9-11 thwarted

This has probably been covered somewhere, but the search would be humongous :)
What would the world be like if we thwarted 9-11 just hours before it actually occurred?
 
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Nobody'd believe it. Seriously, if the FBI had nabbed them off the street and made the charge, I doubt anyone would have believed they represented a real threat. Not that they weren't planning to carry out their deed, just that they could have.

If TSA had caught them during check-in, very likely nothing would have happened. Groups of people boarding four distinct planes with concealed weapons get stopped. The whole plan is unravelled by investigators, and in the end peopole will write op-ed pieces about "How stupid were they? They knew they'd be caught!"
 
Without 9-11 actually happening, the whole event is pretty much overlooked. The conspirators are convicted and locked up (would they even get the death penalty?), the trial gets a few days of headlines but for the most part Americans and the wider world go about their business.

The Iraq invasion is butterfly'd away and probably Afghanstan too, while the US mainland remains untouched there's no real public support for such drastic measures - you can argue that the Bush Administration might still use the WMD spectre or find other excuses for invading Iraq, but without the post-9/11 bloodlust they'll be much harder to sell to the American people. Al-Qaeda probably gets some missiles thrown at them and maybe special forces are sent in to pick off the leaders, but Bush's first and maybe only term is otherwise fairly quiet on the foreign policy front.
 
If TSA had caught them during check-in, very likely nothing would have happened. Groups of people boarding four distinct planes with concealed weapons get stopped. The whole plan is unravelled by investigators, and in the end peopole will write op-ed pieces about "How stupid were they? They knew they'd be caught!"

Caught with what, actually? Boxcutters were not illegal items at the time and as such could be brought on plane. If hijackers would be picked up on some tip public would simply dismiss the claims as governmwnt's fear mongering, considering such plans as too far fetched to be true.

Oh, and TSA was created as a response to attacks, until then security was handled by private companies. ;)
 
Without 9-11 actually happening, the whole event is pretty much overlooked. The conspirators are convicted and locked up (would they even get the death penalty?), the trial gets a few days of headlines but for the most part Americans and the wider world go about their business.

The Iraq invasion is butterfly'd away and probably Afghanstan too, while the US mainland remains untouched there's no real public support for such drastic measures - you can argue that the Bush Administration might still use the WMD spectre or find other excuses for invading Iraq, but without the post-9/11 bloodlust they'll be much harder to sell to the American people. Al-Qaeda probably gets some missiles thrown at them and maybe special forces are sent in to pick off the leaders, but Bush's first and maybe only term is otherwise fairly quiet on the foreign policy front.

The evidence is that the Bush admin higher-ups were clueless or willfully negligent about al Qaeda.

OTOH I think it was perfectly clear that Bush intended to attack Iraq--not with a commando raid here or there but regime change by massive force of American arms. He said so more than once before he became President. PNAC also said it would be a very important thing to do, so it wasn't just Bush's personal whim.

Yep, it would have been hard to sell it without 9/11.

Amazing how that event empowered these people to do the very things they said they wanted to do before that others pooh-poohed merely because it would be a hard sell to the American people.

Did I mention they were rather amazingly obtuse about the potential threat of al-Qaeda attacks in the USA?
 
The evidence is that the Bush admin higher-ups were clueless or willfully negligent about al Qaeda.

lol, hyperbole much? There was no actionable intelligence.



OTOH I think it was perfectly clear that Bush intended to attack Iraq--not with a commando raid here or there but regime change by massive force of American arms.

It was the official policy of the US Government since 1998, under Clinton not Bush, that the Iraq Liberation Act passed 360-38 in the House and by unanimous consent in the Senate, signed by Bill Clinton:

"Iraq admitted, among other things, an offensive biological warfare capability, notably, 5,000 gallons of botulinum, which causes botulism; 2,000 gallons of anthrax; 25 biological-filled Scud warheads; and 157 aerial bombs. And I might say UNSCOM inspectors believe that Iraq has actually greatly understated its production.... Over the past few months, as [the weapons inspectors] have come closer and closer to rooting out Iraq's remaining nuclear capacity, Saddam has undertaken yet another gambit to thwart their ambitions by imposing debilitating conditions on the inspectors and declaring key sites which have still not been inspected off limits.... It is obvious that there is an attempt here, based on the whole history of this operation since 1991, to protect whatever remains of his capacity to produce weapons of mass destruction, the missiles to deliver them, and the feed stocks necessary to produce them. The UNSCOM inspectors believe that Iraq still has stockpiles of chemical and biological munitions, a small force of Scud-type missiles, and the capacity to restart quickly its production program and build many, many more weapons.... Now, let's imagine the future. What if he fails to comply and we fail to act, or we take some ambiguous third route, which gives him yet more opportunities to develop this program of weapons of mass destruction and continue to press for the release of the sanctions and continue to ignore the solemn commitments that he made? Well, he will conclude that the international community has lost its will. He will then conclude that he can go right on and do more to rebuild an arsenal of devastating destruction. And some day, some way, I guarantee you he'll use the arsenal.... " --President Bill Clinton, 1998



It's really doubtful Dubya would have pushed for invasion and thought he would have been an only-Nixon-could-go-to-China'esque type person to offer the olive branch to Iraq. But after 9/11, Dubya settled on a policy of a preemption, of course...
 
Oh come now people you know the rules.

If it's a Republican (especially Bush) it's evil

If it's a Democrat they never do anything wrong.

Rules of the room <smirk>
 
Oh come now people you know the rules.

If it's a Republican (especially Bush) it's evil

If it's a Democrat they never do anything wrong.

Rules of the room <smirk>


It's not a democrat or republican thing, Reagan would probably have been smart enough not to invade Iraq like Bush Jr. did, and Bush Sr. was smart enough not to.
 
Howard Dean wins in 2004.

So the world is better in more than one way.

No! Just no! There is always somebody who claims, that Bush would be a one-term president without 9/11 but nobody can explain why. Bush had before 9/11 approval-rating in the fifties. Okay, Congress would become democratic in 2002, but this give Bush the chance to run as counterweight against "the liberals". Without the 9/11
recession the economy is in better shape, without sinking money in Iraq there may be even an balanced budget. 2004 would be a very boring election with a low voter turnout....and with a clear victory for Bush.
 
True, without the polarising effect of 9-11 and (in particular) Iraq, the 2004 election is likely to be much more sedate and domestic-focused. There's a good chance that Bush wins purely because there's no obvious cause for the Democrats to rally opposition to, assuming Rove and co can rally the base around social conservative issues like anti-abortionism and DOMA (or at least, pay sufficiant lip-service to it) it shouldn't be a difficult task.

Of course, this all assumes that, having being stopped on 9-11, Al-Qaeda doesn't succeed with another major atrocity against the US at a later date...
 
It was the official policy of the US Government since 1998, under Clinton not Bush, that the Iraq Liberation Act passed 360-38 in the House and by unanimous consent in the Senate, signed by Bill Clinton:

"Iraq admitted, among other things, an offensive biological warfare capability, notably, 5,000 gallons of botulinum, which causes botulism; 2,000 gallons of anthrax; 25 biological-filled Scud warheads; and 157 aerial bombs. And I might say UNSCOM inspectors believe that Iraq has actually greatly understated its production.... Over the past few months, as [the weapons inspectors] have come closer and closer to rooting out Iraq's remaining nuclear capacity, Saddam has undertaken yet another gambit to thwart their ambitions by imposing debilitating conditions on the inspectors and declaring key sites which have still not been inspected off limits.... It is obvious that there is an attempt here, based on the whole history of this operation since 1991, to protect whatever remains of his capacity to produce weapons of mass destruction, the missiles to deliver them, and the feed stocks necessary to produce them. The UNSCOM inspectors believe that Iraq still has stockpiles of chemical and biological munitions, a small force of Scud-type missiles, and the capacity to restart quickly its production program and build many, many more weapons.... Now, let's imagine the future. What if he fails to comply and we fail to act, or we take some ambiguous third route, which gives him yet more opportunities to develop this program of weapons of mass destruction and continue to press for the release of the sanctions and continue to ignore the solemn commitments that he made? Well, he will conclude that the international community has lost its will. He will then conclude that he can go right on and do more to rebuild an arsenal of devastating destruction. And some day, some way, I guarantee you he'll use the arsenal.... " --President Bill Clinton, 1998
Quoted for accuracy and fairness. Of course, since the major source for that quote also said that Iraq destroyed all their WMD in 1995, it means Bill Clinton broke the law in a more serious way than lying about sex with Monica.
 
Oh come now people you know the rules.

If it's a Republican (especially Bush) it's evil

If it's a Democrat they never do anything wrong.

Rules of the room <smirk>

So without having 9/11 occur, Bush goes on to eat babies and randomly kill a bald eagle with his bare hands every fews days, and a Howard Dean/John Kerry presidency farts flowers and pixies and is a lovely land of gold and honey. :p
 
Taken literally...

The passengers on the last plane fought and it went down short of its target. What if the others had done likewise ?

You've got the 'clear & present danger', you've got hijacked jets, but they crash into open country or suburbs rather than Twin Towers or Pentagon...
 
The passengers on the last plane fought and it went down short of its target. What if the others had done likewise ?

You've got the 'clear & present danger', you've got hijacked jets, but they crash into open country or suburbs rather than Twin Towers or Pentagon...

The passengers who fought did so because they knew the hijackers were on a suicide mission, having heard about the twin towers attacks. Before 9/11, most people thought of hijacking as "make headlines with your demands and fly to Cuba/Algeria/wherever".
 
I think this could possibly be an interesting sociological question as well. After the attacks, the world was much, much more paranoid. The Western world was still very much in the 1990s frame of mind, which with its healthy economy and cheap gasoline was a sort of bleed over from the conspicuous consumption of the 1980s. People cared mostly about reality tv, boy bands, rap/rock groups, big cars and houses, and huge blockbuster action films - in other words, pure escapism. The attacks put an end to this bliss and ushered in a very paranoid, violent decade of the 00s.

I live on the border with the US in Canada, and before 9-11, anyone could cross the border with just a simple driver's license, and often the border guard wouldn't even look at your ID and just wave you through, especially if you were going to a sporting event or a concert over there. After 9-11, the security is reaching Checkpoint Charlie level, which makes crossing over a gigantic pain in the butt, and I don't even bother going over anymore - however, I digress...

Without the attacks, society stays in the 1990s state of mind until the housing bubble bursts, or Hurricane Katrina hits - whichever comes first ITTL. Bush doesn't get elected to another term, and Rudy Guiliani isn't as canonized in NYC...
 
If they were caught, the whole incident would be treated like those foiled terror plots you hear about every now and then, such as the Detroit boming, the shoe bomber, etc. Although, with much less attention. I doubt it would've even made front page news in the USA, much less the world.

Maybe people would've even shifted the focus from Islamic extremism to militia groups, which were a big topic throughout the 1990s and early 2000s.

If TSA had caught them during check-in, very likely nothing would have happened.

TSA didn't exist back then, private companies handled the security. :p

EDIT: Oops, somebody beat me to it.

After 9-11, the security is reaching Checkpoint Charlie level, which makes crossing over a gigantic pain in the butt, and I don't even bother going over anymore - however, I digress.

VOUS SORTEZ DE SECTEUR AMERICAIN, VOUS ENTREZ DANS LE SECTEUR CANADIEN DEFENSE DE PORTER DES ARMES EN DEHORS DU SERVICE OBEISSEZ AUX REGLES DE CIRCULATION.
 
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The passengers who fought did so because they knew the hijackers were on a suicide mission, having heard about the twin towers attacks. Before 9/11, most people thought of hijacking as "make headlines with your demands and fly to Cuba/Algeria/wherever".

Interesting ATL could be that the passengers take control of Flight 93 and those 4 poor Al-Qaeda bastards end up getting waterboarded a bunch of times with an all expense paid, unlimited duration trip to Club Gitmo... wonder how much useful intelligence they have
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
The deficit problem would be much more under control than it currently is. Not only would we not have lost the trillion dollars we have poured into the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, but without the "War on Terrorism" excuse, it would have been vastly more difficult for Congress to support the ridiculously high military budget.
 
Actually, several of the hijackers were taken into custody the day before, but were released due to lack of evidence. Perhaps they do a background check this time, or find out hier visas had expired?

If they were apprehended, it may make headlines in the same way the attempted Millinium bombers did. Aside from that, most people would think thier plan would never succeed.

Politics would be very different. George W Bush would have gone through with domestic reforms like he originally planned, reforming education and entitlements. Without two wars, maybe our budget would be balanced. With the economy doing well, he will get a second therm for the same reason as Clinton, though I don't know who the Dems would run in 2004, seeing as Kerry ran as an anti-war canidate. In the end, Bush may have been better than OTL.

Republican may have made small gains in Congress for a while, more if the economy stays strong. For sure Barrack Obama would not be President now. McCain probably would not have gotten it in 2008 in this world either. George Allen vs. Hillary Clinton in 2008 for the Presidency?

Unless of course, another terrorist attack occurs, likely one owrse than 9/11. Then all bets are off.
 
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