[Catspaw]

Gee, you mean they thought George W. Bush would respond like Clinton? Talk about underestimating your enemy!

[piasa]

Osama had noted the election mess, according to reports out soon after 9/11. The impression I got from his spiel was that he seemed to think he could cause the US to sink into a civil war or undergo some sort of coup if he could inflict some casualties. I don't think he was alone in this belief. Clinton's reaction to the deaths of 18 servicement in Somalia seemed to confirm that America would cut and run if punched in the nose. I think Usama mentioned it in one of his earliest videos if not the first. He and his ilk bought into the Democrat agitprop about the 'illegitimate' presidency, and believed the administration would be weakened by the divided government, particularly with the divided Senate and party switching. They thought the government would be so divided that an attack on the US at such a time would be the straw which would break the camel's back... how could they think Bush could possibly be stronger than the popular Bill Clinton, who in Al-Qeada's experience and in the experience of other groups like Arafat's had always responded weakly if at all?

Castro evidently fell for it too, as he made his infamous 'America is weak, together Iran and Cuba can bring America to its knees' kind of line back in March 2001. He too would have a belief that America was ripe for a fall since Castro was practically a member of the Clinton administration. He knew how stupid (or bought) they were on foreign policy from personal experience.

Since in so many countries the NYTimes is considered the premier choice for news about America and for studying America, it is little wonder that these two-bit tyrants have such a shallow grasp of what this country is about. The howls and screams and incendiary remarks made down here in South Florida and from every major US press outlet during and after the Gore War war sure didn't make this country look powerful or impervious to attack. It was an invitation to attack broadcast worldwide.

We all knew that by the end of the Clinton administration military morale was at an all time low, and readiness was way down. You can bet our enemies noticed this too, and noticed the drop in training. I was suprised that we, or Taiwan didn't get attacked by someone immediately after the election, or before inaugeration day, when we would be in the worst possible shape, and I think I wasn't alone in voicing this concern on FR. When it didn't happen right then I was much relieved, but knew we wouldn't be out of the woods until some serious reform took place, and that takes time when things have been left undone for so long.

They were right in that we were not as strong or unified as we have been in the past, wrong in their timing and target selection. If they had more carefully picked their targets and style of attack they could have touched off some serious internal chaos, but then they would have had to understand the country to grasp what to do, and they would have had to be much more subtle and patient. The left wing knows how to destroy America. They have done it socially and through legal conniving for many years, steadily eroding the most essential foundation stones of this country.