It seems like you are using the US War on Terror as a good example? It didn’t stop the loss of life, it just changed the arena. Orders of magnitudes more people died as a result of that than from the attack that spawned it.
I concur with your assessment regarding human lives. That said, I think it's also important to take into account the effects those attacks have had on American society, such as the reduction of civil liberties, the increase in surveillance, and the changes in US foreign policy which have changed the position of the US in the world. These are significant. What would effect would additional attacks have? Yes, these are reactions rather than direct action, but at this point they've been frighteningly predictable. One could argue that this is an existential threat to the US as we know it, even if it isn't existential in terms of human lives, or in the country per se.
If we go by the number of civilians who got killed and the loss of infrastructure, You can compare the impact of 9/11 and the so called counter operation. Assuming you consider value of civilian life is same for a US citizen and a non US citizen.
Don't be obtuse. Of course it's remarkable, the only other reason you ever hear of 3000+ people being killed in the space of a few hours is when there's some large natural disaster like an earthquake.
Now, if you can't work out how the largest terrorist attack in history might have change the stance of the world's largest military superpower, with a knock-on effect on everyone else, then you're not trying. When I saw the events of 9-11 happening on TV I immediately knew it was going to result in years of war, just like the collapse of the Soviet Union obviously led to a de-escalation of military posture.
probably more people get killed by fridges falling on them than by a terrorist attack
Not at the same time, and crucially, not at someone else's pleasure. I'm not American either but the notion that people wouldn't or shouldn't react to something like this is just asinine. Frankly, I'm surprised it didn't lead to greater change in the US than it actually has.
I know we're talking about drone strikes, but we should always and forever note that the civilian casualties from the US' war on terror far outweighs [0] those who died from terrorism. Not to mention the US troops who died to make Iraqi oil available to US businesses, or who continue to die by suicide and social deaths related to their experiences in the war [1].
The shock factor wasn't the death count, it was that the American homeland came under direct attack from overseas.
For those unaware, the US has historically had very few attacks on the homeland from enemies who are not immediate neighbours. Off the top of my head, the second-most recent example before 9/11 was Japan attacking Pearl Harbor and the Aleutian Islands, and dropping some balloon bombs(?) on the West Coast during WW2. Before that we would go all the way back to the War of 1812 with Britain sacking Washington and all that.
When the country historically is not used to having the homeland threatened, that shock and revelation leads to kneejerk reactions of the "how fucking /dare/ you" sort.
Well, the US has had 3k or so killed in the past 15 years. In response it killed hundreds of thousands and caused widespread devastation and misery in several foreign wars.
These wars created multiple large transnational extremist anti-US movements that now have advanced military equipment, are skilled veterans of war, and are spreading their influence to neighboring countries.
Imagine the roles were reversed and some jerks from the US went and killed 3000 middle easterners. As a response they invade america and over the course of 10 years kill nearly 20,000% as many people as died in that original attack. Still call the death toll from the original jerks to the middle easterners significant?
Yeah, either your world view is pretty closed or you’re trolling. I hope it’s the latter.
The world trade centre attacks caused about 3000 deaths, and ongoing military action impacting a few countries around the world. The US makes up roughly 5% of the worlds population.
The pandemic has so far killed over 4 million people. It has created lockdowns in thousands of cities you’ve never heard of and forced the scientific community of the world to work together on common problems. It has affected every government and billions of people around the world, rather than the few hundred million in the US.
The pandemic is orders of magnitude more significant than the singular terrorist attack the US experienced 20 years ago.
For billions of people in the world, the US and it’s foreign policies have little to no significance.
For a complete perspective, one should post the deaths caused by US on foreign grounds (iraq, Afghanistan, Servia/Kosovo, others?).
I'm not saying this justifies terror attacks in the US or anywhere, but that it's so sad that we're in 21st century, and we still see people get killed by other people for whatever reasons, but mainly for resources(oil?) or religion.
No, your first point. The US has been just as responsible mass death. And of course it changes a lot.
Don't be obtuse. Of course it's remarkable, the only other reason you ever hear of 3000+ people being killed in the space of a few hours is when there's some large natural disaster like an earthquake.
Yep, the us is definitely killing foreigners, and its own people for that matter, but the direct impact on citizens' everyday life is pretty minimal. No war has been declared, and apart from a distortion to the budget and impact on GDP it's essentially invisible.
Why do you think this is NOT a massive, vitally important tragedy? ~2k americans died in 9/11 and american life was never the same. ~100k americans have died (so far) from this and you think it's not a big deal?
As shown elsewhere, especially from the American side, this is simply not true. Your assertion about fewer people's lives being impacted is also quite false--just look at any airport on holiday.
This is no progress at all. Instead, we've gotten to the point where we can maintain any number of flashpoints we like, at any time, with any amount of media coverage desired, and all without ever having to have a useful policy discussion about it with our citizens.
The thing about the large wars of the past? After a while the citizenry lost their taste for it, because it cost them directly. Our current state of affairs is, sadly, not evolving in that direction.
Far fewer lives were lost, but the impact and implications of this are on par.
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