In Memoriam
September 11th, 2001
On September 11th, 2001 approximately 3,000 people died and it took over 9 years to find the individual most responsible – why?
In the intervening years we have spent hundreds of billions of dollars, trampled on peoples rights, created huge new government bureaucracies, and can’t respond as well as the third world to a natural disaster.
Richard Clarke: “Your government failed you. Those entrusted with protecting you failed you. And I failed you. We tried hard. But that doesn’t matter, because we failed. And for that failure, I would ask, once all the facts are out, for your understanding and for your forgiveness.“
6 comments
Clarke is still the only one to apologize to the American people.
I remember I was volunteering for KPCC on a pledge drive about the time his first book came out. I took many a call from someone who would not give to NPR because they interviewed “that traitor.” (their words not mine…) Stunned me.
We lost close to 4,000 on 9/11 with thousands more suffering from after affects but millions have died and millions more are suffering in countries that we have been bombing for a decade. We give those people a 9/11 seemingly every week. Where are THOSE stories?
I can’t take the death porn that’s going to fill the airwaves today. I’m going to go work on my Jeep and eat some of the tamales I scored yesterday.
– Badtux the Disgusted Penguin
Notwithstanding Stella’s TV fixation, the box remains off today in Our House. The political use of tragedy is simply too offensive to both of us. And it’s not just one political party using 9/11 that way. What passes for “leadership” in America today is just too embarrassing for words.
Thanks for Clarke’s quote, Bryan. I remember the utter relief and gratitude when he said those words to the American people. Nothing that Bush and co were doing or saying helped or rallied us.
9/11 made the US join the rest of the world. Other countries have suffered through terror attacks and not thrown such a massive hissy fit, stomping about the world bombing anybody and everybody, breaking laws, treaties, and losing the respect and sympathy of the world community. (We also constantly forget the deaths on 9/11 were multinational.)
I have had enough of the media crapping out 9/11 porn. Enough. Let’s stop revisiting the wound and go out and FIX THE PROBLEMS that cause terrorists to target us.
Hmm, Mr. Duff, you mean perhaps the intelligence agencies who presented a report to President Bush entitled “Bin Laden Determined To Strike Inside America” less than two months before the attacks? Or the intelligence agents who sent frantic messages to Washington that there was a suspicious number of Saudies training to fly jets who didn’t seem interested in learning how to land them? Those intelligence agencies? Unfortunately, intelligence agencies require someone to read their output and act intelligently upon their output. Which did not happen, because what the intelligence agencies were telling the Bush Administration wasn’t what the Bush Administration wanted to hear (which was that Saddam Hussein was the source of all terrorism — even before 9/11, plans to invade Iraq were well underway).
– Badtux the Snarky Penguin
In the great expansion of bureaucracy that followed 9/11 one point was buried – there was, in place, a structure that was supposed to be coordinating all of the reports from the intelligence community, and to target the community towards specific items of interest; there was a single individual who held operational control over all of the intelligence operations of the United States. That person was the President’s National Security Advisor, and the coordinating entity was the National Security Council.
When you addressed your reports, if the matter was anything other that absolute routine, one of the included addresses was the White House, literally. The coordination was supposed to be taking place in the White House basement by the National Security Council staff.
When you waste billions of dollars to create an entirely new structure to hide the fact that your National Security Advisor is incompetent, and you ignore the real intelligence that is being provided because it doesn’t correspond to your prejudices, you are the problem, not the intelligence community. When you compound your errors by exposing the single most important network you have in place to monitor weapons of mass destruction in Southwest Asia, because the spouse of the agent-in-charge wrote a negative op-ed piece, you are the problem.
Given the total lack of regard for the system that protected the US for the Cold War, and the political meddling that has taken place place in what should be a professional and apolitical function of government, I’m surprised the government is still able to tell that the sun rises in morning.
With all of the theater you see around you, the United States currently knows less about what is actually happening in the world, than it did on 9/10/2001.
As for the weather, tropical storms kill and destroy things. Some people like to know what they are up to, especially when the storm is headed for them.