WI: Terrorists hit Congress instead of the Pentagon on 9/11 in 2001?

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I would. It's not necessary. The states still have a functioning-pretty much everything. Unless it's a disease or simultaneous natural disasters affecting large states, Martial Law is pretty far off. The most you might see is government/banking holidays and MAYBE curfews called by state or local governments in larger cities.

Agreed on all counts.

I actually think a larger 9/11 is going to make martial law much less likely, because the terrorists are taking out mostly federal infrastructure. There will be political chaos if, say, ~75% of Senators and Representatives are killed -- but that chaos isn't going to (immediately) result in a stronger centralized federal government. In NY, you might have George Pataki calling out the NY National Guard, but again, that'll be at the state/local level rather than federal.

Of course, there could be significant long-term consequences that concentrate power at the federal level -- as happened in OTL, only more so. Imagine, for example, that the terrorists manage to take out (say) 7 sitting Supreme Court justices.... Now keep in mind that you have Republican governors replacing dead Democratic Congressmen and Senators in very blue states like Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Mexico, Nevada, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin. I haven't run the numbers or anything, but it strikes me that the right tweaks could result in the Republican party absolutely packing all three branches of government.

(Fun potential TL bit: Jesse Ventura is governor of Minnesota at this time and presumably gets to nominate some interesting Senators and Congressmen.)
 
Not Congressmen. There's no provision whatsoever for temporary replacements besides special elections; the House would be sitting half-empty for several months. Of course, this attack might cause new provisions to be put in.
 
Seems to me that if the capitol were destroyed, the Invasion of Afghanistan would be conducted in a downright vindictive manner, rather than merely in an atrociously botched and misguided way.

Agreed. If the terrorists destroy the White House or the Capitol, it will be regarded as a decapitation strike and the gloves will come off.
 
To our thinking yes, but AQ wasn't going for a "symbolic" attack on 9/11, it was intend as a strategic decapitation attack, taking out the political (White House or Capital, while definitely one, it's never been clear which), military (Pentagon), and economic, the Twin Towers leadership. As for why the Twin Towers instead of Treasury or Wall Street, we'll never know for sure... But there is a myth in a lot of the developing world that the Twin Towers are the HQ of the US's "state economic planning" (remember the majority of AQ's leaders/planners come from state owned/run economies they assume our economy runs the same).

There is evidence AQ leadership thought after these attacks the western economy would collapse and the civil war would break out in the US, allowing them to move on KSA and restore the Caliphate.

BTW, not just AQ, I remember listening to a TV news program in Bahrain in OCT 2001, with Arab "US experts" stating a US civil war would still happen despite "missing Bush" because the attacks had shown the "oppressed" the US government and military was wreak, fun stuff!

We've had threads here assuming the same thing.
 
Yes, the plot had intended the World Trade Center, Pentagon, and Capitol/White House to be struck more or less simultaneously, to prevent time for anyone to react between attacks. Because of heavy runway traffic waiting for take-off, Flight 93 was around half an hour late on that schedule. Asking for a morning with lighter air-traffic doesn't seem too strange for a POD.

I wonder what the effect would be if one of the flights targeting DC slammed into the Washingon National terminals.
 
I wonder what the effect would be if one of the flights targeting DC slammed into the Washingon National terminals.

You mean Dulles? That could be a good temporary problem for air traffic on a global level (a big cog like that gets jammed, it'll muck up the whole system). On the other hand, they could just see how fast and how much they could increase capacity at Reagan. Wouldn't do half as much damage though as half the other targets potentially on the list, airports are too big for one plane to do too much damage. Never gonna take out more than part of 1 terminal at best.
 

Eurofed

Banned
Not Congressmen. There's no provision whatsoever for temporary replacements besides special elections; the House would be sitting half-empty for several months. Of course, this attack might cause new provisions to be put in.

As I said, if half of the House gets killed in the attack, it is all but sure that a Constitutional Amendment that provides for emergency temporary replacement of vacant seats in the House is quickly ratified by bipartisan consensus in the aftermath.

The event would make such a 28th Amendment look as vital to the proper continuity of government for the Legislative as the 25th is for the Executive.
 

Hyperion

Banned
Concerning Flight 93, what if they took a more(horribly) creative route.

The hijackers know the timing is off and surprise might be lost near New York City or Washington.

OTOH, Flight 93 flew near both the cities of Cleveland, Ohio and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. While neither city would be as big or symbolic as New York or DC, suppose the Flight 93 hijackers decide to find the largest building or some other major visible location in or near either city and decide to do as much damage as possible.

At the very least the ramifications for Pennsylvania would be much bigger, not simply having the flight crash there, but having dozens or perhaps hundreds of locals killed as well.
 
You mean Dulles? That could be a good temporary problem for air traffic on a global level (a big cog like that gets jammed, it'll muck up the whole system). On the other hand, they could just see how fast and how much they could increase capacity at Reagan. Wouldn't do half as much damage though as half the other targets potentially on the list, airports are too big for one plane to do too much damage. Never gonna take out more than part of 1 terminal at best.

I think he meant Reagan, actually, which was called Washington National until it got renamed-my mom calls it Washington National, for that matter.
EDIT: Maybe they'd be clever enough to aim for the control tower? T
 
Making a mess of Reagan isn't going to do much of anything beyond the immediate casualties of the attack really. Bear in mind just how close to shut down the airport was for a number of years after 9/11 IOTL.
 
I think he meant Reagan, actually, which was called Washington National until it got renamed-my mom calls it Washington National, for that matter.
EDIT: Maybe they'd be clever enough to aim for the control tower? T

Again, the problem is that that sort of attack would be more symbolic, and also, I think, probably using a sledgehammer on an ant. They needed a target which would cause as much damage to the US as possible, political, economic, military, etc.

One other option, I think Al-Qaeda actually considered as its first option, was to have the airliners ram into nuclear power plants along the East Coast, but that was actually rejected because Bin Laden thought things would get "out of hand". For that matter, there's a nuclear power plant I think not too far outside the NYC city limits. THAT would be a nightmare, though I dunno if a 747, even with all the jetliner fuel still in it at full speed, could ram through enough of the surrounding structure to cause the meltdown they'd be aiming for.
 

nbcman

Donor
You mean Dulles? That could be a good temporary problem for air traffic on a global level (a big cog like that gets jammed, it'll muck up the whole system). On the other hand, they could just see how fast and how much they could increase capacity at Reagan. Wouldn't do half as much damage though as half the other targets potentially on the list, airports are too big for one plane to do too much damage. Never gonna take out more than part of 1 terminal at best.

Unless they hit the main terminal at Dulles, there wouldn't be much of an impact beyond the reduction in gate capacity. And assuming they were approaching the main terminal from the West, they would have hit the section of the main terminal which houses the minor carriers which would result in the least impact to airport operations. It would muck up International arriving passengers-but there would be time to set up alternate Customs areas during the freeze on flights which occurred around 9/11.
 
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