September 11th , what if's .....

Erase 9/11 and the local political scene would be similarly transfigured

With September 11th coming up. I wanted to summarize a 'what if scenario' . What our world would have been like if the fatal hijacking terrorist plot never happened . We would still see two twin towers over looking the Manhattan skyline. Better yet there would be obvious scenarios right out out of science fiction , and an alternative timeline. Imagine that the twin towers still dominated the Manhattan skyline. Imagine that the Pentagon’s western facade had remained intact. Imagine that there was no reason to build a memorial in Shanksville, Pa. And imagine that the numbers 9 and 11 meant nothing more than an emergency telephone call.Historians and novelists love constructing “what if” scenarios: What if Hitler had won World War II? What if the Confederacy had prevailed in the Civil War? What if a Chinese sailor, rather than Columbus, had discovered America? First off former President Bush would have come out a much better President than he is viewed now , for sure we would have not have had the economic meltdown that happened in 2008. We would have not had a President Obama either . In this parallel universe, that group of voters might have stayed with the GOP rather than defecting to the Democrats in great numbers in 2008 — and would have wielded more influence in contemporary politics than the tea party movement. And unlike Obama, a Democratic president in a world without 9/11 might have paid less attention to right-leaning independents and governed as more of a progressive.  That means Barack Obama might still be a senator from Illinois. There would have been no history-making first African American president, no birth-certificate controversy — and  ** Obama could still be friends with his longtime pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Why  am I saying this ? Well lets figure the September 11 attacks greatly ruined America's economic system that has sent the deficit through the roof with war costs . American politics would have unfolded in vastly different ways. Assume that, with no 9/11 to use as a pretext to invade Iraq, the election of 2004 would have been a peacetime contest, centered largely on economic issues. It may seem minor compared with today’s  $ economic difficulties, but  after 9/11  followed the crash of the tech bubble, and the subsequent bubble in real estate and stocks took time to inflate. George W. Bush likely would have still won the 2004 election , basing this probability that John Kerry would not have won the nomination to the Democratic Party . California would not have seen the massive debt , and likely we would have avoided recalling it's Governor . Arnold Schwarzenegger still would have been acting . These are just my guesses , but guesses are not accurate . I  just pasting a history of what if . Launching it from a non event 9/11 from happening .The terrorist attacks further accelerated our descent towards becoming a police state. Over the past few years we have seen the establishment of "wars" against this and that, the appointment of "czars" to implement these various "war" efforts, and increase legislation diminishing our civil rights. Due process is vaporizing. "Without the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, there would have been no effort to reorient the U.S. armed forces toward counterinsurgency operations. No 9/11, no COIN. America’s defense planners might have spent the first decade of the 21st century focusing on possible high-tech naval and air combat in Asia, rather than on policing and nation-building in occupied Muslim countries."  Contrasting this we may never know , but 9/11 had serious consequences to the United States over the past 12 years . It leaves us with something to think about this week.

NOTES & COMMENTS:

$ And what of the U.S. economy in a world in which Mohamed Atta and his fellow terrorists never hijacked airplanes? If the United States had not invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, the national deficit and debt would be considerably lower today. According to a recent report by the Congressional Research Service, between September 2001 and March 2011, Congress appropriated $1.283 trillion for the wars, additional security measures and health care for veterans — with 63 percent of the total related to Iraq and 35 percent to Afghanistan. Economists Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes have estimated that the long-term cost of the wars, including veterans’ care, may exceed $3 trillion. ** Someone else  would have won in 2008, and everyone in 2008 wouldn't have been fighting to distance themselves from being compared with Bush.  Would Obama have rallied all the voters sick of the war and swept into office in 2008?  Running against an incumbent president would be difficult, and Obama may not have even run for another four years.  Who would our president be now?