Two decades of U.S. policy appear to be rooted in a mistaken understanding of what happened that day. archive

  • floofloof@lemmy.ca
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    7 months ago

    It’s only a mistaken understanding if it was accidental. For a long time all the signs are that the focus was deliberately taken off Saudi Arabia despite the known complicity of its officials, and Iraq was deliberately targeted despite the US knowing it had nothing to do with 9-11. Lies were deliberately spread to manufacture the consent of the American (and British) people for what its advocates knew to be an unjustified war.

  • jaybone@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    You mean the only people that were allowed to fly when all other air traffic was shut down?

  • Paraponera_clavata@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    Tl;dr: A new filing in a lawsuit brought by the families of 9/11 victims against the government of Saudi Arabia alleges that al-Qaeda had significant, indeed decisive, state support for its attacks. Officials of the Saudi government, the plaintiffs’ attorneys contend, formed and operated a network inside the United States that provided crucial assistance to the first cohort of 9/11 hijackers to enter the country.

  • mycathas9lives@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    Saudi got away with killing Americans on American soil. End of that story. They did it, we all know they did it, and no one will do anything about it. That’s just how it works. That’s how all of this works.

  • jeffw@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    I love The Atlantic but “Two decades of U.S. policy appear to be rooted in a mistaken understanding of what happened that day”? I’m not sure I buy that. Maybe the Saudi complicity is deeper than we originally realized but I don’t think anybody is really shocked by these recent revelations. US policy has driven by political agendas or, sadly, certain VP’s business interests

    • postmateDumbass@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      Propaganda was fed to the mainstream at record levels.

      It was done to fool the public into a war and reconstruction effort that fleeced America, destroyed countries, and killed a shitload.

      A few got rich. A few jumped up a few spots on the power scale.

      And Russia has taken over the role of primary sponsor of the Republican party from Saudi.

    • kescusay@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      Perhaps it would make more sense to describe it as an intentionally mistaken understanding.

      We’ve been a fragile, fractured country since that day. Al Qaida - and Saudi Arabia - did us lasting, potentially terminal, damage.

      In 2001 before 9/11, George W. Bush was clearly going to be a one-term failure of a president, a mistake of the electoral college brought about by complacency, never to be repeated. He would get the boot, be replaced by a better and more competent president in 2005, and that would be that. No Patriot Act. No Department of Homeland Security. No TSA security theater. No war against Iraq, no formation of ISIS, and likely no Tea Party, let alone the travesty that was four years of Donald Trump.

      Saudi Arabia may have actually dealt the killing blow to this country, causing the ongoing, slow-motion disaster in politics we see today.

      • FordBeeblebrox@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        One could argue that the Florida Supreme Court is responsible for millions of Iraqi/Afghan deaths and untold damage to democracy and the climate by forcing that election the way people didn’t vote. W should have been a baseball manager, he was, as the Rs do, completely unqualified against an actual experienced person at the job but had the quips and genealogy.

        Florida, republicans, consistently making everyone’s life worse. WHY DO PEOPLE STILL VOTE FOR THEM

      • PorradaVFR@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        Hesitant, forlorn and very much hopefully misplaced resigned upvote.

        I want to dismiss your assertions out of hand as too pessimistic and cynical but…yeah, we let them win at least the battle if not the whole shebang.

        My hope stems from kids today generally being kinder, open minded and not “tolerant” but actually coexisting with nary a thought. Better people will make a better world if we give them the chance to before fucking up beyond repair.

        • kescusay@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          That’s where my optimism lies, too. The kids, by and large, are all right, and it’s high time we let them have their turn running things.

          I just hope that we have democracy at all after November.

  • kbin_space_program@kbin.run
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    7 months ago

    This isn’t new. Also, this is a false narrative that the invasion of Iraq was ever about retribution for 9/11.

    It was started because the Dubya administration insisted that Iraq had WMDs and implied that Saddam was planning on using them relatively soon

    • jordanlund@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      Not even that… W. had been planning to attack Iraq on day 1 because of the failed assassination plot against his dad.

      • RestrictedAccount@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        That was Bush’s motivation. Cheney recruited him to be President while Cheney was head of Halliburton.

        Halliburton made a metric shit ton off all this shit.

        Cheney was WAAAYYY more involved in policy - especially geopolitics - than previous VPs.

        Once W realized that Cheney was a lying sack of shit, he was banished from policy, but that wasn’t until almost the end of the second term.

  • mightyfoolish@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    A blue-ribbon commission concluded that Osama bin Laden had pioneered a new kind of terrorist group—combining superior technological know-how, extensive resources, and a worldwide network so well coordinated that it could carry out operations of unprecedented magnitude

    Caves in Afghanistan…

    Honestly, the conspiracy theories for 9/11 were a thousand times more believable than this “expansive terrorist network” that somehow lacked influence outside of perhaps the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. Seeing this sponsored by a US ally makes a lot of sense to me.

  • Treczoks@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    That was clear to me from a few days after the attacks. Some called me conspiracy nut for that. Good to see that someone finally dug up the truth. You simply cannot trust those Saudi buggers. They smile and hug you, just to drive a knife in your back.

    Always keep in mind that we are unbelievers and heathens for them and that it is absolutely OK for them to betray and deceive us.

    • RubberDuck@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      Well the Royal family does some F’ed up stuff. Like having journalist sawed into pieces while still alive.

    • febra@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      Don’t generalize like that man. That’s straight up fucked up and racist.

  • PanoptiDon@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    the costly policies that the United States has pursued for the past quarter century have been rooted in a false premise.

    No shit

  • madcaesar@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    Russia, China, Saudi Arabia and North Korea are the Mount Rushmore of asshole governments.

  • extremeboredom@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    Don’t you love how Saudi Arabia, the country who was very obviously behind 9/11, hasn’t suffered a single negative consequence as a result of their actions? They literally got away with 9/11. And then the US invaded some unrelated countries. Mind blowing.

    • ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      Bush II even sent special flights around the US (during the no-fly period) to gather up Saudi citizens and transport them safely home. Imagine Roosevelt doing this for Japanese citizens on December 8th 1941.