True, in retrospect, the hints may have been there, but I must confess, if I had been Bush, I probably wouldn’t have had it at the top of my agenda either.

Sorry, Bowz, that’s just the way I see it. I can’t slam the man for not doing something I probably wouldn’t have done, given the same information. Unlike Mr Ryan, I just don’t have the brass.

It reminds me of Pearl Harbor. The Pentagon and White House knew there would be an attack by the Japanese that weekend. Key people stayed at their offices. They just didn’t know where, suspected it might be Singapore or the Philippines. Half-heartedly warned some commanders. FDR wanted a war.

I realize that is not the common view. Read any book written since 1970 on the subject.

If Rice, et al., weren’t looking at information that there would be an attack such as that on 9-11 what were they doing. The had information that Middle East nationals were taking lessons on how to fly large airplanes. Not take-off or land, but fly. And they knew an attack was coming.

Yet they ignored all of that. Bush (Cheney) wanted a war. They wanted Iraq. The only planes flying after 9-11 besides American military were one British plane bringing in some of their intelligence specialists (who were appalled at the pressure to put the blame on Iraq when it was obviously Saudi Arabia behind it) and airplanes evacuating Saudi Arabian.

If you remember the alerts we had. They’d waterboard some guy and he’d say there was an attack planned on Chicago. Massive security in Chicago. Waterboard him again and he’d say they were going to sneak knives onto airplanes. After that, so help me, at a Fourth of July picnic the knife a family was going to use to cut a watermelon was confiscated.

Obviously, if they were acting on info like that what were they looking at prior to 9-11? What had risen to the top?

I read a lot of books. The ones I’ve read and cited here before on that topic were very clear – the FBI and the CIA had given the NSA a lot of information, from reliable sources. Cheney wanted a reason to attack Iraq.

And Rice, on Face the Nation or one of those, said, “Who would have thought – - -?” And they got paid for that.

The point is, we are faced with an avalanche of clues and hints of what may happen, but we can’t respond to all of them. We must prioritize, and we must base our decisions on how we prepare for potential threats on how we rank them in the probability that they will occur. We interpret intelligence in different ways, we bring different mindsets and interpretations to the problems, and different ideologies to frame them in and organize our thoughts, and we are distracted by what may honestly appear at the time as more pressing concerns. We all live in different universes.

The Bush administration may have indeed been guilty of negligence for ignoring the Al-Quaeda warnings, but can they really be blamed? It is easy for us NOW to point the finger and say AHA! But can you really say that when you admit you yourself had criticized the Clinton attacks at the time.

In any leadership position, you do the best you can with what you know, you juggle a multitude of threats (and opportunities) and you try to maximize the odds in your favor as much as you can. Intelligence, luck, your philosophy
and history will have the final say. I’m not saying that failure shouldn’t be condemned, or success applauded, after all, that is how we learn, by acquiring painful experience. I’m just saying it ain’t easy to tell success and failure apart when you are in a position to actually do something about it. In the end, instinct and intuition, our subconscious thought processes, will play a much larger role than our scientific age cares to admnit.

Look at how many threats we face now, global warming, overpopulation, resource shortages, economic collapse, debt, pollution, nuclear war, social unrest; hell, even an asteroid strike or world-wide killer plague. Most probably won’t happen, or will be survivable, or are inextricably linked with one another. The leader can’t prepare for everything equally, he must prioritize, take chances, leave things out, and he will make mistakes. At best it is a purely statistical process, not a question of good or evil. History will make its judgement eventually, and it will not always be a correct one or fair one. Those who presume to evaluate the performance of others are just as prone to error and prejudice. The only advantage they can claim is access to a little more data.

The biggest mistake we can make, the biggest crime, is to fail to realize this. To think we have all the answers and that others are fools or criminals because they don’t agree with us. Sometimes the Jimmy Carters get dealt the lousy hand, and the Ronald Reagans draw to an inside straight. And always, shit happens. The world is not a simple or straightforward place, cut and dry, black and white.