Reply #10: But hijackings had happened many times before. [View All]

[Minstrel Boy]

Would hijackings have been worse than the embassy bombings, or the Cole?

Responding to a hijacking would have been a "swatting at flies." It wouldn't have been the catalyzing event to reorder the world. And what happened on 9/11 was that.

They got exactly what they expected. (Or near exactly. I believe they'd intended to let Flight 93 crash into the Capitol building, but as its departure had been delayed 40 minutes and three planes had already long-since crashed, failure to respond would exceed the envelope of plausible deniability. And so it was shot down.)