Hypothetical changes to pivotal events in human history

¶ … history to change, I would pick the events of September 11, 2001. On that date, a group of terrorists attempted to humiliate the United States and all that it stands for, good and bad. As most people know, on September 11, 2001, a group of Al-Queda terrorists hijacked four different airplane flights. They had taken flying lessons. They accelerated three of the planes to very high speeds. One crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center in New York City, one crashed into the South Tower, one crashed into the Pentagon in suburban Washington D.C., and one hijacking was foiled and crashed into the countryside in Pennsylvania instead of hitting some second target in Washington D.C.

Thousands of people lost their lives that day, and those events started a new kind of worldwide war. First the United States had to attack and invade Afghanistan because the government of that country chose to allow the Al-Queda to hide and train there. Then we helped the government of the Philippine Islands eliminate terrorist groups in that country. Now it looks as if we will be going to war with Iraq, because they encourage terrorism, and since they have weapons of mass destruction, Iraq represents a threat to the rest of the world.

What could have prevented the attacks of September 11? 19 terrorists died in those attacks, and now we know that one was in custody for an immigration violation. However, it doesn't seem likely that he would have told authorities what he knew. No one had any idea why he was really in the country.

The best chance for averting this tragedy would have been if the passengers on the first plane had realized what was happening and had attempted to get control of the plane as the people in the fourth plane did. This would have been most likely to happen if someone like an FBI agent, military police or federal marshal had been on the plane. Unfortunately, until the September 11 attacks, passengers on planes had always been told to cooperate with hijackers. The history was that unless confronted, airplane hijackers could make things very unpleasant for the passengers but rarely killed people. All previous experience with hijackers in this country told us the best plan was to cooperate.

Another way the hijackings might have been thwarted could have been if the weapons used, box cutters, had been detected before the hijackers had boarded the plane. Experience is a harsh teacher, and until that day, it wasn't too hard to smuggle weapons on to airplanes.