Believe it or not, I ran across this while reading about insulin prices:
Quote:
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September 9, 2001: Ahmad Shah Massoud, commander of the Northern Alliance, an anti-Taliban coalition, is assassinated by al-Qaeda operatives. The killing of Massoud, a master of guerilla warfare known as the Lion of the Panjshir, deals a serious blow to the anti-Taliban resistance. Terrorism experts believe his assassination assured bin Laden protection by the Taliban after the 9/11 attacks. Expert Peter Bergen later calls Massoud’s assassination “the curtain raiser for the attacks on New York City and Washington, DC.”
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https://www.cfr.org/timeline/us-war-afghanistan
I can't imagine that one assassination two days before 9/11 would have prevented the attacks, but if you can ensure some premature detonation, hopefully the next 20 years would have gone smoother.
...and\or following the investments we laid out until say 1996 and then start making these:
Armor, greater mass, higher clearance, and v-shaped hulls. They cost $500,000-$1,000,000, but the U.S. bought 12,000 between 2007 and 2012, potentially costing $12 billion.
Huh.
Three hundred and fifty-eight Americans died in Afghanistan between 2001 and 2006, 117 the first year they had MRAPs, peaking at 498 in 2010.
According to CNN, "Maj. Gen. John Campbell, commander of Joint Task Force-101, ordered this week that the use of Humvee vehicles outside a military base would have to specifically be approved by a colonel"
July 1, 2010
That was two weeks before I arrived and I never saw an American drive one outside the wire.
Hopefully it would save some lives.
I like to think I would sell it for the same profit margin John C. Garand got for the M1 Garand.