Thus, I maintain the attacks were a huge failure at accomplishing the attackers’ political agenda.
I disagree. I think you’re misreading the attackers’ goals, in particular the time scale.
First, in contemporary ideology of terrorism there is a pretty standard way in which terrorism is supposed to work. The sequence looks as follows: terrorist acts cause fear and panic; the government reacts by clamping down and increasing repression; the people chafe under repression until they revolt; a revolution sweeps away the government and ruling elites.
Note that I’m stating no opinion on whether that sequence is likely to succeed—I’m just pointing out that in the terrorist world this is a typical expectation of how things will work.
Given this, the al-Qaida attack has clearly achieved stages one and two.
Second, a major goal of islamic fundamentalists is to bring down the Great Satan, the USA. A collapse would be preferable, but weakening it, from their perspective, is a move in the right direction.
I submit that the (anticipated) response of the US to the 9/11 attacks significantly weakened the US. In other words, the US is losing the War on Terror in a pretty spectacular fashion.
First, in contemporary ideology of terrorism there is a pretty standard way in which terrorism is supposed to work.
What’s the evidence that it actually does work that way — or, for that matter, that these particular attackers believed it would?
I find Abrahms’ theories (described by Schneier in the link upthread; use your favorite search engine to find Abrahms’ papers) to be substantially more descriptive of how the world actually works. In gist, terrorism is ineffective as a means of political change, and terrorist groups are better modeled as gangs of disaffected young men than as political agents seeking change under desperate circumstances.
Also, the poor domestic policy choices of the U.S. government after 9/11 were not inevitable. Contrast them with the substantially more narrowly-tailored responses to the Oklahoma City bombing.
We don’t have to concern ourselves with the general question of whether terrorism is a viable tactic for achieving political ends. We’re discussing a more narrow question: were the 9/11 attacks “successful” and in which sense.
My position is that the attacks were successful beyond the hopes of al-Qaida—they damaged the US in a major fashion (with enthusiastic cooperation of the US government, both Republican and Democratic administrations, I might add).
I disagree. I think you’re misreading the attackers’ goals, in particular the time scale.
First, in contemporary ideology of terrorism there is a pretty standard way in which terrorism is supposed to work. The sequence looks as follows: terrorist acts cause fear and panic; the government reacts by clamping down and increasing repression; the people chafe under repression until they revolt; a revolution sweeps away the government and ruling elites.
Note that I’m stating no opinion on whether that sequence is likely to succeed—I’m just pointing out that in the terrorist world this is a typical expectation of how things will work.
Given this, the al-Qaida attack has clearly achieved stages one and two.
Second, a major goal of islamic fundamentalists is to bring down the Great Satan, the USA. A collapse would be preferable, but weakening it, from their perspective, is a move in the right direction.
I submit that the (anticipated) response of the US to the 9/11 attacks significantly weakened the US. In other words, the US is losing the War on Terror in a pretty spectacular fashion.
What’s the evidence that it actually does work that way — or, for that matter, that these particular attackers believed it would?
I find Abrahms’ theories (described by Schneier in the link upthread; use your favorite search engine to find Abrahms’ papers) to be substantially more descriptive of how the world actually works. In gist, terrorism is ineffective as a means of political change, and terrorist groups are better modeled as gangs of disaffected young men than as political agents seeking change under desperate circumstances.
Also, the poor domestic policy choices of the U.S. government after 9/11 were not inevitable. Contrast them with the substantially more narrowly-tailored responses to the Oklahoma City bombing.
We don’t have to concern ourselves with the general question of whether terrorism is a viable tactic for achieving political ends. We’re discussing a more narrow question: were the 9/11 attacks “successful” and in which sense.
My position is that the attacks were successful beyond the hopes of al-Qaida—they damaged the US in a major fashion (with enthusiastic cooperation of the US government, both Republican and Democratic administrations, I might add).