What if 9/11 happened in another country?

[Rofl Harris]

British people already know the answer to this (and I apologise for bringing it up yet again).

For many years Britain was subjected to terror bombings by the IRA and a hell of a lot of Americans supported them.

And right there is why you don't see great compassion from a lot of the "older" generation of the British.

Families over here being killed on a regular basis while America shouted "yeah, fuck you Britain gogo IRA". Now it's happened to them and they know how we felt for years.

The difference between a lot of Americans and a lot of us British is we DID lose people close to us to IRA bombings and in the armed forces.

I lost 2 cousins, my gran and a neice to 2 seperate IRA bombings. I lost 3 friends in Ireland when I was in the Army.

All the while there were Americans supporting the IRA.

One thing I noticed after 9/11 was that the IRA seemed to disappear from the scene to a large extent after Bush declared his "war on terr". Presumably the IRA thought that maybe they wouldn't have quite so much support from the USA after 9/11. El Poncho's link shows what I mean:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents_in_the_United_Kingdom

March 2001 - Real IRA bomb BBC in London
April 2001 - Real IRA bomb post office in Hendon, London
May 2001 - Real IRA bomb London postal sorting office
August 2001 - Real IRA bomb Ealing, London
September 2001 - ........

Since September 2001 I think we've had one attack on the British mainland by IRA. What we did have however was one of the largest bank robberies ever seen in the UK in 2004, which many suspect was IRA backed. Correlation is not causation, but I think there are some things to be concluded from this, one being that possibly IRA groups have been struggling to function without American sympathy and financial support.


OT: Don't forget the numbers involved guys, 3000 people is a lot to die in a single incident - more than in all the IRA attacks combined (the next highest death toll from a single terrorist incident in a western country is ~300 each for PanAm 103 and Air India 182). I'd like to think that if a 9/11 scale attack happened in London or Toronto or Paris that the US would see the attack as an attack on Western values (as 9/11 clearly was) and respond in kind.

Of course it's going to be more important to the US if it's a US tragedy. 7/7 is a far bigger deal to us than the Madrid bombing which killed 4x as many people - I don't even remember what year that was.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Well they couldn't go to war then, so they would need to blow something else up...

Or to put it this way, people don't much care about tragedies outside their immediate vicinity, or if someone does good advertisement on it.

 

[Rainforce]

No american media would care and it would be forgotten within a year. There would be no joke like the "global war against terror" and the US would need to look for another black sheep to bomb their money against.

 

[Kryzantine]

A 9/11 couldn't happen in another country. If you want to send a message job and a declaration of war on the Western world, the only way you do it is on America. What, you're going to bomb Big Ben? The WTC is the only reasonable site to crash a plane into if you want your message sent. Then they thought they'd cripple the military by crashing a plane into the Pentagon, but that really didn't do much. If they wanted to cripple America, they could have crashed a plane into a building maybe half a mile from the WTC, that just so happens to be a mainframe for military servers and a building that looks like a prison of a skyscraper from the outside. If any of you have seen it, you'd know what it is.

But yes, I still contend that an event like 9/11 can only be as important if it was in America, and it's really not anything about the rest of the Western world, it's just that the perception is what matters.

 

[El Luck]

People would just get on with their lives, unless it was in the UK then there would be the added bonus that we would take the piss out of it.

 

[Gamer_152]

People may not want to hear it but it wouldn't matter half as much to them.

 

[alandavidson]

The same way I feel about any other mass loss of life, I hate it. We should remember tragedy and disaster, and work to both prevent it, and have better response to it on the EMS side.

 

[SammiYin]

It would be 11/9 for a start, since our dating system isn't retarded

 

[Commissar Sae]

I can think of no other country on the earth that would use a terrorist attack by a small group of fanatics as a reason to declare war on another nation(s).

Austro-Hungarian Empire?

It is funny that you mentioned that, It came to mind when I wrote the post. But then I realized the question was not "What would have happened, if 9/11 happened in another country and in another point of time?"

Although that certainly would make for some fun scenarios. I wonder how the pharaos would have reacted to two planes crashing their pretty, shiny pyramids.

The Imperial Russian secret Service actually had a plan in place in case Socialist terrorists tried to crash planes full of dynamite into the Duma/Kremlin. They did a pretty thourough job of coming up with potential terror plots. Of course then the Tsar got killed because he actually tried to help the civilians who were wounded when 'The peoples will' blew up a bomb under his carriage.

9/11 has been made a big deal mostly because its the first time the US has ever been bombed on home soil (Pearl harbour doesn't count, its in the pacific and was a military base anyway). There would be absolutely no news coverage 10 years after the fact in any other country in the world. Maybe a brief mention but not the big hoopla that is going on stateside right now.

 

[FernandoV]

If 9/11 happened in another country, you would get nothing but "that's for *insert retarded reason here*."

For instance, if it was in Europe you would get "That's for World War II!"

A little sad, really.

Sad that your hypothetical is probably untrue?

 

[Mozza444]

I think 7/7 says it all really..
I know not as many people died, but it was still a terrorist attack.

People act like 9/11 was the only terrorist attack that has ever happened.
I do feel sorry for those involved.

However i can bet that a lot of people will be thinking whats 7/7?
Why is there no news back on its anniversaries?
Because the Americans don't give a fuck.

 

[Commissar Sae]

If 9/11 happened in another country, you would get nothing but "that's for *insert retarded reason here*."

For instance, if it was in Europe you would get "That's for World War II!"

A little sad, really.

Sad that your hypothetical is probably untrue?

When the earthquake hit Japan earlier this year you had a bunch of retards saying "thats for Pearl harbour". So I think his hypothesis stands.

 

[CthulhuMessiah]

If 9/11 happened in another country, you would get nothing but "that's for *insert retarded reason here*."

For instance, if it was in Europe you would get "That's for World War II!"

A little sad, really.

I still remember reading Facebook posts saying shit like "THATS WHAT YOU GET FOR PEARL HARBOR *****!" after the earthquake in Japan.

Fuckin' disgrace.

 

[FernandoV]

If 9/11 happened in another country, you would get nothing but "that's for *insert retarded reason here*."

For instance, if it was in Europe you would get "That's for World War II!"

A little sad, really.

Sad that your hypothetical is probably untrue?

When the earthquake hit Japan earlier this year you had a bunch of retards saying "thats for Pearl harbour". So I think his hypothesis stands.

Oh wow, there are insensitive people...in a country? Whoah, hold on there, you just stumbled upon groundbreaking stuff.

 

[Frostbite3789]

It kind of happened here in Norway less than two months ago...But we've already moved on and gone back to our normal lives.

Yeah, the difference being that fellow was Norwegian. We had the Oklahoma City bombing that you could equate that to. And nobody really talks about that anymore.

 

[velcrokidneyz]

As an american I can say that I would not give a shit if it happened in another country, yea id be little sad for them but 10 years later and I wouldn't care. I can safely say this because I don't give a shit now.

 

[newfoundsky]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents_in_London#Irish_republican_attacks_during_.22the_Troubles.22

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_Manchester_bombing

Just some examples...

Fair enough, I knew there were some but not that many. I still find it hard to sympathise when I actually come from an area that had a high rate of bombings, though.

The point is though that America didn't care for Britain, they were all for the IRA. No sympathy is expected.

What?

No, you are taking the opinion of SOME American's and attributing it to all of us. There's 300 million of us. Chances are the idiot with the microphone doesn't speak for the majority.

Seriously, it's like you saying "Because some British people agree with Al-Queda, all British people are terrorist supporters." It's not only entirely incorrect, it also approaches levels of silliness that are usually reserved for a Monty Python sketch. Do not attempt to turn terrorism into a comedy skit.

 

[Trasken]

Umm it kinda happened in spain too, they bombed a train station and killed hundreds of people, i remember it vividly because the train i usually took to school passed throught that station, and by dumb luck that day my father took me to school in his car.
But i guess since it didn't happen America it isn't so relevant? Sure it may not be as big a scale as 9/11 but trust me, something similar has happened in other countries