9/11 fails: what next?

What if Bush decided to do something when he got the CIA memo and managed to prevent 9/11?

What would happen to:

Bin Laden?

Alex Jones?

Bush?

Saddam?

Karadzic/Mladic?

Kosovo?
 

Caspian

Banned
It depends on exactly how the attacks fail.

Are all of the would-be suicide bombers arrested, or just some?

When do these arrests happen - at the airport on September 11, on September 10, several weeks or months before?

Could there be a failure of the terrorists to take over any of the planes, resulting in few, if any, deaths?
 
If the conspirators had been busted either by an uncharacteristically efficient federal response or through their own bungling I don't think we would ever have any idea of the scale of the attacks they could have done.

I feel that way about the 2006 airliner chemical explosives plot. Since it didn't happen, the conspirators look like foolish madmen who are no threat to an efficient police apparatus. But if it really happened, it would scare the daylights out of me.
 
I feel like this is too fresh of a wound... Even after shit... eight years? Not even.

But since 9/11 was the brainchild of only one man I believe they would either cook up some crazy idea or go hide in their caves.
 
I don't think we would have had a War on Terrorism, at least not right away We would have had some tighter security restrinctions implanted, but not nearly to the extent we had post-9/11. We probably would not have gone into Afghanistan. And, without a 9/11, it would be much harder to make the case for a War in Iraq. So we could see a Middle East where both the Taliban and Saddam are still in power.

However, this all assumes that will not be any future attempts after this, which I believe would not happen. This wasn't the first attempt of terrorism against the United States. After the Bojinka Plot failed, they did not quit. Rather, the lessons they learned from the failed plot helped them plan 9/11. So I think we could see a future attempt, possibly successful, with many of the masterminds behind 9/11.

But with no terrorist attack, or even just a later one, we could see Bush having a more developed domestic policy. In OTL, "No Child Left Behind" was one of his only major domestic policies successes. Without 9/11, we could see him attempt some more projects. Although, on the other hand, without 9/11, there's no guarentee that the Republicans will win the 2002 midterms (although I would not rule it out completely). Therefore, there's a good chance Bush will face a Democratic Congress through all of his first term. And the chances of him passes, say, Social Security privitazation are rather low. Plus, without 9/11, he possesses a greater chance of being defeated in 2004. But that's not a guarentee. If a later 9/11 happens, and he it happens during late 2003 or early 2004, that nearly guarentees him relection. Barring the public does not blame him for the attack, which doesn't seem that likely.

So, anyway, the path of this timeline mostly depends on whether or not there is a later terrorist attack.
 
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