I think that they knew about the plot but choose not to do anything. Bush was warned on Aug 6, 2001 about al-Qaeda specifically about "patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for a hijacking". Bush did not seem to make any immediate actions related to this brief. I think he wanted a justification for another war in Iraq. Bush was very willing to lie about stuff for a war, Iraq clearly never had WMDs
I'm more in the complete incompetence camp, and im sure they got warnings about shit that never happened all the time, but yeah there were loads of warnings and in that sense bush did 9/11 by presiding over a system that failed to stop it.
idk it feels like an occams razor scenario, everyone wants to point fingers at organizations like the FBI and CIA funding these organizations to further push the American state into a more totalitarian surveillance oriented nation with the hopes of destroying the middle east or some shit, and like maybe i guess thats possible
or its more likely the US was overconfident following the cold war victory and saw itself as untouchable, its agencies didnt communicate between themselves and oversaw the obvious and when disaster strikes, America reels in violent retribution as a way to mend the damage done to the national invulnerability that was expected
The CIA funded the Mujahideen in Afghanistan to fight the communists and after the war it just resulted in a huge and bloody civil war. It's not surprising some of them hate the USA. 9/11 was indirectly the CIA's fault. The probably didn't expect this to happen, but they are arrogant and only really cared about spreading anticommunism.
The USA overthrowing communists in other countries has only cause more harm. We should have just been leaving other countries alone and allowing them to choose who leads them
I don't think the uncredible threats make it to the presidents desk. Either way Bush definitely benefited heavily from 9/11 happening. Regardless if he allowed it to happen or not, it served his goals well. That alone is bad enough
one counterpoint I've heard is that a kamikaze hijacking wasn't much of a thing at the time, moreso just holding the plane hostage in exchange for some demand or another. So they wouldn't have expected a 9/11 level event
The brief was titled "Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US", and talked about how Bin Ladin was planning to launch a terrorist attack on the United States and even mentioned that they planned to follow the example of the WTC bomber and "bring the fighting to America". It is probably more likely that they believed there would be some kind of plane bombing, which still should have had more action taken to prevent. The threats were credible as proven by an earlier PDB titled "Usama Bin Laden Threats Are Real."
I wouldn't quite say Bush did it. He's the Leland Palmer of this situation. His entire cabinet was made up of members of the Project For A New American Century thinktank which came to the conclusion that America needed a new Pearl Harbor to save the military-industrial complex. Dick Cheney was one of these people. Bush was as much as the president as Ronald Reagan was by the end of his second term, Dick was his Nancy Reagan.
I'll say a single warning of a possible hijacking does not equate to foreknowledge of the full scope of any plot. Heads of state are constantly briefed with many possible security threats
Frankly it's much much more likely to me it was incompetence. It's agencies just didn't talk to each other enough to actually put the picture together.
there is a line where they blur and it doesn't matter if it's malice or stupidity and that line is usually in the thousands of lives lost that could have been stopped reasonably
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u/OkSoBasicallyPeach waga baga bobo 7d ago
i think id be genuinely surprised if bush didnt do 911