How did September 11th affect you ?

[Firefox]

Did it have any effect in terms of travel or the work you do or an indirect effect in terms of the economy etc. How long do you think things will take to get back to normal, have they already done so, or will they never be the same again?

[Charlie]

September 11th was a wake-up call for the entire world. We just heard the ringing a bit better here in the U.S. We all need to understand that our respective religions likely don't corner the market on all of the right answers to what lies beyond. Because of this, tolerance should be a no-brainer. Besides, we're ALL going to get our chance to see what's there anyways! There are many here in the states claiming that Sept 11th was the cause of the slump in our economy. Personally, I think that's a load of crap. The indicators were pointing downwards well before Sept 11th. Did Sept 11th make things worse than they would have been? Yes! Will things ever be the same? Yes! The world got over two world wars. War is a waste of people and resources. If only we could sustain the creativety during peacetime... In summary, Sept 11th doesn't even come close to having the same impact. Charlie

[IHeels]

Agree with you Charlie, just one thing the wake up was in the main for the western (or developed/industrialised) world. Inga

[Mo-chan]

Even if most things are the same, what has changed (besides the unprecendented security at about every major event)? I have been home in a while-and honestly, I'm kinda scared (I don't know what to expect!)

[Bob]

Kinda disagree with you charlie, sep 11 wasn't really a wake up call for the entire world, here in the uk we've been fighting terrorist for decades (best part of 100 years actually) so it wasn't really that much of a suprise to us except in so far as we thought someone would hit the us sooner (shame to say it but it's true), also many countries around the world have also been on the recieving end of terrorist act', spain for instance with ETA. So it seem's as though we will now be welcoming the USA into the club

[Dr. Shoe]

Actually, it didn't really affect me at all. I don't wish to be controversial, but around 400 (?) air passengers died that day, and now no Americans want to fly. How many people are killed on the freeway every year? How many Americans are dying from smoking related diseases? Do they walk instead of driving? Do they stop smoking? Why is it that people are scared to fly and yet no-one has said that they won't go inside a tall building? Yet 2,500 people died in the Twin Towers!

[Bob]

something like 300 people a day die in the uk alone from smoking That's more people than were on both of the aeroplanes which were flown into the twin towers And you're right, nobody is afraid to go into tall building, here in the uk, the London Borough of Southwark has given planning permission for a building over 1000 ft tall!

[Highluc]

I'd rather be in a joke security us airport as in the streets, restaurants and discos of Israel these days. How secure can you be with fanatic terorist around?

[Yamyam]

Well, I wasn't affected all that much. I was working on-site that day, and I remember moaning about 'what are all those other buggers doing listening to the news?' I didn't find out what had happened until I turned the radio on as I drove back to the hotel. I have a lot of family in the States, and I lost a distant relation, and nearly lost a closer one (he was late to work). But it's true, tho'. Here in the UK, we've lived with terrorism for a long time, and personally, it doesn't bother me. I've lived in or near several places that a WTC-style attack might work on, but I've never given it a second thought. I still don't. The main effect for me is that as I don't look 100% English, and have a slight Midlands accent, I get loads of unwanted attention from security guards now. I've actually been thrown out of one place as a 'potential security risk' . What's the point of that?

[Dr. Shoe]

No amount of security will stop a suicidal fanatic. Walk down any street in Tel-Aviv and there will be either a Policeman or Soldier within 20 metres of where you're standing, every public building contains a checkpoint. However, one fanatic could wander into the airport concourse at a busy time, pull the pin and kill 400 people. Why'd he want to get on a plane?

[hoverfly]

The one above is form me.

[Highluc]

What are strategic locations? Can you imagine how easy it would be to have a bomb explode in the centre court of your favorite shopping mall on a saturday afternoon. No way to search all incoming shoppers and no way to completely elimate fanatic terrorism. We'll just have to learn living with the damned threat and morn once in a while.

[hoverfly]

I agree... People have to live with that fact that nobody is going to be completely safe. However some day terrorist will use weapons of mass destruction and use them for maxim effect. Then what are we going to do? Oh well.... It's only a 5 hour drive to NYC from my house. It doesn’t take long to cover that distance by a commercial jet liner. After the first attacks on Sept 11 I wondered who was going to be next. Ever since I was a kid I thought cities stuck out like a sore thumb for a target. I love to visit them, but I would not live there. I am still at risk but there is far less of a chance for such of an attack happening where I live. I never thought about the idea that a jet loaded with fuel would ever be so destructive. It’s a good thing the terrorist did not find a way to load such an aircraft with fertilizer, or just nitrates. ( I think that’s the correct compound) An explosion like that would have killed more people instantly.. <font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: hoverfly on 2002-03-18 08:11 ]</font>

[Bob]

Don't want to alarm but: During the cold war, the soviet union is reported to have aimed up to 100 missiles at a time on London. If each of those avareage 1 megatonnes, and only 1 third we actually loosed or succesfully delivered on target, an explosion something in the order of 30 million tonnes of TNT would have gone off over central London. The positive blast wave alone could have reached the french coast, indeed it is believed that if a maximum blast hit London the damaged would have gone inland for several miles from the french coast Interestingly in the film Threads (by the BBC) 6 relatively small warheads were dropped on Sheffield, the result was calculated to be the total collapse of law and order, the collapse of the NHS (the current governement seems to be doing an equally good job ) and generally sending the UK back about 150 years I think this graphically shows that a fully functional Nuclear device is not actually necessary for a terrorist act, any small and dirty device will do Personally, I don't think any terrorist organisation will ever get one, by and large they don't have the technical capability, and mostly, they are cowards who wouldn't have the wherewithall or guts to deliver it Heres hoping for a more peacefull world

[hoverfly]

Heck you want to compare nukes? One U.S. 60 megaton warhead will reach out in a 500 mile (1640 km) radius. The first 100 miles (328 km) Will put a hole in the ground 300 ft (84 m) deep. If (most likely) the Russians have something comparable. I don't think there would much any thing left of England, maybe a chain of islands with carders in the middle. The most secured places for nukes are where they are stored. Ether in a silo or in some kind of storage facility. But when you are moving them they are the most venerable. Even with the tightest security, you tell me if they are willing to die, and they throw enough bodies at a security detail guarding that nuke that they can't get one warhead to go off? Heck, You only need to be at least 100 ft (32m) off the ground in order to get maximum effect. How about getting away with one, and putting it on top of a building, or a tall tree, or in an aircraft, then setting it off? FLASH!!! ZAP!!!!! POOOF!!!! Some day terrorists will have enough money, logical support, and man power to pull something really big off. After September 11 I think it is going to be decades before something like this will happen again in magnitude, but history shows it happen once, it happened twice, it will happen again no mater what. Somebody is going to sneak up behind you, and yank your under wear hard!!! FLASH!!! ZAP!!! POOF!!! <font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: hoverfly on 2002-03-17 21:11 ]</font>

[Laurieheels]

This is all very frightening, this thread! I just wished to comment on the topic real quick. I was numb for days. All day at work, every TV was on a new station, people gathered around, they watched for hours if they could. Everyone was somber. I say at the retail desk watching TV with other employees, and noticed that even customers who had problems with accounts did not care so much about them. This is Canada and we are still numb. Watching footage of people as they fell was too much for me. I do not worry about the saftey of flying as much as how the increased security will affect people. It will all become more militant, and a vacation abroad will never be quite as care free as it should be. We all grow, we all bond, and there is good in what happened that day. It still seems incredible, but inside, I think everyone has a fear now. My sister had a few dreams about planes crashing into buildings after this, and I think she still has them from time to time. She works close to the airport, so she has low flying planes being very loud.

[IHeels]

At the time heaps, I was a little scared, as most of you know I live in Australia. Think of this for starters: The two major cities Sydney and Melbourne have quite a lot of skyscrapers, whilst there not 110 floors many are in excess of 50 floors on the edge of waterways, pretty good targets not nice if you frequent one as I do. Australia is considered a friend of the US (true), there were rumours of you're next this was published in the local media. How close is life in Australia to the US, pretty close, you only have to look at our anthems to see the word 'free' and you should get the gist. Also at the time I'd go to bed and hear an aircraft overhead thinking it's comming, pretty scary. Now I think things have cooled down a bit, thankfully. Inga

[Achilleus]

I was living in New York when it happened. However bad it seemed on TV, the shock and terror were far worse to those of who lived in the city. To this day, many New Yorkers don't like to take the subway or cross the bridges anymore. The Empire State Building is still losing tenants because nobody wants to be in the next target. I was dating a girl who worked in the Amex building next to the WTCs - I didn't hear from her for 6 hours after the attack because the phone lines were jammed. As it turns out, she wasn't there, but she was so close she saw the people jumping out of the windows. Several close friends got forced out of their apartments by the smoke and particles in the air. There were bomb scares all across New York City that night and we kept expecting another building to go down. 9/11 is going to effect the world for a long time. There will be more attacks; America will be hurt again and will lash out again. It is not going to end swiftly; it will be with us for a decade or more to come, like the War on Drugs or Israeli-Palestine conflict. To paraphrase the great Churchill, beating the Taliban was not the end. It was just the end of the beginning. Achilleus

[hoverfly]

I am very sad as well angry at what has happened on Sept 11. But I believe all those who died would not halved wanted us to live in fear. I missed the actual events, but watched the news for a couple of hours replaying the past, of people jumping, get crushed, and vaporized. Then I turned the TV off....and got on with the rest of my life. I dealt with death of others starting at a young age with one of my friends getting raped and murdered. Over time many more close to me have died, I my self has had close call with death, and still I am alive. I am thank full for that. I have fears, just like any one else, I just get over it as fast as possible. I just accepted death as being the dirtiest parts of life. Chances are really slim of any one of us to be killed like what happened in NCY, it can happen, but it is very slim. Knowing that is where I take comfort in that fact that I am not going to be a victim any time soon, or let my self be a victim to the past.

[Dr. Shoe]

Speaking of the subject of nuclear bombs.

It is surprisingly easy to obtain one. It is believed that the Russian Mafia would have access to around half a dozen TNW. We are talking mines or depth charges of around 1 kilotonne. Strip off the outer casings so that you are just left with the plutonium and detonator and you could (just) fit it into a large suitcase. The person carrying it would die from radiation sickness in a matter of hours but in a suicide attack, would that matter?

Secondly, give me 10 kg of weapons grade plutonium, 3kg of semtex and access to a machine shop and you will soon have a fairly reliable nuke (if I was that way inclined). You could pack it into a 205 litre oil drum among a truck load of similar driven slowly through the major city of your choice and the rest would be an atrocity. Any reasonably clued-up person with A-level physics could do it.

Now the facts:

I remember seeing an FBI report that hints that 70% of the Al-Quaida pilots sent to the US on Sept 11 "bottled out". There were supposed to have been two more planes hitting the Pentagon, one at the White House, two on Camp David, one into the Sears Tower, One into the CNN tower and one into the Empire State Building. They also believe that he wanted to hit the Statue of Liberty as well just as an added insult but all these were secondary targets, his main target was the twin towers.

Take a look at: http://www.usatoday.com/graphics/news/gra/gflightpath2/flash.htm

Go down to "Attacks on America" then click on "How the planes reached WTC, Pentagon, Pensylvannia. It is clear from this that AA flt 11 was heading for a different target but was then "called back" to hit the north tower.

Using this info and a bit of common sense, it would seem to me that the targets were allocated in this order:

WTC (both towers), pentagon (3 planes), Camp David, The White House, Empire state building, Sears Tower, CNN, and if none of the "spares" bottled out then The Statue of Liberty.

Out of the 12 groups sent, he expected maybe 3 to through with it.

This is my point on nuclear bombs. In order to deliver one, he would have to send a minimum of 3, probably 4 or 5. The Russian Mafia are asking around $1 billion for a TNW or a warhead, they would also sell the information to US intelligence for several million. Therefore, Bin Laden would have to pay $5 billion and then attempt to get them near their target without getting caught. He might be very wealthy, but I don't think he has that amount of money to spend on an operation that is almost certainly doomed to failure, always assuming that those assets are not frozen.

Any other terrorist organisation wouldn't go to the bother.

The object of terrorism is to terrorise people. The FEAR of a nuclear attack is enough, scare people into leaving their mail unopened, scare people into not flying, get people attacking innocent Moslems so that they retaliate and we have riots in every city.

[Bob]

Great argument, you've obviously done you homework and come to the same conclusion as I have but from a very different perspective. I agree with you on the basis of what terrorism is about, a terrorists primary weapon is terror, and any means of delivery will do, the cheaper the better, and getting people terrified over nothing is the cheapest of the lot. I for one have never believed that a terrorist will go to the expense of using nukes, and the cost and sheer logistical nightmare associated with such devices is just one more reason behind that belief, perhaps the world CAN breath a sigh of relief

[Francis]

Who needs to detonate a nuclear device? just throw 2 pound of weapon grade plutonium or 1 pound of uranium into a reservoir feeding a city and you'll kill off most of the inhabitants in weeks. The buildings and infrastructure are still intact so you can just march in and take over. Nasty thought when so much knowledge can fall in the wrong hands

[Dr. Shoe]

Yes good point. However, let's look at the scenario: There is a large cluster of tumours, leukemia and other afflictions associated with radiation and so after a few days, someone will start to check victims' homes with geiger counters then discover that the water is irradiated, this would be traced back to the reservoir etc. Also, most larger cities have a number of reservoirs many of them underground with no direct access. In addition, we come back to our previous point of whether a terrorist group have the resources to do this because they would have to carry it around and get it through customs. This would be certain death for the carrier. If I was a terrorist, I would just hint that the water might be contaminated.

[hoverfly]

If I remember correctly it is not very easy to transport processed nuclear weapons grade materials and not go undetected. The are very sanative detection equipment that can be used in aircraft and on the surface to track it. It could be quite complicated if not imposable to move this stuff in order to avoid detection.

[Francis]

to carry even 2 pound of weapon grade plutonium requires about 6 inch of shielding which now takes the weight of container and contents to about 100 pounds. Look for a bloke the size of Geoff Capes! All underground reservoirs have service hatches or ventilation ducts to help relieve pressure, so slipping into one of these wouldn't be too much of a challenge.

[Nata]

To me as a student. I find the event shocking and unbelievable. To turn a commercial airplanes into weapons. Sigh ! Here in Asia, the economic downturn has already affected many. With this horrible incident, it is making the asian stock markets topsy turvy.

[Dr. Shoe]

All underground reservoirs have service hatches or ventilation ducts to help relieve pressure, so slipping into one of these wouldn't be too much of a challenge.

[Bob]

Flouride? Mmmmmm... heard about that stuff, isn't it responsible for knackering half the kids teeth in the UK during the seventies? Perhaps it was all an IRA Plot!

[Francis]

yep! and it still exists in toothpaste !! :eek: As for dangerous substances, break salt into it's two components. One is a toxic poison and the other explodes on contact with water! A real eye opener!!

[Bob]

I worry about you francis, you seem to know more about things that go bang than me, and i'm in HM Forces