How does it not make sense? One way of achieving your aims is making it very costly for the people blocking those aims to continue doing so.
No people on Earth would just go “oh welp, guess we better go home now.”
Conflicts often end in a negotiated peace where neither side has been conclusively defeated, often indeed amounting to “welp, we’d better go home now.” The cost to the US military in Vietnam turned public opinion against the war until it became politically unsustainable.
More broadly, this attitude inevitably leads to post-hoc cynicism, where you look at someone who failed to achieve their stated goals, conclude in hindsight that they made no sense and that they therefore couldn’t ever possibly have believed sincerely in them.
If it really made zero sense, it would make zero sense to use as propaganda. The fact that it makes enough sense that you believe bin Laden even used it to convince others means you accept that people could believe it. It’s not unreasonable to think that bin Laden was smarter than the people following him, but you haven’t done the work to show he couldn’t believe it.
Propaganda is a quantity game, it can make anywhere from no sense to complete sense, because different messages will be received differently by different people.
The Sept 11th attack was not a piece of some greater war. It was a declaration to an unsuspecting people, very few of us had any expectation that something like that would happen. I can understand when the Japanese made the mistake in 1941, but its much less understandable now. It’s certainly no Vietnam, which didn’t end until we had lost large numbers for many years. Comparing that to an expectation that a surprise attack on our civilians would have similar effects is simply ridiculous.
America is a box of hornets. It was still, and got kicked. No other possibility was even remotely likely to anybody that knows anything about us. He couldn’t have been that totally and completely ignorant.
To the contrary, it is far more likely he was an intelligent adversary that researched and understood his opponents, and struck effectively. I simply find that far more plausible than him being a fool that wanted a quicker way to get him and his organization to heaven, and otherwise failed miserably.
So, the only reason you have for not believing bin Laden’s stated goals is that, you assert, it was too obviously impossible to achieve them.
You haven’t presented any reason he instead must have wanted to cause the USA to sacrifice domestic freedoms as a motivation. What about all other possible motivations? Why that one? It seems like it doesn’t do bin Laden any good for that to happen. Instead it seems like it’s how an American, unable to understand the world through any lens except an American one, might decide bin Laden’s motivations must be viewed.
I have at no time asserted it was impossible to drive the US from the Middle East. To the contrary, sowing domestic strife and global overreaction was an excellent first step towards accomplishing that in the long run.
All I’m granting him is an assumption of rationality and long term thinking. I’m not claiming any truth or facts or anything, I cannot read a dead man’s mind. But I can look at what happened and draw conclusions with the aid of hindsight, and strongly prefer that over simply trusting his word.
Are you unable to see how we have harmed ourselves since then? How about how Israel is harming themselves right now?
Are you unable to see how we have harmed ourselves since then? How about how Israel is harming themselves right now?
This is just an invitation to commit the post-hoc fallacy.
I’m not claiming any truth or facts or anything
But you said:
Similar to how Bin Laden very much succeeded in his goals
That’s an assertion/claim as to what those goals in fact were. And you still haven’t found any reason that they included “make the US pass laws which restricted its own civil liberties” other than the fact that that’s what eventually happened.
You don’t understand how people can discuss possibilities without believing in them 100%? The world must be a very confusing place. I guess that makes more sense why you just believe a terrorist though, you have to believe someone. Something has to be true, right?
People are complicated, so we discuss possibilities, alternatives, etc and think in terms of likelihood. This is fairly common in areas where we cannot scientifically prove something, like when examining motivations.
Truths belong in holy books. I have opinions, and I am discussing them. I admit I do use fairly strong hyperbole sometimes.
Like I said, the idea that America would just give up after losing a couple skyscrapers is just pants-on-head stupid, so I feel pretty comfortable swinging with some strong language.
edit: Alright, I edited my old post to add an imo, so it was clearer I was not trying to give historical fact.
Just because you couch it in terms of opinion doesn’t mean it’s not a claim about truth; you’re just not saying you’re certain of it. I wouldn’t expect certainty - I would just expect that whatever you do believe you believe for a reason, and that you would be able to articulate that reason, which you aren’t doing.
With your successive replies it sounds like you’re more comfortable defending the position that “bin Laden’s stated goals are unbelievable” than “bin Laden’s goal was to make the USA pass liberty-reducing legislation.” It’s OK if, on reflection, you think the latter isn’t really supported by the facts and that’s why you’re not defending it or giving a reason for it.
You’re ignoring most of my arguments. Why the focus on Patriot Act, when it was one of three factors I listed? Why do you keep trying to say that I’m saying his stated goals were unbelievable, when I’ve repeatedly said I’m debating the specifics of how he expected to accomplish them? It’s not a “what”, it’s a “how”.
I’ve repeatedly expressed my reasonings. I cannot help it if you don’t tell me the specific parts you disagree with or don’t understand. I won’t just keep repeating myself.
Why the focus on Patriot Act, when it was one of three factors I listed?
Because it’s the one that I see repeated most often by others and the one find most doubtful.
Why do you keep trying to say that I’m saying his stated goals were unbelievable, when I’ve repeatedly said I’m debating the specifics of how he expected to accomplish them? It’s not a “what”, it’s a “how”.
Because we started with a disagreement over what his goals were and you seem to have maintained your side of that disagreement? If you say “it was X, Y and Z” and I say, “no, it was A and B” and you then say “how on earth could what he did have achieved A” you’re not actually arguing about “how” you’re expressing your skepticism that it was A by casting doubt on how realistic it was.
I’ve repeatedly expressed my reasonings.
You haven’t expressed a reason to believe that bin Laden wanted the USA to pass a law like the PATRIOT Act. You’ve made implications that you maybe don’t actually believe it that strongly, but not gone so far as to say that you don’t believe it, and you’ve talked about the other things you believe, but you’re quite reticent to talk about that one.
I don’t mind leaving aside the other stuff because this one, I think, is more egregious.
How does it not make sense? One way of achieving your aims is making it very costly for the people blocking those aims to continue doing so.
Conflicts often end in a negotiated peace where neither side has been conclusively defeated, often indeed amounting to “welp, we’d better go home now.” The cost to the US military in Vietnam turned public opinion against the war until it became politically unsustainable.
More broadly, this attitude inevitably leads to post-hoc cynicism, where you look at someone who failed to achieve their stated goals, conclude in hindsight that they made no sense and that they therefore couldn’t ever possibly have believed sincerely in them.
If it really made zero sense, it would make zero sense to use as propaganda. The fact that it makes enough sense that you believe bin Laden even used it to convince others means you accept that people could believe it. It’s not unreasonable to think that bin Laden was smarter than the people following him, but you haven’t done the work to show he couldn’t believe it.
Propaganda is a quantity game, it can make anywhere from no sense to complete sense, because different messages will be received differently by different people.
The Sept 11th attack was not a piece of some greater war. It was a declaration to an unsuspecting people, very few of us had any expectation that something like that would happen. I can understand when the Japanese made the mistake in 1941, but its much less understandable now. It’s certainly no Vietnam, which didn’t end until we had lost large numbers for many years. Comparing that to an expectation that a surprise attack on our civilians would have similar effects is simply ridiculous.
America is a box of hornets. It was still, and got kicked. No other possibility was even remotely likely to anybody that knows anything about us. He couldn’t have been that totally and completely ignorant.
To the contrary, it is far more likely he was an intelligent adversary that researched and understood his opponents, and struck effectively. I simply find that far more plausible than him being a fool that wanted a quicker way to get him and his organization to heaven, and otherwise failed miserably.
edit for some sloppy wording
So, the only reason you have for not believing bin Laden’s stated goals is that, you assert, it was too obviously impossible to achieve them.
You haven’t presented any reason he instead must have wanted to cause the USA to sacrifice domestic freedoms as a motivation. What about all other possible motivations? Why that one? It seems like it doesn’t do bin Laden any good for that to happen. Instead it seems like it’s how an American, unable to understand the world through any lens except an American one, might decide bin Laden’s motivations must be viewed.
I have at no time asserted it was impossible to drive the US from the Middle East. To the contrary, sowing domestic strife and global overreaction was an excellent first step towards accomplishing that in the long run.
All I’m granting him is an assumption of rationality and long term thinking. I’m not claiming any truth or facts or anything, I cannot read a dead man’s mind. But I can look at what happened and draw conclusions with the aid of hindsight, and strongly prefer that over simply trusting his word.
Are you unable to see how we have harmed ourselves since then? How about how Israel is harming themselves right now?
This is just an invitation to commit the post-hoc fallacy.
But you said:
That’s an assertion/claim as to what those goals in fact were. And you still haven’t found any reason that they included “make the US pass laws which restricted its own civil liberties” other than the fact that that’s what eventually happened.
You don’t understand how people can discuss possibilities without believing in them 100%? The world must be a very confusing place. I guess that makes more sense why you just believe a terrorist though, you have to believe someone. Something has to be true, right?
People are complicated, so we discuss possibilities, alternatives, etc and think in terms of likelihood. This is fairly common in areas where we cannot scientifically prove something, like when examining motivations.
Truths belong in holy books. I have opinions, and I am discussing them. I admit I do use fairly strong hyperbole sometimes.
Like I said, the idea that America would just give up after losing a couple skyscrapers is just pants-on-head stupid, so I feel pretty comfortable swinging with some strong language.
edit: Alright, I edited my old post to add an imo, so it was clearer I was not trying to give historical fact.
Just because you couch it in terms of opinion doesn’t mean it’s not a claim about truth; you’re just not saying you’re certain of it. I wouldn’t expect certainty - I would just expect that whatever you do believe you believe for a reason, and that you would be able to articulate that reason, which you aren’t doing.
With your successive replies it sounds like you’re more comfortable defending the position that “bin Laden’s stated goals are unbelievable” than “bin Laden’s goal was to make the USA pass liberty-reducing legislation.” It’s OK if, on reflection, you think the latter isn’t really supported by the facts and that’s why you’re not defending it or giving a reason for it.
You’re ignoring most of my arguments. Why the focus on Patriot Act, when it was one of three factors I listed? Why do you keep trying to say that I’m saying his stated goals were unbelievable, when I’ve repeatedly said I’m debating the specifics of how he expected to accomplish them? It’s not a “what”, it’s a “how”.
I’ve repeatedly expressed my reasonings. I cannot help it if you don’t tell me the specific parts you disagree with or don’t understand. I won’t just keep repeating myself.
Because it’s the one that I see repeated most often by others and the one find most doubtful.
Because we started with a disagreement over what his goals were and you seem to have maintained your side of that disagreement? If you say “it was X, Y and Z” and I say, “no, it was A and B” and you then say “how on earth could what he did have achieved A” you’re not actually arguing about “how” you’re expressing your skepticism that it was A by casting doubt on how realistic it was.
You haven’t expressed a reason to believe that bin Laden wanted the USA to pass a law like the PATRIOT Act. You’ve made implications that you maybe don’t actually believe it that strongly, but not gone so far as to say that you don’t believe it, and you’ve talked about the other things you believe, but you’re quite reticent to talk about that one.
I don’t mind leaving aside the other stuff because this one, I think, is more egregious.