Posted on 10/20/2015 8:47:48 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
It is a simple and undeniable fact that the American national-security apparatus failed on September 11, 2001. How do we know? Because al-Qaeda succeeded in carrying out the bloodiest, most devastating attack on American soil in our nation’s history. The military, law enforcement, and intelligence assets tasked with preventing just such an attack failed. The political leaders who ultimately determine our national defense priorities failed. To state this rather obvious fact doesn’t make one a “truther.” It does not in any way imply that George W. Bush or any other American politician was complicit in the attacks or didn’t do the best he could with the information at hand. A leader can care deeply, seek with his whole heart to protect Americans, and still fail. After all, the enemy always gets a vote.
On September 11, George W. Bush failed. But the failure, of course, was not his alone. Two successive administrations failed to treat al-Qaeda as an enemy capable of inflicting catastrophic damage in America’s cities. Two successive administrations initiated and maintained policies that, quite obviously, failed to deter al-Qaeda, detect its specific plans, or locate its individual terrorists. Yes, there were ample warnings that al-Qaeda was a deadly foe — the 1998 embassy bombings and the 2000 near-sinking of the U.S.S. Cole raised alarm bells throughout the national-security establishment — but when the extent of the damage on September 11 surprised even Osama bin Laden, it’s safe to say that American leaders did not comprehend our true peril.
So when Donald Trump disputes Jeb Bush’s characterization that his brother “kept us safe,” he’s simply stating facts. The American civilian death toll to terrorism was higher under George W. Bush than for any American president before or since. George W. Bush no more “kept us safe” than Franklin Roosevelt kept America secure on December 7, 1941, when we suffered arguably our most catastrophic military defeat, losing most of the surface striking power of the U.S. Pacific fleet in one devastating surprise attack.
But it’s one thing for Trump to state facts, it’s another thing entirely for him to claim that he would have prevented the 9/11 attacks. On Fox News Sunday, he declared, “I believe that if I were running things, I doubt those families would have — I doubt that those people would have been in the country.” Oh, really?
This statement is simply stunning. He’s asking Americans to believe that he would have brought a post–September 11 mindset to a nation that had not suffered a catastrophic foreign attack on the mainland since the War of 1812 and that he would have been able to draft, pass through Congress, and fully enforce a comprehensive new approach to immigration by the summer of 2001. He’s asking us to believe that he would have then caught the terrorists who had already been let in the country under the old immigration regime. He’s asking us to believe that his mere presence alone would have caused the State Department bureaucracy to suddenly become competent.
After all, in 2002, National Review obtained 15 of the 19 hijackers’ visa applications and discovered that none of them had been completed properly. None of them should have been approved. In other words, existing systems should have prevented the hijackers’ entry into the United States. They failed because people failed — people living in a pre–September 11 world who never imagined lower Manhattan shrouded in smoke and flames, with thousands of their fellow citizens dying in the ruin and the rubble.
The tragedy isn’t that Donald Trump wasn’t in charge in 2001 — the tragedy is that we still haven’t learned from defeat, that we still don’t adequately track visa overstays, that we still don’t enforce our immigration laws, and that our border is still absurdly porous. The truly damaging critique of George W. Bush — indeed, of both parties — is that not only did our national-security establishment fail to protect us on September 11 but that it still hasn’t learned the right lessons about immigration policy.
After September 11, President Bush did, in fact, keep us safe — in part by pursuing an aggressive military strategy that put our troops front and center in the Middle East, striking terrorists where they live. He also implemented surveillance measures of extraordinary breadth and depth — measures President Obama continued and expanded. But if we pull back from the Middle East, if we roll back our electronic surveillance, and if our border remains laughably insecure, then how will we defend our nation? Through magical thinking, happy thoughts, and festive Ramadan meals at the White House?
Yes, the Bush administration failed on September 11. No, there’s no real evidence a President Trump would have fared any better. And neither of those statements should be the least bit controversial or relevant for the 2016 election. The real issue is far more practical: Which candidate is best equipped to drag the entire national-defense apparatus — including (but not limited to) our immigration system — into the post–September 11, post-ISIS reality? Which candidate is best equipped to learn from the undeniable mistakes of the past and change the unjustifiable foolishness of the present?
Trump’s best argument is that he’s learned from the past, but the past also teaches us that hubris can be just as deadly as incompetence. Let’s change course, but let’s not pretend that any leader can guarantee American security.
— David French is an attorney, a staff writer at National Review, and a veteran of the Iraq War.
I read it yesterday. The writer assumes that Trump would not have mandated the law be followed regarding visa applications, so would also shared the same level of culpability Bush owns. A quite flawed assumption given what we now know about Trumps expectation of further attacks after the 1993 WTC bombing.
“After all, in 2002, National Review obtained 15 of the 19 hijackers’ visa applications and discovered that none of them had been completed properly. None of them should have been approved. In other words, existing systems should have prevented the hijackers’ entry into the United States.”
That statement:
1.) Contradicts what Rush said yesterday about most of the hijackers being here legally.
2.) Contradicts his assertion that Trump would not have had time to go to Congress and get new immigration legislation, when in fact no new legislation would have been needed.
3.) Other than the Trump bashing, a fairly decent article from French for a change. Rich Lowery will not be pleased.
Aside from the issue of the illegals who have invaded this country, I think Trump would have done a much better job of keeping track of the people who come into this country legally. Once they get here it seems there is no effort to monitor their status and activities. That is a huge problem with national security implications. It has to be fixed.
Unfortunately presidents of both parties have allowed unchecked immigration. Democrats want more voters and Republicans want more cheap labor.
Similar to getting a legitimate drivers license despite a fraudulent application.
Actually, the fact that the FBI and CIA got rewarded for their incompetence and that not one bureaucrat got prosecuted guarantees that another attack will occur. And Homeland Security is a joke. I’ve seen the Homeland Security fools at the airports. They inspire no confidence in anything except proving that Krispy Kremes are part of the HS daily regimen.
Author contends that Trump is disingenuous because he claims he would have done what the law requires but wasn’t being done by by a POTUS who knew it wasn’t being done and should have been done but didn’t do it anyway, and because that POTUS wasn’t doing it the author thinks Trump wouldn’t have done it either even though Trump wrote in depth a year before that it should be done and he would do it if he were POTUS. Wait, what?
19 months before 9/11 Trump warned of a huge potential terrorist attack......
I posted a similar thread - I did not see that other post. Thanks for the link.
I think it’s a waste of time and energy to speak of 9.11 - it’s what transpired from 9.12 on that is the real travesty.
Even if anyone gives Bush/Cheney/Rice a pass, the fact that the borders were intentionally left unguarded and our Constitutional rights systematically taken away, along with a new wave of political correctness should be the focus of our angst.
Not to mention the thousands of America’s best killed or maimed, and ignored by the VA is itself an outrage.
Would he now? We’re all so wise in hindsight.
The Donald is certainly happy to trumpet all the things he would have done, informed with that hindsight.
NRO.....That is the biggest bunch of smelly freshly laid pile of poop I have ever had the misfortune of running into....
You lying media idiots need to find a life worth living, because if some intelligence every came around, you would run with your ‘pink laced panties’ in a wad!!!
TRUMP!!! ALL THE WAY TO THE OVAL OFFICE!!! (and don’t doubt it)
Trump is friends with everybody it seems
I do not buy it. While we know how soft the libs are on immigration, the Republicans are in the same kettle. There has been a lot of talk, and that’s all it’s been of building a wall for twenty or more years, and nothing has been done about it. The wall is a symbol of where their true intent has been on immigration. Whether it is their weak visa policy or physically building a barrier over the border, the parties have been film flaming the America public for decades. When the ‘chickens came home to roost’ with 9/11 they refuse to take blame and point their finger at the other party. This is one of the prime reasons why the American public is sick and tired and fed up with hearing this crap being pitched by both parties.
Let’s not forget Sandy Berger’s little “document borrowing” expedition from the National Archives...
Who knows - besides him - what he took that pointed the finger at his former boss....
“- how’s she going to protect 300 million?”
Short answer - Herself, Madame Benghazi, the Cold & Joyless, will not protect any such number.
Herself immediately goes into bunker mentality, and rises like the Sphynx on television screens, demanding fealty and unending tribute from the few remaining, that have been neither killed in conflict nor sentenced to the domestic gulags.
There is no contradiction. All had approved visas. The pilots were here since 2000. Some visas had expired. It was an intelligence and bureaucratic failure. And it will happen again, Trump or no Trump.
What a shame in a way. NRO used to be a pretty good site. Now that it has become one of the spokesmouths for the uniparty; I guess I will have to go elsewhere for info.
“Would he now? We’re all so wise in hindsight.”
Hindsight? Trump predicted a 911 type event 19 months before it occurred.
Pure speculation.
I stand corrected.
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