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Feelings

117 comments on Feelings

Feelings
: Scott Rosenberg objects to my response to his praise for the Clarke apology. (My original post here; his here.) He said the apology filled a void in the national psyche; I said this isn’t about feelings, it’s war. Rosenberg today:

But surely war is one of the most emotionally intense experiences humankind has created. And how can we talk about “life and death” as if there are no “feelings” involved? What could be more emotional?

Tell me about it. I know those feelings well; my life has not been and will not be the same since surviving that day. I feel those feelings. And that’s why I object to Clarke exploiting them to make his rhetorical brownie points: I’ll apologize on behalf of the entire frigging U.S. government to make them look bad and me look good and you feel good. Crap.

Rosenberg goes further:

That doesn’t mean Bush couldn’t have stepped forward and admitted the obvious — that 9/11 represented a colossal failure of the American government to protect the American people. How could it not be? And why is it so hard just to say so and move on? Why did it take 2 1/2 years for any official to be able to bring him or herself to the point of uttering this plain fact?

Well, first, because it’s not a plain fact: There is no clear proof that anyone in any recent administration could have stopped this. Second, again, because these attacks were in no way our fault. Don’t ever forget that.

: (A different) Scott adds in the comments: Imagine if, instead of his Day of Infamy speech, FDR had gone on the radio to apologize for f’ing up and letting the Japanese bombers through to Pearl Harbor.

And and at that, these days, others would say that’s not enough; we should have understood the frustrations of the Japanese and Germans over their cramped living space and their jealousy at all our space and how we brought this on ourselves.

Am I becoming clear yet, Scott R? This is war. It’s not an encounter session. It’s war.

117 responses to “Feelings”

  1. N.Z. Bear Avatar
    N.Z. Bear

    I completely agree that the attacks were in no way our fault, and that should never be lost.
    But, there’s a difference between saying that the attacks were our fault, and acknowledging that some people who’s job it is to prevent such things failed at doing their jobs — and should at a minimum apologies, or, preferably, be fired.
    This is the drum Glenn has been beating for two years, and I tend to agree with him. George Tenet, having spanned both administrations, is the obvious candidate who should have gone immediately, but I’m sure there are many others…
    -NZB

  2. MrAcheson Avatar
    MrAcheson

    I recall something Jeff Cooper said about trials. Better to tried in a military court than a civil court because the military court wants to find out what happened and the civil court wants to place blame. This 9/11 commission is not about finding out what happened. We already know that. Its about placing blame.

  3. MattS Avatar
    MattS

    Second, again, because these attacks were in no way our fault. Don’t ever forget that.
    Well, yes that’s true, in the same sense that murder is not the fault of the state, but the fault of the murderers. Yet voters don’t hesitate to hold politicians ‘responsible’ if they don’t put enough cops on the street.
    This is obvious. We had strong warnings of these attacks, warnings stronger than Clinton had when his administration prevented the millenium attacks through better information sharing among top officials.
    Does this mean that 9/11 could have been prevented? I don’t know, and it’s really a moot point. But the government failed in some sense in that it did not protect us when it should have.

  4. anne.elk Avatar
    anne.elk

    There is no way that 9-11 could have been prevented. The CIA did a bang-up job. The FBI did a bang-up job. The current administration did a bang-up job. Immigration did a bang-up job. Airport Security did a bang-up job.
    We must remember there is nothing these folks could have done to better integrate and understand the information they already had, or to implement procedures that already had in place, or to better discover and put a stop to terrorists in the first place. The two towers were destined to fall, even in the very first pages.
    And all of these entities have been entirely forthcoming. And no one in these entities have been trying to protect their jobs since then, or their budgets. Or their elected positions.
    This commission is a fraud. It is about a cover up. Not to find out how to better protect my kids or your son, but to place blame. It is not about discovering how to reform these agencies, or how to better our defense, but to place blame.
    There is nothing for anyone to apologize for, and it would be absurd for the US Government to pay funds to victims of 9/11 for their losses that no one is responsible for.

  5. Scott Avatar
    Scott

    Yeah, I’m just imagining what a grand speach it would have been if instead of talking of a ‘Day of Infamy’ FDR had instead performed a big mea culpa. Poppycock!

  6. John Avatar
    John

    I won’t go as far as saying nothing could be done to prevent that specific attack, but in terms of attacking the problem at its source — the al-Qaida camps and the Taliban in Afghanistan in order to short circuit the terror network’s ability to carry out major attacks — you’d have to live in fantasyland to think anything could have been done before 9/11 by the United States to solve that problem.
    The only way Clinton was able to go into Kosovo was to pretty much promise that U.S. combat efforts would be limited to bombing from 40,000 feet and sending in troops to areas that already had been to a great extent pacified. That’s not a knock on Clinton, he did what 99.9 percent of all U.S. politicians (Bush included) would have done in the same situation, because before 9/11 the American public would not have tolerated a major action in a far off country without the justfication for an attack being made clear.
    Bush certainly doesn’t have the verbal dexterity to have explained the rationale for a pre-emptive strike, and neither would Clinton despite all his polish, but 250 million Americans watching two 110-story towers collapse on a dozen different channels did provide that justification.
    What the government can do to prevent terrorism changed on Sept. 11, and if you believe the reports today about what al-Qaida operations chief Khalid Shaikh Mohammed is saying, the attacks carried out in response to the WTC and Pentagon deaths were effective in stopping further attacks planned on U.S. soil. Sniping over who did what during a campaign season is pretty routing, if depressing on a subject as serious as 9/11, but stopping future attacks should be what people are focused on, not trying to put a D or R tag on the blame for what happened 2 1/2 years ago.

  7. anne.elk Avatar
    anne.elk

    Yes can you imagine how bizarre it would have been if the greatest generation had created a Joint Committee on the Investigation of the Pearl Harbor Attack? How odd it would be to find that the first investigation of the attack started on December 9, 1941 and the NINTH investigation released its findings May 23, 1946!

  8. shark Avatar
    shark

    MattS.- But the government failed in some sense in that it did not protect us when it should have.
    If you get mugged, do you expect the police to apologize to you?

  9. MattS Avatar
    MattS

    If you get mugged, do you expect the police to apologize to you?
    If the police chief had warning that I was about to be mugged and didn’t bother to send over a patrol car, absolutely.

  10. MB Avatar
    MB

    If the police chief had warning that I was about to be mugged and didn’t bother to send over a patrol car, absolutely.
    But, what if the police had only gotten a non-specific warning that someone was about to be mugged? IMO, that would be a more accurate analogy of what happened.

  11. Sydney Carton Avatar
    Sydney Carton

    The problem with many on the left is, they refuse, absolutely refuse, to believe that this is war.
    That kinda thinking in a war gets you killed.

  12. MattS Avatar
    MattS

    MB,
    MB,
    Well when you start stretching metaphors they get dumb real quick.
    Sydney,
    The problem with you is that you say things like ‘many people on the left…’ Care to define an actual person? Or does Richard Clarke, Bush’s former Counterterrorism Advisor and registered Republican, not take the war on terror seriously?

  13. ken Avatar
    ken

    Not that he’s to be trusted, but according to Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, Al Qaeda had planned a second wave of attacks, targeting the West Coast for after 9/11. Seems the government responded pretty well to me, all things considered.
    Jeff, thanks for this post. I immediately thought of you when I saw the Yahoo! headline about Some 9/11 Families Praise Clarke’s Apology. I felt like screaming, “Yeah, well some of them think his apology is a steaming pile of…” Well, you get the picture.

  14. Dinosaur Avatar
    Dinosaur

    When the hijackers used there own names to get on planes, and those names were known by the US Gov’t as Al Quaida members, an apology is in order.

  15. Arnold Williams Avatar
    Arnold Williams

    Richard Clarke apologized for something that he could not have prevented, and that the Administration could not have prevented AS HE HIMSELF ADMITS:
    Mr. Gorton: “Assuming that the recommendations you made on January 25 of 2001… is there the remotest chance that it would have prevented 9/11?”
    Mr. Clarke: “No.”
    And with that, what does an apology mean? I apologize for something in someone else’s control? It’s pretty phony.

  16. MattS Avatar
    MattS

    Arnold,
    You’re just lying.

  17. otb Avatar
    otb

    Bush mocks WMDs. Clarke is man enough to accept a soupcon of responsibility as a top governement agent during the greatest security failure in US history. Guess which one the right-wing chorus boys attack? You people are truly disgusting.

  18. Charlie (Colorado) Avatar
    Charlie (Colorado)

    Does this mean that 9/11 could have been prevented? I don’t know, and it’s really a moot point. But the government failed in some sense in that it did not protect us when it should have.
    Well, it’s not the dumbest thing I’ve heard said today, but it’s been a rough morning for that already.
    Unless you can explain how the government could have known what was happening, and prevented it, under the constraints in existence on 9/10 and before, what you’re saying comes down to a childish wish to fiond someone, anyone, to take the blame to explain how it happened.
    Here’s how it happened: bad people did a terrible thing. Enemies of the US. Our enemies.
    Looking for someone to blame on our side is just a distraction … and war time isn’t a good time to get distracted.

  19. MattS Avatar
    MattS

    Here’s how it happened: bad people did a terrible thing. Enemies of the US. Our enemies.
    Man, that is the most useful statement. We should totally base policy on it.
    New policy for the US government: Let’s just get all bad people everywhere to stop doing terrible things.
    Awesome. Problem solved!

  20. Charlie (Colorado) Avatar
    Charlie (Colorado)

    Arnold,
    You’re just lying.
    No, Matt, you’re wrong.
    You’re also wrong, by the way, that Clarke is a registered Republican, although in this case you were artfully misled: Clarke’s only statement was that he voted for McCain in the 2000 primary — in Virginia, a state with open primaries and one that doesn’t register party affiliation. But according to the FEC, Clarke’s political contributions have all been to Democrats.

  21. Charlie (Colorado) Avatar
    Charlie (Colorado)

    Man, that is the most useful statement. We should totally base policy on it.
    Until you’ve grasped that one, nothing more complicated is going to make any difference.

  22. MattS Avatar
    MattS

    Clarke is well known to have had Republican predilections throughout his career. He wasn’t registered, for this reason:
    “Conason:
    Is it true that you’re a registered Republican, as someone told me yesterday?
    Clarke:
    Well, I vote in Virginia, and you can’t register as a Republican or a Democrat in Virginia. The only way that anybody ever knows your party affiliation in Virginia is when you vote in a primary, because you have to ask for either a Republican or a Democratic ballot. And in the year 2000, I voted in the Republican presidential primary. That’s the only record in the state of Virginia of my interest or allegiance.

  23. DSmith Avatar
    DSmith

    “But the government failed in some sense in that it did not protect us when it should have.”
    This is really the whole Leftist fallacy in a nutshell.
    Government is capable of solving all problems, therefore if there is something Bad in the world, or something we don’t like, or even something that hurts our feelings, it’s because the Government didn’t do enough. Therefore let us further empower Government, and give them more money and more laws, so that they can make the world a perfect, risk-free place where everyone is happy. After all, isn’t that the Government’s job?
    And if there ARE Bad Things in the world, or things we don’t like, or even hurt feelings, well it must be because either the Wrong People are in the government, or else the Government hasn’t yet been given sufficient money or power to take care of things.
    So therefore let us rant, and blame, and turn out the Bad People currently in government and replace them with Good People (they’ll get it right this time, we promise!) who really will solve all the problems and make the world a perfect place where there won’t be any more Bad Things, or unhappiness, or even hurt feelings. It’s so simple, why can’t everyone see that?
    Note to poster I quoted: this was not directed at you. Your comment provided a useful starting point. :)

  24. MattS Avatar
    MattS

    Until you’ve grasped that one, nothing more complicated is going to make any difference.

    I know you think that leftists don’t realize we’ve been attacked. But that shows you can’t handle anyone who doesn’t share your views.
    And yes, Clarke did say 9/11 might have been prevented, Arnold’s ellipses notwithstanding. And I’ll point out that your conflation of my accusation of Arnold’s rank dishonesty with my assertion that Clarke was a Republican is in keeping with your honorable profession of freeper smearing. Just use a throw-away line to make it look like someone is saying something they are not. Awesome! You rock!

  25. MattS Avatar
    MattS

    Government is capable of solving all problems, therefore if there is something Bad in the world, or something we don’t like, or even something that hurts our feelings, it’s because the Government didn’t do enough.
    Apparently, this is what the GOP thinks. That’s why they invaded Iraq. Unless that was a different government.

  26. MattS Avatar
    MattS

    Dsmith,
    Since both Bush and Kerry are running on the idea that it’s the government’s job to protect us, you might want to find a third-party candidate to vote for.

  27. doug Avatar
    doug

    the attacks could have been prevented by the Americans on the planes involved stopping the attackers. My wife was in Newark Airport on the 11th. I didn’t know for half a day whether she was alive of dead. I was in Alaska waiting for her. She had cancer and I thought this would be her last trip. The people on those planes could have stopped the attacks. All I could think of while I waited to hear if my wife was alive or dead was, how could people on those planes not fight, and lets give Isreal more bullets. Everyone of those ********** that they kill we won’t have to kill over here!

  28. MattS Avatar
    MattS

    doug,
    When the hijackers used there own names to get on planes, and those names were known by the US Gov’t as Al Quaida members,
    That’s when it could have been prevented…

  29. Harry Avatar
    Harry

    Many many years ago, I helped worked on some FDR material as a demostration for web based instructions. Don’t try the video, as it required a specialized video card that hasn’t been made in 8 years, and the audio is being cut off too soon(and I’ll see about fixing that) but here is some Day of Infamy material
    http://vm.marist.edu/fdrdemo/INFAMY.HTM

  30. Anonymous Coward Avatar
    Anonymous Coward

    Clarke is man enough to accept a soupcon of responsibility as a top governement agent during the greatest security failure in US history. Guess which one the right-wing chorus boys attack? You people are truly disgusting.
    Posted by otb at March 30, 2004 12:09 PM

    Accept responsibility? Unless Clarke is donating all the proceeds from his book to some charity, he is profiting from it. Otherwise, his apology is just words.

  31. shark Avatar
    shark

    MattS- Since you’re so quick to dish out blame, let me ask you some questions:
    1) What could Bush have done to protect us from 9/11, seeing as the scum who did it were already in the country by the time he took office?
    2) Do you blame Clinton AT ALL for not doing anything of substance during his 8 years?
    3) Do you blame Kerry at all? He was in the Senate for years….what did he do regarding terrorism? Did he sound the alarm? Did he ever raise the issue? When alerted to security flaws in Logan airport, what did Kerry do to see the problem remedied?
    4) Do you also blame the Senate Dems. for slashing the CIA budget year after year?
    5) Do you blame the media, who were nowhere to be seen sounding this alarm? After all, the 4th estate likes to set themselves up as being one of our watchdog/guardians
    6) And finally, do you also blame yourself? Because what did you do? Can you honestly say you thought terrorism was as important as it turned out to be- and if you did, did you do all you could do? Write your elected officials? Write letters to the editor? Start/attend protests to publicize the issue?
    Now, if you blame any of the above, go bang your head against a wall to get the cobwebs out, because blame rests with 1 group: THOSE WHO DID IT TO US.
    Period.

  32. MattS Avatar
    MattS

    shark,
    And when did YOU stop beating your wife?

  33. MattS Avatar
    MattS

    shark,
    You’re just going to make up more shit when I rebut you with actual facts.

  34. AQ Avatar
    AQ

    “When the hijackers used there own names to get on planes, and those names were known by the US Gov’t as Al Quaida members,
    That’s when it could have been prevented”
    Nope. We’re not allowed to racial profile. It may have offended muslims dont you know.
    You’re blaming political correctness for 9/11? GREAT. Vote republican and it won’t be an issue

  35. Rand Simberg Avatar
    Rand Simberg

    I apologize for something in someone else’s control? It’s pretty phony.
    It was political grandstanding, pure and simple. It’s feel-good talk for the goo goos, like Bill Clinton’s apology for slavery.

  36. Shark Avatar
    Shark

    MattS-
    Explain what “sh*t” I made up…..if you can
    As for facts….you’re not even on a nodding acquaintance with them.
    Go for yours

  37. Alex Avatar
    Alex

    We’ll all sleep better when we recognize that we’re not sitting in an Anthro 315 lecture but on the frontline and that it behooves each and every one of us as citizens to recognize our duty. We are the government, friends. The insight that everyone seems to be missing, from Bush to Tenet to Biden to Zapatero to Bin Laden is that only we, alert, on-guard and ready citizens, stand a chance of snuffing this out of each and every cave it lurks in, whether that cave’s in Tora Bora, aboard Flight #93 or right next door.

  38. Pasha Avatar
    Pasha

    The DSmith “Leftist fallacy in a nutshell” seems to have hit a nerve. All they do in this thread is carp about ‘..some left wing people. Explain yourself’ and ‘Clarke apologized and Bush didn’t’ and ‘attack of the right-wing chorus boys’. This is exactly what the 9-11 panel will accomplish. Carping. This is also why they can’t tell you what good it’s supposed to do except clear the way for the 2000 election irregularities panel.
    Attacking Iraq is attacking the problem where it lives. The libs think we need government eagle eyeing us here and pulling out of the terror nests. DSmith is quite correct.

  39. doug Avatar
    doug

    matts
    When people sit on their behinds and donate their mass as payload into killing their fellow citizens, it’s their own fault. The government doesn’t have a duty to protect me from a grizzly bear. I choose to be in bear country. Too many Americans have abandened their own responsibility.How many times was OBL on TV telling us he was going to kill us? Do the TV networks and other media outlets have a duty to tell us about the people we’re at war with? They are not doing it. Go down to the local mosque, 10% of those guys are hazardous to your health. They cheered along with the Palistinianson the 11th. We are at war. If Bush had said OBL was going to fly a plane into the towers no one would have belived him. The fact is it is unbeliveable untill you see it. Now you know.

  40. Ed Minchau Avatar
    Ed Minchau

    “there is no proof that anyone in any recent administration could have stopped this”
    I have to disagree with this. There are a great many people who could have stopped this particular type of attack, a few hundred aboard each airplane – had they been allowed to exercise their second amendment rights aboard aircraft.
    Are the skies safer now that US Marshalls accompany flights? Probably. Just think of how much safer they would be if the right to bear arms were taken seriously by the last several presidents, supreme court justices, FAA officials… you get the idea.

  41. MattS Avatar
    MattS

    shark,
    Ok, here you go.
    2) Do you blame Clinton AT ALL for not doing anything of substance during his 8 years?
    Except for preventing the millenium attacks and hitting Afghanistan with cruise missiles (missing OBL by minutes).
    3) Do you blame Kerry at all? He was in the Senate for years….what did he do regarding terrorism? Did he sound the alarm? Did he ever raise the issue? When alerted to security flaws in Logan airport, what did Kerry do to see the problem remedied?
    He led the committee investigating BCCI, the major bank through which terrorist money was funneled.

  42. MattS Avatar
    MattS

    Just think of how much safer they would be if the right to bear arms were taken seriously by the last several presidents, supreme court justices, FAA officials… you get the idea.
    Oh yeah, letting anyone on planes carry guns. Great idea!

  43. Steve in Houston Avatar
    Steve in Houston

    When the hijackers used there own names to get on planes, and those names were known by the US Gov’t as Al Quaida members,
    That’s when it could have been prevented…
    —————
    What would have happened is we would have prevented them from getting on the planes, maybe kept them aside for questioning. Detained some of them, maybe, for some amount of time, given them some light questioning. Probably deported some of them. Civil rights attorneys might have been able to keep some of them in country as well. In any case, they would have been shunted over to the legal system.
    And unless one of them flipped, we still might not have understood the calamity they wished to visit on us. Meanwhile, the 9/11 plot would have been averted.
    For a little while, until they tried again. Maybe with more potent weapons.
    Because, after all, they’d still have bases of operations in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan. Saddam Hussein and others would still be around to fund them and those of a like mind. OBL, Mullah Omar, Zawahiri, et al. would have the luxury of time and peace of mind to plot further.
    We might have lobbed a few cruise missles at bases/suspected WMD factories. But – politically and logistically – there would have been no way to do anything, you know, drastic. Aside from unilaterally invading somewhere of course, once we got all the facts, which we would never have gotten … until, in fact, we got hit with something on the magnitude of 9/11.
    Or, I should say, until we got all the facts – well, some of the facts – from a series of Congressional hearings a couple of years after the possible attack. Then and only then would we do something, and only then if we had the support of our friends in Russia and France.

  44. Bill from NYC Avatar
    Bill from NYC

    When I watch the towers fall from across the river I knew right away friends of mine (FDNY) were dead, I hoped for the best but I knew deep down inside that they were doing their best to help people out of there. The days after were like a bad nightmare, getting calls about who was accounted for and who was still missing, watching my future brother-in-law (FDNY)with that look on his face heading out to the pile everyday…. You never forget that look!!!
    Do the parents of my friends blame Bush… NO
    Do they think something should have been years ago…. Yes
    Do many for the most part support Bush in Iraq…. Yes
    They seem to understand better then most….. What happend, happend and their loved ones are never coming back, but as long as the mistakes that were made are being corrected or a good faith effort is being made then the deaths were not in vain!!!!
    Look, 16 to 17 of the highjackers were already in the country…..
    The Dems on the Senate and Congress should look long and hard at themselves for dragging their feet on confirming the new Bush appointees, their bitterness on losing the White House did not help. A new administration cannot function without all it’s people in place.
    Most of all…………
    That SOB in his little cave planned and sent the orders, not Bush… not Clinton, not little green men fromn mars!!!!
    He did it and he’s to blame, living in a free country you have to accept the fact that these thing can happen, bad guy’s don’t play by the rules.
    I’ve have seen more then enough of this so called impartial panel pimping themselves for the media. I still believe that it should have been kept off the tv just for the reason of what it has become…….. A JOKE!!!

  45. Sandy P. Avatar
    Sandy P.

    Since “the government” didn’t protect us as it should have, it’s “the government’s” fault, right??
    Except that WE ARE the government.
    The lady in VA who lived next to 12 middle-eastern looking men IS THE GOVERNMENT.
    The odd thing about those men? There was someone in the car 24/7 watching the street/house.
    Now, unless they were undercover, the mob or the mayor of Chicago or his mom, why was someone always watching?
    And how were the police/FBI supposed to know if no one tells them? Crystal ball???? But I’m suspicious by nature, I would have called.
    And as to the chatter, didn’t it die down around June or so? Maybe that’s why the terrorist czar chose to brief the pres on cyber-terrorism.
    —
    BTW, I’m a republican, but according to the state of IL I’m a “registered” dem. Why? Because I crossed over to vote in the primary for Vallas.
    Nice try, Matt.

  46. ed Avatar
    ed

    Hmmm.
    “This is obvious. We had strong warnings of these attacks, warnings stronger than Clinton had when his administration prevented the millenium attacks through better information sharing among top officials. ”
    Now that’s just complete nonsense!
    Not one official in Clinton’s administration had anything to do with preventing that attack. It was the job of a few customs agents who did the work. Ascribing the prevention to Clinton’s credit is both a disservice and a lie.
    Get your stuff right.

  47. Sandy P. Avatar
    Sandy P.

    –Except for preventing the millenium attacks–
    He didn’t prevent that attack – a custom agent did because the guy acted suspicious – he was in the act of transferring the stuff.
    If Clinton had prevented it, show me the intel it was going to happen.
    —
    On the bright side, we actually captured the guy. The Spanish police let a car – which they didn’t know was stolen at the time – go w/200 pounds of explosives in the trunk.
    I can only assume it’s very common for people in that country to drive around w/that much explosive materiel in their trunk.
    The only time we do it is around 7/4.

  48. MattS Avatar
    MattS

    Sandy P.
    You may think you’re a registered Republican, but since you’re too stupid to understand registration procedures, you’re not.
    But maybe you’re whining is dead on. I can’t imagine why anyone would consider you a Democrat after you voted in a Democratic primary.

  49. ed Avatar
    ed

    Hmmm.
    “Except for preventing the millenium attacks and hitting Afghanistan with cruise missiles (missing OBL by minutes). ”
    I already addressed the “millenium” nonsense but the assertation that those cruise missiles missed by minutes is ridiculous. There’s not one scrap of fact that shows that those cruise missiles missed OBL by minutes, hours, days or even weeks!
    In fact Clinton was given *multiple* opportunities to kill OBL but decided against it because he didn’t want to change collateral damage. You know. Possibly killing all those other terrorists that might be around OBL. Evidently that was too great a risk for Clinton.
    If all you’re going to do is spout nonsense, don’t bother. I can get all the nonsense I want at DemocraticUnderground.com.

  50. MattS Avatar
    MattS

    Not one official in Clinton’s administration had anything to do with preventing that attack. It was the job of a few customs agents who did the work. Ascribing the prevention to Clinton’s credit is both a disservice and a lie.

    You’re right. Our security procedures have nothing to do with our security.

  51. ed Avatar
    ed

    “You may think you’re a registered Republican, but since you’re too stupid to understand registration procedures, you’re not. ”
    Considering some of the stuff you’ve written here. I wouldn’t be going around calling people names.

  52. z Avatar
    z

    If it were my job to keep something secure and it were blown apart leaving thousands dead, I think I’d have have some very serious questions to answer. In fact I might even want to express regret that for whatever reason, I was unable to stop the attack. Having a problem with that doesn’t sound like a dislike of “encounter groups” — it sounds like a problem with taking responsibility.
    But maybe that’s still too touchy-feely, so let’s put this metaphor in the context of war: Lets’s the base is suddenly attacked. Thousands are killed. What happened with the recon scouts? What happened with the guards? Was anyone asleep? Did someone screw up? Should we find out what happened so we can try to keep this slaughter from happening again? Or would that be the “blame game”?
    If the people in charge of security and defense are unwilling to even explain what went wrong with their defenses when they failed, I’d be forced to conclude that they don’t consider the situation anything so serious as a war.
    And doug — the hijackers were Saudis. America has been selling a lot of bullets to the Saudis. Billions of dollars in bullets. Obviously Israel hasn’t been too happy about this. But selling more bullets to Israel in response would certainly help the ol’ bottom line. It’s a pity about that weapons technology ending up in China, but hey, war is hell.

  53. ed Avatar
    ed

    “You’re right. Our security procedures have nothing to do with our security.”
    They have nothing to do with *Clinton*, or is that too complex for you? The real hero of that incident was the customs agent who did a great job. Clinton had NOTHING to do with it.
    Unless of course you can actually show something in the way of proof. Perhaps to prove some of those allegations you’ve made.

  54. John Avatar
    John

    I know this is hard to do, but try to remove yourself from partisanship, your strong feeling about the war, and your thoughts on the war on terror. OK? Now, what is the first rule for contrition (or should be if there is no such rule)? It’s easy to apologize for somebody else’s mistake, but very difficult to apologize for your own. Even though Clarke said “I failed you”, NOWHERE else in his testimony or in his interviews does he admit to making a mistake. He basically is saying “I apologize to all those idiots who didn’t listen to me.” His apology is thus entirely empty

  55. ed Avatar
    ed

    “He led the committee investigating BCCI, the major bank through which terrorist money was funneled.”
    Yeah that’s a plus all right. God knows the FBI, Secret Service and the Treasury Dept. didn’t have anything to do with it. Not to mention the other investigative committees in Congress.
    Yeah. We all have to respect that premiere crime-fighting tool, Congress.

  56. John Avatar
    John

    For a great non-partisan view of this:
    http://www.tnr.com/easterbrook.mhtml
    Scroll down to: THE UNBEARABLE ABSURDITY OF THE CLARKE FLAP

  57. charles austin Avatar
    charles austin

    Imagine some Republican in 1944 saying, “Sure I voted for war with Germany and Japan after Pearl Harbor, but I never thought that FDR would f*** it up so badly.”

  58. Ed Minchau Avatar
    Ed Minchau

    >>Just think of how much safer they would be if the right to bear arms were taken seriously by the last several presidents, supreme court justices, FAA officials… you get the idea.
    >Oh yeah, letting anyone on planes carry guns. Great idea!
    Your response indicates that you have immediately dismissed the idea of people protecting themselves and their loved ones. I think that it _is_ a good idea. Tell me, why is it that the only place in America that an American is not allowed to defend his life is a commercial airliner?
    …or has America lurched so far to the left that its citizens expect the State to protect them from all threats, and even threats from the State itself?
    (neither a republican or a democrat – Canadian)

  59. shark Avatar
    shark

    Except for preventing the millenium attacks and hitting Afghanistan with cruise missiles (missing OBL by minutes
    WOW, THAT CRUISE MISSLE WAS SOME RESPONSE! Now can you explain why Clinton turned down Bin Laden not once, but 3 times?
    He led the committee investigating BCCI, the major bank through which terrorist money was funneled.
    LMFAO. Well, I guess he certainly did all he could’ve. Hey, let Logan security be a seive, he investigated a bank!
    You cite those, but have the audacity to fault someone else for not doing enough?
    Damn. You’re deranged

  60. James Stephenson Avatar
    James Stephenson

    Well damn, I must be a Democrat. Because here in Georgia, it is an open primary like that in Virginia. So when I went to the polls, there was no Republican ballot, I requested a Democrat ballot, and promptly voted for Kucinich. I figured he could use a vote or two.
    Wow, well this Democrat loves the Bush pre-emptive initiative.
    Wow, and all this time I thought of myself as a centrist who would not register as a party member even if forced too. But now I know I am a Democrat, thanks MattS.
    Or did I misread the statement that Clarke said, since Al Gore had no one running against him in the Virginia Primary, because he wanted a vote that would count, he voted in the Republican Primary, that makes him a Republican. Then I am a Democrat.
    I know you will not answer me MattS, because there is no argument that can counter that incisive logic is there?

  61. wmichaelmurphy Avatar
    wmichaelmurphy

    When you declare “war” on an emotion (terror) you are likely to get theraputic language and the thinking that this is a job for bureaucrats like Clarke to “solve.” Apologies, closures, healings, we have had the whole bit. What is interesting is that I have not been able to find a single article published within a month of 911 that longed for Albert Gore’s leadership under the circumstance. Because within a month of 911 it was still a “war.” Since then it has slowly become a police matter, an “event” to be studied and for which blame should be sought. So now we have this vile bureaucrat “apologizing” on behalf of the government for an attack by islamic jihadists?

  62. z Avatar
    z

    So now we have this vile bureaucrat “apologizing” on behalf of the government
    Careful with the “vile” — you’re defaming the Regan and Bush I administrations.
    As for bureaucrats, if only real counterterrorism were as fun as a Tom Clancy videogame, eh?

  63. Charlie (Colorado) Avatar
    Charlie (Colorado)

    Clarke is well known to have had Republican predilections throughout his career. He wasn’t registered, …
    And was therefore not a registered Republican. QED.

  64. shark Avatar
    shark

    So, how can Bush be weak on the war on terror because of pre 9/11 when he declared the war on terror?????!
    When there was no war on terror declared, even after 8 years of increasingly dangerous attacks?
    Just wondering.
    PS- Remember what Kerry said on Larry King on 9/11- he was on the intelligence committee at that time, and they did a lot of talking, but “none of the hard work of responding”
    Well- Bush is doing that hard work.
    I don’t expect AQ to be impressed when Kerry notes he served in Vietnam. What else can he do?

  65. Charlie (Colorado) Avatar
    Charlie (Colorado)

    And yes, Clarke did say 9/11 might have been prevented, Arnold’s ellipses notwithstanding. And I’ll point out that your conflation of my accusation of Arnold’s rank dishonesty with my assertion that Clarke was a Republican is in keeping with your honorable profession of freeper smearing. Just use a throw-away line to make it look like someone is saying something they are not. Awesome! You rock!
    Matt, you said Arnold was lying. You agree it was a real quote. (The truth is that as with many things Clarke has said, you can find something to support any position. In mathematical logic, we know this is because in an inconsistent system, in in which contradictory statements are both “true”, then all statements are equally — and vacuously — true.)
    You then say that Clarke is a registered Republican. I point out that this isn’t true, because you can’t register as anything in Virginia.
    You reply by quoting the very statement in which Clarke said this, and explaining why Clarke is not a registered Republican.
    Apparently believing this somehow supports your assertion that Clarke is a registered Republican.
    Thanks for the “awesome”, but sadly, it’s not that I’m awesomely brilliant — it’s that you’re a halfwit.

  66. Charlie (Colorado) Avatar
    Charlie (Colorado)

    2) Do you blame Clinton AT ALL for not doing anything of substance during his 8 years?
    Except for preventing the millenium attacks and hitting Afghanistan with cruise missiles (missing OBL by minutes).

    Worked good, too.

  67. Austin Fusilier Avatar
    Austin Fusilier

    I’ve got nothing to add to conversation; but I’ve just got to say, after reading through the whole of the comments thus far, I come away with the impression that MattS is being rather intellectually dishonest.
    And now, we return to regularly scheduled programming…

  68. Jay Avatar
    Jay

    My position is pretty obvious to me. Bush didn’t do diddly before 9/11 to prevent ANY kind of terrorist attack, be it Al Queda with airplanes or Hamas on a tricycle. This he should be held accountable for. I think that he has done a reasonably good job after 9/11. He was right on with Afghanistan. He fell down some with Iraq. I have no problem with him running on his record against terror as long as he says that he did a good job after 9/11. If he says he did a good job period, then I have a problem.

  69. trump Avatar
    trump

    2) Do you blame Clinton AT ALL for not doing anything of substance during his 8 years?
    Except for preventing the millenium attacks and hitting Afghanistan with cruise missiles (missing OBL by minutes).
    In that case, since there have been no more attacks on US soil, by this logic you’re giving Bush a pass on 9/11??

  70. Ryan Avatar
    Ryan

    “Clarke is well known to have had Republican predilections throughout his career. He wasn’t registered, for this reason:”
    Please enlighten us with your source for this “well known” fact. Other than Dems bending over backwards to call him one in the interest of dampening cries of partisanship.
    His statement that he voted for McCain in the 2000 primary isn’t surprising as I can’t find the results of the Dem primary period. I am not sure they even bothered to have one. Now I am not well versed on VA election procedure but I would hardly call the above as evidence of his “republican predelictions”.

  71. Feel This Avatar
    Feel This

    http://www.techcentralstation.com/033004B.html

  72. hudson Avatar
    hudson

    John, you nailed it. Apologizing for what you believe are someone else

  73. superfly Avatar
    superfly

    Ryan I believe the democrats had a caucus instead of a primary.

  74. Trump Avatar
    Trump

    How that Rice is testifying before the 9/11 committee, why do we not push for Bill Clinton to testify next?

  75. Pat M. (Arkansas) Avatar
    Pat M. (Arkansas)

    Nothing here but a bunch of people with their own agendas talking past each other.
    As for the “Is Clarke a Republican or Democrat” discussion, all you need to know about that issue is what HE said on Meet the Press Sunday. He voted for Clinton and Gore.
    All the rest was a subtrifuge.

  76. Ryan Avatar
    Ryan

    “Ryan I believe the democrats had a caucus instead of a primary.”
    Thanks..I saw something about caucuses but did not know state held primaries & caucuses. I thought it was one or the other.
    Was the Dem caucus then held in late April and the GOP primary was in Feb?
    If so, no wonder he asked for the GOP ballot when he went to vote in the primary.

  77. Rachel Avatar
    Rachel

    Here are some references to some key points made here:
    The warning Kerry ignored:
    http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/20808.htm
    Clarke only donated to democrats:
    http://www.insightmag.com/news/2004/03/30/National/Records.Show.Richard.Clarke.Gave.Only.To.Democrats-641404.shtml
    Clarke was demoted:
    http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/03/19/60minutes/main607356.shtml
    “When Clarke worked for Mr. Clinton, he was known as the terrorism czar. When Mr. Bush came into office, though remaining at the White House, Clarke was stripped of his Cabinet-level rank.
    Stahl said to Clarke, “They demoted you. Aren’t you open to charges that this is all sour grapes, because they demoted you and reduced your leverage, your power in the White House?”
    Clarke’s answer: “Frankly, if I had been so upset that the National Coordinator for Counter-terrorism had been downgraded from a Cabinet level position to a staff level position, if that had bothered me enough, I would have quit. I didn’t quit.”
    Until two years later, after 30 years in government service.”
    Clarke’s best friend is Kerry’s National Security adviser:
    http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A62941-2003Jun15?language=printer
    http://slate.msn.com/id/2097685/sidebar/2097706/
    http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0403/22/ip.00.html
    “CNN

  78. Spoons Avatar
    Spoons

    Clarke also said he voted for Gore. Does the fact that he voted against Bush both in the primary and in the general election mean that he can’t be credible? Of course not. However, when he deliberately tries to mislead the people by his Clintoneque answers (it depends on what the meaning of “registered” is, I guess) to create the impression that he was pro-Republican, then it’s reasonable to conclude that he’s a partisan hack with an axe to grind.

  79. Ebb Tide Avatar
    Ebb Tide

    Howie Kurtz linked to Gregg Easterbrook today in his Media Notes Extra column, and I have to say I agree with him wholeheartedly:
    http://www.tnr.com/easterbrook.mhtml
    Howard Kurtz, here:
    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/nation/columns/kurtzhoward/

  80. Ted Avatar
    Ted

    My 2C worth.
    Clarke is a shrewd operator who had a reputation as a tough son of a bitch. I would expect that of anyone who attained the position he held.
    And he used his shrewdness in the public session. I wonder if he apologized during the 15 hours of closed testimony he gave.
    That apology was great theater. He put the panel on the defensive right off the bat. They all had to pay tribute to him before they could begin the public questioning. Great move on his part.
    Like someone said, he is a great guy to have on your team, but watch your back if he has it in for you.

  81. Kat Avatar
    Kat

    I can just imagine the screeching if either Clinton or Bush had targetted muslims planning terror in US mosques. Hell, some don’t want them searched at airports even today–we can’t profile people that look like the 19 scum that boarded those planes. That would be undemocratic. We can’t touch them till they do something, just like we should have waited for Saddam to get a nuke and use it before we acted.

  82. Andy Pawlish Avatar
    Andy Pawlish

    It is really a pain to watch folks try to fix blame on us for being attacked. Yes it is often possible to avert attacks, and many were delayed or prevented. But sooner or later…
    It is even more disgusting to hear Mr. Clarke apologize for the government. Which includes firemen, police and a whole host of dedicated servicemen. Oh, he didn’t mean they were at fault? Only other parts of the government above his pay grade, who did not include him in their deliberations?
    As for his personal failings, he can apologize. And what were the actions he failed to take????

  83. Cara Remal Avatar
    Cara Remal

    “This is war. It’s not an encounter session. It’s war.”
    Well said! Excellent post.
    Thanks for once again cutting through bull!

  84. Loren Avatar
    Loren

    “How that Rice is testifying before the 9/11 committee, why do we not push for Bill Clinton to testify next?” – Mr. Trump
    Rice did testify before the commission, under oath, and asked to testify again to “correct some mischaracterizations” that had been made.
    Clinton and Gore will testify.
    Bush and Cheney will testify.
    The Democrats have demanded that Rice testify in public, a hue and cry resulted, and the administration finally relented on the promise that it would not “set a precedent” for the future. (A face-saver, I would say.)
    The media typically makes the same complaint, that Rice is refusing to testify, without adding “in public”, thus leading a casual reader to believe that Rice refused to testify at all. For shame.
    I believe that Richard Clarke in 1996 exercised the “Executive Branch privilege” to avoid testifying before Congress “in public”.
    The whole thing stinks as election year partisan
    blame-placing. It’s useless.
    And B-T-W, Clarke is disengenous.

  85. wg Avatar
    wg

    One of the things that bugs me the most about this, being a government employee, is the constant referral to “The Government” as some kind of single entity. The fact of the matter is, even if one office of “The Government” knows something, it’s child’s play to conceal that information from another…even when that information is available to the second entity.
    There are things that we could have done to avert the events of 9/11. We could have created a national database for non-citizens in the US travelling around…we could have put National Guardsmen in the airports to discourage would-be troublemakers, we could have released to the public information that Persons X, Y, and Z are bad people and need to be put away… yes, we could have responded to the problem before it happened. The likely result? The people who carried out the attacks would have found ways around it or simply waited six months until the political will wasn’t there anymore….and it would have happened anyway.
    Pointing fingers isn’t the point of the commission, which is where the TV media is mostly trying to divert us. The point of the commission is to figure out what didn’t work, what allowed things to go down the way they did, and how we can best address our side of this fight to keep it from being easy to do again.
    Stopping a few men or women who are totally dedicated to exchanging their lives for accomplishing their goals is impossible in the long run. All we will ever be able to accomplish is to make them attack us without extensive preparation.

  86. onecent Avatar
    onecent

    ……we can’t profile people that look like the 19 scum that boarded those planes. That would be undemocratic. We can’t touch them till they do something, just like we should have waited for Saddam to get a nuke and use it before we acted..
    You’re the best, Kat. Our dear all-cultures-are-equal folks won’t even let us utter an identification of our enemies lest their feelings are hurt. Imagine it’s 1943 and we still can’t say “German/Japanese fascists” because, God forbid, some third generation American sausage maker feels bad.
    Curse the Dems and their shallowness(Terry Mc Awful and the Clinton’s fingerprints are all over this)for this little diversion with Clarke and his timely book. This blame game is a mindless and insincere waste of time. We are dealing with animals that coerce retarded kids into becoming live bombs, kill geriatric crippled tourists in wheelchairs on cruise ships, gun down Olympic athletes, and murder 3000 office workers in NYC without blinking. They and they alone are to blame.

  87. Doctor Slack Avatar
    Doctor Slack

    There are things that we could have done to avert the events of 9/11.
    Yep. Clarke lists a bunch of them in his book.
    Ooops, not those things, right?
    The people who carried out the attacks would have found ways around it or simply waited six months until the political will wasn’t there anymore….and it would have happened anyway.
    I love it. There was no point in anyone even trying to paying attention to the al Qaeda problem, because they’ll inevitably succeed. Maybe Bush supporters should change their mantra from “This is War” to “Resistance is Futile.” Or, “Abandon All Hope.”
    All we will ever be able to accomplish is to make them attack us without extensive preparation.
    You mean all we’ll ever be able to do is stop from carrying out complicated operations… like 9/11? Hang on. I thought 9/11 was unstoppable.
    In any case, I’ll take that. And a government that has the wit to deliver it. I’m not looking for Bush & Co to go on television and tell us all how evil and incompetent they are. I’m looking for them to show some signs of learning. That’s all.

  88. z Avatar
    z

    God forbid, some third generation American sausage maker feels bad.
    Please, enough of the embarassing WWII comparisons. They’re pointless and unseemly.
    Don’t you want to get to the bottom of the terrorist threat of this millennium?

  89. Richard Swan Avatar
    Richard Swan

    Doctor Slack,
    In his testimony under oath, Richard Clarke was asked if the Bush administration had implemented all his anti-terrorism suggestions, would 9-11 have been prevented?
    Richard Clarke had a one word answer.
    No.
    And you talk about Bush being incompetent?

  90. Steve in Houston Avatar
    Steve in Houston

    There was no point in anyone even trying to paying attention to the al Qaeda problem, because they’ll inevitably succeed.
    ———–
    No, the point isn’t that it was inevitable. It was that the previous method of dealing with terrorism wouldn’t have headed off a determined and emboldened enemy.
    There’s no guarantee that the current Bush approach will either. But saying it’s had NO effect (or even flatly saying it’s made us less safe) is jumping the gun just a bit. It took us a while to find out that legal pursuits couldn’t prevent a second, even more devastating attack on the World Trade Center. Or on the USS Cole, or the African embassies, etc.
    As for the so-called sophistication of the 9/11 operation, well … it wasn’t that sophisticated. It required relatively precise timing and some rudimentary training, but otherwise it simply traded on holes and assumptions in the system. One of those assumptions was the rule of thumb that hijacked passengers shouldn’t fight back (i.e., “provoke”) their hijackers, because the latter were always assumed to have a rational goal in mind, not self-immolation.
    For the Clinton and Bush teams to have successfully anticipated and closed off those lapses in security would have required civil rights infringements so extreme as to make the Patriot Act look like an open container law.
    So which is it? An absolute guarantee of safety and assurance that we’ll never be touched again? Or some allowance that people and governments make mistakes and that previous policies – especially those lacking in imagination – may need to be rethought or even completely scrapped?

  91. onecent Avatar
    onecent

    Don’t you want to get to the bottom of the terrorist threat of this millennium?
    Who is embarassing? Get to the bottom of the terrorist threat? Please. Give us a break. It’s a simple story. Once there were terrorists and they did evil things. You need names? Motives? What? The “bottom” doesn’t matter a damn for purposes of action right now.

  92. Doctor Slack Avatar
    Doctor Slack

    In his testimony under oath, Richard Clarke was asked if the Bush administration had implemented all his anti-terrorism suggestions, would 9-11 have been prevented?
    A little bait-and-switch action here from Mr. Swan — no surprises there. The exchange he’s referring to is presumably this one:
    GORTON: . . . Assuming that the recommendations that you made on January 25th of 2001, based on Delenda, based on Blue Sky, including aid to the Northern Alliance. . . assuming that there had been more Predator reconnaissance missions, assuming that that had all been adopted say on January 26th, year 2001, is there the remotest chance that it would have prevented 9/11?
    CLARKE: No.
    Oops. Clarke isn’t talking about “all his anti-terrorism suggestions,” is he? Because that whole line of questioning was about plans to go after al-Qaeda as an organization outside the borders of the US.
    Now, here’s a little homework for you. What does Clarke have to say about his recommendations for homeland security — the ones directly relevant to the 9/11 event specifically? What does he have to say about the Bush Administration’s lack of reaction to daily reports of an urgent threat?
    The transcript is here.

  93. Ebb Tide Avatar
    Ebb Tide

    How come no one remembers George Bush (41) saying:
    “”When I take action I’m not going to fire a 2 million dollar missile at a $10 empty tent and hit a camel in the butt.”
    People were saying that all when Clinton was using missiles to strike al qaeda targets, does no one remember all that? It was part of that looney right wing “wag the dog” blathering.

  94. Doctor Slack Avatar
    Doctor Slack

    It was that the previous method of dealing with terrorism wouldn’t have headed off a determined and emboldened enemy.
    Really? The people who hatched the millennium plot weren’t determined and emboldened? Because as far as I can see, they were “headed off” by precisely the set of procedures that Bush and his team refused to implement.
    For the Clinton and Bush teams to have successfully anticipated and closed off those lapses in security would have required civil rights infringements so extreme as to make the Patriot Act look like an open container law.
    As far as I can tell, this is just bloviating. The 9/11 hijackers were detected in a number of different ways — there was just nobody at the helm to put the pieces together. And the reasons for that are strictly institutional and bureaucratic, it has nothing at all to do with how willing they were to violate civil liberties.
    What happened with the millennium plotters, IWO, didn’t happen here. Now, there’s no absolute guarantee that the hijackers wouldn’t have gotten lucky anyway, but it seems fairly obvious that with a determined administration at the helm, they would have had to get a whole lot luckier.
    Or some allowance that people and governments make mistakes and that previous policies – especially those lacking in imagination – may need to be rethought or even completely scrapped?
    Steve, you hit the nail on the head. Governments do indeed make mistakes, like sidelining urgent national security priorities out of partisanship or pigheadedness. And certainly they should be accountable. And yes, policies lacking in imagination do, in fact, need to be rethought or completely scrapped. For example, counter-terrorism policies that focus on states instead of networks, or spending priorities that focus on ballistic missile defense when asymmetric threats are clearly more urgent.
    You with me?

  95. MattS Avatar
    MattS

    Go Doctor Slack!

  96. Dinosaur Avatar
    Dinosaur

    Clarke was just the last in a long line (getting longer, Bob Woodward next) of people who call it as they see it, but then get the crap knocked out of them.

  97. Tim Avatar
    Tim

    Pussies and beaten wives apologize to their assaulters after being attacked as if it was their fault; warriors and leaders fight back. Kerry has locked up the “battered wives” vote; Bush wins most everyone else, the election and a good part of the war on terrorism to boot.

  98. Ned Avatar
    Ned

    I honestly believe that Bush is a lazy lying sack of sh&!T who did not care for one second about dead Amurkanns or Eyerackees. He only wanted to help himself and his cronies gain absolute power over stupid people. So Osama is a vicious murdering bastard, but Bush drove the getaway car.

  99. Trump Avatar
    Trump

    Clarke was just the last in a long line (getting longer, Bob Woodward next) of people who call it as they see it, but then get the crap knocked out of them
    Yeah, amazing how they all have lucrative book deals. Funny that.
    If Clarke calls it how they see it, he must have many, many eyes looking in all different directions.

  100. Trump Avatar
    Trump

    lacking in imagination do, in fact, need to be rethought or completely scrapped. For example, counter-terrorism policies that focus on states instead of networks, or spending priorities that focus on ballistic missile defense when asymmetric threats are clearly more urgent.

    Disagree. All threats are equally urgent. Ballistic missle defense is not something we can afford to push to the wayside.

  101. Trump Avatar
    Trump

    As far as I can tell, this is just bloviating. The 9/11 hijackers were detected in a number of different ways — there was just nobody at the helm to put the pieces together. And the reasons for that are strictly institutional and bureaucratic, it has nothing at all to do with how willing they were to violate civil liberties
    Nothing to do with civil liberties? The airlines decided to isolate their passenger screening database from the FBI because of civil liberties fears. At any rate, there may have been nobody at the helm to put it all together, but that is NOT the job of the president. That’s micromanaging while his office has many many things to deal with. That’s what the dept. of homeland security is all about. Someone to put it all together. if he’s doing a good job or not is another debate for another day. But the man to be putting the pieces together is someone who should report to the Pres. Not the Pres. himself.

  102. Astounded Avatar
    Astounded

    You say, “There is no clear proof that anyone in any recent administration could have stopped this.”
    Sure, no 100% proof. But security is about odds.
    There were signs bin Laden’s underlings would
    hijack a plane for months. They did. Catching
    bin Laden wouldn’t have helped, but upping security
    for airports might have, as would have upping the
    priority of intelligence about suspicious activity.
    The FBI had numerous pieces of info – if escalated, they could have formed a suspicious pattern. But terrorism was low-balled.
    Even now, I have grave suspicions that the
    FBI and CIA aren’t talking well together.
    That anthrax security is still lacking,
    that port security is still lacking, that
    few of these items are being handled well.
    Why do I feel that? Because there is no sense
    that anyone sees anything they did as drastically incompetent. US Air Force couldn’t shoot down hijacked planes in the air over an hour? My God, why do we spend $400 billion a year on defense?
    It’s not just about Iraq. It’s about not spending
    the money to upgrade national security. Even in the summer before 9/11 I was bemoaning the lack of interest in terrorism, such as cyberterrorism when the DoD’s servers went off-line, but the only interest was bolstering Star Wars yet again.
    In an After Action Review, you might say, “yes, we did this, this and this, but they still got around it be doing X, Y & Z”. But in today’s AAR, we say, “no, we didn’t do this, this and this, but still there was little we could do, it’s such a big problem, no one could know.” Coaches get fired for losing the Super Bowl, but this time, play wasn’t even deserving of the minor leagues. “We didn’t know they’d throw a Hail Mary pass, they didn’t tell us…”. Bravo, I feel safe.

  103. Andrea Harris Avatar
    Andrea Harris

    Thanks, Ned, for that intelligent addition to this little web consortium. [/end sarcasm]
    As for “Astounded,” babies and senile old people need to feel “safe.” I am so sick of this “I don’t feel safe” bs. This isn’t kindergarten, it’s the real world, where “safety” isn’t available by government fiat. Not to attack any of your other substantial points, whatever they might be, but can we bury the “I want to feel cozy and safe” meme in a lead-lined coffin already?

  104. Charles Frith Avatar
    Charles Frith

    I’m consistently surprised that the claim ‘This is a war on terror’ is unfailingly unrecognised as Oxymoronic I.E. Could one use terror to divert/prevent a war. Using war strategies against a group of people who are essentially galvanised at the extremist end to prefer death over life means that traditional war strategies, tactics and hardware will never work. Unless of course Genocide is your vocabularly. It’s not in mine.

  105. Dinosaur Avatar
    Dinosaur

    Using the term WAR gives some people a hard-on. Since they weren’t around for WWII, they want some future Brokaw to write a book about their struggles. The Brits just foiled a terror attempt with police/intell work, and that is what is largely needed. The only ones allowed to throw the word WAR around should be those on the front – the soldiers and their families. We are just CNN observers of that WAR. We are the “front row seat to a WAR” generation.

  106. KMK Avatar
    KMK

    I’ll take the cheap seats in the back. The view is hysterical. We have a commission that was set up to tell us what the intel failures were that led to 9/11. What will their findings be used for? Better security for us? Nope, just a springboard for more politics.

  107. wvmcl Avatar
    wvmcl

    Calling it a “war” on terrorism was a huge mistake which only glorifies the terrorists and contributes to their recruiting and mythmaking. We should call them what they are: thugs and murderers.
    We don’t need war rhetoric to take appropriate military action when called for. We could have taken the Taliban out for harboring mass murderers.
    Bush’s “up yours” attitude toward our traditional and potential allies has made all of us more vulnerable. This is the most dramatic failure of Bush’s “war” on terrorism.

  108. Jay Avatar
    Jay

    If there’s one thing I have learned reading this it’s that angry people don’t listen. Angry people just keep saying the same things over and over. If you let politics make you mad you are never going to get anywhere. You are just going to keep saying the same things forever and ever and everyone is going to end up ignoring you.
    So just shut up and do some deep breathing or something.

  109. Ebb Tide Avatar
    Ebb Tide

    i was going to link to the new John Dean book on Amazon, but the url is 5,000 miles long, so you’ll have to look it up youself, if you are so inclined.
    Worse Than Watergate: The Secret Presidency of George W. Bush
    by John Dean
    It comes out in April, but there are comments on Amazon by people who have already read it. This will be the next, new-new thing and take Clarke off the best seller list.

  110. onecent Avatar
    onecent

    Worse Than Watergate: The Secret Presidency of George W. Bush by John Dean,/i>
    So, lame hypster, what has that got to do with the subject at hand? Can you remember the topic?
    This will be the next, new-new thing and take Clarke off the best seller list.
    Give us a break. Please.

  111. Andrea Harris Avatar
    Andrea Harris

    “…WAR gives some people a hard-on.” Oh please, not that antique canard. The only people I’ve observed get sexually excited over “WAR” are people like you, who probably thinks it’s “deep” to claim that tall buildings, cars, and missiles are “phallic symbols.” Chicks dig it!

  112. JB Avatar
    JB

    “”…WAR gives some people a hard-on.”
    I’d be interested to hear your opinion of those warmongers Abe Lincoln and FDR.

  113. Astounded Avatar
    Astounded

    Sure Andrea, bury the safe meme.
    Just give me your replacement.
    “I put on my seatbelt to be…”
    “I lock my door to be …”
    “I support government spending $400 billion a year on military to feel…”
    “Security is important in order to be…”
    Glad you’re the brave one that doesn’t care if you
    have to jump out of a 100 story window, don’t need
    to feel safe. Perhaps today’s a good day to sign
    on for civilian duty in Fallujah, because most
    there are skidaddling out because they “don’t
    feel…”
    Now don’t get me wrong, feeling safe when you’re
    not safe is stupid (that’s what the UN just ruled
    on their security chief in Baghdad – outtahere.)
    Anyway, just dial in the replacement, I’m sure
    I’ve been disgustingly queasy.

  114. Ned Avatar
    Ned

    Disgustingly queasy is exactly how the
    Bush ass kissers make me feel. Why shouldn’t we hold him accountable to the same minimal standard that his scumbag Congressional coconspirators hysterically still keep accusing Bill Clinton of violating?
    It is nice how so called conservatives keep
    demonizing the evil federal bureaucracy except that this undermines the whole fantasy about total world domination.
    “Lets get the bad people everywhere to stop doing awful things” indeed!
    Air America is GREAT!

  115. Kat Avatar
    Kat

    Ned, pull your head out of mullah’s butt and come up for air.

  116. Astounded Avatar
    Astounded

    Oh no, a new voter survey at
    http://www.salon.com/news/wire/2004/04/02/bush_terror/index.html
    shows Bush down, but one interviewed said,
    “I feel safe with him in there,” said Daniel Blake, a Democratic-leaning independent from Southwest City, Mo.
    Please, someone send this poor fool the message
    to get rid of the ‘safe’ meme. Do it now, we’ll
    all be better off.

  117. Jeff Feeling Avatar
    Jeff Feeling

    No it’s NOT a war, it’s nothing like when Japan (another country) attacked the US. Terrorism is acts by criminal gangs committed for political and/or religious reasons, it’s not the same as being attacked by another state. Saddam never attacked America, he did attack an American ally (Kuwait) in the 90s and got the appropriate punishment. 9/11 had NOTHING to do with Saddam and Iraq, it was the actions of a gang of radical criminals, most of them from a major US ally (Saudi Arabia) that has never been properly prosecuted by the US government (too many US government links to that country, easier to hit Iraq). Treat them as criminals, bring them to justice and punish them, stop trying to make it into a war–it isn’t.