So how would the world be different if 9 / 11 had never happened?

Would the US economy be in better shape?

Maybe a little bit. But I suggest reckless tax cuts, poor regulation of the banks and general bad economic management have contributed more to the state of the US economy than 9 / 11.

Would the US have invaded Iraq?

My guess is that's what Bush intended all along. 9/11 Simply made it easier to sell the invasion to the American public. We’d still have had the WMD story.

Would the banks still have been so reckless with our money?

Are you kidding?

Would Greece have been able to pay its debts?

Not worthy of an answer.

When you take a good hard look at the world I suggest most of what ails us has at best a tenuous connection with 9 / 11.

im online..avoiding the rehash of 911 spin
but lets take your points

""So how would the world be different""

usa would be 3 trillion better off
300,000 people would still be alive
many more would not be injured or burnt out

[noting one third of those who died...were resque servants
[police firies etc]..from memory 30 were muslim

and im sure 'that flight'
was shot down by friendly fire

""Would the US economy be in better shape?""

hard to say..the economy was going to melt down on 911
911 at leastr gave an excuse for a bailout..and invester direction
[and considering usa economy..is one third based on arms production..well who knows

""I suggest reckless tax cuts,"'
yes sure..the rich have done well all round

""poor regulation of the banks""
its more the 'other markets..derivitive..or short selling stock you dont got..in the hope you can buy it back cheaper if you get a panic/run going..

bonus all round

""and general bad economic management"'

lets not let the federal reserve off the hook
or enron type practices,..now gone global

lest we forget..the 'evidence'..was held in the only stteel frame buildings ever to have fallen down..despite bigger planes ..and hotter fires..hitting them

""Would the US have invaded Iraq?""

no

""My guess is that's what Bush intended all along.""

thats not a guess
thats a certainty

but dont forget dikkk cheekey..and the rest

""9/11 Simply made it easier to sell the invasion to the American public.""
agreed

""We’d still have had the WMD story.""

but much harder to sell
without..911

""Would the banks still have been
so reckless with our money?""

they wernt reckless with 'our' money
they were reckless with the truth

""Are you kidding?"'

nope im deadly serious

""Would Greece have been able to pay its debts?""

no
it joined eu
to get more credit
it and italy and spain have been broke for a long time

ireland is more like usa
not willing to tax the rich multinational business leaders

""Not worthy of an answer.""

dont be negative

""most of what ails us
has at best a tenuous connection with 911""

every little lie hurts
collectivly..too many liars
wanting too much fame glory and credit

what about israels 1 trillion of 'gifts'

I agree Steven,
The cost of Iraq & Afghanistan is not all that significant
compared to the US debt.
Travel by air seems to be the area most affected.
There have been some reductions in privacy but nothing that affects me.

Anything else would be well hidden from sight.

Steven

9/11 made an easy method of using fear to govern in Western culture - continuing to today's argument over boat people, restriction of free speech, greater distrust of other cultures.

Ammonite commented on distrust of other cultures;

How many members of Al Quiader are Christians, Hindus or Buddists ?
Hmmm, and you wonder why moslems are distrusted ?

Trust has to be earned.

Dear Steven,

Ten years after 9/11 has the world really changed?
I think that Ammonite has summed it up well.

As far as Australia is concerned, like America, we have new
anti-terrorism legislation, first passed in 2002, then
significantly strenghtened in 2003. It is legislation that
inevitably validates the broader community mistrust of
Arab and Muslim Australians.
Yet the governments have done nothing
substantive to allay these fears or to increase knowledge
and appreciation of Australians of Middle-Eastern background.

As a result -
In the last five years there has also been documented and
anecdotal evidence of a mass increase in harassment,
vilification and violence towards Australians of Arab appearance
both in the media and in popular imagination - often
generating a media storm and unchecked racial religious
vilification on talkback radio.

Prejudice creates what it fears. This increasing hostility of
the broader community reinforces this inter-community racism,
rather than challenging it. Things need to change - if we are
to live at ease with ourselves.

Dear Bazz,

You asked how many Christians, Buddhists or
Hindus belonged to Al Quaida? And stated
that no wonder Muslims can't be trusted.

To me those statements don't make sense.

Firstly not all Muslims belong to Al Quaida
or take part in terrorist actions.

The same as
not all Christians in the US belong to the
Ku Klux Klan, or bomb anti-abortion clinics
and murder doctors who work in those clinics.
Not all Christians belong to the New World Order -
convinced that Jews are taking over the world
and certainly not every single Christian in America
joins the many Christian "militia," groups that
exist in that country.

Timothy McVeigh the Oklahoma City bomber had a
Christian identity and was trained by a Christian
"militia" group led by a Baptist Minister.

Inferring that "Christianity is the religion of love,"
is just as much a fallacy as suggesting that "Islam
is a religion of hate."

Extremists exist in all religions. Don't heap all
the blame on only one.

We had a showing if Richard Gages' new film about 911 at 280 Pitt St Sydney ie Mechanic School of Arts last Saturday 10/9/11.About 180 turned up.Not as good as his Blue Print for Truth but he had new scienticts and specialists giving irrefutable evidence that 911 had to be an inside job.
http://www.ae911truth.org/

Bazz needs to get the spelling right.Not Al Qaeda.It's CIAeda.

*Inferring that "Christianity is the religion of love,"
is just as much a fallacy as suggesting that "Islam
is a religion of hate."*

The devil there Lexi, is really in the details. Some years ago the
topic intrigued me, so I made it my business to educate myself
further on the topic.

Christianity went through its wars, as people fought for their
freedom from religion in most of the West. To a large extent that
was achieved. In the secular West, most people are pretty much free
to say what they like about Chistianity, question it as they please
etc.

That is not the case for Islam. Still today, in any Islamic State,
blasphemy is not tolerated and if people speak up against Islam,
it is soon used against them. So its very difficult to point out
the failures of a religion, if nobody can express their honest
opinion about it. That makes for a religion easily misused for
political purposes.

Read the Koran, there is no doubt it is a violent religion and a
divisive religion. I don't even blame Muslims, for if people grow
up indoctrinated with this stuff, they don't have much choice really.

But look around the world, where Islam goes, all sorts of problems
follow, unlike with say Buddhism and a number of other religions.

For those very reasons I would not choose to live in a Muslim
country, unlike living in a Buddhist country. The difference really
hit me when I travelled from a place like Malaysia to Thailand.
Quite amazing!

So personally I don't think it would be in Australia's interests,
to land up with a large Muslim population

Lexi, you say don't heap the blame on only one.

Which religious adherents are appearing in OUR courts charged with
terrorist related crimes ?

Islam is basically intolerant of others and is why they set themselves apart

Dear Bazz,

The flavour of the month in terrorism in Muslim.
And our media associates terrorists immediately
with Muslim origins. Yet if you look at the history
of this country - there are numerous examples of
terrorist acts committed by others. From Port Arthur,
Hoddle Street, Russell Street bombings, the Hilton
Hotel in Sydney, to mention a few. But all of these
incidents have been attributed to other causes -
of locally grown, mentally unstable or criminally
motivated offenders and not
to some religious group as is the case today.

Dear Yabby,

It is inevitable that large movements of population
occur as a result of war, famine, natural diasters,
religious persecution, political unrest. At the present
moment most of these events are occurring in predominantly
Muslim countries, which forces large numbers of displaced
people seeking safety outside their borders.

As far as Australia is concerned we are at the opposite
end of the pole to Europe with these Muslim countries
in between so it is inevitable that we end up at the
receiving end of this migratory trend.

If the same scenario occurred in South America then the
migration would occur into the Pacific and the Atlantic
of Christian refugees - and would we react in the same way
then as we do with the Muslim migration.

As for lumping
the religon of Islam into one category. There are so many
different linguistic and cultural differences between Muslims
and how Islam is practiced, (the same as with the Christian faiths),
that you can't make sweeping statements about it.

You can't compare the Catholics of Northern Ireland and the
Catholics of Argentina or the Christians in America who blow
up abortion clinics. There are those American "rapture"
Christians whose powerful influence on American Middle Eastern
policy is governed by their biblical belief that Israel has a
God-given right to all the lands of Palestine. Some rapture
Christians go further and actually yearn for a nuclear war
because they interpret it as the "Armageddon" which,
according to their bizarre but disturbingly popular
interpretation of the book of Revelation, will hasten the
Second Coming.

Yet I'm sure that you would welcome them into Australia.

*Yet I'm sure that you would welcome them into Australia.*

Lexi, I would? So claims you lol.

If you really want to understand the topic, inform yourself.
There is a great book called "23 Years", by Ali Dashti.

Dashti was a Persian, who in his youth went to the Madrassa, but
went on to become a journalist. He knew his religion very well.
He died in Kohmeini's jails in Iran, in his 80s and after his
death, the book was published in English. Read it and you'll
understand Mohammed's life, how the religion was formed and what
the Koran is all about. Then you can debate the topic with a
new level of understanding.

Dear Yabby,

Thank You for the book you recommended.

I'm always interested in reading people's
memoirs and getting glimpses into their life
experiences. Books like Jung Chang's, "Wild Swans:
Three daughters of China," was extraordinary, as
was "A Stolen Youth, a Stolen Homeland," by Dalia
Grinkeviciute.

I found - Ayaan Hirsi Ali's, "The Caged Virgin,"
and "Infidel," totalling rivetting.
Both books are on the shelf in my study.
Then there was the International Bestseller, "La
Prisonniere: 20 years in a Desert Goal," by Malika Oufkir
and Michele Fitoussi.

And the list goes on.

Now, I have a book for you that I can highly recommend:

"People Like Us," by Waleed Aly.

Cheers.

Lexi, Waleed Ali indeed does a fine job at giving an Australian
lawyer's perspective of the way that he sees his religion.

But to understand it at its core, you have to go back to its origins,
why it was founded and how.

Mohammed did not just form a religion, but in the end a conquering
army, which spread far and wide. Religion and politics were all
intertwined as a way of life. At times he preached various good
virtues of life, at other times he ignored these things and became
a bloodthirsty warrior.

Ali Dashti does a great job at going back into this history and
analysing it, as seen in the Middle East. Out of all this history
we see exactly what we have now, ie wherever Islam goes, problems
invariably follow. Events in parts of the Phillipines, Southern
Thailand, Africa and the rest, do not take place for no reason.

So all I ask is that you try to understand that history, rather then
act as another uninformed apologist for Islam.

Lexi said;
The flavour of the month in terrorism in Muslim.

I wonder why ?

Dear Yabby,

What makes you
think that I know nothing about Islam?

I will try to get hold of the book that you
recommended even though I've already read
several texts and various analytical works
on the topic. My favourite still remains -
"Islam," edited by John Alden Williams years
ago. It was part of the series published in
New York called, "Great Religions of Modern Man."
A friend of mine gave me the complete set as a gift.

Anyway, I trust that this will suffice for you.

That's an interesting approach, Yabby.

>>But to understand it at its core, you have to go back to its origins, why it was founded and how<<

Would this apply to everything?

Sinn Fein, for example?

Are Sinn Fein's objectives the same now as those at the time of their founder, Arthur Griffith? Or perhaps those of the Sinn Fein that took part in the Easter Rising in 1916? Or those of the Sinn Fein that supported the IRA in 1919? Or the Sinn Fein that spawned the Provisional IRA terrorists in the 1970s? Or the present Sinn Fein, outwardly peaceful, but led by the ex(?)-IRA leader, Gerry Adams?

Which is the "core" Sinn Fein, do you think?

Or if you are only referring to religion, which version of Christianity do you see as its "core... its origins, why it was founded and how."

Its origins were in the Jewish communities of Palestine. Is that the "core" you have in mind? Or was it the Pauline Christianity that supported slavery? Or did it all (conveniently) start when Constantine turned it into a political, as well as religious movement, in 325?

http://www.philtar.ac.uk/encyclopedia/christ/early/index.html

It is all very familiar, the cry from this forum "Christianity good, Islam bad". But it would help things along if not quite so much time was spent waving away the less palatable elements of the one, while emphasising the less palatable elements in the other.

That's odd, Bazz

>>Lexi said; The flavour of the month in terrorism in Muslim. I wonder why ?<<

I was absolutely positive that the flavour of the month, terrorism-wise, was Norwegian. Specifically, white supremacist, fruit-loop terrorism.

Silly me.

*It is all very familiar, the cry from this forum "Christianity good, Islam bad".*

That has never been my approach Pericles, for of course I am one of
OLOs biggest critics of the Catholic Church!

I am also aware of the fact that the Catholic Church used to burn
people like me for heresy, for expressing my honest opinion.

So I appreciate the hard fought for freedoms that we have today, to say
what we think and why, without death threats or charges of blasphemy.

Sadly if I had been born a Muslim in any Muslim country that I have
come across so far, I would not have that choice.

I was not aware that Sinn Fein had a holy book, which they believe
are literally the words of God. I have challenged many Xtians on
this, asking them if I should kill my neighbour for working on the
Sabbath, but they all tell me that those arn't the literal words of
God. Not so with Muslims, when I ask about the Koran.

Personally I actually feel sorry for many Muslims for having been
indoctrinated as children into their religion and being unable to
say what they really think. But it was only after understanding
the history of the Koran, Muhammed's life and what they believe and
why, that history started to make sense to me. Just bad luck
that more wern't born in Buddhist countries, for that is a much
less divisive belief and as far as I know, not a violent one.

Dear Yabby,

The following website might help:

http://atheism.about.com/b/2010/01/25/religion-violence-recognizing-violence-in-buddhist-history.htm

Dear Lexi,

The following quote from your website might help:

*Our intention is not to argue that Buddhists are angry, violent people--but rather that Buddhists are people, and thus share the same human spectrum of emotions, which includes the penchant for violence.*

There is a huge difference between people with a penchant for
violence and people being violent and divisive because their
religion promotes it and encourages it.

Not relevant, Yabby.

>>I was not aware that Sinn Fein had a holy book, which they believe are literally the words of God<<

I was simply asking whether your doctrine of "to understand it at its core, you have to go back to its origins" applied only to religion, or was widely applicable to other belief systems.

Your answer demonstrates that you consider the "core" philosophy applies only to religious beliefs. Fair enough. I do wonder why you choose to limit it in this way, but it's your worldview, not mine.

It is interesting though that you then proceed to discard the idea, and instead focus on a completely different aspect - the treatment of the various religious tracts by their followers.

>>... they all tell me that those arn't the literal words of God. Not so with Muslims, when I ask about the Koran<<

It is reassuring that you go so far as to accept that there exist different flavours of Christian. Could you not make the next logical step, and accept that there are different flavours of Muslim too? Just from my own limited circle, I know several who put the "word of God" stuff into context, without any outward signs of discomfort.

But can we simply accept for the moment that the "core... its origins, why it was founded and how" track that you initiated earlier is a red herring?

Thank you. That is some progress, at least.

One step forward, two steps back. Sigh.

>>There is a huge difference between people with a penchant for violence and people being violent and divisive because their religion promotes it and encourages it.<<

And which religion might that be, Yabby?

C'mon. If you have something to say, say it. Be specific. It's the same game that Boaz used to play here. It didn't work then, and it won't work now.

*Your answer demonstrates that you consider the "core" philosophy applies only to religious beliefs.*

Pericles, that really depends on what that belief system is all about.
Yes, philosophies can change, if you can invent it as you go along.
When I push Xtians on this, they quickly discard the Old Testament
and focus on the new Testament and the Jesus story. That is far far
more difficult to do with Islam, because of the importance of the
Koran to the core belief of Muslims. It is central to their belief,
not just a side issue.

*Just from my own limited circle, I know several who put the "word of God" stuff into context, without any outward signs of discomfort.*

Yeah, but you can only rationalise away things so far. If the core
text which you worship is violent, it becomes increasingly difficult
to do that and increasingly easy to convince others of its violent
context.

That is why it was so easy for Ayatolah Kohmeini, Sayd Qutb and
others, to convince followers that Islam is a violent religion.
Dashti actually goes into the history part to explain the Koran
and how it emerged. For the first years, the verses that Mohammed
dictated were in fact quite placid and friendly, but they changed
as he formed his army and began his conquests. So its very simple
to interpret that violence for what it is and be believed by those
whom you are trying to influence. The various calls for Islamic
States etc, which we see so often, go right back to these days,
to the core of Islam, which AFAIK remains the Koran.

You still don't accept the parallels, Yabby, despite the fact that you quite obviously see them.

>>When I push Xtians on this, they quickly discard the Old Testament and focus on the new Testament and the Jesus story.<<

>>For the first years, the verses that Mohammed dictated were in fact quite placid and friendly, but they changed as he formed his army and began his conquests<<

And what about these?

>>The various calls for Islamic States etc, which we see so often<<

Are those "calls" increasing, descreasing, or staying about the same...?

I think the size and scope of the "problem" is largely defined by our reactions as individuals. Yes, sure, we are seeing terrorism conducted by small groups under the banner of Islam. Just as in previous decades we have seen terrorism conducted by small groups, but under different banners.

Our reaction to it is what turns it from being terrorism-conducted-by-a-small-group, into an existential crisis.

I read a neat article only this weekend that discussed the process of "remembering" 9/11 - I'll see if I can dig it out. It pointed out that in the last few months of 2001 it was not particularly noteworthy to see a t-shirt with the words "All I need to know about Islam I learned on September 11th 2001" Today, those sentiments seem a little outdated. In another ten years they will be extremist.

It is very easy to read into these incidents whatever it is that you fear most. I for one refuse to believe that we are in some kind of holy war against Islam, and that there will only be one "victor". The world changes too quickly for that to be more than a t-shirt slogan.

It won't be long before we worry about something entirely different.

There will have been no "solution". Just as there has been, and will be, no "solution" to the Irish troubles. Or the GFC. Or Global warming/Climate change/AGW etc. But we would do ourselves a service by simply accepting their symptoms as another aspect of our extremely interesting lives, and adapt our behaviours accordingly.

*You still don't accept the parallels, Yabby, despite the fact that you quite obviously see them.*

I see the parallels and the differences, Pericles. I stand by my
right to observe and critique any religion with at least the attempt
of being somewhat objective. That does not make me an Islamophobe,
as you would like to imply. IMHO to deny the reality of any religion
is downright foolish. There are reasons why the world has unfolded
as it has and understanding them makes perfect sense to me.

*I for one refuse to believe that we are in some kind of holy war against Islam, and that there will only be one "victor".*

Well on that I agree with you. For IMHO in any society, only a small
% of the population will turn out to be fanatically religious.

The rise in fanatical Islam seems to be tied in with the substantial
petrodollars that have been thrown at it by the Sauds, as part of
their agreement with the Wahabs in Saudi Arabia. IIRC is was even
the Economist which noted that Saudi schoolchildren being taught
in their textbooks to hate the Jews, infidels etc, was hardly leading
to a more tolerant and peaceful world.

But I also understand why Muslims might have a more difficult time
with intergrating in another society, given the information which they
have been indoctrinated with as children.

So my point remains that Buddhist migrants should overall find
it far easier to intergrate into Australian society then Muslims,
based on their respective religious beliefs.

Read what Ali Dashti wrote for yourself, he was a smart fellow.
It will give you a deeper understanding of what the religion is
all about. Personally I am less interested in Xtian or Muslim
apologists trying to make their case, I'm far more interested when
a little objectivity is thrown into the debate.