UncleMartha
14664
507
36
9/11 was a kind of referendum on US foreign policy. Katrina was a stark look at US domestic policy. Have no doubt, we'll all end up on the roof.
Sep 11, 2026 8:02 PM
UncleMartha
14664
507
36
9/11 was a kind of referendum on US foreign policy. Katrina was a stark look at US domestic policy. Have no doubt, we'll all end up on the roof.
BadPhoneChad
Now we pit tragic events against each other. Dang what an endeavor chosen.
blaghart
Remember, folks, everything Trump is currently doing, Bush did after 9/11. Including the mass imprison of nonwhites into concentration camps. Trump is a result of the US system being designed to breed people like him, as it did with Bush1, Bush2, and Reagan before him
duktayp
"yer doin a heckuva job, Brownie" -- King Bush II, to his crony Mike Brown. He gave him that cushy FEMA job because it's an easy job, unless there's an actual disaster. Kinda like being a fireman is an easy job...unless there's a fire
WellGoodLuckWithThat
We are all on the decoy plane. Let’s make it a fucking party and let everyone on earth know he’s not on board.
Then we gotta spend a fuckton of money in other countries too.
Because the American first idiots didn’t realize foreign policy IS America first.
People tolerated American sloppiness because they believed we shared ideals.
We are being run by people who cannot conceive of the reason for social support because they’re foolish enough to believe they didn’t rely on it. Amends time.
JohnWickdidnothingwrong
As if I didn't love Bjork enough already.
lifeisadadjoke
I've been calling 9/11 "The Day that America Found Out" for years now. I know people that lived through both events. My ex-gf was a nurse that was keeping pediatric oncology patients alive, protected by Marines (people were attacking them for food, water, and meds). She didn't think that she was going to survive. A friend from my MBA class was already leaving tower 2 when the plane hit. She did not stop, and didn't even turn around until she was a couple kms away.
TMPudding
America elected a clown over Gore and here we are.
Targe0
The problems started way further back than that.
Basically when reconstruction got halted after the civil war, that's when it started going down hill.
The divide has been able to thrive ever since then.
esparadrapo
Wouldn't have made a difference. Plans were in motion years prior, foiled attempts included.
TalkingSnake
Human math.
When you fuck with the world the world fucks back. No one is mad at Estonia.
superseriouscomments
In the last 100 years Estonia was occupied by Russia for about 50 years.
Refraining from fucking around doesn't protect you from getting fucked.
Targe0
Russia is likely not please with the fact they exist.
TalkingSnake
Putin hates penguins for also existing. Not a high bar.
Targe0
No you're thinking of Trump.
By all evidence Putin seems to not care about Penguins one way or the other.
DiracsDelta
The millennial experience: being told as a child that a large part of the world hates the US, and growing up to fully understand why.
Targe0
Most people start to hate the American Government after awhile.
But the older you get the more you start to blame the American people as well.
Because there's only so many times you can see people make the same fucking mistakes before you stop blaming the Government and start blaming the people who keep electing them into power.
phalanxausage
It's strange to me that you would claim this as a millennial thing. This is an experience for non-millennials, too.
newphonewhoodis
Then growing up to watch your tax dollars spent on Israel’s genocide of the Palestinians…
I fucking hate it.
PicassoCT
You know that for the dhijhadis western imperialism does include all things left, humanism, progress, socialism? Wherever they took power, they murdered all the anarrchists, socialists and communists. You dont fanboy for a conservative religous imperialist bombing western civilization out of envy and dont pay the price..
freshthrowaway1138
You need to learn the difference between something being understandable and something being supported. If a kid beats a dog and it bites them, that is an understandable response. I don't support the kid getting bit, but I understand why the dog did it.
The US hurt people and then those people hurt us for understandable reasons. I don't support theocrats, but I can understand human responses.
lightfoot2
I was not surprised. After all they bombed the towers in 1995 or so, amazing they didn't fall then.
ElbowDeepInAPoliceState
Hundred thousand + tonne buildings are actually pretty hard to collapse, shockingly. A car bomb ain't gonna do it.
lightfoot2
Came damn close to doing it.
Targe0
Yep.
They only failed because the planes compromised the buildings super structure.
Then set it all on fire, and the high winds that high up acted as bellows to super heat and weaken all the metal support structures.
For a bomb to do it, it would have needed to be far larger explosive.
stabbermcshooty
Still mostly feel like they let it happen to advance the same policies that made it happen
PaleChapter
Even bin Laden was surprised by how it all unfolded. He wanted the buildings to stay up, gutted and gushing smoke, for days--it never occurred to him that they'd take enough damage to actually collapse. Three thousand dead in one afternoon was not the plan--two million dead over a decade of pointless war was.
ElbowDeepInAPoliceState
He still got his millions dead, so there's that.
BagOfHammers58
Source?
Mack1986
Made up or tumblr
PaleChapter
You know, I actually don't remember where I read it--but it was before Tumblr existed.
wejustdontknow
I always upvote Björk
LaffertyDanie1
#2 Not to say Katrina was in any way insignificant but this is just an idiotic take. 9/11 defined US foreign policy for decades with global implications that will last for a generation. It's a defining moment in the course of multiple countries' histories that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of not millions of people and fundamentally altered the balance of power in the middle east. What's happening in the middle east today could arguably be traced to 9/11
Mack1986
Also that mercenary shooting looter thing was a load of bullshit from Chris Kyle's book. He made it up because he was mentally ill
LaffertyDanie1
I was honestly very confused by this comment at first cuz I didn't even bother reading the post he was replying to. There's nothing it possibly could have said to make his conclusion any less absurd.
somerandomusernamebecauseididntlikemyoldone
I see 'never forget' all over the place but what I really see from the actions of the US is 'never learn' and that really seems to be the standard.
imnotinthewitnessprotectionprogram
There’s a pretty good movie out there called The History Boys (has a young James Cordon) and it’s a about these lads who going through high level academic program in order to get to a good university. One of the teachers remarks at a statue commemorating the first WW. And says, “Lest we forget might as well say Lest we remember….” That line has always stayed with me
thinkybrainpains
Never forget the US happily murdered a 9/11 number or more of brown people a day for what, 80 or more years? You know, like Iran started all of this in 1979. And like Israel’s problems with Palestinians started on Oct 7.
doctorbocker
Makes you worry about what an "Iranian Al-Qaeda" might get up to.
KingHippie
Yeah I got downvoted for saying you cant forget what you never learned in one of those 'never forget' posts.
Tolocamp
Some foreign intelligence agency (not sure if it was an american one) reported some time in recent years, that the number of active terrorists went up 10 times since 9/11 and the number of passive supporters increased by factor 20.
The war on Terror is just as much a success as the War on Drugs is. Turns out, you cannot wage war on a Word.
trumpypumpyinyourrumpy
Yeah, the attack wasn't unprovoked. Its like a school bully getting punched back.
MuffinProof
https://imgur.com/bBPGiu2.jpg
Haliax22
So the civilians deserved it? The victim punching back at its school bully
datphone777365
...
https://media4.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPWE1NzM3M2U1azVsa3U3M3l5b3UwMmJrMnEwbzAzMG56ZmdrZWZka3ZiZDBxOW1pMiZlcD12MV9naWZzX3NlYXJjaCZjdD1n/Vsl4fGedmYFRC/200w.webp
ArchaeoEejit
Who do you think you were killing in the middle east my guy?
blaghart
I mean, the attack was very much unprovoked, but only in the sense that the dudes who perpetrated it had basically bullshit reasons for it (Osama was butthurt that christians were deployed to Mecca at the request of Saudi Arabia two decades earlier) but you're correct that the US foreign policy for its entire existence was antagonistic imperialism.
LordLobster
Against imperialism, it's not unprovoked. Also, Osama specifically says it happened because of all the carnage america created against muslims. That christians in mecca was the one thing you mention seems a bit disingenuous.
blaghart
Osama said lots of things. Osama also had a history of lying. He was totally fine with American treatment of Muslims right up until the Saudis allowed Christians into Mecca. In fact he proudly accepted American training, weapons, and support...right up until the Saudis allowed Christians into Mecca and cut off his allowance.
Trunkmonkay
Any attack against civilians is unprovoked. It's genuinely bizarre to see people take their criticism and condemnation of American foreign policy to the point where 9/11 is now a justified military action
Haliax22
ye there's a bunch of extremists on this app saying crazy sh*t. Not as bad as 9gag mind you but along the same lines, for sure (murder, racism, and such)..
datphone777365
Compared to what? Truth social?
usernameusedinlessplatforms2
So US has been doing unprovoked attacks on h
Targe0
Yeah because its not like the US had ever attacked civilian targets or anything.
They aren't saying it was justified, they are just saying the fact someone took a swing at the American people isn't shocking, since the US had done the exact same thing in countless nations. People will only take so much shit before it radicalises them into action. And the US has been quite the motivator for that for the past 100 years.
neithermenoryou
You mean how all the atrocities the US did in the middle east on their civilian populations was unprovoked? There's a wide gulf between acknowledging why the middle east is retaliating like they did and condoning the violence itself. Acting like it's a surprise after all the atrocities the US committed in the region is just disingenuous.
Trunkmonkay
Anyone who attacks civilian populations is doing so unprovoked, it's unjustifiable, and unconscionable.
There is a wide gulf between acknowledging the root causes of 9/11 (radical islamist anger and Saudi money+training), and trying to justify a terrorist attack by saying it wasn't unprovoked.
If anything you're giving credence and basis to terrorist attacks on civilians by recognizing it as an eventual and inevitable outcome to past violence.
neithermenoryou
God damn, dude. Yes, abused populations will grow bitter and fight back in whatever ways they can, that should not be news to you. This has happened in EVERY population on earth including the west like the RAF. "Radical Islam" has killed fewer civilians globally than the US military has in just the middle east. You're blaming the victims of nearly 200 years of constant violence for fighting dirty against the only nation that dropped 2 nukes and has couped and invaded countless democratic nations
Trunkmonkay
"fine for me but not for thee" argument for civilian casualties and terrorism is just bizarre tbh. You're a legitimate hypocrite for trying to say the US killing civilians is unprovoked but the Taliban doing it isn't. By that logic, aren't the million dead civilians the US killed after 9/11 conscionable because the US was responding to mass civilian death? Of course not, that would make me a hypocrite if I implied that!
Worbah
Even if I were smarter, what I'm about to say will, at the very least, sound weird; how is the population of a country not, in some measure, culpable for its actions? Calling all the greasy swinefuckery that USA has been up to merely foreign policy instead of villainy is, to a degree, dishonest (even though technically true.).
RyvaTheRenamon
If the average german was responsible for Hitlers rise to power and the consequences of that, then the average american is absolutely responsible for the actions of their government as well.
Trunkmonkay
As collective punishment is a war crime, so good luck going down this path with any modicum of legal or moral justification for whatever stupid bullshit you're trying to spout here.
Worbah
I'm having a hard time articulating myself here. 9/11 was an atrocity, I think we can agree on that. However, thinking that the actions that a nation commits can have zero consequences that affect their own population is, at the very least, odd. It feels as though compartmentalizing government and the military actions that it takes as a completely separate entity.
Trunkmonkay
I don't think you have the qualifications to be having this discussion. I'm talking about whether civilians can provoke terrorist attacks on themselves, you're talking about whether or not it's possible. You don't even understand what this discussion is. Drop it
ihateimgurffs
And yet the USA is the only one not being on trial for exactly that. Remove legal repercussion and illegal one is all that remains.
Trunkmonkay
Yea everyone should face consequences for their actions, and that's how you should feel instead of trying to justify terrorism out of spite or recompense
Trunkmonkay
So is the US justified in striking civilian targets in Iran because the Iranian government has been funding terrorist groups for the last few decades?
Don't hurt an ankle with those mental gymnastics
SavageDrums
Nobody said justified, striking civilians is a war crime. But pretending that america is a blameless little lamb and we can't fathom why pissed off, desperate people would strike back however they can is silly and naieve.
Trunkmonkay
"Nobody said justified, striking civilians is a war crime. But pretending that Gaza is a blameless little lamb and we can't fathom why pissed off, desperate Israelis would strike back however they can is silly and naive."
This is your literal opinion applied to a different situation. If you feel like Israel isn't justified in the mass slaughter of civilians but another group is, you're a hypocrite. I'm a big enough boy to say nobody is justified in killing civilians, are you?
usernameusedinlessplatforms2
Nukes on Japan were against civilians, thus unprovoked.
Bombing of Dresden and Hamburg were against civilians, thus unprovoked.
And then the US has continued its unprovoked slaughter of civilians for decades, correct?
And USAs best buddy Israel has only done unprovoked atracks on civilians during its existence, correct?
The US and Israel has basically never done justified military actions in their history is what you claim as theres always been civilian targets included.
Trunkmonkay
Yes, correct. All of those attacks were unprovoked.
Downright adorable how you think condemnation of terrorism is an advocation for the US government and it's past and present war crimes. Do you really have a hard time comprehending that terrorism and attacks on civilians are bad, even if it's against Americans or any other ethnic group you don't like?
usernameusedinlessplatforms2
Not at all, but when you do atrocities endlessly all around the world, you tend to piss of ppl. And when those ppl have nothing to lose, they can do similar stuff back at you
SavageDrums
Nobody here, or anywhere outside of idiot loser fringe groups, is saying that it was awesome, or even justified. Just that it was understandable.
Targe0
That's not what is being said, yes they are always bad.
But past US actions is what drives people to target them for attacks.
People don't just become terrorists without something to motivate them into doing it.
And there's a long list of past US actions that gave them all the reasons they could want. So people not being shocked when those past actions catch up with them, isn't approving of what happens, it's just not being shocked by it.
Trunkmonkay
That was literally what was being said but thank you for jumping in to try and change the narrative so you can misconstrue the discussion.