Another response to Terrorists Followed Media Violence Script:

In response to a quote from a Neal Gabler column, correspondent Abbie sent the following message:

Rob's reply
>> The people in bin Laden's group have already bombed several places. They are not tying-up-the-technology-and-angering-people types; they make their point by killing. <<

I'd say killing people is secondary to the goal of sending a message. If you want to kill people, send a plane into a college football stadium when it's packed. Send a plane into Hoover Dam and watch how many thousands of people get swept away downstream.

>> It seems difficult to reconcile the notion of people who have it drilled into their brains from childhood by religious leaders who forbid TV and movies that they are *supposed* to kill people for their religion that entertainment is going to play a bigger role in their perspective than the culture of violent fundamentalism <<

I haven't read about the terrorists' background in depth, but I believe many of them joined the Al Qaeda movement as young adults. Many were educated in Saudi Arabia or the West. They were college graduates, fluent in several languages, and obviously good at planning an mission for years.

In short, I'd say your notion that they were brainwashed from childhood, without exposure to Western media, is wrong. But it sure makes a great propaganda piece for Bush and the warmongers. We're rational! They're fanatics! Kill them because we can't reason with them!

People have interviewed the terrorists who tried to blow up the WTC in 1993. Religious fanaticism wasn't their sole or even primary motivation. See Inside the Terrorists' Minds for details.

>> I cannot believe the desire for the ultimate result — mass casualties — came from watching violent movies. <<

I don't believe mass casualties were the ultimate goal. I can outline many attack plans that would've killed more than 3,000 people. In fact, architectural experts said they were surprised the towers collapsed. They had computer-tested the towers for a plane crash and expected them to survive even that.

However educated the terrorists were, I don't think they had better access to architectural data than the buildings' planners and builders. They could NOT have expected the towers to collapse. And if the towers hadn't collapsed, only the several hundred people in the immediate vicinity of the strike points would've died.

Bin Laden himself confirmed the point in his November video. He hoped the top part of the towers would collapse, killing maybe a few thousand. He explicitly said he did NOT hope for the towers to collapse entirely. That was an added "benefit" beyond his expectations.

So no, there's no persuasive evidence that "mass casualties" were the ultimate goal. My explanation, that the terrorists wanted to strike the WTC as the world's biggest emblem of capitalism, is much closer to the mark.

>> I think it comes from a culture — not the Islamic culture, not Middle Eastern culture, but violent fundamentalist culture — that promotes violence against rather than compromise with perceived enemies. <<

Fundamentalists learn from the media like everyone else—beginning with the Bible or Koran, the ultimate media in world history.

We know fundamentalists are fanatical, which means they go beyond verbal attacks to physical ones. The issue is what form their violence takes, not whether their subculture embraces violence. In the last few months, we've learned of thousands, perhaps millions, of security holes in every area of American society. The terrorists could've blown up Disneyland, Mt. Rushmore, the Sears Tower, Cape Canaveral, Graceland, and any other target they wanted. They haven't initiated a grand scheme to destroy America through countless acts of terrorism. What they've done is choose a FEW prominent targets for their symbolic weight.

>> Whether or not the use of airplanes was prompted by disaster movies, they seem to have wanted to create large-scale loss of life. <<

Judging by their attacks on the USS Cole and the US foreign embassies, which were staffed mostly by locals, I'd say you have it backward. The Pentagon attack only confirms the point, since you don't dive-bomb a flat, sprawling building to kill the greatest number of people. The terrorists wanted to send us a powerful message with small- to medium-scale loss of life as a byproduct.

>> Much has been made of *where* the planes hit the buildings — getting a conventional bomb up to those structural points would be just about impossible. <<

Naturally you want to hit a building square in the middle to do as much damage as possible.

>> This was a way of destroying the structures and creating mass loss of life that — sadly — worked <<

It was an attempt to destroy the buildings that the terrorists couldn't have expected to succeed, and didn't expect to succeed, judging by all the available info. Hence my conclusion that they wanted to send a message more than kill people.

Again, the Pentagon attack confirms the point. The total dead there was what, 800? An attack on any of a thousand skyscrapers in New York or Washington would've killed more people.

>> (Given the possibilities, I am surprised the death toll was as relatively low as it was.) My opinion, anyway. <<

Again, the experts were surprised the towers collapsed. That's their opinion, based on 100 years of accumulated data assessing the strength of skyscrapers. As usual in these technical matters, I'll have to go with the experts.

And again, Bin Laden confirmed the point in his November video:

That would appear to be the end of the story. Massive deaths no, symbolism yes.

Rob

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