I'm think "root cause" - in 4 of the cases listed, it could mean who funded, provided training for and ordered the attacks. The last choice is kind of like "The Wright Brothers". I offered the choice because many people have suggested it was one plausible answer.
hmm. I think this points to my fundamental problem with outlook on politics; we're always taught that there's some root cause to everything, like "The root cause of the civil war was slavery, and the root cause of the revolutionary war was taxes on tea" or whatever, and it just doesn't seem that simple.
Same goes for the funding/ordering definition. No one (except the la-la-la-I'm-not-listening crowd) now denies that the CIA trained bin Laden, and that the US and others (Russia, etc.) supplied him with the materiel and know-how to pull off such a stunt; but does that make them the cause of the attacks? I'd have to say no. At least, until we find the secret documents that reveal Nixon and Hitler's disembodied brains had a summit meeting in Elvis' cottage in the Berkshires and decided that the CIA needed to activate Mohammed Atta's mind-control implant and order him to crash planes into our landmarks...
IMNSHO, you can chase the responsibility up the ladder to those who ordered, planned, and directed the attacks, and there it stops. Whatever may have gone before did not provide a rational justification; it was the conscious choice of the al-Qaeda leadership to do this.
Some might argue that the blame can be extended to those fire-breathers who have puffed up Islamist rhetoric to such a point that certain people felt justified in mass murder, but respectfully, I disagree. We humans are all responsible for our actions; to claim otherwise is to commit the same intellectual error as the criminally insane person who commits a perfectly horrendous act and justifies it by saying "See what you made me do".
Before the war, half of those polled in a survey said Iraqis were among the 19 hijackers on Sept. 11, 2001. But most of them were from Saudi Arabia. None were Iraqis.
I'm having difficulty locating the survey in the in the above citation. I sent email to Frank Davies, the author of the story, asking for the source of survey.
I ran this poll because I wanted to see what the responses would look like among this crowd. Every one of the choices I gave in the poll had been blamed by one faction or another for the for the attacks on 9/11.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2003-06-20 02:11 pm (UTC)TMH
no subject
Date: 2003-06-20 02:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-06-20 03:36 pm (UTC)Same goes for the funding/ordering definition. No one (except the la-la-la-I'm-not-listening crowd) now denies that the CIA trained bin Laden, and that the US and others (Russia, etc.) supplied him with the materiel and know-how to pull off such a stunt; but does that make them the cause of the attacks? I'd have to say no. At least, until we find the secret documents that reveal Nixon and Hitler's disembodied brains had a summit meeting in Elvis' cottage in the Berkshires and decided that the CIA needed to activate Mohammed Atta's mind-control implant and order him to crash planes into our landmarks...
Sorry, just making trouble.
TMH
no subject
Date: 2003-06-20 10:22 pm (UTC)Some might argue that the blame can be extended to those fire-breathers who have puffed up Islamist rhetoric to such a point that certain people felt justified in mass murder, but respectfully, I disagree. We humans are all responsible for our actions; to claim otherwise is to commit the same intellectual error as the criminally insane person who commits a perfectly horrendous act and justifies it by saying "See what you made me do".
no subject
Date: 2003-06-21 08:41 am (UTC)According to a Knight Ridder report in the Charlotte Observer, a poll conducted by the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland shows just how misinformed the US public is about the war in Iraq.
Before the war, half of those polled in a survey said Iraqis were among the 19 hijackers on Sept. 11, 2001. But most of them were from Saudi Arabia. None were Iraqis.
I'm having difficulty locating the survey in the in the above citation. I sent email to Frank Davies, the author of the story, asking for the source of survey.
I ran this poll because I wanted to see what the responses would look like among this crowd. Every one of the choices I gave in the poll had been blamed by one faction or another for the for the attacks on 9/11.