9/11 Attacks Target Only West Coast - What is the Difference in Impact?

Instead of targeting the World Trade Center, Pentagon, and other buildings in Washington, Osama Bin Laden targets the US Bank building in Los Angeles, Transamerica Pyramid in San Francisco, and two large hotels in Las Vegas such as Mandalay Bay and the Luxor. The attack was designed to attack symbols of American capitalism and to kill large numbers of civilians such as office workers and tourists. How is the death toll and amount of damage different?
 
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...Telestar Pyramid in San Francisco...

You mean the Transamerica Pyramid?

Anyways, I'd expect a lower death toll, and few of the planes actually hitting their targets. These targets on the West Coast are much smaller than the massive WTC and Pentagon, and the Pentagon was only hit because the hijackers could not find the White House or Capitol.
 
Why the West Coast? Washington is the capital and New York is the biggest city. They could have killed the President and all of Congress. Then kill as many people in New York as possible.
 

CalBear

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No one cares about the West Coast. There is a political cartoon that shows how outsiders see the U.S. New York is depicted as covering half the continent, with DC covering most of the rest. All you find on the West Coast is Hollywood and Disneyland. That is actually pretty accurate.

New York is where the NEWS exists. The three major broadcast networks, as well as Fox News are based there (CNN is in Atlanta, but how many people, even in the U.S. can find Atlanta on a map?), Wall Street is there, it has an outsized footprint globally. Hitting targets on the West Coast would have had no where near the instant international recognition that the Twin Towers did (the Hollywood sign, which what people would recognize, is on the side of a hill, all a plane hitting it would kill are some squirrels).

The whole idea of the attacks was two fold, media attention was secondary, the primary was to destroy the U.S. economy (Stupid? Yes, but there you have it). Nothing on the West Coast would have the desired effect, although it would have drawn the same level of U.S. response.

It has always struck me as a 2nd order Miracle that the attacks on the Towers didn't kill 40,000 people. What you always hear is how the engineers didn't account for the damage and that is why so many people died. Actually they did a magnificent, maybe even ASBish job. Those building had close to 150K workers and visitors in there when they were hit. Virtually the only people of that staggering number who died were trapped above the points of impact. Everyone else (~98.5%) got out (around 1 in 7 of the deaths were emergency responders)
 

Curiousone

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Recall the stock shorting done on the airline stocks on 9/11 that went through the WTC computers?

There's a reason attacks were done on the East Coast. Massive casualties & Massive theft. Think of a better way they & their shadowy backers could do that on the West Coast & you have your scenario.
 
It's a much, much smaller event. First, the pols in Washington are less likely to go apeshit because they werent directly threatened in this case. Second, LA is so spread out that the potential damage wouldnt be nearly what you could get from the WTC. Hell, nobody in LA cares about downtown LA. The Transamerica building gets interesting because downtown SF is modestly important and more dense. But it doesnt have near the office capacity of the WTC. As far as Vegas is concerned, a Tuesday morning in September is probably a day where you find the least number of visitors. So, the hotels are pretty empty. And, Mandalay/Luxor were at the far end of the strip then. Pretty isolated. Caesars or MGM might be a bigger deal. But still, its tuesday in September.

Sears Tower in Chicago is way more interesting than the West Coast targets mentioned.
 

Curiousone

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There was a larger list of targets OTL that got whittled down by the planners in order to decrease the chance of the plot being discovered.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planning_of_the_September_11_attacks#Origins_of_the_9.2F11_attacks

(Fourth Paragraph)

"According to the September 11 Commission, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed envisioned a hijacking of twelve planes on both the East and West coasts, and for eleven of them to be crashed into the World Trade Center and the Empire State Building in New York City, the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, the White House and the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C, the George Bush Center for Intelligence in Langley, Virginia, the U.S. Bank Tower in Los Angeles, California, the Willis Tower (then Sears Tower) in Chicago, Illinois, Government Plaza in Binghamton, New York and the Columbia Center in Seattle, Washington."

Say a super 9-11 goes ahead, only there's greater suspicion with the greater number of teams, 10 out of 12 hijackings are stopped?

Edit: How do people think these alternate targets would have held up to an airliner? Would the Willis tower have done better than the WTC towers (redundant construction)? The U.S bank tower with it's earthquake resistance?
 

CalBear

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Recall the stock shorting done on the airline stocks on 9/11 that went through the WTC computers?

There's a reason attacks were done on the East Coast. Massive casualties & Massive theft. Think of a better way they & their shadowy backers could do that on the West Coast & you have your scenario.
Conspiracy theory advocacy is one of the Eight Ways to Crash Land.

Truthers make it easy.

Unlike many conspiracy loons, who are actually fairly humorous in their beliefs, 9/11 theorists are simply offensive.

We divorce you.

To Coventry with you.
 
Too soon.

But in all seriousness, this would have never happened, because the 9/11 attacks were specifically targeted to have the most impact. 'Truther' bs aside, it's really hard to justify anything on the west coast as being a better political and propaganda target than effing New York City, the unofficial capital of the Western World. It symbolizes everything the rest of the world hates about America.

Maybe Hollywood. I could see Hollywood as a potential target. But not the main thing, a secondary wave of attacks.
 
Too soon.

But in all seriousness, this would have never happened, because the 9/11 attacks were specifically targeted to have the most impact. 'Truther' bs aside, it's really hard to justify anything on the west coast as being a better political and propaganda target than effing New York City, the unofficial capital of the Western World. It symbolizes everything the rest of the world hates about America.

Maybe Hollywood. I could see Hollywood as a potential target. But not the main thing, a secondary wave of attacks.

What do you attack in Hollywood? There is no there, there. Disney is in Burbank, Sony in Culver City, Fox in Century City, and none are near the theaters on Hollywood Blvd. But the hollywood folks like to think they rank right up there with DC and NY. I am sure they believe each studio was next on the list of targets...:rolleyes:
 
coventry

You do realise that road signage in Coventry was designed by the Knights Templar along cabbalistic lines to drive away inquiring minds. I would offer proof but there is this albino monk at the door.:eek:

Also - West coast is in the wrong time zones.
 
Actually that evening the White House was hosting a reception for Congress on the WH Lawn.

Most of the Congress, Cabinet and the POTUS/VPOTUS would have been there.
 
Actually that evening the White House was hosting a reception for Congress on the WH Lawn.

Most of the Congress, Cabinet and the POTUS/VPOTUS would have been there.

Trying to hit a specific section of a specific lawn with a jet moving at high speed is next to impossible.
 

CalBear

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Actually that evening the White House was hosting a reception for Congress on the WH Lawn.

Most of the Congress, Cabinet and the POTUS/VPOTUS would have been there.


There was a reason that the attacks happened when they did. The hijacked aircraft were all "early bird" flights to the West Coast. None of them were more than a quarter full (Flight 93 had 37 passengers, including the four hijackers, on an aircraft that holds 200). Those flights to the West Coast were almost as much to position aircraft for later flights going West to East as for making any revenue for the airlines.

The planners realized that a full aircraft was much more likely to be able to quell an take over attempt. The 33 people on Flight 93 sure managed to, just imagine 120, with that number you are also almost certain to have police officers, military personnel on leave, and other people who are capable of interfering. Flights in the evening would have likely been full. The hijackers would have been lucky to get out of their seats much less take the aircraft.

The Secret Service refuses to discuss security matters related to the White House. That being said, it is almost inconceivable that they haven't had agents with MANPADS defending the site since the weapon became available.
 
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