Horatius
NWO Kitty Wrangler
- Joined
- May 9, 2006
- Messages
- 29,691
A while ago I read an interesting article about a phenomena called victory disease. Leaders, and sometimes soldiers become embolden by success and become a little less rational and a little more reckless.
Given Osama's excellent military record against the Soviets, and the amount of country the Taliban conqured on the sweep out of Pakistan. It may just be they honestly thought God was on their side, and they could beat anybody.
I think this is exactly right. He made the same mistake the Japanese made in attacking Pearl Harbour. He thought that the Americans were a bunch of lazy playboys who would rather sit and play Xbox than go to war, and pay the price in blood that that would require. He forgot that while some Americans may be like that, not all are, and the ones who aren't are some serious ass-kickers.
The US is such a diverse country, more diverse than almost any other (except maybe Canada). A lot of people outside the US don't understand that, they think it's all one culture, just like their countries, and they make assumptions based on that. Assumptions that quite often are wrong. This time it cost them.
The other joker in the pack was the outcome. What did Osama actually expect as his best case senario. Maybe one aircraft to be successful. To simply do some damage to the towers, rather than destroy them totally.
For all we know, he may have been as stunned as the rest of us at the results he obtained. Either way I bet there was some frantic phone calls between Osama and the Taliban as everyone saw the full extent of the situation
That's another point as well. Considering how many people on the day were surprised by the total collapse of the towers - There's no way Osama thought that would happen. I figure everyone involved was freaking out when they saw that, but they realized they were commited. No backing out after that.