind has won.

That isn't the argument you made. You said there was no relationship between the two. The discussion is on whether or not 9/11 contributed to the radicalization of the GOP.

Quote from: Berkut on October 20, 2022, 09:18:57 PMThat isn't the argument you made. You said there was no relationship between the two. The discussion is on whether or not 9/11 contributed to the radicalization of the GOP.

I made two arguments, the first of no relationship between 9/11 and Trumpism, the second about the fallacy of "if we do X the terrorists have won" arguments.

Quote from: Admiral Yi on October 20, 2022, 09:30:31 PMI made two arguments, the first of no relationship between 9/11 and Trumpism, the second about the fallacy of "if we do X the terrorists have won" arguments.

I believe you're the only one in this thread who is framing any "if we do X the terrorists have won" arguments.

If we are going to go with "Did they achieve what they set out to achieve" as the measure of success, then it was clearly a success.

They set out to hijack 4 planes, and fly them into 4 targets, killing large numbers of people.

They succeed in taking and destroying all 4 planes, and hitting 3 targets they set out to hit.

It was the most successful terrorist attack of all time.

Quote from: Jacob on October 20, 2022, 10:14:16 PMI believe you're the only one in this thread who is framing any "if we do X the terrorists have won" arguments.

I'm framing what you're saying in that way.

Quote from: Admiral Yi on October 21, 2022, 05:37:37 AMI'm framing what you're saying in that way.

It's not what I'm saying, though.

Quote from: Jacob on October 21, 2022, 01:54:57 PMIt's not what I'm saying, though.

I'm pretty sure in the other thread you said something to the effect of 9/11 was successful because it weakened democracy in the US.

Quote from: Valmy on October 19, 2022, 02:22:15 PM

Quote from: Jacob on October 19, 2022, 01:46:38 PMTo 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?

The GOP started going off the rails in the Clinton era, I think the radicalization had nothing to do with 9/11.

Actually, if anything 9/11 moderated things a bit for awhile. We had this temporary era of national unity.

I agree.  Republican animus was aimed mostly outside (so long as you aren't Muslim), instead of outward against the federal government.  I think Trump has a lot of responsibility toward getting the GOP faithful to hate the FBI again though.

Quote from: Admiral Yi on October 21, 2022, 08:08:22 PM

Quote from: Jacob on October 21, 2022, 01:54:57 PMIt's not what I'm saying, though.

I'm pretty sure in the other thread you said something to the effect of 9/11 was successful because it weakened democracy in the US.

Yeah, if the attack leads to a significant weakening of American democracy, social cohesion, and/ or institutions it was successful.

That does not mean "the terrorists won". If someone loses a war it does not mean every single thing they did during the war was unsuccessful.

Same as if you punch someone in the face, you have executed a successful strike. Doesn't mean you have won the fight. That depends on what comes after.

But even if you lose the fight, if you punch the guy and intend to break his nose that was indeed a successful punch if it breaks his nose.

I had thought that the AQ wanted to draw the US into a ground war where they could deal the US a defeat like the Mujahideen dealt the Soviet Union. If that was the goal they were kinda successful.

Quote from: Razgovory on October 21, 2022, 09:48:59 PMI had thought that the AQ wanted to draw the US into a ground war where they could deal the US a defeat like the Mujahideen dealt the Soviet Union. If that was the goal they were kinda successful.

AQ wanted the US to attack their safe location in Afghanistan?  I have not heard that theory as the motivation for the 9/11 attacks.

Yeah, that is never what I have heard. Firstly, AQ had larger meta goals, and understanding them requires somewhat looking at the state of the Middle East through the eyes of an Arab Sunni salafist jihadist. To them, they saw the entirety of the Middle East as an unmitigated disaster. The two models were military secular dictatorships (Iraq, Syria,  Egypt, Libya), or absolute monarchies headed by Arab monarchs who had made deep and comprehensive security and diplomatic deals with Western powers, the monarchs themselves were often highly westernized, enjoying alcohol, women and other symbols of Western excess. AQ's main beef with these leaders goes beyond just a personal dislike for their lifestyle, it was also that AQ viewed the Arab world as becoming "infected" with corrupting Western values, and that started at the top.

To fix this, AQ believed these regimes all had to go, and they imagined that could happen through larger conflict in the region. The specifics of the shape of that conflict I don't think AQ necessarily had true detailed plans about. Like there is no evidence ObL and KSM were sitting in a cave in Afghanistan and saying "yes, so we think Bush will then invade Iraq, which will let us start insurgency there, and then maybe some years later a large Arab popular uprising will engulf Tunisia, Libya, Egypt and Syria, and we can be involved there." They basically were working at more of a basic level: if we blow shit up and cause trouble, it's going to cause more trouble, it's going to get Western powers eventually fighting in the Middle East, which will harden Arab hearts against the West and the regimes that support the West, and let insurgency grow.

It's basically a mentality of "we need to just always be starting fires, eventually one will catch and spread really big."

In that lens, to some degree the Arab Spring was ObL's wet dream, but unfortunately for him he was basically removed from operational involvement by then and was hiding in his Abottabad compound--and he died less than a year after the Arab Sping started, and AQ itself was long crippled and ineffective at this point. ISIS which had an origin in both Ba'athists and AQ offshoots in Iraq, was following to some degree the dreams ObL had decades prior when such an opportunity presented itself.

Getting America involved in a war in Afghanistan was, IMO, not remotely part of the plan. For one, while in the West we often lazily lump all these central and near Asian Muslim countries together, AQ does not actually think that way. AQ had always been very focused on Arab Islam, and countries like Afghanistan which are not part of the Arab world were peripheral to that--remember the Arabian language has a very special place in Islam, as does the Arab peninsula. Afghanistan was a place where Arab jihadists went to help fellow Muslims at least in part because "that is where the fight was", there was no other place to fight in a battle of quasi-Westerners (Soviets) versus Muslims. After the Soviets withdrew and the country fell into Civil War, with the Taliban eventually settling into controlling most of the country, Afghanistan was just a convenient location where AQ could operate because the tribal areas on the Pakistan border gave it a lot of latitude to operate and the Afghan Taliban was friendly so they didn't have troubles there.

The goal was always a fight in the Middle East, not a fight in central Asia, and moreover--Afghanistan was in a "good" state as far as AQ was concerned--control by hardcore Sunni Muslims who were vehemently against Western values, and imposed strict Islamic morality on the populace. AQ had no desire to see that change, which it did for 20 years after the Taliban were toppled.

If I had to guess AQ probably assumed America would not invade Afghanistan with boots on the ground, because the vast majority of Afghanistan and the Taliban had no direct involvement with AQ. The logic is, "Why would Americans jump into a country that has barely settled a Civil War and that has no real economic or political value?" If I had to make a guess, I suspect AQ expected special forces raids at most, and probably lots of bombing of training camps etc, and likely they expected that the fact they had large networks of cave hideouts that crisscrossed the border with Pakistan, meant they would mostly be able to hunker down and survive until the U.S. trained its attention elsewhere.

It was the beginning of the end of American hegemony.  It eroded civil freedoms; cost massive amounts of money- at home and abroad - gave the idiots the excuse to go after that nasty Saddam fellow and get sucked into a mess. 

Yes, in many respects it did work if that were the endgame for Al Queader. 

The US remains heavily invested in Saudi Arabia, in which Meccer and Mediner are.