Why would there be any fighters in the air? We weren't at war, the warning signs of a possible attack had been overlooked, EVEN if we were expecting an attack. When will it happen? Where? The attack was already well underway before most realized what was happening. Even then it takes time for a request from civilian authorities for military fighters to reach a squadron. (The cold war had been over for years.) Then it takes time for the powers to be to decide whether to shoot down an airline full of innocent civilians. Not to mention the airliners had disappeared from radar contact, (they descended to low altitude and turned off their transponders) how can they vectors fighters when they don't know where the airliners are? While most of the attack did go well for the terrorists it wasn't 'flawless", the one that crashed in PA for example. And their success probably had as much to do with the element of complete surprise as well as our civilian aviation/FAA not being set up to deal with such an event at the time. In fact knowing the incompetence of our government I'd bet it's not much better now. IOW our multiple failures lost the "battle"/attack as much as their efforts won it.
Lucrum, in the movie "Top Gun" Tom Cruise can go from screwing Kelly McGillis to 30k feet over the indian ocean in the time it takes you to order your popcorn at the theater. Isn't that how it works in real life?
Being a pilot you would have a better grasp of the situation than I would. So, we are still vulnerable to something like this, once they get in the air? Somehow, I just can't grasp that the best Air Force in the world can't protect it's own airspace, particularly over the capital.
Your question was moronic to say the least. Since you've "done alot of reading", you would have known that the economy was ALREADY in the tank in the days leading up to 9/11. Greenspan had already orchestrated a series of intra-day rate cuts to try and offset the so-called "deflationary effects" of the dot.com bust. As a so-called student of history, you would also know that our particular brand of "Military Keynesism" requires us to be engaged in near constant warfare to stimulate the economy. What better way to draw us into another prolonged war than 9/11 (not even going to argue the false flag issue, don't care to get into that aspect). As we all know, the period from 2003-07 recouped most of the losses you allude to and created another massive asset bubble. The shadow banking system grew parabolically, real estate bubbles galore...The public sector grew exponentially, we expanded into a myriad of new government agencies that are currently a huge part of our debt problem, etc, etc...
You just made my point. We can inflate assets anytime we want with our monetary policy and have over the last 100 years. Why blow up the largest city in the US in middle of the financial center of this country during an economy that was already in the shitter? Come on man, give me something. Anything. I already understand Keynesian economics. I don't need a lecture on that. The bottom line is we could have created all the asset inflation we wanted without the risk of 9/11 blowing up in our face and believe me, there are 1000 ways from Sunday this could have blown up in their face with your theories. You still offer nothing, absolutely nothing of substance as a motive.
You honestly believe that we would have just decided to spend the past ten years in Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. without a cause for war? I mentioned NUMEROUS motives in the above post, but I already knew you would just flat out ignore them and essentially "talk over them" as it's your M.O. Growth of public sector and numerous defense agencies. Massive war spending. You can fill in the blanks, as there are many more, including The Patriot Act and other civil liberties issues as a direct result of 9/11.
I am for a strong defense as much as the next guy........but It appears 911 has spawned a whole new "growth industry", sucking capital away from the private economy, which is struggling.
Dude, are you not fucking aware that we spent 50 years in a cold war? And for what? Because the big bad russians were going to get us? They never fired a fucking shot on us in 50 years. Our entire foreign policy is based on preventative action, not reactive. The so called "Bush doctrine" was about getting them "over there before they come over here". We do not need, nor have we ever needed a reason to be in the middle east. That is why we are in Libya right now and Yemen. I don't recall Libya attacking us. God damn you are clueless about history. Everything this country has done over the last 75 years has been about the "hypotheticals" and the "what if's". Reagan's billions that we spent on star wars was all about the small possibility that the Russians might launch and air strike on us. We are on the verge of going to war with Iran. And why? Because they attacked us? No, because they might in some alternative universe use their nuclear energy program to possibly, maybe launch a strike on Israel. We don't need a 9/11. All we need is a hypothetical.
Sending ground troops into remote regions for extended periods of time most certainly has had a "cause", regardless if it was legitimate or not.