To me, Tom Clancy was a visionary. He predicted 9/11 seven years before it happened. He did this by writing a fictional story (Debt of Honor) about a pilot that uses his plane as a weapon to attack a joint session of Congress. This warned us about the risk of passenger jets being used as giant missiles. It's not his fault we didn't pay attention.

An airline pilot doing it is much different than 9/11. 9/11 was easily preventable by locking cabin doors. A rogue pilot cant be effectively prevented.

Though one wonders that if Bin Laden had “only” targeted the US Congress like in the book, whether he would have become an American hero instead.

United States did not have any decent standardized security protocols prior to 9/11.

Or perhaps he didn't predict it, but created it by writing about it. Life often imitates art.

What a trash article. Its a puff opinion piece on the writers agenda with little credible comment.

I presume the people who upvoted this garbage either upvoted for the word tom clancy.

> The 9/11 attack in the U.S.? Provoked by US involvement in the Middle East—especially the bases it maintained in Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, and especially Saudi Arabia, home to the Kaaba at Mecca—and its support for Israel. The vast majority of attacks on Americans, i.e., in Iraq and Afghanistan, after 2001 and 2003? We were engaged in a military occupation in those countries. Terrorism is bad, and we should want to stop it, but if you’re looking for the stuff you need to resolve to ‘win’ the War on Terror, there you are.

clearly demonstrated by the afghan mujahideen’s PR line taking credit for defeating the USSR after their withdrawal

Answer from the writer: Let's allow as many refugees as possible and give them free stuff. That will stop terrorism. Should this garbage even be on HN?

We already allowed hundreds of millions of refugees, and the US prospered. Almost all of people willing to uproot themselves and family to move half way across the world for a better life aren’t here to cause trouble.

To reject immigration over terrorism that kills fewer Americans than either sharp objects or animal attacks is pure cowardice. And I say this as someone whose sister was murdered by an illegal immigrant.