"19 Years Ago Today ... 9/11 ..." Topic

We can never forget … and IMO never forgive ☠ …

link

One of my co-workers posted on Skype asking where everyone was, that day… Still grieving, still angry, still wanting vengeance. The 19 years have not dulled the memories, nor the feelings.

I still want more payback, per se myself … Still a lot of fanatical religious terrorists out there. Mostly affiliated AQ and ISIS of course. They will do to be on the receiving end of a Hellfire(s) or Cruise Missile(s) …

We got UBL, his son, Baghdadi and Suliemani plus many of their subordinates leadership, as well as thousands of their minions. But seems there are many more to go.

Well put and shared, Sgt Slag.

I will never forget. This will be a continuous fight with terrorists both foreign & domestic IMHO.I live by two airports & remember the eerie lack of jet noise except for the planes flying over the US/Canadian border where I work.

Agree – never forget and never forgive.

This morning while killing time flipping thro' some old Military Modelling mags, in the box i found a newspaper from the day after the attack.
I had not looked at it for years, why stumble across it now of all days.

Saw the whole thing unfold on my TV that morning. Called my mom to tell her. Work got called off that day for me.

We will NEVER forget.

The Saudis need to be held to account.

19 years and the coverups still continue. That needs to cease, and they need to pay the piper, regardless of the fallout on all sides for their criminal actions against humanity.

Of all the things we have done to avenge 9/11, how many have worked out to our positive advantage?
Oh sure. OBL is dead.. So is Saddam Hussein, who had nothing to do with it. As are hundreds of thousands of Wily Oriental Gentlemen who had nothing to do with it. And tens of thousands of who Johnny Cash called "fine young men".

Ok. You can now all line up, like

You left out UBL's son, Baghdadi and Suliemani. Saddam was a bad guy but no where near UBL, and those others I mentioned…

As I said on another thread here :

Short answers … Desert Storm was basically a UN sanction. Iraq had to be pushed out of Kuwait and it's assets attrited at that time. IIRC Iraq had the 4th largest military in the world at that time. But as we saw and I frequently say. Weapons are only as good as the troops manning them and competent leadership. Iraq had[has] few of those. Regardless how many weapons they had[have].

We had no choice but to do an attack on A'stan after 9/11, 19 years ago today. Those terrorist attacks on the US could not go unanswered. And with force. The initial invasion of A'stan, was generally executed pretty well. link But obviously some errors were made. Especially with UBL getting away. But it was not for lack of trying. E.g. CIA & SF Tms searching thru the mountains, etc. trying to hunt him and his followers down. Many times calling in airstrikes to take out groups of the enemy, etc. But as many have learned you generally can't trust much of anyone in that region. And like in other locations, many in the region did and do hate the "infidel".

The 2d Gulf War was clearly a mistake and yes poorly conceived, etc. Which as we see eventually lead to the birth of ISIS. Which still is a problem, though far from what it was. When it went on the offensive in 2014. Now we prison camps in Syria[and Iraq?] full of thousands of ISIS terrorists and their radicalized families. With no idea what to do with them. But we know[I hope !] we can't risk freeing any of them. As most believe, as I, that these ISIS jihadis and families will go back to their medieval reign of terror if let loose.

I have long said that planning officers in the Pentagon should have on their required reading list Kipling and Flashman. And a few wargaming books on the Three British Afghan wars, along with the ones that didn't rate a number.
We killed Bin Laden. Why are we still there? To build roads, build schools for girls, to bring New England Town Hall democracy to the masses…
We've been there longer than the Russians.

I read that during the planning, Rumsfeld and Cheney would fly into rages if anyone asked "Ok, conquering will be a cakewalk. Then what?"

Great nations in the past have been smart enough to cut their losses. I'll leave it go at that.

No need to worry any more. I am sure all terrorists are sheltering in place, watching Netflix, wearing masks, and practicing social distancing. So we are in no danger.

I worked in the north tower from 9/16/99 until 9/11/01. Thanks to heavy traffic (school had just started), I missed my AmTrak connection, which made me late. I would have been in the building if not for that. No one knew what was happening except that a plane had struck the north tower and at first, people on the train thought it was a small plane, like a Cessna. From Penn Station, I tried to catch a subway to the WTC, figuring I'd have to meet up with coworkers and then head to our contingency site in NJ but then the subways shutdown. I found someone that was able to fill me in on what was going on. I remember the hair on the back of my head standing up and I ran like hell back to the train station because I knew that would be shutting down, too. I caught the last train out, packed like a sardine in the vestibule. And I will never forget the screams from everyone who could see out the windows the first tower come down. No cell phone service made it impossible to reach anyone until I was in Princeton Junction. It took me five years to accept those building were gone.

I have long said that planning officers in the Pentagon should have on their required reading list Kipling and Flashman. And a few wargaming books on the Three British Afghan wars, along with the ones that didn't rate a number.

Many have, but in many cases the situations were not completely the same. But we can still learn lessons from the past without a doubt. We must study the past. And intel cannot only be inaccurate but perishable as well. Plus not free of bias …

E.g. Mac during the Korean War. Intel convinced and it didn't take much, for Mac to go with their assessment that the Chinese that crossed the Yalu were only a small number of volunteers. We quickly learned how wrong that assessment was.

Those Officers you mentioned can only advise the elected & appointed gov't officials. That is the best way our Republic works and I totally agree. Plus in many cases their advise was ignored too. So a lot of blame to go around. E.g. Kennedy felt he could not trust many of his higher ranking military leaders and intel assets after the Bay of Pigs, failure, etc. But he too had over rode some of decisions of "the Brass". A lot of gray areas as always and hindsight is 20/20.

Frankly when it comes to A'stan, we should have gone with the original CIA, etc. plan to leave the Muj and USSR bleed themselves out. IMO that would have been a better option. But again hindsight is 20/20. No matter how many books you read or wargames you play. Even as a low ranking US ARMY INF CPT, been there … done that. And what you read and wargamed is not always the same paradigm in reality in the field. So you do the best you can. And there is generally no guarantee of success, etc.

But again IMO we had no choice but to invade A'stan after 9/11. To destroy AQ and the Taliban, which we and our allies did a fairly good job in a short time with minimal forces. link Even if UBL snuck into Pakistan.

But as we also saw when we left in larger numbers from A'stan after that, as in Iraq. The factions went back to their old ways and started killing each other off based on tribal, religious, ethnic, etc., differences, affiliations, hatreds, etc.

As I have said before … "You can't free a fish from water." …