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.
Walking back the Bush defense, are we NRO?
NR stands for National RINO.
Not in evidence, National Review, but thanks for the pontificating guess.
How the mighty have fallen...
Yep... 2,688 days worth of safe. Trump's friend Bill Clinton didn't come close to that string.
RE: NR stands for National RINO.
Could you please deal with the arguments of the article instead? Thanks.
Clinton failed way before 9/11.
The Clintons knew.
“He’s asking Americans to believe that he would have brought a post–September 11 mindset”
I completely disagree with that statement. I would say a “preventative’ mindset would be more accurate. A ‘proactive’ mindset even.
Gee, wonder what Brainiac French accuses Hillary’s detractors of when it comes to Benghazi...
Fail.
and that should be the conversation to tie hillary to the disaster- never mind the fact she couldn’t keep four people at an American embassy safe- how’s she going to protect 300 million??
WFB just turned over in his grave......for the 1012th time : )
Trump would have slammed the border shut and instigated an immediate review of all Saudi Visa's that had been issue over the last 5 years. And he would have removed the communication firewall that Clinton/Gorelick had built between the various U.S. intel agencies.
Check this out... Over A Year Before 9/11, Trump Wrote Of Terror Threat With Remarkable Clarity
In any argument about 9/11, if the name Jamie Gorelick is not brought up, then the author is either ignorant of the whole situation or they are a liar.
All of 9/11 can be laid at her feet and what she did to protect Bill Clinton form his actions in England. Even the 9/11 commission wanted her to recuse herself from the commission so they could ask her questions about 9/11, which she did not do.
quote “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”
um...
None of that is needed!
The laws are already on the books! They just are not being enforced.
Trump as usual is RIGHT!
Bill launched cruise missles at a Baby Formula factory
Yeah, the Clintons knew but they were busy selling stuff to China
Thats why their buddy Jamie Gorelick built the Chinese Wall,and operational method to keep Intelligence agencies from collaborating and sharing info
David French. Last name says it all..white flag waver.
If Trump launches executive orders and stops holding back the enforcement of laws already on the books, he will show people how quickly something good can be performed.
Trump won’t give a care when people whine, “But those are all NICE illegals you are arresting and sending back.”
I am SO TIRED of this constant political correctness, working as adult peer pressure, which makes enforcing anything right virtually impossible.
“The Clintons knew.”
If anyone calls you a liar here’s the doc that Osama bin Laden can tell them himself that the Clintons not only knew but were the ones making the preparations for the attacks.
CTC at West Point’s Harmony Database doc#AFGP-2002-600321.
I don’t know where you can get a copy of the doc since Bush took down the Harmony Database once he found out OBL was putting his finger on the Clintons heads as being behind the terrorist attacks since the 1993 WTC bombing.
And, imagine how much worse it would have been with an AlGore presidency!
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