Do we as a nation still dwell too much on 9/11? - Have and should we move on?

[Mewtwo_Rain]

Maybe I'll sound like an amerimutt bootlicker by saying this, but I think that Americans have every right to still be enraged by it and by all means should still be enraged. 18 years isn't a long time and 3000 deaths on your own turf shouldn't be so easily forgotten. If something like that happened so recently in my own country I don't think I could ever forget.

That being said, 9/11 jokes are still funny and Americans are far too passive about how it was used as a justification to stifle civil liberties. I think people in general are too quick to forget in a sort of "out of sight out of mind" kind of way.

These days especially in America most people have the attention span of goldfish, so it's not too surprising how quickly everything falls into the memory hole.

 

[Ghost of Wesley Willis]

The only ones who still obsessively dwell on 9/11 are baby boomers or basic vanilla republican gen-Xers/Millennials that watch Ben Shapiro and/or Steven Crowder.

 

[Gustav Schuchardt]

The public should've realized it doesn't fucking matter if Vietnam is communist or not (especially because it's not like South Vietnam was some bastion of freedom)

North Vietnam was far worse

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacre_at_Huế

Many more people killed than at My Lai and in the case of Hueh the killing was done by government death squads with a list of names approved by the regime and ideologically inspired by Lenin's Hanging Order.

That was the reason the 'Boat People' left Vietnam after the commies took over. South Vietnam was a somewhat chaotic authoritarian regime but if you stayed out of politics the government was probably too incompetent to take much notice of you. North Vietnam was a full on totalitarian regime that might decide your class or ethnic group needed to go for the greater good of the revolution. It also had a Leninist tactic of murdering anyone it thought might oppose it in new territory it captured. Which is what happened an Hueh and presumably what the Boat People were sufficiently scared off that leaving in a crappy boat seemed like a better bet.

And to top it all off even if you didn't get murdered when the regime captured your village and didn't die in a reeducation camp the delightful communist regime might mark you down for shitty jobs for life because one of your relatives had a job with the old government.

If you look at Asia now it's pretty striking that the places the US defended - South Korea and Taiwan - are pretty free and increasingly rich. And the places the US let the commies grab are not free and and most of the people living there do so in pretty grim poverty. Sure you can argue that in China the Commies abandoned Maoism and the country is developing. But it's a very uneven kind of development. People connected to the regime can become very rich but the average GDP per capita is still many times lower than in Taiwan. Taiwan also didn't go through the Cultural Revolution and Great Leap forward. It's hard to give the commies in China credit for the post Deng development when they'd wrecked the economy and killed millions under Mao's rule. And even if China does end up rich, there's no real sign it will ever be free. Or give up on it's long stated and bonkers claim that it should rule Taiwan or big chunks of territory currently run by some other, and frankly far better government like the Senkaku/ Diaoyutai islands. All the signs are the CCP will use the wealth of China to take back those territories with absolutely disastrous consequences.

Jean J Kirkpatrick put the the difference between authoritarian and totalitarian regimes thus

https://archive.is/os6uw
https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/dictatorships-double-standards/

The former deputy chairman of Vietnam’s National Assembly from 1976 to his defection early in August 1979, Hoang Van Hoan, described recently the impact of Vietnam’s ongoing revolution on that country’s more than one million Chinese inhabitants:

They have been expelled from places they have lived in for generations. They have been dispossessed of virtually all possessions–their lands, their houses. They have been driven into areas called new economic zones, but they have not been given any aid. How can they eke out a living in such conditions reclaiming new land? They gradually die for a number of reasons–diseases, the hard life. They also die of humiliation.

It is not only the Chinese who have suffered in Southeast Asia since the “liberation,” and it is not only in Vietnam that the Chinese suffer. By the end of 1978 more than six million refugees had fled countries ruled by Marxist governments. In spite of walls, fences, guns, and sharks, the steady stream of people fleeing revolutionary utopias continues..

There is a damning, contrast between the number of refugees created by Marxist regimes and those created by other autocracies: more than a million Cubans have left their homeland since Castro’s rise (one refugee for every nine inhabitants) as compared to about 35,000 each from Argentina, Brazil, and Chile. In Africa more than five times as many refugees have fled Guinea and Guinea Bissau as have left Zimbabwe Rhodesia, suggesting that civil war and racial discrimination are easier for most people to bear than Marxist-style liberation.

Moreover, the history of this century provides no grounds for expecting that radical totalitarian regimes will transform themselves. At the moment there is a far greater likelihood of progressive liberalization and democratization in the governments of Brazil, Argentina, and Chile than in the government of Cuba; in Taiwan than in the People’s Republic of China; in South Korea than in North Korea; in Zaire than in Angola; and so forth.

Since many traditional autocracies permit limited contestation and participation, it is not impossible that U.S. policy could effectively encourage this process of liberalization and democratization, provided that the effort is not made at a time when the incumbent government is fighting for its life against violent adversaries, and that proposed reforms are aimed at producing gradual change rather than perfect democracy overnight. To accomplish this, policymakers are needed who understand how actual democracies have actually come into being. History is a better guide than good intentions.

The US wasn't wrong to try to stop North Vietnam invading South Vietnam.

Look at her list 'At the moment there is a far greater likelihood of progressive liberalization and democratization in the governments of Brazil, Argentina, and Chile than in the government of Cuba; in Taiwan than in the People’s Republic of China; in South Korea than in North Korea; in Zaire than in Angola; and so forth."

Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Taiwan and South Korea are all democracies now. Cuba, the PRC and North Korea are all totalitarian hellholes. Both the DRC, the successor to Zaire and Angola are classified as 'Not Free'. Still her prediction worked pretty well elsewhere. And she made it in 1979.

 

[crocodilian]

And conservatives use 9/11 to ree every time a Muslim looks at them cross-eyed, what's your point?

Also for fuck's sake can we have one thread in Deep Thoughts that doesn't turn into bitching about the Jews?

If anyone references a historical tragedy too frequently and for blatant political or personal gain, it's Jews and the Holocaust. And unlike 9/11 I'm not even sure that shit really happened.

 

[ProgKing of the North]

If anyone references a historical tragedy too frequently and for blatant political or personal gain, it's Jews and the Holocaust. And unlike 9/11 I'm not even sure that shit really happened.

Whatever, just sperg about it in one of the thousands of threads dedicated to bitching about Jews

 

[crocodilian]

Whatever, just sperg about it in one of the thousands of threads dedicated to bitching about Jews

Make me, faggot.

But to be on topic: I rarely see 9/11 referenced anywhere anymore. The actual rubble has been paved over and built on, television and radio stations no longer seem to hold memorials on the annual date, it's seldom referenced in politics and the only mention of it I see online is asking whether or not Israel did it and/or photos of Hulk Hogan actually doing it.

 

[ColtWalker1847]

(we technically trained Bin Laden), and few people seem to realize that.

No "we" technically didn't. Few people seem to realize it because it isn't true. Just because he was a muj (and I use that term loosely) does not mean he was US trained or supported. In fact, the US didn't train any of the muj. The ISI and Pakistani Army did.

The deal was that the US and Saudi Arabia provided the money and weapons to the mujaheddin. The Pakistanis provided the training and distributed the US supplied money/weapons/ammo/donkeys because they were using NWFP as a safe haven. It is also why once the Soviets left the ISI's favorite group, the Taliban, became kings of shit mountain.

Now, Bin Laden was independently wealthy and funded his own operation that used the Soviet-Afghan War as a recruiting tool. During the war he had very little to do with the US or the Saudis which he loathed. He did have ties to Pakistan though, obviously.

If you want to blame anyone blame Pakistan, the ISI, and Hamid Gul.

 

[queue-anon]

It seems like most Americans don't really care anymore, and I'm grateful for that. My everyday/run-of-the-mill American family members were obsessed for years, which grated on my nerves since I actually was living in New York at the time. They were on the opposite side of the country. Some of them wanted to make 9/11 a national holiday, and I was adamantly against it. A national tragedy should not be a federal holiday. Save that for honoring people (such as veterans and important leaders) and important, nontragic events in our national history. Dedicating a day to a tragedy means an annual pity party.

As someone who isn't an Amerifag (add to dictionary ), feel free to correct me:

I think the simplified answer is that for several generations of Americans 9/11 was for lack of a better term, a wake up call, they weren't alone in this as the last generation in Europe to be decisively attacked in such a manner have all but passed away.

It's testament to the average quality of life in America that for many their introduction to geopolitics was 9/11, prior to that the size and variety of climates available in the US allows them to remain in the US and it's why only 47% of Americans hold a passport.

Off topic, i think theres something lost here as whilst travel does broaden the mind traveling within one's own borders tends to reinforce it. Credit where it's due in the last decade the number of Americans with passports has almost doubled, although i suspect a disproportionate amount of which are from those who were in the Teen age range during 9/11 .

In addition to generational differences, more Americans likely have passports because you now need them to travel to Mexico and Canada.

 

[Piss Clam]

No "we" technically didn't. Few people seem to realize it because it isn't true. Just because he was a muj (and I use that term loosely) does not mean he was US trained or supported. In fact, the US didn't train any of the muj. The ISI and Pakistani Army did.

The deal was that the US and Saudi Arabia provided the money and weapons to the mujaheddin. The Pakistanis provided the training and distributed the US supplied money/weapons/ammo/donkeys because they were using NWFP as a safe haven. It is also why once the Soviets left the ISI's favorite group, the Taliban, became kings of shit mountain.

Now, Bin Laden was independently wealthy and funded his own operation that used the Soviet-Afghan War as a recruiting tool. During the war he had very little to do with the US or the Saudis which he loathed. He did have ties to Pakistan though, obviously.

If you want to blame anyone blame Pakistan, the ISI, and Hamid Gul.

There were instances of afghan mujaheddin killing Arab foreign fighters because of the Arabs strict interpretation of Islam which pissed them off due to tribal customs.

You are also spot on. I wish more people actually knew the history of the soviet afghan war.

 

[nonvir_1984]

In my convos with seppos, I find they are more wound up with the American revolution in what was it, 1776. Now, if they had just behaved themselves and acted like adults and not petulant children, they could have still been part of the UK and be enjoying BREXIT now. See what you are missing?
9/11 was a blip for most folks; but holy shit, it was a pay day many times over for arms manufacturers and just the excuse a bunch of totalitarians round the world needed to create a global surveillance state.
And yes, my best friends are American.

 

[ColtWalker1847]

There were instances of afghan mujaheddin killing Arab foreign fighters because of the Arabs strict interpretation of Islam which pissed them off due to tribal customs.

You are also spot on. I wish more people actually knew the history of the soviet afghan war.

Just read Charlie Wilson's War. It does a good enough job explaining it.

It is the dumb conspiracy theory that just won't die and has been championed by morons since at least the USS Cole bombing. Some people just want to believe that they US created Bin Laden and it is usually more trouble than it's worth to talk them out of it because they are usually conspiratards.

 

[Shibaru]

only thing about 9/11 i deeply think about now are the people that were trapped in the mall below the towers, It's quite terrifying to think that someone died trapped in a RadioShack or an Express and not be discovered until the next year.

 

[cuddle striker]

the only time I've heard it really discussed seriously is when I'm working in NYC. so... yeah it's the wars and shitty laws passed right after it that are still a real topic.

 

[Red Hood]

We'll start to forgive it when they create tue equivalent to a Godzilla movie or a Porsche 356, which is when we forgave Japanland and Krautistan, respectively.

 

[Tookie]

Credit where it's due in the last decade the number of Americans with passports has almost doubled, although i suspect a disproportionate amount of which are from those who were in the Teen age range during 9/11 .

The reason they doubled is mostly because of stricter ID requirements that kicked in around 10 years ago. Americans used to be able to get away with visiting Canada and Mexico without a passport. I think most Caribbean countries didn't require them either if you were entering by sea.

 

[ProgKing of the North]

The reason they doubled is mostly because of stricter ID requirements that kicked in around 10 years ago. Americans used to be able to get away with visiting Canada and Mexico over land crossings without a passport. I think most Caribbean countries didn't require them either if you were entering by sea.

Wish it was still like that. No real reason for the US and Canada not to have a schengen-type arrangement tbh

 

[Rev]

Theory 1:
well some people believe the Iraq war was just an excuse to drill for oil and 9/11 was a convenient excuse to go to war
If that where true, the media would wanna over hype it to make American citizens believe 9/11 was the only reason to go to war and oil played no part. The news would probably ignore other issues because Americans tend to think domestic problems are the only ones worth caring about anyway.
They would also probably create a holiday of it to remind the people every year in the name of patriotism

Theory 2:

Spoiler: Or maybe they had something to do with it

 

[millais]

People used to wear those ?-shaped remembrance ribbons to mark the date, but I haven't seen those in a long time outside of the occasional faded bumper sticker version that 9 times out of 10 says "support the troops" rather than "remember September 11".

 

[SigSauer]

 

[Clop]

obviously this was a post by Amerifags for Amerifags, but I'd still be interested in seeing outsiders' perspectives

The Twin Towers had a lot of people from around the world, it was a tragedy for everyone with a hint of empathy. I don't blow a casket at people giving respects, but be fair, the people who mostly keep talking about it have zero respect and are only trying to sell their own idea on the backs of corpses.

"Some people did something" is how Japan tried to spin the sacking of Nanjing, China had every right to be offended of that as well.