"9/11's most controversial image"...

[Simon photo]

Really? Are you sure about that? The wars we've seen and indeed are still seeing are rather limited compared to those we've seen in the past and what could have happened by any measure you'd like to use.

If you can't see that you need to revisit some history and think about what could have happened.

All IMVHO, of course.

on a scale system you cant beat a world war hey, but something tells me we will never see another ww2, vaporisation perhaps but i doubt it will be tanks and tommy guns. there are some deep threads running through the 9/11 story and some that we will never know or understand, but on face value, as mentioned they were terrorist attacks and the "good guys" retaliated through invasion and occupation, not war.

 

[Forbiddenbiker]

Yes isn't it those deep threads you mention that are part of the reason this image has become controversial? If you want opinion on your side the last thing you need is an opposing question making shot, to reawaken the rocking of the boat!

Especially if you run a country who consumes most of the oil from other counties ..most of which are 'somewhere over their' -:

 

[Dave *]

So, just as a matter of interest, what would you have foreseen happening, bearing in mind that it was a terrorist operation, and not an act of war by a state which caused 9/11?

If the US had gone after the bigger backers of Al Qaeda, it could have been much worse, imagine the situation if Pakistan had been bombed or invaded (they were as responsible and complicit as Afghanistan), Saudi Arabia? Iran? (was on George W's list), Libya? Yemen?

 

[Greywolf]

As far as the picture is concerned, what non-photographers don't always appreciate is that a photograph is a snapshot in time. A fleeting expression captured for eternity. As human beings we do not experience the world in that way. We perceive the world as something which continual changes interpreting it at any moment through the combined lenses of what has gone before and will come after. It is for that reason that candid photography is both fascinating and at the same time potentially, extremely misleading.

Assumptions about what may or may not be going on from a 1/60 second is extremely open to misinterpretation. In my opinion this photograph is an excellent example of this.

As individuals we rarely scrutinize in any depth whatsoever 1/60 second of our lives.

 

[woof woof]

So, just as a matter of interest, what would you have foreseen happening, bearing in mind that it was a terrorist operation, and not an act of war by a state which caused 9/11?

But terrorists have state backers, or do you think they act alone? Americans have short tempers and lots of bombs and missiles and Pakistan, Iran, Syria and one or two other places could have been in the cross hairs.

Others obviously disagree with me but on 9/11 I did think that the world would be lucky to escape a major war rather than the limited ones we've seen. If things had gone badly we could possibly have seen all the deaths and casualties there have been as a direct result of Iraq and Afghanistan in a single day never mind over a period of decades and there's always the remote, I hope, risk that it could have come to our liberal, enlightened and ever so slightly anti American shores.

 

[woof woof]

on a scale system you cant beat a world war hey, but something tells me we will never see another ww2, vaporisation perhaps but i doubt it will be tanks and tommy guns. there are some deep threads running through the 9/11 story and some that we will never know or understand, but on face value, as mentioned they were terrorist attacks and the "good guys" retaliated through invasion and occupation, not war.

Not war? I don't really see where you're coming from there. I can't really see how you can have an invasion that isn't a war. I don't think I imagined Gulf War II and Afghanistan. These were / are wars with British troop and tanks on the ground and planes in the air. We had thousands of troops in the gulf and AFAIK a whole armoured division. It made the news, maybe you missed it. Plus we've seen feet on the ground, air strikes and drone attacks in other countries. The key is I suppose that it didn't come here and so perhaps can be air brushed from history and the news to some extent.

 

[simonblue]

If the US had gone after the bigger backers of Al Qaeda, it could have been much worse, imagine the situation if Pakistan had been bombed or invaded (they were as responsible and complicit as Afghanistan), Saudi Arabia? Iran? (was on George W's list), Libya? Yemen?

Just be a bit careful in what you say,Pakistan backed the US in its invasion of Afghanistan after 9/11.

Before 9/11 deaths in Pakistan by terror attacks 0

Since 9/11 40 thousand & counting in terror attacks

 

[Forbiddenbiker]

...