We should have insisted that the government respond to the attempt to knock over the two buildings in 1993, with the fervor that we belatedly demanded after 911. We all knew what was in their minds, when we saw the extent of that parking garage damage. We had the capability to envision the devastation that they wished to wreak. The energy spent on rooting out newly discovered terrorists, and finding all their connections, should be the same, whether or not he succeeds in his mission.
What I've learned from the 93 bombing, is that when a sniper misses a family member, you don't then treat the sniper and his cult any less ruthlessly than you would have if he had killed the family member. You treat him and his insane cult just as if he/they had succeeded the first time. We the people let clinton get away with not taking the MohamMadmen seriously, partly because we thought that the buildings could never be made to come down. Our idiots in government whose job it is to outthink the terrorists let us down the same way the captain of the Titanic ignored the ice warnings. I guess the people on the Titanic were not to blame for that, but the analogy breaks down when you consider that they didn't elect their captain.