JCC Ender Sigh rags on 'Murica

Bye bye Murica. Waiting at airport for departure and eating my first burger on this trip. Hmm hmm.

 

to be fair the bar for "martyr" among evangelicals seems to be pretty goddamn low these days so she might just be in under the wire, so to speak

on a related note, however, i think we should have a rule that if you're the type of person who unironically refers to new york as "jew york city", you're not allowed to talk about "9-11"

 

i'm trying to think of a statement more meaningless than "the flag has always flown high" and i've got nothing.

 

i mean im pretty sure we put it at half mast during these sorts of tragedies anyways

 

Except you screwed that all up. Your mission wasn't to have a burger. It was to have a Chicago style hot dog, the challenge being DC.

Geez, why did we put all that time and effort into planning for?

 

44- I'm saving that for Chicago. Hopefully next year.

 

"The color blue is particularly chimichanga."

 

The human head weighs eight pounds.

 

"These colours don't run."

No **** Sherlock. It's colourfast dye.

 

sure, the terrorists may have gotten the better of us today, but you know what they say: the wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round, round and round

 

Be sure to not put ketchup on that hot dog.

 

Eh, September 11 is only significant because you make it so. Britain has been bombed many times by terrorists and doesn't get all teary just thinking about the heart-wrenching image of a burning flag. And just like with the Fenian bastards, the Sept 11 responses were a direct blowback to foreign policy. Unlike with the Irish, where there was a long standing and complex historical feud, September 11 was the result of a foreign policy agenda which was typically culturally insensitive and in a sense mirrored the Ugly American abroad - loud, ignorant, yelling at people on how they should do things and ignoring the cultural norms of their surroundings.

It is absolutely true that 3,000 people died reaping seeds they didn't sow; but the real tragedy in my mind is that America did not take notice of the need for humble engagement and instead intensified the behavior that caused such resentment. To his credit, Mr Obama has sought that humility out and the imbeciles who created the fertile soil for anti-American jihadist sentiment to grow have mocked him as "weak" for it.

Sorry, Skywalkernumbers, but Sept 11 should be a wake-up call to how deeply important humility is to greatness. America is not humble; ergo America is not great. Anymore.

 

There's an argument to be made about how we treat a national tragedy/event such as that in comparison to other countries & cultures, but there's no way that you - a fellow with a lot of intelligence- can deny that such a theatrical attack (some of that being unintentional by Al-Qaeda -ie: the collapse of the Twin Towers, for that didn't foresee that outcome-) doesn't mean something a bit different, given the United States' stature/place in the world stage -regardless of how one chooses to view that- , and the location of the attacks, particularly New York City (the world's "greatest city", according to many... I put that in quotes there, for I think that's up for debate ). Like it or not (clearly you don't), 9/11 will always be viewed as seminal moment in history, particularly given all the collateral damage it's caused.

 

Tunes, I wrote my thesis on US counter-terrorism policy. I know this topic reasonably well.

Firstly; there are a number of significant terrorist attacks in history and 9/11 is one of them. Because the US has been isolated from global terrorism - the 93 WTC bombing being a notable exception to the rule that US terrorism was, like Tim McVeigh, all home-grown - you as a nation afford more stock and value to the event as 'exceptional'. However, you also have a handful of cities with exceptionally large populations which mean by design you will have more victims, too.

During the late 60s, but really in the 70s and 80s Europe was constantly facing terrorist attacks from radical left wing groups like Action Directe, the Baader-Meinhoff gang, the PLO, the IRA, ETA, etc. Ambassadors, consular staff and NATO officials were routinely shot; planes (or the odd cruise ship) were hijacked, and cities bombed. The US did not have this same domestic market; like Australia, it's far enough away from the centre of the world that cross-border political violence is obscure.

Now you touched on theatricality - terrorism is theatrical by design because the intent is to manipulate a domestic audience's emotions for political gain. 11 September 2001 was supremely theatrical, but because of your combination of isolation and exceptionalism you see it as a unique event and unfortunately, the national reaction afforded the terrorists a victory.

Compared to the 2005 London bombings, there's basically what I would equate in objective terms, nothing to suggest one is strategically more important than others. The Brits, thanks to the Irish agitators in the past (and Libya) have dealt with terrorism before and are more sombre, less hurt and frightened and bewildered and therefore less likely to elevate the importance of the narrative.

"But 3,000 people died!"

Yes, because New York is one of the most populous and densely populated cities on Earth. Should terrorists try a similar attack in Shanghai or Beijing as many if not more people could be killed.

In my view, the 1983 US embassy bombing in the Lebanon is actually a more significant event than 9/11 from the perspective of terrorist bombings.

 

That section there is what I agree with the most (as your whole post there is sound; I'm not too well versed in the history/effects of the '83 Lebanon embassy bombing to comment with any authority about it), for there's so much that's been done in the name of 'post 9/11 America' that's caused enormous -negative- ripple effects... the most sickening & baffling of which, in my opinion, was the '03 Iraq War.

 

But that's more a result of an undercurrent sentiment being given entitlement to go mainstream, briefly, in the resulting paradigm shift. Neoconservatives - I mean the term correctly and without the abject stupidity pinned to it by left-wingers - had been pushing for the US to go from hegemonic to imperialist power for some time (culminating in the terrifying PNAC manifesto "Rebuilding America's Defenses"). 9/11 enabled that, sure, but because it was a one off act made possible by a unique set of circumstances (lowered guard; successful probe of US retaliatory appetites with USS Cole and Kenya/Nairobi embassy bombings; bin Laden's personal wealth; post-Soviet Afghan Arabs needing a new target) it hasn't actually changed the face of terrorism.

Instead, it made it harder to properly combat it because America turned up with money and a mission and a deaf ear, failing to learn how to manage the issue or hear the lessons.

Really, the most significant year for terrorism was 1979, not 2001.

 

Miami vs Oakland in England today. Lol.

 

Ketchup is ****ing gross. On anything.

 

No.

 

Yes.