Posted on 04/10/2004 5:11:54 AM PDT by kattracks
The National Commission on Terrorist Acts Upon the United States ostensibly has been exploring how the deadly Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks could have happened and how they could have been prevented. In light of national security adviser Condoleezza Rice's testimony Thursday, I, like so many others, have figured out an easy answer: Get the panel to construct a time machine so that all those geniuses who now believe that Sept. 11 easily could have been averted can wave a magic wand and reinvent the past.
That's sort of what is going on anyway. Some commissioners seem to have forgotten what life was like before the Sept. 11 attacks. They're ignoring the fact that the security policies made sense and fit the circumstances, until the circumstances changed. And they're ready to point fingers at Rice and President Bush for not pushing for changes that America never would have accepted until after Sept. 11.
Rice began her testimony by citing terrorist incidents that pre-dated the Bush presidency. These included the half-blundered bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993, attacks on U.S. installations in Saudi Arabia in 1995 and 1996, the bombing of two U.S. embassies in Africa in 1998 and the 2000 attack on the destroyer Cole. The Clinton administration responded to these attacks by relying on local law enforcement -- New York and Saudi Arabian -- and the occasional aerial bombing.
It is now clear that the Clinton response was inadequate. Law enforcement couldn't stop al Qaeda from plotting more violence. The military didn't get lucky and take out al Qaeda. Instead, feckless bombings contributed to the legend of an Osama bin Laden who could laugh at America's high-tech weaponry.
That's why, Rice testified, President Bush came to dismiss the Clinton approach as "swatting flies." Too bad it turned out that the Bush response to the Cole attack -- to not swat flies while trying to woo Pakistan -- was inadequate, too.
But in the context of the times, it is not realistic to have expected more from either administration. No one with a memory would suggest that President Clinton could have been considerably tougher on al Qaeda. While the losses at the embassies in Africa were deplorable, al Qaeda had not inflicted enough damage to outrage the American public to the point where voters would accept boots on the ground.
Ditto after the Cole. If Bush had called for war within months of taking office, after a bitter election finale, critics would have called him a warmonger and warned darkly that he was only fueling the fires of Muslim martyrdom. The outrage wasn't there. He would have failed.
Simply put, the death toll hadn't hit the tipping point.
Commissioner Bob Kerrey, the former Democratic senator from Nebraska, has been the man to watch during the commission hearings. Kerrey has been tough on both administrations. And unlike almost everyone else in Washington, Kerrey was pushing for a military response to the Cole attack -- against Iraq, no less -- when it wasn't a popular move. You have to respect the man and his convictions.
That said, Kerrey's not being realistic if he thinks Bush could have won support for a military response -- other than ineffective aerial bombings -- to the Cole. It was hard enough for Bush to win support after al Qaeda thugs attacked Washington and New York, killing 3,000 people and leaving a smoking hole in the American landscape.
That's what makes the whole exercise of the commission hearings so revolting.
Critics who fault Bush for being pre-emptive on Iraq do not hesitate to fault Bush for not being pre-emptive when it came to attacks that were unexpected and unimagined. Some behave as if they believe the president is supposed to be a superhero who can smell threats, including risks that intelligence staffers haven't been able to pinpoint.
Kerrey faulted the Bushies for having a phobia about their "m-word" -- mistake. Granted, Bush League has been too slow to release information, too defensive and not very savvy in its refusal to simply say that the administration wishes it had known more and acted on it.
The Bushies also can't come out and say what everyone knows -- that America was too busy, too happy and too peace-loving to pounce on al Qaeda.
It's an old story that a country's strengths are its weaknesses. It is a national strength that Americans are reluctant to go to war. It is right that America has been slow to use its unmatched clout as a club to bend others to our will. It is just and admirable that the world's most powerful nation has to be provoked before it counterattacks.
It was an approach that worked. Until it didn't.
©2004 Creators Syndicate, Inc.
5.56mm
While I agree that the commission is looking to blame the Bush Administration, I am hoping that in the final report, the entire commission is going to have to admit that there was no specific intelligence that was missed.
Instead, the pieces of information were scattered and could not be conencted due to the restrictions placed on our intelligence services.
Of course it's political. Nothing ever happens unless someone has a political interest in doing it. It still needs to be done, regardless.
Who's "we"? We the people of course didn't know. But I'm not going to assume that the administration had no way of knowing just because they said they had no way of knowing.
What needs to be done, a witch hunt? Because that's what this is. If the Dims were really interested in what went wrong and why, they would delve just as deeply, and ask just as many questions, of the clinton admin. who had eight years more time at this the the Bush admin. did. The Dims on this commission took this opportunity to make a difference and threw it away in favor pf partisan politics.
I believe a number of things that had to be done, have been done, by the Bush admin.
And they're still working at making it better.
The "friendly" opposition has been a great check and balance has has stopped extremism from taking hold of our government.
That being said, the point of this article (and the crux of the whole debate, IMO) is:
Even if there very credible intelligence that a domestic attack from the sky was being planned, what preemptive steps would our people and our "friendly" opposition would have found acceptable?Even now, after the events of 9-11, Zogby and CAIR are howling...the ACLU is howling...heck...some folks on Free Republic are howling on the intrusions on privacy that the administration deems necessary.
No ...Ms. Saunders is right.
Our very system would not have allowed the prevention of 9-11.
Messy as it is, yes, provided there are any witches to be hunted. We'll find out as the thing progresses.
Right now, I'm not all that concerned about it not being sufficiently "balanced" towards both parties. Nothing will ever get done if we're constantly hung up of matters of abstract fairness. Life isn't always fair, especially in politics.
And few people are criticizing the administration now for not having sufficiently invaded anyone's privacy before 9/11. The criticisms are mostly about staying on top of information that was already available to their intelligence services. If they had, it's possible that they might not need to be invading people's privacy now.
But this wasn't supposed to be about politics. Remember how we were constantly told that?
But I'm happy to see that you finally realize this is all about politics.
Of course. Politicians always say that no matter what the issue is.
But I'm happy to see that you finally realize this is all about politics.
It's certainly driven by politics. But that doesn't mean no good will come of it. All I care about right at the moment is seeing the administration forced to come clean on what happened. I don't particularly care who's doing the forcing, or why.
Forced to come clean? That sounds as if you've already made up your mind that they have something to come clean about. They have provided testimony under oath. They will produce the memo in question. There has been no smoking gun found, except in the minds of the media and the Dims. What is happening now is not a search for the truth, but a partisan attempt to place the blame for 9/11 with the Bush administration. And you seem to agree with the tactics being used.
It's quite apparent where your sympathies lie, and it has nothing to do with the truth.
The Commission on Terrorism's job is not to find guilt. They are supposed to be using the information they gather, the hindsight-is-20/20-oh-I-see-now-how-the-dots-connect data, to prevent another attack by terrorists on U.S. soil.
I was right across the bridge in Brooklyn on 9/11/01 and lost a good friend. He was on the 110th floor right under the broadcast antenna that was made into a flagpole. I saw the smoke and watched the buildings tumble. I had an appointment in Manhattan the morning of 9/11 that would've taken me in the subway under the WTC but providence possibly saved my life when that appointment got cancelled. I grieved for a long time afterward. In fact, I will probably never "get over" it because it changed my life forever.
President Bush took action that others feared in this stupid politically correct society that grew long and tangled roots during the eight years of the Clinton administration. You are ignoring a lot of information (such as the lack of sharing intel by various agencies) and while you say you "don't care who's doing the forcing, or why" the attitude that comes across in your words is one of presupposition of wrongdoing, especially by the Bush administration.
It doesn't necessarily mean they're guilty of anything. It only means they need to tell us everything about what they knew up to that point, without hemming and hawing, without evading questions, without trying to stall. If in fact they are being fully cooperative, then fine. But I'm simply not going to be impressed by protestations that Clinton did the same thing, or that the Democrats are being too partisan, or whatever other irrelevancies.
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