9/11 Explanation

 

I recently had a discussion with my friend about why the Twin Towers were specifically chosen in the 9/11 attacks. This debate originally started due to my friend being a Twin Tower enthusiast,  exclaiming that their modern design, simplicity, and maximum functionality is what makes them iconic. I, taking the side of the Empire State Building, argued that the WTC was bland, simple, and represented nothing compared to the ESB. As we presented our points, he brought up an argument about how the WTC was specifically chosen in the 9/11 attacks due to its symbolism of economic prosperity, using this point to “prove” that the Twin Towers were symbolic.

That is what I have been told my entire life about the 9/11 attacks. Islamic terrorists attacked such a great nation because we possess qualities of freedom. Their envy of American economic, democratic, and military prosperity is what drove them to perform such terrible acts. This idea that there's someone out there that wants to kill me and other Americans because we enjoy our style of living was scary. This fear, turned to hatred, transformed young men who wanted to become family people into killing machines targeting families thousands of miles away.

So why did Osama Bin Laden carry out these attacks? Well, why not look to the man himself?

His reasons for attacking could be justified or not; I just want to deliver some new sources that may have never been seen before. I will definitely write about the conflict in Israel later on, which will also address this.

His main argument for why America was attacked: aggression.

Osama Bin Laden never talks about jealousy of American power, freedom, or economy. He never talks about spreading Islam to other countries, making the Islamic religion rule over every part of the earth. If he was so keen on spreading Islam, attacking out of jealousy, or attacking Christian nations, why didn't he attack the Vatican, Italy, Sweden, Japan, or any country that enjoys some freedom or has an opposing religion? Why didn’t he launch multiple attacks upon different countries? Was it really jealousy or an expansion of Islam? Or perhaps it's something the United States government has done? Something that specifically affected people in the region that Osama Bin Laden happened to be a part of.

The following words are from Osama Bin Laden in a speech, translated by Al Jazeera.

“But I am amazed at you. Even though we are in the fourth year after the events of September 11th, Bush is still engaged in distortion, deception and hiding from you the real causes. And thus, the reasons are still there for a repeat of what occurred. So I shall talk to you about the story behind those events and shall tell you truthfully about the moments in which the decision was taken, for you to consider. I say to you, Allah knows that it had never occurred to us to strike the towers. But after it became unbearable and we witnessed the oppression and tyranny of the American/Israeli coalition against our people in Palestine and Lebanon, it came to my mind. The events that affected my soul in a direct way started in 1982 when America permitted the Israelis to invade Lebanon and the American Sixth Fleet helped them in that. This bombardment began and many were killed and injured and others were terrorized and displaced… I couldn’t forget those moving scenes, blood and severed limbs, women and children sprawled everywhere. Houses destroyed along with their occupants and high rises demolished over their residents, rockets raining down on our home without mercy… In those difficult moments, many hard-to-describe ideas bubbled in my soul, but in the end they produced an intense feeling of rejection of tyranny, and gave birth to a strong resolve to punish the oppressors.”

He outlines the aggression perpetrated by the US government and uses it to justify his attacks. Again, I am going to later find out the cause of the conflict in Lebanon/Palestine/Israel; this article is to explain what Osama Bin Laden's reasons for the attacks were and why the specific buildings were chosen.

So why strike towers?

If you look up why the towers were struck, the common response is that the WTC represented America’s economic powerhouse. This conclusion is commonly drawn because of the attacks on the Pentagon, representing the American military, and the supposed attack on the Capitol or White House, representing American lawmaking.

The reason they chose the two buildings. New York has high media coverage. They (terrorists) hit the first building, nobody knew about it until a minute after the attack. The only people that saw it were the people in the buildings and on the ground. Breaking News: One of the WTC buildings on fire! The cameras then turn to both buildings, live-streaming the one building burning. People are watching. Then out of nowhere, hundreds of millions of people see a second plane fly right through the second building. They used the towers to burn the image of terrorism into the minds of people. People remember something more if they see it happen than after the fact. The only people who saw the Pentagon get hit were people on the highway, maybe 100 people. The rest saw it on a camera that goes at 1 frame per minute (look up “9/11 Pentagon video”). Also, flying is quite hard, hitting a building at such a low altitude and close to the ground is quite difficult. Flying into the two tallest buildings in the world makes the attack more likely to occur and not crash into the ground. The Pentagon is an afterthought when it comes to 9/11. The first building is to get people’s attention; the second building is to embed horror into everyone. Look at people’s home videos, they are watching the first building burn, people are confused, but right when the second building is hit, everyone is swearing, crying, and screaming. No one is thinking about, “oh someone is attacking our powerful economy”. Osama was relying on crystal clear News cameras to capture the second plane crashing, letting the world watch his attack live. 

They didn’t hit the Empire State Building or any other building because there are no tall buildings within a camera's view; there are no other surrounding buildings to capture in the same shot, therefore no surprise and horror factor. 

In a speech after the attacks (Bin Laden Discusses Attacks on Tape, Dec 13, 2001), Osama admitted that he only thought the floors where the plane hit would only collapse, not the entire building,

“We calculated that the floors that would be hit would be three or four floors. I was the most optimistic of them all. (...Inaudible...) due to my experience in this field, I was thinking that the fire from the gas in the plane would melt the iron structure of the building and collapse the area where the plane hit and all the floors above it ONLY. This is all that we had hoped for.”

The attack was intended to strike fear into the American people. A public display of terrorism.

Now why would he want to strike fear into Americans? Wouldn't that just start a war, a war between a world superpower (a nation with the most advanced military technology, guns, missiles, aircraft, attack helicopters, and people) versus people who live in caves and are limited to Soviet-era guns. Wouldn't the clear winner be the mighty West?

“What an idiot this Osama guy is, we will turn him and his terrorist buddies into ashes with our bombs” - America.

After 9/11, American politicians delivered patriotic speeches on how they would hit those terrorists with force they had never seen before. Americans supported this because their fear-fueled hatred caused them to support the “War on Terror”. But to the surprise of Americans, this is what Osama wanted. 9/11 was a tiny match that was lit and dropped in a pool of gasoline. The intent of 9/11 was to get America into war. From his speech in 2004, Osama describes his true intentions,  “This is in addition to our having experience in using guerrilla warfare and the war of attrition to fight tyrannical superpowers, as we, alongside the mujahideen, bled Russia for 10 years, until it went bankrupt and was forced to withdraw in defeat. All Praise is due to Allah. So we are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy. Allah willing, and nothing is too great for Allah.”

And what has been the result of this? The 20-year War On Terror has cost $8 Trillion and killed nearly 900,000 people. Osama may have died in 2011 and his actions in 2001, but his real effects live on today.

People need to rethink where their money goes. I say 'your money' because it's yours. It doesn't belong to the government, the welfare recipient, or the IRS. It's yours. It's absurd to suggest that when a thief takes your money at gunpoint, it suddenly becomes his. That money is still yours. People will try to take it from you and use it to bomb others in different countries. You can't claim that you had no part in the War On Terror; your money went specifically to end the lives of 900,000 people. If you don't support the killing of innocent individuals, then stop funding it. All governments are corrupt and filled with lazy, money-hungry people who cater to corporations like Lockheed Martin (praying for the next conflict). Taxation is theft, and if you continue giving money to the government, you bear responsibility for the thousands who die in wars, for those unjustly imprisoned for victimless crimes, and for the limiting of people's freedoms and pursuit of happiness.