Adam, try deny that you would not be among the people calling for Bush's head because of a unilateral attack against Bin Laden before 911.

I remember many of the left (Gore Vidal et al) saying that the attack on afghanistan was for oil. I had dozens of people telling me that Osama couldn't have done it and it was for oil. Why is it that everything is about oil with you guys. You know a good astringent would take care of that problem for you.

I guess lightning does strike twice.

Here is another article written on the same subject (what if) from Kathleen Parker.

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/kathleenparker/kp20040410.shtml

This is a little overwhelmingly silly to even comment on. But I would submit two things.

1. I think pre-emptively invading Afghanistan is probably not the only way to have stopped 9/11. Clinton didn't need to invade any countries to stop the millennium L.A. airport bombing, for just one example.

2. The August 7 date is pretty hilarious for Bush's pretend invasion, considering that in the real world, Bush went off that week for a month-long vacation in the eighth month of his administration.

"What if" scenarios might be fun to play with, but they don't really help us solve the real problems we have to deal with. But just to get in the spirit, here's one of my favorite thought experiments: What if the 9/11 hijackers were French? Chew on that puppy for a while.

And adam chimes in on cue. Merciful Mother of God.

While Clinton was fussing with his zipper, a Customs agent noticed something awry and took action. Thank God for common sense, and for federal employees who don't check their brains at the door.

Bill, am I commenting too much today? Maybe I am. I admit being bored and hanging out here to see what pops up. Idle hands are the Devil's workshop, and all that. :-)

Adam,

I'm having the same kind of day. Did all my Easter baking, son is sick and sleeping, hubby is sleeping because he works at midnight.

I'm bored.

Oh, heck, maybe I'm a rube or something, but this little tale of "what if" sure sounds like exactly what would have happened, had we been prescient enough to somehow foretell the attacks; or even just had a strong foretaste of what might happen.

Nothing was done militarily for YEARS prior to this horriffic attack; many administrations stood by, and wrangled the same old wrangle - "Good Lord, Mr. Prez, you don't wanna get caught up in the next Vietnam!"

So, we took the bad guys we CAUGHT to court, we missed some other bad guys who killed alot of our people, and the bad guys we took to court are...walking, with alarming frequency.

Now, who would have acted to pre-emptively stop this sick, twisted act from happening, with all of the prior case history and the "strong hints" and the "rumors" and the fragmented intel?

Nobody. Not Clinton, not Gore, not JFKennedy himself (well, HE mighta had the balls). Nobody in this modern "holy-cow-it's-another-Vietnam-peace-at-any-price-apppease-them-maybe-they'll go-away-and-leave-us-alone world we've been unfortunate to land in would.

And why not? Because it would have been WRONG to bring death, destruction, and disarray to ANY country or group or "alleged" (gotta love that word) activist-militant-terrorist bunch before they actually DID anything.

So. You work with the intel you have. You guess. You lie awake at night, worrying, wondering. But you don't have CONCRETE proof or evidence, and you don't DARE take out the scumbags, cuz you know the whole WORLD will be all on your ass the very next day.

WWJD? Heck, what the hell would YOU do?

Here's what I would do. If they strike, I seek them out. Then, I find out who sent them to strike. Then, I continue to eradicate, change, re-ally, re-orient; every single one of them. the one's that won't re-orient, have to disappear. Into jail, or whatever. The one's who will act as a force for change, for good, for life and liberty, will be put into positions where they can have the power (carefully monitored, of course) to make GOOD THINGS HAPPEN.

Kinda like that wacko Bush guy's plan. Man, he's just awful, huh.

Rick,

That's what I've been saying! Of course, that is why I am the Queen of All Evil.

The 9/11 hijackers could have been French nationals and it wouldn't have changed much. As long as they were trained in Al-Qeada camps in various parts of the world, we wouldn't have really blamed France (well, the general population would have called for an all out attack on France, but they tend to do that for the smallest of reasons). Now if the Chirac administration had trained and financed them, then it would have been different. Remember, we have troops in Germany for a reason....

Mm-hm. It's a cute piece. Fiction though, and nothing more so I wouldn't weigh in on it too heavily. Who is possibly to say that things would go down in that fashion if 9/11 and "Operation Iraqi Freedom" had been handled differently than the way that Bush Admin handled it? Cute story though. Imaginative. I kind of liked it.

It certainly is fiction. It's thought provoking fiction.

Again, I can't believe you are arguing with Adam when his long, in-depth replies all say the same thing. Face it. He doesn't want to believe the facts. He has his mind set and does not want to change it. Nothing will convince him. Move on to people who can see past their prejudices.
Adam will say anything to make it sound as if he is arguing from logic, but his true plan is obvious.

Urako:

You caught me! My true plan has been exposed. The truth is, I'm learning evil from Rosemary. After all, evil crosses all ideological lines. Soon, I and my evil minions will smite you all!

HAHAHA!

:-)

I thought only Republicans were evil. I'm so happy I'm not alone.

I think I have more minions than you do...it's a girl thing. ;-)

True dat.

Only quibble: it wouldn't have been just 19 men of Arab descent who entered the country legally who got detained. We would have seen hundreds detained. The Aug. 6th information wouldn't have led to anything less.

Let's hear how irresponsible it was of the administration not to do it!

"What if the 9/11 hijackers were French? Chew on that puppy for a while."

You mean the same country that couldn't pull off an attack against Greenpeace without getting caught by the New Zealand authorities? Yeah, *that's* a terrifying covert organization.

One of the reasons that I always recommend the "Godzilla" movie starring Matthew Broderick--in spite of its many flaws--is that one of its central themes is that the French Secret Service is the most competent spy organization in the world. That alone makes it one of the funniest damned movies that will ever be made on this planet.

To answer your "what if?" directly, if the French government was implicated in the plot, I think well enough of the French to think that it would lead to the fall of the government there and in apologies from their successors. If it did not. . .that would indeed be very bad. Two nuclear powers involved and all. If it was French nationals with no known ties to the government, the main complication would be if the French government insisted on conditioning extradition for the leaders of the plot--assuming they were in France--on them not receiving the death penalty. Relations would get icy rather quickly.

Adam, The catch by the customs agent was a pure fluke of luck. Ahmad Ressam had a valid Canadian passport (even though he was in Canada illegally), he purposefully went through some backwater ferry customs stop to avoid suspicion. I bet that the customs agent looked at him funny because Ressam was a bit nervous and obviously not white. We may be thankful that certain despicable instincts were right on the money. If all the ducks had not lined up he would have gotten through.

We were lucky that day. That was all.

ok, so lets pretend that they knew that a group of terrorist were planning to hijack an airliner sometime soon and crash it somewhere on the eastern seaboard.

With the state of checking that was going on pre 911, there would have missed these guys. Back it would have happened.

Ok, so they grounded airliners on and off for the next few months tryong to preempt something. At that time, all the airlines were headed into a massive downsizing of business travel. There would have been a tremendous outcry from all quarters demanding that this "arbitrary" action cease and desist. The airline industry would have gone completely ballistic a nd blamed their downturn on the Bush admin.

Now, what if they started pushing some of the activities going on now. Like for example a massive increase in security. The democratic party would have made hay with this as a egregious invasion of traveller privacy. Same thing with the CIA and FBI collaboration. Lots of complaint about abuse.

Without real actionable intelligence, the Bush admin would have been potrayed as chicken littles.

This is just gotcha politics. People are looking for anyreason to blame the current admin no matter what. Hey, maybe someone, anyone, needs to take the fall for all of us to get our pound of flesh.

I spend much of my time on an airplane. This has been so for the last 10 years as part of my job. Previously to 911, airport security was a joke. Cockpit security was a joke, the whole FAA handling of things was a joke.

Lets say you know that there will be an attempt to hijack planes and turn them into guided missles. Its july, what do you do?

Do you pre-emptively attack Bin Laden in Afghanistan? No way you could ever get enough political capital or justification for that. No way, no how. So that is one option off the table.

Another option is to change the essential nature of FBI and CIA relationships, i.e. they start sharing information. So joint CIA/FBI teams are going to surveil mosques, look for swarthy foreigners at edcuation facilites. People of middle eastern backgrounds will be subject to arbitrary arrest and seizures. How long before a hue and cry from civil liberties groups about the danger of this. The history of CIA dismemberment is founded on events going back to the Church commission. So you try to explain without tipping the collective terrorist hand why you need this. Not going to happen. So the FBI and CIA run their ops and compartmentalize their info and 911 happens because no one puts it together.

Last option is to massively crack down on security. So you put tons of very onerous requirements on the airports and airlines. You may remember that the airlines were coming off the edge of the bubble. Many of them were going broke before this. To the airlines, this is the last straw. How much tooth and nail are they going to fight.

So basically without the crystalizing event of 911, none of this will reach the consciousness of everyday americans. 911 was going to happen anyway. Show me what could have been done different from what I laid out.