Government - not Bush - failed on 9-11: Larry Elder finds Democrat blame game in serious trouble

"That has nothing to do with intelligence," said former President Bill Clinton. "It basically says he's a dangerous guy that might do a lot of things." Clinton refers to a 1999 CIA report about the possibility of terrorist attacks against America by Osama bin Laden.

Critics of President George W. Bush now say the president should have connected this 1999 report – which the CIA never included in Bush's briefings – with other pre-Sept. 11 "dots," the aggregate of which supposedly provided a clear warning of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. A so-called FBI "Phoenix memo" reportedly recommends "the FBI should accumulate a listing of civil aviation universities/colleges around the country."

"What did the president know, and when did he know it?" some now cry, a la Watergate. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., took to the Senate floor and pointed to a New York Post headline that screamed, "Bush Knew." "The president knew what? My constituents would like to know the answers to that and many other questions," said Clinton.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., practically threw the president into the stockade, trial to follow. Nadler said, "If the White House had knowledge that there was a danger or an intent to hijack an American airplane and did not warn the airlines, that would be nonfeasance in office of the highest order. That would make the president bear a large amount of responsibility for the tragedy that occurred."

Even before the recent revelations of the pre-Sept. 11 "clues," Rep. Cynthia McKinney, D-Ga., accused the president of prior, specific knowledge of the terrorist attacks. She hysterically claimed that Bush wanted an attack, thus sparking a military defense build-up, which in turn stands to enrich the president's friends in the defense industry. Predictably, McKinney now says she feels vindicated.

But the "blame Bush" scheme apparently flopped. The New York Times, not exactly a Bush supporter, saw through the nonsense. "Until someone produces evidence that the Bush administration received and ignored information pointing directly to the suicide hijackings," said the Times, "the country will have to live with the much messier and no less disturbing fact that the government as a whole dropped the ball and even now is not doing nearly enough to ensure that it doesn't happen again."

The New York Times also chastised Congress: "As congressional Democrats and other Bush opponents rev up the recriminations following this week's disclosures, they should remember that the House and Senate Intelligence Committees received some of the same intelligence reports as the White House. These included public and private warnings from George Tenet, the director of central intelligence, that al-Qaida could strike at any time. We don't recall a rising clamor from Congress last summer for improved intelligence-gathering, better pooling of information between the FBI and the CIA, and heightened airport security."

Former President Clinton dismissed the Monday morning quarterbacking – with good reason. A true inquiry into what happened figures to place a lot of the blame squarely on his lap. Mansoor Ijaz, who worked with the Clinton administration, said that Clinton blew several opportunities to apprehend Osama bin Laden. "President Clinton and his national security team ignored several opportunities to capture Osama bin Laden and his terrorist associates," said Ijaz. "In July 2000 – three months before the deadly attack on the destroyer Cole in Yemen – I brought the White House another plausible offer to deal with bin Laden, by then known to be involved in the embassy bombings. ... The offer ... required only that Clinton make a state visit there to personally request bin Laden's extradition. But senior Clinton officials sabotaged the offer, letting it get caught up in internal politics within the ruling family – Clintonian diplomacy at its best."

Clinton's former aide Dick Morris said, "[Clinton] had almost an allergy to using people in uniform. He was terrified of incurring casualties; the lessons of Vietnam were ingrained far too deeply in him. He lacked a faith that it would work, and I think he was constantly fearful of reprisals. ... On another level, I just don't think it was his thing. You could talk to him about income redistribution, and he would talk to you for hours and hours. Talk to him about terrorism, and all you'd get was a series of grunts."

Perhaps some of Bush's critics forget that the War on Terrorism continues, and that American lives remain at risk. Indeed, just last week, an American special ops member was killed in Afghanistan. Nor is it unpatriotic to find out how and why our intelligence broke down.

But neither Republicans nor Democrats seem to understand that this "Bush Knew" flap exposes a much, much bigger issue. By inserting itself in issues like retirement, health care, social programs, farm programs, welfare, public housing, education – small wonder that the federal government shirks its primary responsibility – self-defense.

I think Larry Elder is referring to the Government's responsibility for defense of our nation and people.

However, the way he wrote it reveals a deeper truth. All of these bureaucracies are full of employees who view their primary responsibility as 'self-defense' -- of their own job and skin -- nevermind the reason for which the agency was formed.

And if things were investigated too deeply, the country would find out that most of the FBI's operations are directed at "the right wing". Since the KKK is now nothing, the FBI needed a safe, large target. The religious right and militia are perfect. They sound "anti-government", but never preach or perform anything illegal. Great for safe, lifelong careers of federal agents, including other Alphabet Agencies.

We're reading about how hard it was to convince mid-level FBI management to get wire taps and warrants for suspected moslem terrorists. Yet you can be sure that the monitoring of sites like Free Republic went on as usual, and continue to this day.

Despite all the frenzy of activity right after September 11, we're seeing very few results turn up in the courts, or even newspapers. Most FBI terrorist investigations have been "dry holes", and agents are probably going back to watch the "American right wing", which klinton clearly identified as America's only real threat. If they didn't have "the right wing" to monitor, they'd have to stoop to ladies' gardening clubs for a fat, safe subject that could keep them busy until retirement.

Bump.

The cynic in me says we've all known for years how susceptible the airline industry was to hijackings yet we continued (as we still continue) to fly. If enough people stopped flying until better safeguards were put in place, one can easily imagine how quickly the improvements would be made.

While I would never dare to place the blame anywhere other than where it belongs, squarely at the feet of the terrorists themselves, I can't help but wonder aloud if we as a society aren't at least responsible for the terrible mess we find ourselves in, at least with respect to our government. I can't help but think that we as a group (freepers, conservatives, libertarians...use whatever label you prefer) are supposed to be people who do not look to the government to solve our problems. Obviously, issues such as national security are government sized issues and not sized for the individual.

I guess what I'm saying is that perhaps another way to look at it is that rather than the government having failed us, haven't we (collectively) as a society failed each other. Just some rambling (deep) thoughts attempting to help produce some long term solutions rather than some short term blame pointing. Joe (MCM)

To effectively defend one must first anticipate and prepare for all possible attacks.

A defensive system to be efective has to invent all possible means of attack and prevent them from being successfully executed. The attackers have to find one means of attack that has not been defended and make that attack. Offense is always easier. A defender can never say with certainty that he has invented all possible means of attack. Attackers can usually determine if a means of attack is not defended... i.e. box cutters. It is possible to invent and implement a defense for all known attacks. It is impossible to defend for unkonwn attacks. But even for known attacks one has to balance saftey with use. One way to prevent planes from being used to attack us, is to outlaw all planes. If we use them we can not prevent them from being used to attack us. Some fools believe that the elimination of all weapons on board a plane will work. That is nuts.

Trained killers can kill even with their bare hands. In the United States there have been murderers convicted of killing with a leathal weapon. The leathal weapon was their trained bare hands.

It should be clear to everyone but Cokie Roberts that there is no perfect defense. Someone can always think of a means of attack that has not been defended.

It has been taught for generations and never proved false, that for every offense there is an effective defense. It should be an obvious fact that an offense is always invented before the defense to stop it is invented.

Saftey only comes when the result of even a successful attack is failure for the attackers.

Attacks are made for one of two reasons. Personal benefit or the benefit of a cause. Attacks for personal benefit never intend the death of the attacker. But attacks for a cause often do. Kamikazi pilots in WWII were willing to die for Japan. Muslim Terrorists are willing to die for the Muslim cause. But if they were certain that even a successful attack on us, would cause far worse harm to the Muslim cause they would not do it. If the japanese war lords had been certain that a Kamikazi attack would have resulted in the defeat of Japan they would not have done it. Attacks are always made to garner a victory or stave off defeat. They are never made to insure the attackers defeat.

The strikes by the Kamikazi pilots and the 911 attacks were done in an effort to defeat us. If the result was counter productive to those who ordered it, it would not have been tried. That is the only real safety that can be provided.

To make an attack counter productive we must either kill all of the followers of those who order the attacks or kill all those that order the attacks.

I think the second is possible. I we were to form a covert force that could kill any individual or group of individuals in the the world with in a day or two, not many people would order attacks that insured their own deaths. Those that did could only do it once. Followers will always find leaders, but leaders certain of their own defeat don't order attacks. They mostly order retoric.

If bin laden and ormar and the rest the crew could have been killed and their bodies hung off the Washington monument 3 days after 911, the number of people who would order a repeat would be greatly reduced. If those that replaced them were hung the next week and their replacement a few days later regardless of what they did or said, replacement leaders would be in short supply.

Such a defense, which is really a targeted offense could provide a lot of security. The down side is our leaders would be targeted too. But protecting our leaders is a lot easier than protecting all our citizens. But even then a militant bin Laden will not try to kill our leaders if he and his top staff will all die, his replacemetns die and their replacements die in the process. But even if a bin laden were wiling to die, there are always some members of his inner staff and apparent heirs who would not be.

One thing seems quite clear to me. Preventing attacks by defending against attacks is impossible. Defense is a thousand times harder than offense. Inventing ways to target all those who might order attacks or allow attacks to originate in their nation is not impossible. It is in effect our offense.

In the long march of history man has invented many ways and many weapons to make war.

In that very long record of mankind known as history the loser of every war was always on defense when defeated, and the winner was always on offense when victorious. There are zero exceptions.

Offense or Defense? Win or Lose? It is the same question.

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