"We are fortunate that this nation did not experience any major foreign or domestic crisis during the Clinton presidency."
Uh, did you not see the newspaper reports about Waco or Oklahoma City or the first bombing of the WTC in 1993?
It WAS there, Clinton just blew it off and President Bush and America are STILL paying for that...
Wait, let me rephrase that-
;-)
The first was the result of overreaction on the part of the FBI and the other Federal agencies. Overreaction is nothing new; you can go back to the Wounded Knee massacre in 1890, where US cavalrymen massacred unarmed Indians or the police assaults on peaceful civil rights marchers in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1962, to witness other instances. In 1999, there was the predawn paramilitary assault by Federal LEOs in Miami to seize Elian Gonzales, to take this refugee boy to the loving embrace of Fidel Castro. Lawmen and soldiers sometimes go over the top, and the Branch Davidian case is another example of overkill.
As for the Oklahoma City case, Nichols and McVeigh may or may not have been tied to Middle Eastern terrorists. But they were tied to domestic radicals, the white supremacists of Elohim City. There is a long history of terrorist activity on the part of domestic dissidents: anarchist, Marxist, white supremacist, pro-labor, anti-labor, etc. We can go back to the Haymarket Square bombing in 1886 by anarchists that killed eight Chicago policemen. Anarchists assassinated William McKinley and attempted to assassinate both Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt. During the 1960s and 1970s, Marxist groups like the Black Panthers, the Weathermen, and the Symbionese Liberation Army committed numerous terroristic acts, burning ROTC facilities and bank buildings, for exanple. The Ku Klux Klan also engaged in terrorism during the 1950s and 1960s, most notably the killing of three civil rights workers in Mississippi. The Oklahoma City bombing, like the Branch Davidian situation, was tragic, but in line with a long pattern.
As for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, this was an act of international terror. However, it was poorly executed and did minimal damage. The 9-11 assault, on the other hand, was well planned and almost flawlessly executed. It involved 19 trained men, with very good communication, access to large amounts of cash, and effective planning. In comparison, the 1993 bombers were basically do-it-yourself terrorists.
You are correct in saying that the Clinton Administration took the threat of terrorism too lightly, even after the bombing of the USS Cole in 2000. Their negligence did contribute to the 9-11 tragedy.