# If 9/11 happened in...



## tvdxer

I've been looking at some newsgroup and forums posts at the time of the World Trade Center attacks, looking at the reactions people had right upon seeing the attacks, and during the day after.  And I remember 9/11 very clearly myself - I had just begun high school and was in my English class with my brand new PalmPilot when the news of the tragedy was delivered by a teacher who walked in.  I only really grasped the gravity of the attacks a few days later, as I watched my country go into high gear pursuing the organizations that perpetrated the act.

First there was the war in Afghanistan, which resulted in the dismantling of the Taliban-led state and a severe blow to existing terrorist organizations operating there.  Then came the much more dubious war in Iraq, disapproved of by much of the world outside of the U.S. and eventually the majority of the U.S. citizens as well.  It was not long after 9/11 itself, however, that perennial (mostly left-wing) anti-American critics began to criticize the U.S. for its reaction.  In 2002, well before the Second Gulf War began, a book by the author Thierry Meyssan, claiming that the 9/11 attacks were orchestrated by the U.S. government itself, became a huge bestseller in France.

Then war was called on Iraq, especially Europe's opinion of the U.S. took a major drop.  What Rumsfeld termed "Old Europe" (Germany and France in particular) criticized us as being unilateral  warmongers, peace-destroying "cowboys" on the global front.  Soon their disapproval of the Iraq War grow into a greater anti-American foreign policy, anti-Bush aggregate, which has diminished little since the war began.

*Yet I wonder, for a little bit of speculation: what if a famous German or French landmark was attacked by the same terrorists in the same fashion, with a similar number of fatalities and injuries? How would their governments respond?  Would they declare war on the terrorist groups who carried out the act?  Would they be willing to call them "evil"?  Would the route they take be much different than that taken by the U.S., at least pre-Iraq?*

NOTE: This discussion should lead to an interesting reflection into the differences between the political cultures of Western Europe and the United States, which of course are influenced by their general *cultures*, so I see this as being appropriate for the Culture forum.  That's what I intend it to do - I do NOT want this to be a debate as to whether the actions taken by the U.S. post-9/11 were legitimate or not.  As far as I know, the question I have posed has not yet been asked here.


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## cuchuflete

tvdxer said:


> *(1)*... as I watched my country go into high gear pursuing the perpetrators.
> 
> First there was the war in Afghanistan, which resulted in the dismantling of the Taliban-led state and a severe blow to *(2)* existing terrorist organizations operating there.  Then came the much more dubious war in Iraq, disapproved of by much of the world outside of the U.S. and eventually the majority of the U.S. citizens as well.  It was not long after 9/11 itself, however, that perennial (mostly left-wing) anti-American critics began to criticize the U.S. for its reaction.  In 2002, well before the Second Gulf War began, a book by the author Thierry Meyssan, claiming that the 9/11 attacks were orchestrated by the U.S. government itself, became a huge bestseller in France.
> 
> *(3)* Then war was called on Iraq, especially Europe's opinion of the U.S. took a major drop.  What Rumsfeld termed "Old Europe" *(4)*(Germany and France in particular) criticized us as being unilateral  warmongers, peace-destroying "cowboys" on the global front.  Soon their disapproval of the Iraq War grow into *(5)*a greater anti-American foreign policy, anti-Bush aggregate, which *(6)*persists unchallenged to this day.
> 
> Yet I wonder, for a little bit of speculation: what if a famous German or French landmark was attacked by the same terrorists in the same fashion, with a similar number of fatalities and injuries? How would their governments respond? *  (7)*Would they declare war on the terrorist groups who carried out the act?  Would they be willing to call them "evil"?  Would the route they take be much different than that taken by the U.S., at least pre-Iraq?
> 
> NOTE: This discussion should lead to an interesting reflection into the differences between the political cultures of Western Europe and the United States.  That's what I intend it to do - I do NOT want this to be a debate as to whether the actions taken by the U.S. post-9/11 were legitimate or not.  As far as I know, the question I have posed has not yet been asked.



(1)The perpetrators died in the attack. Their supposed backers were pursued.  
(2)We have been told that there were "existing terrorist organizations" operating in, among many other countries, Afghanistan. Has this been demonstrated to be true?  I'm not sure.  Remember the credibility of the source of proof. If it's the same crowd that "Proved" the presence of WMD in Iraq, I might question it closely.   I don't doubt the existence of al-quaida.  I don't doubt that some members were, at one time or another, present in Afghanistan.  That's quite different from assuming that al-quaida and the taliban are one and the same.
(3) As a point of US Constitutional law...the Constitution a President must swear to uphold and defend...there has been no war declared on or "called".  That requires a request for such a declaration by the Executive, and approval by the Congress.
(4)Do you refer to senior officials of the French and German governments, or the popular press?  I don't recall any statements such as those you refer to coming from the French or German governments.
(5) Please cite examples, other than disagreement about the Iraq invasion, of "anti-American foreign policy". 
(6)"persists unchallanged"?  Certainly the posture of some European governments has been frequently and publicly challanged, by both the US and Mr. Blair.
(7)Again, the US did not declare war, according to the US Constitution.  Bush has said that we are at war, but he has not bothered with the legal niceties required to legitimize such statements.

"I do NOT want this to be a debate as to whether the actions taken by the U.S. post-9/11 were legitimate or not."  I won't debate it.  There is nothing to debate.  According to the US Constitution, the war in Iraq is not legitimate.  

Do you take the reactions of England and Spain into account following the bombings in London and Madrid?


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## tvdxer

(1) - Changed the wording.

(2) - Al-Qaeda formed and grew up in Afghanistan.  Do you think the Taliban did what they could to halt their advance?   I doubt it.

(3) - I never said the U.S. formally declared war, but statements implying that (even if they didn't fit the criteria for a true declaration of war) were made.  Sorry if I'm not completely precise, but I think you get the idea.

(4) - Both, especially the popular press.  But at least Schroeder has made some anti-Bush comments. 

(5) - Europeans have often opposed the U.S.'s military and foreign policy actions - for example, in the Cold War, or when France did not permit U.S. planes en route to Libya to fly over French airspace.   And I find it hard to believe that the continent's near-hatred of Bush is solely because of the War on Iraq.

(6) - Again, confusing wording corrected.

(7) - Cf. #3



cuchuflete said:


> (1)The perpetrators died in the attack. Their supposed backers were pursued.
> (2)We have been told that there were "existing terrorist organizations" operating in, among many other countries, Afghanistan. Has this been demonstrated to be true?  I'm not sure.  Remember the credibility of the source of proof. If it's the same crowd that "Proved" the presence of WMD in Iraq, I might question it closely.   I don't doubt the existence of al-quaida.  I don't doubt that some members were, at one time or another, present in Afghanistan.  That's quite different from assuming that al-quaida and the taliban are one and the same.
> (3) As a point of US Constitutional law...the Constitution a President must swear to uphold and defend...there has been no war declared on or "called".  That requires a request for such a declaration by the Executive, and approval by the Congress.
> (4)Do you refer to senior officials of the French and German governments, or the popular press?  I don't recall any statements such as those you refer to coming from the French or German governments.
> (5) Please cite examples, other than disagreement about the Iraq invasion, of "anti-American foreign policy".
> (6)"persists unchallanged"?  Certainly the posture of some European governments has been frequently and publicly challanged, by both the US and Mr. Blair.
> (7)Again, the US did not declare war, according to the US Constitution.  Bush has said that we are at war, but he has not bothered with the legal niceties required to legitimize such statements.
> 
> "I do NOT want this to be a debate as to whether the actions taken by the U.S. post-9/11 were legitimate or not."  I won't debate it.  There is nothing to debate.  According to the US Constitution, the war in Iraq is not legitimate.
> 
> Do you take the reactions of England and Spain into account following the bombings in London and Madrid?


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## tvdxer

Let me note that I am not a fan of Bush's foreign policy.  I am curious, however, to see if others think that France or Germany would have reacted much differently, considering their culture's opinions and experiences.


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## faranji

Europe has not 'traditionally opposed the U.S.'s military and foreign policy actions'. Europe welcomed, and was saved by, the U.S. military and foreign policy actions in the Great World Wars.

And to answer your question, no, France and Germany would have never waged war on Iraq as a reaction to Al-Qaeda terrorist acts on their territory (not that this is the rationale behind Iraq's war either, but at least that's what some Americans still believe to this day).


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## GONTA

Tvdexer, I understand what you were asking...and there's always someone like cuchuflete that goes off the topic and goes into the debate. 
Well, anyway, I don't think the answer would have been the same in other countries cause they don't have the power that U.S. has or that attitude of being always the "decider" (as bush would say). 
Maybe it was the heat of the moment, but the reps surely paid off for all the wrong moves they made (through all the holy war for oil).


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## cuchuflete

Tvdxer- You have asked an interesting question, and surrounded it with contentious remarks that are simply untrue.
This one is especially blatant:



> (5) - Europe has traditionally opposed the U.S.'s military and foreign policy actions - for example, in the Cold and (First) Gulf Wars. And I find it hard to believe that the continent's near-hatred of Bush is solely because of the War on Iraq.


  I think you need to review the history of the NATO alliance during the 1950s, 60s, 70s, for examples of close accord between European and US foreign policies. 
Also, you might wish to verify which European nations participated in the first Gulf War. Consider how your statement is badly undermined by the presence in the coalition in that war.  It included not only Great Britain and France, but the Czechoslovak Republic, Greece, Hungary, Denmark, Germany, Norway, Portugal, The Netherlands, Spain, Italy and Poland.  That hardly seems like a foreign policy disagreement.


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## tvdxer

cuchuflete said:


> Tvdxer- You have asked an interesting question, and surrounded it with contentious remarks that are simply untrue.
> This one is especially blatant:
> 
> I think you need to review the history of the NATO alliance during the 1950s, 60s, 70s, for examples of close accord between European and US foreign policies.
> Also, you might wish to verify which European nations participated in the first Gulf War. Consider how your statement is badly undermined by the presence in the coalition in that war.  It included not only Great Britain and France, but the Czechoslovak Republic, Greece, Hungary, Denmark, Germany, Norway, Portugal, The Netherlands, Spain, Italy and Poland.  That hardly seems like a foreign policy disagreement.



Errr...I was talking about the past twenty-five years or so.  The U.S. did a great deal in re-building Europe in the 1940's, and the following NATO cooperation is no surprise.  I again re-phrased the response, considering that my traditional understanding of the European public's reaction to the First Gulf War has been challenged.  Maybe I am wrong there, I admit, but that's not essential to this thread.

And I should say the European public.  For example, Spain and Italy both participated in the (second) Iraq War, despite enormous public opposition in both countries.


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## Hockey13

Although I agree with cuchu about the questionable statements, I understand what you're asking, tvdxer, if I were to ignore the comments about anti-Americanism. Cuchu, although it's fair to demand proof for his claims about Europe being anti-Bush (and let's forget for a moment that Europe is not a single entity), I think we both know that we could find even larger disapproval ratings for Bush in Europe than we have here in the U.S. However, none of this is relevant to the main question you posed in your post, and that is "how would European countries reacted if 9/11 happened there?" Good question, lots of history required to adequately attempt to respond...

In my experiences in Germany asking questions to people about they political positions on things such as American foreign policy, I noticed a trend in the answers of the people that leaned toward pacifism through war-weariness. As unlikely as it might seem after all this time, Germany is still very aware of its government's actions in the past and there is a general shame about it in many people. Nobody has studied German history better than the German people and I think it has given them a respect for the true democratic process and an automatic shying away from resolving conflicts with the military. I speak generally, of course. Just as fascists still exist in Italy, Germany has its fair share of neo-Nazis. I am also speaking mostly about educated people either in or finished with college.

It must be said that I have met my fair share of idiots on both sides of the pond, but the patriotic fervor that stirred up after 9/11 and has continued (to a slightly lesser degree) to this day has scared me greatly. It doesn't take a political scientist to see the similarities between post-9/11 U.S. and any other instance in human history where the "if you don't like it you can git out" mentality ruled. I have also encountered people in Europe who dared to call me a warmonger simply because I was from the U.S. These people were exceptions, and they were racist to the core. To point out the blatantly obvious logical flaw in their argument, one must simply point to a European history book.

There is no reason why other countries would have invaded Iraq. That was a U.S. Executive Branch decision whose motivation was based in U.S. history. Do I think Germany would have gone into Afghanistan? Yes. Do I think they would have done any more than that? No. I think Italy would have done the same thing as Germany. I don't know what England would have done.

Cuchu, to your point about the Madrid and London bombings, it is hard to compare those to 9/11 because they were under different circumstances. Remember too that Madrid's republic is rather young and the people might fear a strong government role more than other countries.

So to answer your question...who knows? It depends on the country, that country's history, the severity of the attack, etc. One thing that I have learned in my life is that people are more or less the same. Given the right conditions, anything can happen. If the stock market crashed tomorrow and several elections happened between then and a recovery, I think a lot of nations would be a lot more belligerent than what we currently see. Great wars are fought and atrocities are committed over far less in many parts of Africa because of the conditions and history in those countries. Maybe the 9/11-like event in a European country would change the landscape of the culture enough to make the people less pacifist than today. Who knows?


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## DickHavana

Hockey13 said:


> Cuchu, to your point about the Madrid and London bombings, it is hard to compare those to 9/11 because they were under different circumstances. Remember too that *Madrid's republic* is rather young and the people might fear a strong government role more than other countries.




Spain isn't a Republic, Spain is a parlamentary monarchy.  
I think you're saying about commonplaces. A series of internal problems influenced the consequences of the 11-M in Spain.
I think that in the "not too mature republic of Spain"  (please excuse my irony) people saw since the beginning that all (Iraq war) was a real lie. Spain has a grave problem with ETA terrorism to look for new enemies. 
I think that Spanish movements of opposition against Iraq-war were an example. Time gave them the reason.


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## Sepia

I think what mainly pisses people off in Europe - and probably also in the US - is the argument that the war against Iraq were necessary because they were producing mass destruction weapons. As we know, none were found ...

A good example also is Spain: Massive terrorist attacks on passenger trains took place. The chief of state attempted to put the blame on the ETA which turned out to be an obvious lie. Results: Massive protests. Change of government and the engagement in the Iraq war was cancelled.


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## don maico

And what annoys many others is that the job in Afghanistan was not finished before venturing elsewhere. Surely that is where the worst insurgency which led to 9/11 resides and still does today. The job of rooting and destroying these monsters has now become much more difficult.The Bush /Blair axis has much to anwer for.Poor planning, bad decission making and selling the public at large a lie.


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## invictaspirit

War-weariness is it.

If you are an American, it is very hard to appreciate how ardently Europe clings to peace and prosperity...as if these are golden chalices that can be snatched away at any time. America's role in WW2 is either gratefully and lovingly cherished by some Europeans or grudgingly respected by others. It is *hardly ever* genuinely disliked. I say this before I start ruffling American feathers with the following:

The 20th Century in the USA was one of almost constant growth and prosperity. And although, to romaticise, America gave up many thousands of her sons to establish peace in Europe, war never really came to the USA. It was something that was happening 'over there'. The 20th Century in Europe was a cataclysm of two rapacious wars that affected every corner of the continent. Bombs rained down nightly on Londoners and other Brits, and again on Berliners and other Germans. Huge sections of their cities were destroyed. Hundreds of thousands died. The Poles had their entire country cancelled out with the stroke of a pen. The French, Belgians, Dutch, Danes and Norwegians lived under humiliating occupation on starvation rations. Millions of Jews were rounded up and herded into remote extermination camps. Men all over Italy, Yugoslavia and Greece took to the hills to fight as partisans, never knowing whether they would see their wives and kids again. Millions of Russians were mown down. Back in my own country, an entire generation of young and middle-aged men left their families and businesses and went to war.

All of that stopped just 18 years before I was born. And I am only 42. My parents remember the constant bombing raids and hiding in cellars. My grandfathers and uncles were fighting and were away from home for years. What I am trying to say is: this wasn't long ago. It is the simple reality of my family and every European family. And we were *lucky*...many, many Europeans had it far worse than we did. Can you imagine how bad war felt for Europeans for someone who had their entire male family at war, not seeing them for years, and who took to hiding in their cellar as bombs crashed around their home, to regard themselves as *lucky*.? How awful must it have been elsewhere for that to be the best-case scenario?

We have had sixty years of peace and enormous prosperity. Hard work, NATO and the trans-Atlantic alliance, the EU and just a general desire to advance and keep the peace are responsible. But the 20th Century wars remain, like a ghost, at the side of the consciousness of nearly every European. It is our worst fear that it will all come back again one day. Countries such as France and the UK took steps (developing nukes) to make sure that this could never, ever happen to them again.

I think this lies at the root of the difference in outlook you perceive. At my most arrogant and cynical, I would simply say that Americans don't know what war is. The US has made huge sacrifices for other parts of what we still call 'The West' for sure and I would hate to denegrate those. I am thnankful and respectful of them. But...you've never had to hide in your cellars, or get bombed out of your home, or live on rations, or get herded into trains and yadda yadda. And these things happened to every European over 60 (which isn't that old these days) and to the parents and/or grandparents of every European aged over 30. The echoes of war still ring very loud here. I think that drives a more determined desire for peaceful ways out of conflict.

*But*...the original post seems to forget the enormous contribution made by Europe in Gulf War 1. French forces were there in numbers and were very effective indeed. The same could also be said for Kosovo. It is simply not true that Europeans have sat out all armed conflicts and whined from the sides, or that they have had a markedly different stance on the Cold War and other conflicts to America.


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## LV4-26

tvdxer said:


> Yet I wonder, for a little bit of speculation: what if a famous German or French landmark was attacked by the same terrorists in the same fashion, with a similar number of fatalities and injuries? How would their governments respond?  Would they declare war on the terrorist groups who carried out the act?  Would they be willing to call them "evil"?  Would the route they take be much different than that taken by the U.S., at least pre-Iraq?


I'm going to try and answer. But first I would like to ask why it would have to be a "*famous landmark"*. What difference does it make?

I'm not much of a forecaster so I might just restrain myself to agreeing with invictaspirit about the influence of past history on current policies.

I'd also like to remind that France has also had its share of terrorist bombings, with less casualties than the US, but more numerous attacks. The culprits have been pursued and arrested when possible. End of the story. Well, not exactly the end, as I think there are still some investigations going on.


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## Thomsen

I remember September 11th. Being here in DC, I was scared to death when they hit the Pentagon. They had artillery and tanks on the Mall and there were soldiers with guns everywhere. I called my mother two days later and broke down on the phone, saying that I needed to come home. It was hard to understand what was happening.

I also remember seeing on tv the outpouring of support by people around the world. People laying wreaths at US embassies and lighting candles in solidarity. Which is why I get so angry when people cry anti-Americanism.

I think we are all mature enough to understand that perfectly rational people will disagree. There is no way to know what someone (or a nation) will do in a sitution until they are put in it, but that does not take away anyone's right to express their beliefs and opinions. 

We need to work to build bridges not dig deeper trenches.



invictaspirit said:


> And although, to romaticise, America gave up many thousands of her sons to establish peace in Europe, war never really came to the USA. It was something that was happening 'over there'.


 
I don't think that is the feeling today. Many people at least at the time also felt very vulnerable after the bombing of Pearl Harbor in Hawaii which was US territory. And just for the record about 300,000 to 400,000 Americans died fighting in/as a result of WWII.


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## Maja

tvdxer said:


> I am curious, however, to see if others think that France or Germany would have reacted much differently, considering their culture's opinions and experiences.


My answer is: I doubt it!!!
Europe has been affected by warfare far too many  times and had the taste of it all on its own skin not to have very harsh stand  on it (unlike Americans who only had Civil War and Pearl Harbor)! Now, before  you all jump at my trough, I mean on US soil were common folk was DIRECTLY  affected by clashes. 
That is my opinion.


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## Hockey13

DickHavana said:


> Spain isn't a Republic, Spain is a parlamentary monarchy.
> I think you're saying about commonplaces. A series of internal problems influenced the consequences of the 11-M in Spain.
> I think that in the "not too mature republic of Spain"  (please excuse my irony) people saw since the beginning that all (Iraq war) was a real lie. Spain has a grave problem with ETA terrorism to look for new enemies.
> I think that Spanish movements of opposition against Iraq-war were an example. Time gave them the reason.


 
I would never think to call Spain's government "immature." If you reread my post, I actually said, "Madrid's republic is rather *young*." What I meant by this is that the people are perhaps less trustworthy of the government than many Americans are of Washington's republic. Spain is a republic by one definition of the word:

_a state in which the supreme power rests in the body of citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by representatives chosen directly or indirectly by them._

The only argument against it would be that there is a monarch, but I would still argue that it could be called a republic since the system of government emphasizes the democratic process of representation.

The rest of your post...I'm not sure how it responds to mine. Sorry.


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## DickHavana

Hockey13 said:


> The rest of your post...I'm not sure how it responds to mine. Sorry.



Well, It's possible my problems with English language hindes my explanations.

You said that people in Spain might fear a strong government role. I told you that my perception was another. People in Spain didn't want to participate in a war that majority of population perceived as injust and inappropiate. It wasn't fear, it was the conviction that from that madness,  nothing good  would come. After 11-M, the general conviction was : "They attacked us because we were where never we must to be". (Nos atacaron por meternos donde no nos llamaban)

Sorry my unlucky English 

Un saludo


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## Hockey13

Maja said:


> My answer is: I doubt it!!!
> Europe has been affected by warfare far too many times and had the taste of it all on its own skin not to have very harsh stand on it (unlike Americans who only had Civil War and Pearl Harbor)! Now, before you all jump at my trough, I mean on US soil were common folk was DIRECTLY affected by clashes.
> That is my opinion.


 
Let us not forget the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812, if we're going to make a comment on American warfare history. However, this only further bolsters your argument that it's been quite a long time since the U.S. public has experienced a war. Our war-weariness has, at least in the 20th and 21st centuries, been achieved by the human toll and, in the cases of WWI and WWII, the economic hardships. Since the Civil War, none of our cities have been destroyed and no siege has ever taken place. We have not been invaded by a foreign power since 1812 (if you consider the CSA of 1861-1865 essentially American). The only Americans who tend to know the hardships of war are the soldiers, and even then, they've often fought for other people, and never in defense of their home country on their home soil. One thing I've often discovered in my discussions with other Americans is many uneducated (and even some educated) people have no sense for what war is. At best, it is a representation of the deterioration of common sense to the level of animalistic killing in a battle to determine not who is right, but who has better military tactics. That said, Europe is not immune from wars in the future or colonial missteps (read: disasters) in places like Africa in the recent history.



DickHavana said:


> Well, It's possible my problems with English language hindes my explanations.
> 
> You said that people in Spain might fear a strong government role. I told you that my perception was another. People in Spain didn't want to participate in a war that majority of population perceived as injust and inappropiate. It wasn't fear, it was the conviction that from that madness, nothing good would come. After 11-M, the general conviction was : "They attacked us because we were where never we must to be". (Nos atacaron por meternos donde no nos llamaban)
> 
> Sorry my unlucky English
> 
> Un saludo


 
Ah, I see. However, in that sentiment I see war-weariness and a general willingness to stay out of trouble. There is nothing wrong with that sentiment, but by this I mean that some Americans might be less willing to sit down and think about the consequences and let anger take over because we are inexperienced with this kind of thing in general as a nation. If you ask me, the reason why we went into Iraq and the reason why we are still there is because a large portion of people in this country believe things can be easily solved with war (a notion that has not been beaten down by our military operations on the Persian Gulf in the past, but is slowly chipping away with this occupation of Iraq). The circumstances of the past have caused Spanish people to react the way they do _in general_, especially the more than three decades of fascist dictatorship (lest we forget it).


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## DickHavana

Hockey13 said:


> The circumstances of the past have caused Spanish people to react the way they do _in general_, especially the more than three decades of fascist dictatorship (lest we forget it).



Yes. Spain knew a hard Civil War in the 30's, 40 years of dictatorship and a difficult transition to democracy not enough resolved. Today, Civil War themes are still delicates.

Bu the question was another: A lot of people thank: Do you want to end with Al Quaeda terrorism and you attack an islamic nation not related with Al Quaeda? You will get a lot more of  Islamic people  determined to attack.

And moreover, I think that Europe (because his situation and characteristics) has an important islamic inmigration (Germany, France and Great Britain has very important islamic communities, Spain is the "highway" between Western Europe and Northern Africa and has too important communities from Algeria and Morocco. Why do you need to create problems where you weren't? 

Spanish government "sold us" that Iraq invasion would be good to end with the  terrorism. For Spanish people, the real problems of terrorism are in another place (ETA) and people perceived all this (our contribution to a crazy war) as an absurd argument that only could give more problems and of course none solution.


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## Outsider

tvdxer said:


> ...anti-American critics...
> 
> ...greater anti-American foreign policy...
> 
> ...the continent's near-hatred of Bush...


Define "anti-American".


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## faranji

Hockey13 said:


> Ah, I see. However, in that sentiment I see war-weariness and a general willingness to stay out of trouble. There is nothing wrong with that sentiment, but by this I mean that some Americans might be less willing to sit down and think about the consequences and let anger take over because we are inexperienced with this kind of thing in general as a nation. If you ask me, the reason why we went into Iraq and the reason why we are still there is because a large portion of people in this country believe things can be easily solved with war (a notion that has not been beaten down by our military operations on the Persian Gulf in the past, but is slowly chipping away with this occupation of Iraq). The circumstances of the past have caused Spanish people to react the way they do _in general_, especially the more than three decades of fascist dictatorship (lest we forget it).


 
The fact that Spain endured a 40-year dictatorship has ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with Spanish people's reluctance to believe that terrorism problems can be solved by bombing a country with no proved links to terrorist organizations.


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## DickHavana

faranji said:


> The fact that Spain endured a 40-year dictatorship has ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with Spanish people reluctance to believe that terrorism problems can be solved by bombing a country with no proved links to terrorist organizations.



Yes, you're OK. 
Spain contributed with troops in another wars as Iraq invassion of Kuwait, Afghanistan, Balcans, etc, and the majority of the population had no problem.


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## Grop

I think we can not seriously claim that we, the French, could not (and will not) react the same under similar attacks. People are so crazy.

But I claim our rhetoric would have to be different. We can not declare war on terrorism, as well as we can not declare war on evil (or say that such a war will continue until there is no evil). Not seriously. Terrorists are mere criminals, not nations, and terrorism is an abstract idea.

We, the French, can not either call an enemy "evil". We can speak of horror, of crime, but there is no good French equivalent of evil, or that would be "mal". We can say this in childish sentences such as "It is bad to lie" or in Tolkien-like fantasy, or in a parody of US rhetorics.

I think US reaction on terrorism would be seen with less scepticism without all these incredible slogans and oversimplifications.


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## Hockey13

faranji said:


> The fact that Spain endured a 40-year dictatorship has ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with Spanish people's reluctance to believe that terrorism problems can be solved by bombing a country with no proved links to terrorist organizations.


 
Yes. Yes it does. Do I really need to go into detail about how recent political events shape current political sentiments? Are you saying that Spain would never do such a thing because the people of Spain are smarter than the people of America? I was simply pointing out that the geopolitics of the region (the Iberian Peninsula) have influenced the actions of the current government and the reactions of the people to those decisions, just like the United States. If you read my other posts, I was confirming the idea that Americans were probably decidedly less war-weary in 2003 than many European nations.



DickHavana said:


> Yes, you're OK.
> Spain contributed with troops in another wars as Iraq invassion of Kuwait, Afghanistan, Balcans, etc, and the majority of the population had no problem.


 
If I'm not mistaken, neither did most countries of the United Nations. The motivation for those military actions have little to do with the motivation for the military actions of the United States in the Iraq War.


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## DickHavana

Hockey13 said:


> Are you saying that Spain would never do such a thing because the people of Spain are smarter than the people of America?



Nobody can say that Spanish people is smarter than Amercian people, it's not the question. But I think that Spanish people is more sceptical and reluctant to believe in all the things the Government can say (our Governmet and all the governments).



Hockey13 said:


> If I'm not mistaken, neither did most countries of the United Nations. The motivation for those military actions have little to do with the motivation for the military actions of the United States in the Iraq War.



I said you. Majority of the people in Spain perceived Iraq War "against the terrorism and the massive destruction weapons" as an injust war and a great lie. Isn't it? People didn't want to entry in an injust war because they knew that the  consecuences of all this would be bad (no podían ser buenas). Bush perception in Spain is really very bad as a consequence of all that.


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## gaer

Hockey13 said:


> As unlikely as it might seem after all this time, Germany is still very aware of its government's actions in the past and there is a general shame about it in many people. Nobody has studied German history better than the German people and I think it has given them a respect for the true democratic process and an automatic shying away from resolving conflicts with the military.


I think you have made a very important point. My personal experience, based on hundreds of long emails I have exchanged with people in Germany, supports what you have just said.

People forget, for instance, that those of use who were born after WWII were highly influenced by the views of our parents and grandparents.

In addition, those people my age (or around my age) have often passed on their views, sadly often the views of their parents and grandparents, to THEIR children.

One of my closest correspondents in Germany is under 21. Many times he has expressed to me a feeling of guilt or shame as well as great anger about what Germany did before 1945, yet this has to do with events that happened more than 40 years before he was born.

Gaer


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## LV4-26

Grop said:


> We, the French, can not either call an enemy "evil". We can speak of horror, of crime, but there is no good French equivalent of evil, or that would be "mal". We can say this in childish sentences such as "It is bad to lie" or in Tolkien-like fantasy, or in a parody of US rhetorics.


I think that's a good point and, for one, exactly in the scope of tvdxer's initial question. French politicians wouldn't dream of using the expression "l'axe du Mal". No more than they would dream of saying "Dieu bénisse (=bless) la France".
One might argue that the Brits do say "God save the Queen" but no, they don't actually *say* it, they just *sing* it. 

No value judgement from my part here. Just trying to explain why it might be different (and remember tvdxer bolded the word "cultures").


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## ireney

Well, I cannot really think how we would react from a cultural point of view because the first thing that comes to mind is that we couldn't do much couldn we? I mean we are on the small side as a country 
When I manage to ignore this fact I stumble upon the "nothing or all Hell would break loose" argument since our neighbourhood is still volatile and Greece is one of those countries in the region that, if it ever reacted the way the US did (even if we wanted and could do so) it would in all probablity start a very messy domino effect.

Anyway, I am not sure we would be allowed since I think that the EU would have something to say about that. Afterall, it is impossible for Greece to start a conflict of the kind and expect no one to violate its borders one way or another (we are just one step from the Middle East after all) and then the EU would have to be involved. Actually its even more complicated than that.

That's why I cannot bring myself to ignore this elephant and think about it culturally.


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## TRG

I agree with everything said by Invictaspirt. War has certainly affected Europe in a way that most Americans cannot and do not appreciate. In spite of that, if something comparable to the 9/11 attack happened in Great Britain or France (countries that have substantial military capability), it is hard to imagine that this would not change people in the direction of wanting retribution. Consider Japan, a country that knows well the horrors of war and that now exists as a very peaceful and peace loving country. If a certain country (who I will not mention by name) were to attack Japan with a nuclear weapon, all hell is going to break loose, IMO. It would seem that it was the spectre of such an event that animated the US to go into Iraq.


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## Outsider

Why ask "What if..?", when we can examine the facts?

When the London bombings happened (I know the death toll was not as great as that of the 9/11 attacks, but then again the U.K. is also smaller than the U.S.) the English reacted by shooting down an innocent Brazilian. Oh well, at least they didn't go out and bomb a whole country.

When the Madrid bombings happened, the Spaniards reacted by sacking the government which tried to lie to them about who was behind the attack (among other things). Hats off to them.


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## chung

tvdxer said:


> I've been looking at some newsgroup and forums posts at the time of the World Trade Center attacks, looking at the reactions people had right upon seeing the attacks, and during the day after. And I remember 9/11 very clearly myself - I had just begun high school and was in my English class with my brand new PalmPilot when the news of the tragedy was delivered by a teacher who walked in. I only really grasped the gravity of the attacks a few days later, as I watched my country go into high gear pursuing the organizations that perpetrated the act.
> 
> First there was the war in Afghanistan, which resulted in the dismantling of the Taliban-led state and a severe blow to existing terrorist organizations operating there. Then came the much more dubious war in Iraq, disapproved of by much of the world outside of the U.S. and eventually the majority of the U.S. citizens as well. It was not long after 9/11 itself, however, that perennial (mostly left-wing) anti-American critics began to criticize the U.S. for its reaction. In 2002, well before the Second Gulf War began, a book by the author Thierry Meyssan, claiming that the 9/11 attacks were orchestrated by the U.S. government itself, became a huge bestseller in France.
> 
> Then war was called on Iraq, especially Europe's opinion of the U.S. took a major drop. What Rumsfeld termed "Old Europe" (Germany and France in particular) criticized us as being unilateral warmongers, peace-destroying "cowboys" on the global front. Soon their disapproval of the Iraq War grow into a greater anti-American foreign policy, anti-Bush aggregate, which has diminished little since the war began.
> 
> *Yet I wonder, for a little bit of speculation: what if a famous German or French landmark was attacked by the same terrorists in the same fashion, with a similar number of fatalities and injuries? How would their governments respond? Would they declare war on the terrorist groups who carried out the act? Would they be willing to call them "evil"? Would the route they take be much different than that taken by the U.S., at least pre-Iraq?*
> 
> NOTE: This discussion should lead to an interesting reflection into the differences between the political cultures of Western Europe and the United States, which of course are influenced by their general *cultures*, so I see this as being appropriate for the Culture forum. That's what I intend it to do - I do NOT want this to be a debate as to whether the actions taken by the U.S. post-9/11 were legitimate or not. As far as I know, the question I have posed has not yet been asked here.


 
Bringing this back on topic...

I would argue that Western Europeans would act somewhat differently from Americans after an attack on the scale of the attacks of Sep. 11, 2001, but the differences would not be so great.

As Natasha2000 pointed out, Western Europeans would be less likely to respond with arms since their armies are indeed smaller and thus bringing the force to bear would be much more difficult. Another problem is that since most of Western Europe is under the banner of the EU and NATO, getting authorization for military retaliation would be theoretically more difficult.

However, there would be a noticeable change in attitudes towards the agents of an attack. As we saw in Britain and the USA, Al Qaeda's attacks certainly hurt the image of Muslims in those countries and I remember reading articles about death threats made against Muslims and vandalism of mosques. In some cases, some unenlightened people attacked Hindus confusing them with Muslims. Given the tension that exists between Muslims (be they Turks in Germany or Algerians in France) and "whites", I'm sure that an attack by Al Qaeda or an affilitate in France or Germany would certainly raise suspicions and there would be incidences of "hate crimes" and the like.

I'm curious about the following. How did non-Muslims in their respective countries react after:

1) the civil wars in the Balkans? Was there a religious edge to these wars? (i.e. were they presented as a struggle between Islam and Christendom in Bosnia or Kosovo, in addition to an ethnic vendetta of Bosnian vs. Croat vs. Serb vs. Albanian?)

2) finding out about Muriel Degauque of Belgium? She was the suicide bomber who had converted to Islam in Belgium before killing herself in Iraq in 2005.

3) the attacks in Madrid in 2004?

4) the riots in France in 2005?

5) the murder of a Dutch director by a Muslim?

6) the opinion in Europe about the Muslims' violent reaction to the publishing of the Danish cartoons parodying Mohammed?

After travelling over the past few years and sometimes letting the conversation drift towards terrorism and world events, I leave feeling that Europeans and North Americans have a lot more in common than they (especially Europeans) would like to think. I also feel that Europeans' often casual dismissal of almost everything American and smugness or "holier-than-thou" attitude from past experiences is no less arrogant and no more justifiable than Americans' belief that might makes right and that what's good for America is good for everyone else.


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## DickHavana

chung said:


> 3) the attacks in Madrid in 2004?
> 
> 4



Outsider gave you two good answers:



Outsider said:


> Why ask "What if..?", when we can examine the facts?
> 
> When the London bombings happened (I know the death toll was not as great as that of the 9/11 attacks, but then again the U.K. is also smaller than the U.S.) the English reacted by shooting down an innocent Brazilian. Oh well, at least they didn't go out and bomb a whole country.
> 
> When the Madrid bombings happened, the Spaniards reacted by sacking the government which tried to lie to them about who was behind the attack (among other things). Hats off to them.




And I will give you another:



chung said:


> 1) the civil wars in the Balkans? Was there a religious edge to these wars? (i.e. were they presented as a struggle between Islam and Christendom in Bosnia or Kosovo, in addition to an ethnic vendetta of Bosnian vs. Croat vs. Serb vs. Albanian?)



I can tell you that in the Christian Catholic Roman state of Spain, simpathies and humanitary aid were principally for Muslim Bosnians.



chung said:


> Bringing this back on topic...
> 
> 6) the opinion in Europe about the Muslims' violent reaction to the publishing of the Danish cartoons parodying Mohammed?



I think that all the world think that it's necessary a democratization and evolution in the Islam. But I think that majority of people believe that it's impossible to get it through force (a patadas).


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## chung

Outsiders' response doesn't really answer what I was asking about in 3)

After the attacks in Madrid, how did the non-Muslims react to the knowledge about Al-Qaeda being behind the attack? (i.e. how did Spaniards view Muslims in Spain and Al Qaeda's linking of their recent attacks as a continuation of the struggle between the Moors and Christendom in the Middle Ages?)

In addition, I do agree with the Spanish reaction to nail that government *because it lied*. Unfortunately, the result of the electoral defeat became a victory for Al Qaeda since it took the results and used it as proof that its methods were effective in changing foreign governments that don't agree with it (I always keep in mind that the defeat of that government arose directly because the Spaniards were angry about hearing a lie, and not so much because the Spanish army was already in Iraq.)

For point 1), I'm curious about the reaction by Bosnians, Croats, Serbs and Albanians who had to suffer through those wars. In other words, how do people who experienced the conflict feel about it? Was there a religious edge that started to infiltrate their reactions to those conflicts after 1999?

By the way, we know that religious charities from outside war zones will support others in need, and aren't always stopped by religious considerations (e.g. consider the amount of foreign aid, Christian/Muslim/Buddhist etc. that went for victims of the tsunami of 2004, with Muslim Indonesia some and Buddhist Sri Lanka also getting some, among other countries.)

And... what about the other questions that I brought up? How did non-Muslims in those respective countries react to them?


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## chung

Interesting... It seems that Spain's Moorish past has had a certain effect on Spaniards who are not Muslim. At the least, Spaniards seem to be used to the idea of Muslims living among them and have enough sense to distinguish between extremists and moderates.

However, I'm not convinced that the attack on March 11 was solely due to Spain's presence in Iraq (even though it gave Al Qaeda another excuse to kill civilians). Al Qaeda uses any excuse it can to justify attacks. While that ex-president may be the only non-Muslim Spaniard in your memory who makes a link with the Moorish Empire, I remember reading about Al Qaeda and associated extremist groups who elevate their attacks as part of a continuing battle that has been going on since the Dark Ages with the Moors and Franks, and then the Crusades.

It seems a lot different from the reaction in Britain, the USA, and is at odds with the tension between Algerians, Moroccans and Tunisians and French in France.


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## Hockey13

caballoschica said:


> You make an excellent point. So Spaniards react and nail the government. Here's how Americans reacted or lack-thereof depending on your point of view. Before 9/11 most people thought that Iraq had absolutely nothing to do with the attacks. After, over half thought Iraq had something to do with it. That shows, if not lying, a completely gullible American people to believe what they hear from any source. I never understood the logic why people still thought it was a valid war in Iraq after three different reasons (because they successively didn't work) were stated for going over there. Our press is ranked* 53rd *in terms of "freedom of the press". That just might have something to do with it and the fact that Americans are gullible.


 
While I agree with you in spirit, I must constantly remind everyone else of the fact that since you make this observation, you are not gullible. Neither am I. We are both Americans. You know this, but I feel it must be said over and over again. I sense a lot in these debates between Europe and the US that ever-present undercurrent of racism and the notion that Europe is somehow more saintly than the US because of Iraq, our slightly fatter population (and I _do_ mean slightly), lower test scores, and this perpetual nonsense of "oh, *our* people would never be as stupid as those Americans." The reason I sometimes cannot stand these hypotheticals is because it turns into a forum for Europeans to pat themselves on their backs for being clairvoyant.

It is laughably foolish to say that the Spanish people should be commended for sacking their government without looking at the historical reasons why they might have made that decision. It is also ridiculous to equate 9/11 with the Madrid bombings. This is for two reasons:

*1)* There is a stark contrast between the political histories of Spain and the United States. One is a republic that has existed in earnest since 1789, the other is a relatively brand new government (The Parliamentary Constitutional Democratic Congressional Peoplevoteitude Kingdom of Spain  ) that was brought about by monarchical powers after nearly half a century of what one could call a dictatorship which, through its many "disappearances" and suppression of human rights defied the UN more often than some forer@s would like to remember. The US has been for so long politically sheltered from the rest of the world that a large portion of the people (especially prior to the 1950s and 1960s and the Civil Rights Movement) are willing to believe that "Father Knows Best" when it comes to the federal government. On top of this, the large voter turnout by those who claim to be the lambs of God suppress the views of what often tends to be the silent majority. This can go on and on and on. As I said above, it is wholly foolish to boil the debate down to "the Spanish people should be commended and the American people should be committed."

*2)* The 9/11 attacks were nothing short of total pandemonium for the entire country. The Madrid attack was limited to one city, a city that has people alive in it that still remember warfare occurring in it. You do not understand what it was like, no matter how much you might like to think you do. Almost every single person in the New York metro area, including myself, not only witnessed with our own eyes the reality of the attacks, but know people who were killed. The attack on our financial security scared the bejesus out of people. The attack on our military security compounded that bejesus. The attack on our transportation security made people dig bunkers. The attack on our nearly 150 years of undisturbed mainland peace made people dig trenches. What was so unfortunate about those attacks is that New Yorkers would be more likely to tell you that Iraq has been a mistake from the start than people from places who are very unlikely of ever feeling the sting of terrorism. I go to school in the south and they felt just as afraid as I did on 9/11 even though they didn't hear military jets skimming at 1,000 feet over my high school after hearing reports of more hijackings and their targets: high schools in the New York area. They felt that fear without ever witnessing the terrorism like so many of us did, and that fear has, unfortunately, never abated from many of their minds like it has from many of ours. It is not a cliché to say that Al-Queda pierced the United States right through to the heartland. This fear has mutated for many people into anger and justification through racism and religious prejudices. Unfortunately, combined with the general trust in "the system," this has all added up into the invasion of Iraq. People from lesser-known places often tell me of what they did on 9/11 and I laugh to myself because the entire time they were not even remotely in danger, but the attack was so massive that they felt they were. I wish I could describe to you the anger, the fear, and the worries that I felt in the weeks and months following 9/11. Anger at those who perpetrated the attacks. Fear of new attacks and a residual fear from the attacks themselves. Worries that those who were missing that I knew were never going to come back. Worries that innocence had been left amongst the twisted steel of downtown Manhattan, a place that I had often, in my youth, been fascinated with the concrete canyons and the place where my father had witnessed the 1993 WTC bombing that had not had similar effect on the country.


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## cuchuflete

Reminder--this is the thread topic:



> what if a famous German or French landmark was attacked by the same terrorists in the same fashion, with a similar number of fatalities and injuries?
> 
> How would their governments respond? Would they declare war on the terrorist groups who carried out the act? Would they be willing to call them "evil"? Would the route they take be much different than that taken by the U.S., at least pre-Iraq?


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## DickHavana

Yes, cuchuflete.
But if Chung and hockey13 raise some questions and we can't refute or answer them, I think all this have no sense.


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## cuchuflete

You are free to open additional threads to discuss other topics.


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## LV4-26

> I sense a lot in these debates between Europe and the US that ever-present undercurrent of racism and the notion that Europe is somehow more saintly than the US because of Iraq, our slightly fatter population (and I do mean slightly), lower test scores, and this perpetual nonsense of "oh, our people would never be as stupid as those Americans." The reason I sometimes cannot stand these hypotheticals is because it turns into a forum for Europeans to pat themselves on their backs for being clairvoyant.


I don't think this quite reflects the actual reality (of this particular thread) but there's probably something true to it.
If that's really the impression you get, then you are right to object to it and speak up against it.
Well thought and well expressed anyway. Thanks for that.

Again, it is difficult to forecast what could happen if...if...if...and if....but I think there's a number of objective/factual reasons why it would not happen (some have been mentionned. All?). The main one being the lack of a truely efficent military power. 
But it is my deep belief that whatever those reasons are, they have nothing to do with being better or worse, smarter or more stupid, more or less clairvoyant or gullible.

Of course, if it was only up to me, I know what would happen. (but the purpose of this thread isn't to provide a soapbox for a veteran anti-militarist like me).


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## maxiogee

tvdxer said:


> Yet I wonder, for a little bit of speculation: what if a famous German or French landmark was attacked by the same terrorists in the same fashion, with a similar number of fatalities and injuries? How would their governments respond?


I'd hazard a guess that this would depend on why they felt the attack had happened. Why would these terrorists attack a famous French or German landmark?




tvdxer said:


> Would they declare war on the terrorist groups who carried out the act?


Probably not - whatever about the merits of declaring a war on an amorphous and nebulous thing such as a terrorist group - they would probably consider they lacked the military personnel to win such a war.
That's a good reason for not declaring a war.




tvdxer said:


> Would they be willing to call them "evil"?


Probably. To launch an unprovoked attack on a civilian population is an evil thing to do.




tvdxer said:


> Would the route they take be much different than that taken by the U.S., at least pre-Iraq?


Probably. I imagine that these countries would try to use the UN as a tool for justifiable retribution.


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## TRG

I can't tell you what they will do, but I will be happy to suggest what they shouldn't do. They shouldn't overreact and further the aims of those whose goal is global war. If a military response occurs, one would hope it would be with 100% support of everyone not aligned with the attackers. This is one of the unfortunate aspects of the war in Iraq; it has created political divisions in the world that are helpful to those whose aims are inimical to general world peace and stability. (I hope no one takes this as a desire on my part to launch into a discussion of the GWOT or the merits of the war in Iraq.)


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## maxiogee

TRG said:


> They shouldn't overreact and further the aims of those whose goal is global war.


Apart from some people in the arms industry who would profit from one, are there "those" whose goal is global war?




> If a military response occurs, one would hope it would be with 100% support of everyone not aligned with the attackers.


Why?
Are you already assuming that this imagined attack is totally unwarranted?

Assume that a named terrorist organisation - the QWERTY - attacks Germany and issues a statement saying why it did this. Germany then declares war on this group (We will assume for the sake of argument that one can declare war, under international law, on a group) - what should I as a non-German do to give "100% support"? I wouldn't be able to recognise a card-carrying member of QWERTY if they were living next door to me.


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