Alan Caruba
9/11 eight years later and no safer
By Alan Caruba
Has it been eight years?
What I learned from 9/11 was that a lot of Americans have concluded that it was America's fault we were attacked. That may sound screwy to people who correctly believe that al Qaeda planned, funded and provided the men who carried out the attacks, but why deal with the facts when conspiracies are so much more fun? Why not just blame the victims?
9/11 was not the first attack on the Twin Towers. For those with any attention span, the first attack came in 1993 and was treated as a criminal act by a "gang who couldn't shoot straight" Muslims, one of whom actually returned to the rental agency to get his money back because the truck used in the attack was destroyed.
Here's where we are eight years later. As far as the government is concerned, it has learned NOTHING from the event and the subsequent efforts to kill the Taliban and al Qaeda lunatics who were operating in Afghanistan and badlands of Pakistan.
Not only are we still in Afghanistan, not only have we blandished billions on "nation building" in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well on Pakistan, but the Obama Justice Department thinks the CIA interrogators are the bad guys and wants to extend Miranda rights, the full protection of the U.S. Constitution, to terrorists.
Astonishingly, your government has returned to pre-9/11 status wherein the FBI is now responsible for preventing terrorist attacks and the CIA is largely irrelevant, if not suspect.
Recall that, at the time of 9/11, the CIA was forbidden to provide information about terrorism to the FBI and vice-versa. Welcome to the bad old days!
And Obama is still intent on closing Guantanamo although he gave zero thought as to what we should do with the terrorists detained there. Those that were returned to their homelands promptly headed for new battlefields against American forces.
Eight years on, Osama bin Laden is presumably still alive. How is it that a nation with our enormous resources, spy satellites, drones to over-fly where we believe he is hiding, special operations military personnel, and yet this very tall Arab eludes us?
Here, too, is something worth considering. Al Qaeda waited eight years after the February 26, 1993 Twin Towers attack to strike again on September 11, 2001. And 2009 is eight years since the last attack. These people are patient. The next attack has been planned that will greatly exceed the casualties of 9/11.
Had the machinery that the Bush administration put in place and which kept the nation safe been respected and augmented, I would feel more confident, but who can feel confident with Janet Napolitano heading the Department of Homeland Security?
Napolitano cannot even bring herself to say the word "terrorist" and the Obama administration has not only expunged the phrase "war on terrorism," but the Postal Service has issued of a stamp to commemorate Eid, the Muslim holiday that marks the end of Ramadan!
It was the weak response of the Clinton administration that spurred al Qaeda to stage 9/11 and the same conditions are in place again today.
In addition, in an absolutely bizarre change of focus, instead of capturing or killing terrorists, it is the former Vice President, Dick Cheney, and dedicated CIA operatives that the Obama administration would like to drag before the dock and prosecute!
It is eight years later and I do not feel one bit safer. Do you?
© Alan Caruba
September 9, 2009
Has it been eight years?
What I learned from 9/11 was that a lot of Americans have concluded that it was America's fault we were attacked. That may sound screwy to people who correctly believe that al Qaeda planned, funded and provided the men who carried out the attacks, but why deal with the facts when conspiracies are so much more fun? Why not just blame the victims?
9/11 was not the first attack on the Twin Towers. For those with any attention span, the first attack came in 1993 and was treated as a criminal act by a "gang who couldn't shoot straight" Muslims, one of whom actually returned to the rental agency to get his money back because the truck used in the attack was destroyed.
Here's where we are eight years later. As far as the government is concerned, it has learned NOTHING from the event and the subsequent efforts to kill the Taliban and al Qaeda lunatics who were operating in Afghanistan and badlands of Pakistan.
Not only are we still in Afghanistan, not only have we blandished billions on "nation building" in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well on Pakistan, but the Obama Justice Department thinks the CIA interrogators are the bad guys and wants to extend Miranda rights, the full protection of the U.S. Constitution, to terrorists.
Astonishingly, your government has returned to pre-9/11 status wherein the FBI is now responsible for preventing terrorist attacks and the CIA is largely irrelevant, if not suspect.
Recall that, at the time of 9/11, the CIA was forbidden to provide information about terrorism to the FBI and vice-versa. Welcome to the bad old days!
And Obama is still intent on closing Guantanamo although he gave zero thought as to what we should do with the terrorists detained there. Those that were returned to their homelands promptly headed for new battlefields against American forces.
Eight years on, Osama bin Laden is presumably still alive. How is it that a nation with our enormous resources, spy satellites, drones to over-fly where we believe he is hiding, special operations military personnel, and yet this very tall Arab eludes us?
Here, too, is something worth considering. Al Qaeda waited eight years after the February 26, 1993 Twin Towers attack to strike again on September 11, 2001. And 2009 is eight years since the last attack. These people are patient. The next attack has been planned that will greatly exceed the casualties of 9/11.
Had the machinery that the Bush administration put in place and which kept the nation safe been respected and augmented, I would feel more confident, but who can feel confident with Janet Napolitano heading the Department of Homeland Security?
Napolitano cannot even bring herself to say the word "terrorist" and the Obama administration has not only expunged the phrase "war on terrorism," but the Postal Service has issued of a stamp to commemorate Eid, the Muslim holiday that marks the end of Ramadan!
It was the weak response of the Clinton administration that spurred al Qaeda to stage 9/11 and the same conditions are in place again today.
In addition, in an absolutely bizarre change of focus, instead of capturing or killing terrorists, it is the former Vice President, Dick Cheney, and dedicated CIA operatives that the Obama administration would like to drag before the dock and prosecute!
It is eight years later and I do not feel one bit safer. Do you?
© Alan Caruba
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