I'd post a list of innocent civilians killed by the U.S. government since 9/11, but Archinect's servers would crash.

Hmm, for a war, this is pretty damn lame.

We've also:

Not caught Mullah Mohamed Omar of the Taliban

Allowed the Taliban to resurface in Afghanistan

Allowed All Qaeda to escape Afghanistan and spread terror throughout the world.

Not caught Osama Bin Laden

Invaded Iraq killing close to half-a-million people based on totally false premises

Tortured POWs in Iraq

Let Iraq become ransacked by Al Qaeda

Totally Abandoned the Israeli-Palestinian peace process

Overthrew and assassinated Yasser Arafat

Invaded and destroyed Lebanon

Completely isolated former Gulf War ally, Syria

Lost a huge ally in Pakistan based on reckless decision making

Have threatened Iran and to invade Iran

Begun to but heads with Russia


And now we've allied ourselves with Africa's biggest dictator, Muammar Gaddaffi. Some call this one of the Bush administration's rare international policy "success-stories."

is there a list of thwarted terrorist attacks from prior to 9/11? I'd be interested to see how similar they are.

Well, the 9/11 attacks were awful, but they also reinforce the importance of architecture, at least on a symbolic level.

Moral of the story: Don't design ugly skyscrapers. If they get destroyed by terrorists 30 years later, people will have to endure their likeness on all sorts of tacky graphics and merchandise.

Yamasaki literally worked himself to death on that project LiG, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

9/11 was an inside job.

There are no terrorists.

The only people you should worry about are the people in the white house.

Archmed.......
Half a Million Civilians Killed?
That's complete Bullshit.
The total number killed from Violence is no more than 96K, and an overwhelming percentage of those were killed by Insurgents and Suicide Bombers.
Get your facts straight, please.
http://www.iraqbodycount.org/

There's also the Lancet Study: http://www.thelancet.com/webfiles/images/journals/lancet/s0140673606694919.pdf

7 YEARS AND WE STILL DON'T HAVE THE BUILDING. WHY? because the government is unable or to slow to aid the complex infrastructure that needs to go ahead before the towers do...

thanks a lot fucking bush!

Poc, I meant to say 'CASUALTIES' from the sanctions, from the ensuing terrorist attacks, and from the war itself.

Anyway, most of your "sources" are likely to be bullshit since its an American source.

Actually, Yamasaki literally had cancer to death. You mean "figuratively", which is the opposite of "literally"

and

The total number killed from Violence is no more than 96K, and an overwhelming percentage of those were killed by Insurgents and Suicide Bombers.

well, how many insurgents and suicide bombers were there in Iraq before we invaded?

aww, sorry, all this bitterness is really ruining the holiday spirit.. happy 9/11 everyone!

so how long before 9/11 becomes a national holiday?

please, 12/7 is so much more meaningful.

do we really want a federal holiday commemorating the bush II failings?

I'm not sure why this is a bad thing. It would have been surprising to see the rebuilding completed in less than a decade, particularly given the sensitivities of this project and the parties involved. True haste to rebuild likely would have resulted in the construction of either an exact replica of the twin towers or else a very close copy, neither of which would have turned out well.

If anything, I still feel the rebuilding process has moved along too quickly. The initial competition was held when emotions were still too raw and thus elicited designs that were doomed to have every ounce of innovation and inspiration picked away by bean counters and security consultants. I think we'd be getting better designs if we had waited until about now to even start thinking about what should be rebuilt there.

the government is unable or to slow to aid the complex infrastructure that needs to go ahead before the towers do...

thanks a lot !@#$%^& bush!

Please cite an example of the Port Authority (owner of WTC site) asking for Federal funds for infrastructure reconstruction and being turned away by congress and/or Bush. I find that hard to believe. As I understand it, most of the delays for the "Freedom Tower" at this point are due to lack of tenants signed on to lease space in the new building.

I'm with 4arch here. Those initial competition entries screamed of the times when you were picked on as a kid and you're immediate response was to lash out and hurt the person, not step back and plan a crafty, eloquent revenge. If they had waited even a few more years before holding the design competition, I have the definate feeling that what would have emerged would have been far more beautiful, tactful and poignant.

Back to the original post, can we all agree that it's a good thing that there hasn't been any major terrorist attack on US soil since 9/11/01.

do mass shootings count?

holtz, i know what you mean. That was a terrorist incident in my book too.

I think because of the absolute bullshit the media is, we've been hoodwinked to think of terrorism as something that can only be done by crazed Islamic fanatics.

When a Korean-American goes into classrooms and shoots 33 people and maims dozens more, that is considered to be a "school shooting" by a "lone-gunman."

Bullshit.

It's terrorism.

terrorism: the systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion...

so what is the the systematic use of fear tactics especially as a means of coercion?

or what about this ad (just as one example)? an attack ad using terror... sounds like a terrorist attack to me.

and i know this has been said many times before, but as tragic as the loss of life that day was, what does this have to do with freedom? why not something even like the Memorial Tower. something as trite as being called the Freedom Tower can never be poignant, respectful or meaningful. the tower, after all, is an office building, not a memorial, and certainly not an overture to "freedom". the memorial should be a restrained, respectful place and the tower should be a well-designed office building. neither should have anything to say about so-called freedom.

LOLZ, that sounds like the U.S. media - government complex!

seems like a bunch of architects and engineers think we should re-investigate the whole situation to begin with

they're losers dealing in myth making, and not truth telling.

around 400,000 people in the U.S. die from obesity not to mention any type of cancer. That is huge compared to how many die from terrorism! How many really died from terrorism in the U.S. since 9/11? Yet we put all this money and effort to protect us from terrorist and no money from the threat that kills more people annually.

Even smoking kills around 450,000 people a year, we know it does, yet nobody does anything about it.

I'm going to have a cigarette now....

there's of course a slight difference between somebody committing suicide by cigarette or Big Mac and being blown to pieces...

Yes random,
I was just naming something stupid that is dwarfed by cancer deaths where the research money is wasted on some illusions.

you people act like deaths are a bad thing. what we really need is too invent some more deadly bad habits. smoking & obesity are good (and good for the economy too!), but can't we think of anything else? where's the innovation in america these days?

*876 why should there be any resources waisted on peoples voluntary possibly lethal behaviour, if you want to stuff yourself or smoke yourself to death go right ahead, more room for me, I'll take your job too while you're in the hospital coughing your lungs out or having your legs amputated after diabetes caused by your obese behaviour.

I'm not sure if you get it, but there are other cancers out there that have higher death tolls than smoking caused deaths or obesity deaths and the funding for that is lacking, while its wasted on other things. Sorry I have to repeat myself.

I'm sorry that you have to hope for somebody to get hospitalized in order for you to get a job hehe.

*876 clearly we don't share the same sense of humour

it's your own personal choice to have an unhealthy lifestyle, and I know there are other cancers that are not self-induced, but it's not your own personal choice to have two airplanes fly into your office on a sunny day in Autumn.

i don't how anyone missed this, but the intial posting:

richard reid's plot wasn't 'thwarted' by the goverment. he tried to light his friggin shoe and was subdued by passengers on the plane..

Car accidents kill more people and injure more people than smoking does.

Also, car accidents comprise a much larger strain on medical and governmental resources than smoking does. Not just only the significant loss of usefulness of a person and a drop in tax revenue, but one most consider all of the lawsuits, insurance regulation and so on.

I see a lot of people quick to blame smoking and use it as a scapegoat as a "problem with society" but I don't see anyone else hastily targeting the car!

Current tobacco legislation is also upsetting. They unfairly targeted flavors and used the "protecting children" defense. Oddly enough, most of the flavors brought up were flavors used in tobacco products that are geared toward obvious marijuana use.

In reality, if anyone really wants to point any blame... we should look at ourselves.

America was supposedly a country of gentlemen and morals... yet, we've won nearly every war we fought by fighting dirty. We modernized guerrilla warfare, we've refused to fight a "good fight," and we have dealt some really low genital-punching blows.

Now... we're complaining about savagery and unfair warfare tactics? Sorry, I can't really sympathize with a country crying about terrorism when it not only refused to fight "the old fashion way" but actually encourages others to fight dirty.

I'm pretty sure Genghis Khan fought cleaner wars than we do.