I've seen this before. Every time it makes me so f...... angry, I want to nuke the people responsible for it. That's why I cheered when I heard the Israelis got Sheik Ahmed Yassin his 42 virgins.

Europe thinks it can negotiate with these scum. Not! This is a war in which we need to do unto others before they do unto us.

Raisins. 42 raisins.

White ones or dark ones? Sun dried or oven dried?

I couldn't even watch that whole thing. I knew one of the people killed at the Pentagon. A 22 year old single mother. My father knew the pilot of the plane that was crashed into the Pentagon and my parents were at his funeral. The only people responsible for 9/11 are the terrorists. As much as I don't like Bush, I don't blame him for that day anymore than I blame myself. How could anyone have ever predicted that?!

I made three attempts to watch it all the way through. I couldn't do it. I started crying almost immediately and was blinded by my tears.

Everytime.

I didn't personally know anyone that died that day. Yet, I feel like I knew them all. I continue to grieve for each and everyone of them.

I Will Never Forget.

Probably everyone, at least back here, knew someone who died then. Had one classmate from home who died in the Pentagon. He had one child, I believe.

All these Black helicopter type theories I got tired of during the Clinton years. Instead of the right, they are coming from the left. They are just as stupid and offensive.

The people who hijacked the planes and those that either supported them or the governments that supported them, they are to blame, not Americans, unless you can show that specific American citizens knowingly assisted them or their organization. That group up in Buffalo I believe included some citizens.

However, this does not mean that our intelligence should have been better, that some of the hijackers would not have gotten through had even the intelligence we had been known by some who needed to know, such as the airport security, to keep them from entering.

Did either administration make errors in this matter? I would certainly say so. It probably had been going downhill since the end of the Cold War. It took 9-11 to bring attention to the problem.

How the administration presented the war to the people I always had a problem with. He know doubt had honorable motives for the war, and believed very deeply it was necessary.

I just prefer honesty and integrity in the reasoning given for the war, even if the motivations would not prove to be as popular with the people as the ones given. This is especially true now, being the first war in the post-Cold War era, and the rules and principles upon which the nation shall be engaging in various international challenges and conflicts that face us are being laid down during this time.

We must know what these actually are in order to discuss whether they are correct and if not, how should they be changed.

Actually, it is 72 virgins. However, is it not true that some supposedly get 72 demons instead, and have their intestines burned with hot sand during the encounters they receive?

You cannot negotiate with terrorists. You cannot have such organizations or governments as allies. This game with the Arafat and the others is not new for some European countries. Can anyone say Munich?

Al Quaeda has already done unto us. There really is only one solution to these scum. I really do not care who is in the tank, or pulling the trigger, or pushing the button. Sharon can do it just as well if he really wants to. I am not particular.

Lord, please forgive my brother for being a back woods red necked local paper reading no tv watching uniformed liberal.

Are you saying that criticism of the Bush administration's pre-9/11 terrorist strategy is not legitimate because a 9/11 was so terrible? I think it is. Am I dishonuring the 9/11 dead in some way here? Help me out.

Geoffrey,
What are you talking about?

Libertarian,

Bush was not dishonest.

Watch how often the word exaggerate or its synonyms are used to describe his supposed dishonesty. The word exaggerate is almost always an indication that an opinion is being evaluated or expressed. Differences of opinion are not lies. One side will emphasize a particular perceived risk. The other side will claim is it an exaggeration. How can we tell, especially if the actions taken to mitigate the risk work?

Recall how many predictions of failure for the war failed to materialize. This makes those predictions incorrect, not lies.

Yours,
Wince

Here's something I saw at Michelle's blog (A Small Victory):

After his death, Osama bin Laden went to paradise.

He was greeted by George Washington, who slapped him across the face and yelled angrily, "How dare you attack the nation I helped conceive!" Then Patrick Henry punched Osama in the nose and James Madison kicked him in the groin. Bin Laden was subjected to similar beatings from John Randolph, James Monroe, Thomas Jefferson and 66 other early Americans.

As he writhed in pain on the ground, an angel appeared. Bin Laden groaned, "This is not what I was promised!"

The angel replied, "I told you there would be 72 Virginians waiting for you! What did you think I said?"

Ted, the post Rosemary linked to was by my brother, not me. That's what I was referring to.

Wince and Nod, I myself did not mention exaggerate or lying. I never said anything about predictions not coming true about the war, or predict great failures. I have no control over what others claim this dishonesty to be that you refer to. I have noted a number of times on this site what my objections are.

The WMDs were not found, and the Bush Administration made a number of claims, based on faulty intelligence, on top of some wonderfully bureaucratic sounding bullshit. If Bush was completely honest about what the war was for, then the war was based on incorrect information. The administration will not admit that they ever were wrong. Just because various goods came from it does not change the incorrectness of the basis for the war.

However, we are hearing quite a bit of other reasons justifying the war now from the administration, some of which may be just, depending on one's views. They were not the reasons given to us before the war.

I can understand that predictions do not come out as expected without seeing dishonesty. I expect that to be stated, if anything is said about it, not grasping for straws, using Clintonian word games, or trying to show why one really always had these other reasons, as well, so one really was never wrong about the situation. The first objective seemed to be in justifying what they chose to do, not finding out what might have gone wrong.

If it really was the other reasons, why were we not given them before the war? Some of the administration's defenders point out how popular the WMD rationale was for the war. His Majesty himself gave an interesting defense of the war. His own reasons are definitely something to ponder. However, if Bush agreed with these, then we and Congress had a right to know what these purposes were before the war. To have one set of purposes and giving the only reason that would go well with the people is not honest.

These actions could set the pattern for U.S. engagement in post-Cold War conflicts. We had a right to know what those reasons were, if there were other reasons, even if they would not be popular with the people.

However, if the only reasons were those that were given before the war, then, again, the WMDs have not been found, and the administration has been more interested in showing why they were always right, rather than showing why they were not there, and what mistakes might have been made, either under Bush or Clinton.

There is a difference between a prediction not coming true, and arguing over the definition of the word "is" to show that the prediction really did come true. Changing from WMDs to "weapons of mass destruction related programs activities" clearly is the latter. Clinton would be proud.

Please be careful, Wince and Nod, that you do not attribute the attitudes of other opponents on myself. I take it these others you speak of are Democrats. I see one big difference right there. :)

Ted,
DEFINITELY white ones.
In fact the whole confusion is over what the Koran means when it says "white ones". White what?
Personally, I think it refers to those guys (and I do mean "guys") with white clothes and wings you see in many paintings.

Max:

Are you saying that criticism of the Bush administration's pre-9/11 terrorist strategy is not legitimate because a 9/11 was so terrible?

No. I guess you didn't read Juliette.

Juliette gave the best response. So here it is:

"So it goes like this: President Bush let the events of September eleventh happen because, in the eight months between his inauguration and 9/11, he did “nothing” about Al Qaeda. That’s right, "nothing." Is this the same nothing that the Clinton administration did in eight years, after five Al Qaeda attacks on the US and its assets, hundreds of dead Americans, Kenyans and Tanzanians and thousands of wounded/permanently disfigured and disabled, unanswered, unavenged?"

"Did the Clinton Administration have evidence of an Al Qaeda cell (Mohammad Atta and co.) operating in the United States? If so, were investigations started and ongoing during the change of administrations? I ask, because, as we now know, the planning for 9/11 didn't start on George W. Bush's inauguration day.

Also, I suppose that the Bush administration was supposed find the missing files from the Federal Bureau of Investigation that seem to have disappeared on January 29, 2001, find and appoint a new director for the disheveled organization—recall that the present director, Robert Mueller, was confirmed in August 2001--and then use it to crack open a domestic terror organization, the same one that the outgoing administration couldn’t manage to catch even when its leader was handed to them on a silver platter. I guess many must have higher estimates of the abilities of the Bush Administration to protect the nation than they did of its predecessor. Yeah, that’s it."

But you forget, Rose, that the spinners always have an out!

In this case, Mr. Clarke also claims that Bush was fixated on Iraq, and insisted (even as early as 9/12) that they were involved.

So even if you can shut them about the nitwit claim that "Bush did nothing" (AKA the latest spin on "Bush knew", AKA the McKinney paranoid conspiracist theory), they'll drop back, move the goalposts, and claim that he should have focused exclusively on al Qaeda.

I'll bet you a dollar that's how this is going to play out.

It sounds bad now, but wait until the facts about this numbnut come out. I already knew he was pissed off at Bush 45, because he went from near-Cabinet level influence under Clinton, to flunky under Bush.

What I hadn't heard before was Geoffrey's report that this dink actually proposed to use sonic booms generated by low-flying SR-71s to scare Quaddafi!

This man is an expert? Yeah.

The problem is that this acts as if the criticisms are nothing more than Democratic partisanship. If the new administration did the same "nothing" that the Clinton one did, well we could have gotten the same thing from Gore!

Some people voted for Bush because they trusted an administration that he would run more than a continuation of the Clinton regime with Gore. People knew that the Clintons left our defense depart in shambles. This is the guy who said he "loathed the military"! What do you expect?

Some people hoped that Bush would clean up some of the mess the Clintons left. Just saying he did exactly what Clinton would do during those nine months does not give me any confidence. Weren't some of those who boarded, even with the intelligence we had, supposed to have been denied entry? Yes, I expected more from Bush than Clinton. I did not vote for Clinton either time.

By presuming first that it is merely Democratic partisan rhetoric, one does a disservice, and outright insults, those that truly wish for the intelligence and defense departments to be corrected of their current problems, and to have a open and principled defense policy for the post-Cold War times. You have to at least be able to discuss what those problems were!

As someone who only voted for one Dem above the level of county commissioner (2000 Senate race), I find it particularly irksome for someone to suggest that questioning of pre-9-11 intelligence to be nothing more than Democratic partisanship.

Steven Malcolm Anderson would know exactly why I did that in 2000, do you not?

No, Rosemary, I did read Juliette. Still wasn't clear why blaming as you put it or holding them to account for their failures as I would, makes me an asshole. The Clintons were more engaged with the threat posed by Al Quaeda than the incoming Bush administration who largely ignored it, ignored the reccomendations of the bipartisan Hart-Rudman report, and generally let the ball slip.

Juliette, final paragraph:

My beef with Islamists is personal, times two, baby, and anything that’s done to keep them from their deserved fate only serves the interests of these evil people. Don’t think so? Keep on attempting to undermine this administration’s effort, then. Enjoy dhimmitude afterward.

Do you endorse this sentiment that by raising questions about Bush's pre-9/11 commitment to antiterrorism means I'm some sort of appeasement minded useful idiot? Its pretty damn annoying.

Max,

First, the Clintons had 8 years to be aquainted with Al Qaeda, Bush had 8 months. Holding the any administration accountable for failures is NOT the same thing as suggesting that Bush is directly responsible for allowing 9/11 to occur.
Richard Clarke is suggesting that Bush could have actually prevented 9/11. I find that suggestion utterly disgusting.

If you think that Bush allowed 9/11 to happen so he could start a war, you're an asshole.

Rose there were a lot of things Bush could have done to make 9/11 less likely which he didn't do. I'm not advancing any 'percentages' because there's so much stuff I don't know about it, and more I couldn't know - but pointing to specific instances where he or his administration took the foot off the pedal is perfectly legit. But no, I'm not one of them, I dislike Bush but I try not to let it addle my senses....

Max,
I didn't think you were. But I must admit, you had me worried there, for just a second. ;-)

Libertarian:
"Steven Malcolm Anderson would know exactly why I did that in 2000, do you not?"

I do indeed.

I must ask: since when did "Clinton did it" become a justification for _anything_?

Like you, I've had it with "Democrats vs. Republicans" nonsense. As I discussed in another thread here, followers of the herd mentality think that everybody is either a Democrat or a Republican, not merely registered as such but in their essence, and that every idea expressed or any criticism of any politician or policy must be a "talking point" for one or the other political party. If it's not a Republican "talking point", it must be a Democratic "talking point", or vice versa. In their minds, everything is all about getting Democrats or Republicans elected.

I'll be glad when this election is over so we can finally talk about someting else! (Except that, even then, the partisans will be talking for the next four years about the _next_ election!) I couldn't care less about getting Democrats or Republicans elected. I'm interested in ideas, principles, values, and in the defense of my country and civilization -- whather or not that helps Democrats or Republicans.

I find it interesting Clarke thought it was significant Rumsfield thought Iraq *may* have been behind 9/11 as of 9/12. I suppose Clarke had the memo laying around that indicated Al Qaeda was planning an attack and neglected to pass it along, or otherwise had revealed knowledge from Allah, Christ, or Loki that Saddam had nothing to do with the attack. Considering Saddam had been making threats to "get" the US since Desert Storm, I'm a little leery of anyone who disavowed a connection that quickly.

"from Allah, Christ, or Loki" -- I love the _style_ of that!