“Re: What Was The Terrorists' Intent?”

I doubt they really gave any serious consideration as to 'how much' damage they might cause.

Think about it, had they just hit the towers, would it have done less of a job of getting attention drawn to themselves? They wanted to blow them up the first time. Starting at the basement makes you figure they wanted them to fall.

Simple physics indicates that if you cause a building's stress factors to change, it's very likely you'll make it fall down. It's like kicking the leg out from under a stool while someone heavy is on it. It's very likely to topple.

The towers would still have been uninhabitable had they just been hit by the planes. Repairing them would have been next to impossible. Condemning them and knocking them down would have been required. It would have left this ugly, garish scar on the skyline. It also would have required us to knock down our own building. Perhaps a bit of symbolism could be found there?

Had they just bombed the building they might have garnered a less hostile reaction. But the fact they hijacked civilians on 4 different planes virtually guarantees an extreme response. It's perhaps a good question to ask whether they wanted an extreme, difficult to negotiate response.

-Bill Kearney