Alternate scenario: a non-9/11 world

[luzribeiro.livejournal.com]

OK, here's the most obvious alternate history scenario one could possibly come up with.

So here's the set of events (or more like, lack thereof).

1) Sometime in the late 90s, Osama bin Laden dies of some stupid infection, or cancer, or something like that. Let's say extensive fapping to porn videos inside his bunker. Al Qaeda never carries out the 9-11 plot, and people in New York go about their business as usual on 9-11-2001, their biggest concern being that the tickets for Michael Jackson's 30th career anniversary gig have been sold out. Bush Jr never attacks the Taliban, so they continue to rule in Afghanistan, where the Afghan Northern Alliance resumes its feud with them (after blaming the assassination of its leader Ahmed Shah Massoud on them, an event which indeed happened on September 9).

2) Bush Jr never attacks Iraq either, since the UN inspectors never find WMDs there (this implies that Saddam has fully cooperated with the inspectors - but not before destroying his chemical weapons). However, Saddam's regime is coming under increasing pressure from several sides: the continuous sanctions and rising food prices in the region are causing social unrest in the country, threatening to ignite a popular uprising of the Arab-Spring style; the Kurdish militia in the North intensifies its activities, secretly supported by CIA; Iran funds Shia insurgency in the South, and the rest of the Arab League turn a blind eye to all that, for fear of Saddam. It looks like his days are numbered. The various think-tanks in Washington are busy, playing out various scenarios on their draw-boards, which however do not involve sending US troops to the Gulf.

Since there hasn't been any major terror act in the world for years, there isn't much incentive for development in counter-insurgency strategies. Instead, the hawks in Washington are mostly occupied with promoting the expansion of NATO into Eastern Europe and Caucasus, and accelerating the building of the missile shield, much to the displeasure of Russia.

...Meanwhile, far in the East, a forgotten foe is rearing its cute silver-haired head, as rumors of the return of the mythical dragons into the world begin to pass from mouth to mouth...

Oh, forget about the last bit. Or should you?...

So what happens next? LET'S PLAY!

Comments

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

...And far in the north beyond the Wall of Giving-A-Shit-About, an even more ancient immortal foe made of ice and magic is starting to melt fast, due to global warming.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Time for another global warming post by moi.

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

By that scenario, Osama would go straight into Heaven and finally find out what species (and gender) those mysterious 72 virgins really are!

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

No 9/11 would not avert the Iraq War. The Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 and the No-Fly Zones offered pretexts that would have sufficed with or without the War on Terror. It would be very easy for the USA to provoke Iraqi air defenses by sending multiple waves of aircraft over Baghdad, Iraq to shoot them down, take hostages, and BAM! 2006-style casus belli between the USA and Iraq. Without Afghanistan the USA presumably would have more resources to devote to that kind of war but would still in all probability put an Iranian terrorist group in charge of Iraq. There would still in all probability be some major acts of terrorism. Mumbai and 7/7 are not necessarily butterflied just because 9/11 would be. US culture and geopolitical power would remain if anything more powerful for longer due to the absence of the War on Terror enabling the USA to act as a unilateral superpower.....until it goes Hell for Leather into Iraq and things proceed from there as per reality.

[luzribeiro.livejournal.com]

No 9/11 would not avert the Iraq War

I think you misunderstood. I'm actually putting two conditions for the hypothetical scenario:

1) 9-11 never happens.
2) Bush doesn't attack Iraq.

The two are separate conditions of equal weight in the scenario. #2 doesn't result from #1, it happens separate from it.

Then we begin to hypothesize.

Let me amend it and put numbers. Hoping it'll be clearer now.

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

I have to agree for the most part with underlankers.

I can't see 9/11 not happening preventing the war in Iraq at all. Iraq was awaiting an excuse. Though they deny it now, folk were misled into believing there was an association between Iraq and Al Qaeda. A different excuse would have done to start the conflict, however…US forces would not have been split between Iraq and Afghanistan: and also the US would not have had the same not-to-be-denied moral authority that it brandished after 9/11. These are important variables to factor into the equation.

We might have been in a slightly better place than we are now: but the banking crash would still have happened, though it may have been delayed by a few years.

The problem with all comparative and/or critical commentary on AH is the proliferation of tenses that one needs to use.

[luzribeiro.livejournal.com]

I can't see 9/11 not happening preventing the war in Iraq at all

http://talk-politics.livejournal.com/1618874.html?thread=129572794#t129572794

Never claimed such a thing.

the banking crash would still have happened

Indeed. Good, now we might've started going somewhere with this scenario. You say it wouldn't have changed things much - fair enough.

I don't know why the tenses one needs to use should be a problem. I believe most people have ample amounts of imagination, which many of them might be willing to unleash every now and then.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Though they deny it now, folk were misled into believing there was an association between Iraq and Al Qaeda.

To be fair, the 9/11 Commission confirmed those links.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

What happened in this scenario to keep Bush out of Iraq? WMD alone won't be enough, because the policy of the US since 1997 is regime change, and without the Afghanistan distraction, the neoconservative factions are free to push the Iraq issue on humanitarian grounds. After all, we don't want a power vacuum in Iraq to end up with the Taliban.

Plus, you're now assuming sanctions are working toward creating an Arab Spring, even though the sanctions have been in place in Iraq for well over a decade up to that point. The Arab Spring as we know it in this timeline was made possible in part due to the successes in Iraq, so how are we getting to the point of prompting these otherwise?

[luzribeiro.livejournal.com]

How are changes being prompted in Cuba as we speak? There's a critical line of internal tension that, when crossed, revolution ensues and regime change happens. Isn't that the very purpose of sanctions?

Without that military adventure in Afghanistan, chances are the hawks would be much less prone to going on a military adventure in Iraq, too. Like I explained in my scenario, exerting pressure on Saddam's regime in a more indirect way might've had the same results, but without all the US troops involved. I'm aware that the much dreaded military industrial complex (TM) would've hated that scenario, which is what makes my scenario highly unlikely.

My premise, though, is to assume it happened. The question is what happens next. Not why I'm setting these conditions.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure how a total collapse of a country's infrastructure and the USA sticking its head in the sand about an increasingly violent war for a full calendar year made the Arab Spring possible. The point is nonetheless valid in that Saddam survived the longest war of the 20th Century, which lasted that long for reasons primarily his fault, then one of the most lopsided defeats in military history, *then* the revolt that followed this one, and the existence of the No-Fly Zones. Hussein embodied the virtues, so to speak, of a cockroach: he was damned hard to kill and kept on trucking. Now when he died......

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

> we don't want a power vacuum in Iraq to end up with the Taliban

Wait, wha....

(Looks back at the map)

[abomvubuso.livejournal.com]

One Michael Lind from WP makes a few interesting claims (http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/a-world-without-911-no-president-obama-more-china-trouble-same-debt-crisis/2011/08/29/gIQA8VkuCK_story.html) in such a scenario (number 1):

The debt would've stayed, the crisis would've happened anyway.
The stand-off with China would've been more intense.
The Republicans might've kept the presidency.

Domestically...

[rick-day.livejournal.com]

Due to the financial collapse pending, Bush2 would lose re-election to Hillary. (The only reason they ran Kerry in 04' as the sacrificial lamb is because the D's understood that during 'wartime' it is hard to oust an incumbent.)

That would have given the military the resources and opportunity to further develop non lethal and drone armament, and begin phasing out the post-cavalry strategy of 'boots on the ground'.

There would be no security company opportunists TSA or body scanning. Urban camera systems would be rare and used only where needed. There would also be a demilitarization of the police forces 'on the name of homeland security'.

Homeland Security funds would go instead to shoring up the VA system, and higher education grants, investing in our future instead of fearing it.

There would be no major deficit. Everyone pays their share of taxes in a manner that satisfies most. Infrastructure repairs would keep folks working and the economy chugging along.

9-11 was an excuse that has transformed a world into a simmering cauldron of fear. And those who stir, decide how much to dish out.

I hope this was kind of what you were looking for.

[luzribeiro.livejournal.com]

Congrats! You were the first to get exactly how this game is supposed to be played.

[rimpala.livejournal.com]

I don't know if it contributes anything, but the only thing I remember of the Bush administration before 911 was some small ultimately insignificant scuffle with China... or something, I don't even remember what it was.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

I think it was a downed spy plane.

[cheezyfish.livejournal.com]

Essentially, Bin Laden being out of the picture means only that a 9-11 style event would be delayed, or perhaps might have still happened the way it occurred (which we will assume wouldn't have in your scenario). The U.S. goes along its business and maintaining the status quo of treating the people who have declared jihad against the U.S. as common criminals. Basically ignoring them as a serious treat until another large scale attack occurs. Saddam Hussein is a crazy mother fucker and will do anything to stay in power, Bush Jr invades anyways (as the Bush Doctrine was not solely about WMDs and preemptive attack). Basically, if Bin Laden dies before 9-11, then everything just gets delayed a few years.

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

I think you need to step back a few years, if not a few decades.

Bin Laden was important, yes, in that his father had connections with Saud royalty, who in turn had contacts with several Texas oilmen (who helped develop the Aranco (sp?) equipment over the Gawar and other superfields, and one of which was GWB's dad, someone who later participated in at least one act of treason, and then head of the CIA. CIA run training camps in nearish-by Chechnya trained the early al Qaeda jihadists (like bin Laden) who wanted to repel the Russians from Afghanistan.

Evidence of Bush/bin Laden quid pro quo can be found in a simple donation to an early GWB campaign from the bin Laden family, a donation later classified as secret by the new GWB admin. You helped my son, so I'll help yours.

With this in mind, it's not too much of a stretch to imagine that another al Qaeda member in training would have taken over the leadership. "al Qaeda," after all, just means "the base," as in database of fighters willing to go to war over anti-Islamic forces. After Afghanistan, many headed over to Croatia/Serbia after the slaughter of the Islamic men and boys there. Another Chechnya-connected member would have served the org well, though he probably wouldn't have been as tall.

That done, we next have to deal with the fact that Iraq, largely because of the underdeveloped resources (thanks in part to the Brits), was sitting on one of the largest sources of oil in the world at the same time that the Gawar superfield was starting its decline. Iraq would have been invaded anyway. It was too tempting a target to ignore.

[404.livejournal.com]

A better Alt-history would be that 9/11 DID happen, but rather than the US invading Iraq in 2003, BushCo. normalized relations with Hussein, and integrated Iraq into the US coalition. Think of the major change to the balance of power in the ME if Iran had a stable and relatively powerful neighbor that was not an international pariah on it's western border, and an Afghanistan that had the US's full military attention on it's eastern one. Think Iran would be so willing to rattle it's saber?

[luzribeiro.livejournal.com]

Interesting scenario. Of course it would require that Bush and his cohort had some brains. Sorry.

Saddam would've fallen the way Mubarak did, anyway. A bit later than he did, I know, but he would've.

You make a good point: the US adventures in Afghanistan and Iraq have helped Iran quite a bit. The irony here is staggering.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

I think that assumption requires Saddam's regime be capable of producing a military that's actually able to punch hard. 1980-8 was one long, graphic illustration that Saddam's regime was never capable of anything of the sort.

[squidb0i.livejournal.com]

Of course, without two wars on a credit card, one of which is a major oil producer, both of which destabilize the rest of the region, oil prices would have risen, but not spiked.

Which would not have lit the fuse that became the financial crisis. Until later. When it was much worse.

[cheezyfish.livejournal.com]

It is your position that oil prices is what caused the housing bubble to burst?

[rimpala.livejournal.com]

Of course, one of the factors that 911 has contributed to was government-encouraged consumption. It was the era of the Hummer and all it's imitators, drinking up all that gasoline. It was the housing bubble and people's wanton spending on multiple homes they can't afford. It was the bling and the over-modified street racing cars and spend spend spend!

Have to wonder sometimes how much all that spending (and specifically debt and bad loans) contributed to the recession.

[cheezyfish.livejournal.com]

Have to wonder sometimes how much all that spending (and specifically debt and bad loans) contributed to the recession.

A lot (as in almost all of it). The bad sub-prime loans were of course the cause. High consumer consumption and higher demand of credit drove interest rates up, causing the housing bubble ( which was cause by sub-prime loans securities) to burst. Those interest rates going up turned people's house payments from $800 a month to $1400, and they were poor to begin with.

I'm not sure I get the correlation with increase consumption and 9/11 though?