See, they wanted symbolic targets - the Pentagon, and the WTC towers count, as does Washington DC (the probable target of the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania). But they weren't seeking to kill people, directly. In fact, they chose the time of attack with the greatest proportion of symbolic damage to the amount of deaths: The early morning.
See, both the pentagon and the WTC weren't exactly filled up, as they would have been a mere 3 or 4 hours later. The later in the day, the higher the casualties.
So why not do it at night, when people wouldn't be killed? After all, if you want a lower death count, then that would be best.
That's where media impact and the message that they were trying to send comes in. If you attacked when it was dark, then none of those powerful, scarring images of the WTC towers burning would have been able to be seen. Al-Quada didn't know the towers would fall (Osama was the most optimistic in positing that the tops might fall off), so the lasting damage would be limited to nasty, fire-gutted holes in the tops of the towers.
So daylight so that the American people can see what they did, and yet morning to avoid unnecessary deaths.
It's interesting that you point that out, really. None of my classes ever talked about the specificity of the timing of the attacks. (Really none of my classes talked about the attacks At All, but hey.) I never thought about why exactly they chose those targets beyond just that they were rather major ones to hit. Thanks for posting this.
ReplyDeleteThe play we're doing in my Theory and Practices of the Theatre class? About 9/11...because we're AMERICANS and so it's EXTRA MEANINGFUL for us. Yes, that's important and all, but...it's bloody depressing, and I'm not in Spain to be depressed about the US.
ReplyDeleteAlso it keeps almost making me cry in class, which I do enough of already.
Also they had Ernesto for the class last term. Mar is alright, but she's nowhere near as fun or interesting as Ernesto is.
Oh well, at least I'm doing theatre!