more or less inspired by david's friday question (a weekly feature over at blogAmY), i'm launching a new feature here at rubber hose: upyernoz's st. patrick's day question. for the rest of 2004 on every st. patrick's day i will ask a compelling question that will shock and amaze you. or maybe not. it will, at the very least, be something that has been bugging me for a while. so here is the very first st. paddy's day question:
how did "weapons of mass destruction" ever get related to 9-11? i'm not trying to ask about bush's justification for the war in iraq. i think the link in the public's mind pre-dates that. within days of 9-11 i remember people talking about the dangers of terrorists with chemical, biological or nuclear weapons. (like this nrp show about bioterrorism threat that aired on 9/14/01 or the last letter printed here (also on 9/14/01) citing the threat of terrorists with nuclear or chemical weapons). i don't think the president made up the link to justify iraq. it was already in the air. he just took advantage of it later.
but why was it in the air? if anything, the 9/11 attacks proved that terrorists do not need sophisticated weapons to produce mass destruction. when knives and commericial airplanes can be so destructive, why bother with the expense and danger of nukes? why did it seem to be such an easy jump from planes going into the world trade center and a mushroom cloud?
discuss
