What should the White House or the FBI have DONE?

Post #39,078 by Simon_Jester 5/17/02 5:07:58 PM Reply	What should the White House or the FBI have DONE? Well...others have suggested the following possibilities 1. Increase the number of Air Marshalls on Airline Flights. (Note: this was done after the attack.) 2. In August, when known al-Qaeda operatives Khalid al-Midhar and Nawaq al-Hamzi had slipped into the U.S. Bush could have ordered their names and pictures be sent to all ticket counters, airports and travel agencies throughout the U.S. 3. With the arrest of Zaccarias Moussaoui, Bush could have ordered the FBI and other agencies to investigate other flight schools throughout the country. Furthermore he could've ordered issurance of the FISA warrent to trace Moussaoiu's emails and phone calls. 4. He could've activated the National Guard in all states. (Well, he did activate Florida's National Guard). 5. Finally, he could've allowed the FBI to continue the investigation of bin Laden's family members. Of course....he also could have simply told us that there was an increased chance of attack. However, 20/20 hindsight, I doubt that any of these would completely stop terrorists. If they don't attack by plane, they'll attack some other weak point. However, what I find truly troubling is the question one reporter made to Ari Flecher in yeserday's briefing. Q Well, Ari, I'm still having a hard time understanding why, in the post-9/11 environment that we were in every day after 9/11, throughout that period, that you, the President, your allies made a very detailed case against Osama bin Laden to build up the rationale for going to war against the Taliban in Afghanistan -- why, in building that case, it was never mentioned, oh, and one more piece of evidence is we knew in August there was a threat that they wanted to hijack our airplanes?
Post #39,081 by Simon_Jester 5/17/02 5:30:22 PM Reply	One more... 6. Bush could've drafted a formal Security Presidential Directive, that amounted to a \ufffdgame plan to remove al-Qaida from the face of the Earth". Ooops...he did that [link\|http://www.msnbc.com/news/753359.asp\| too. ]
Post #39,090 by screamer 5/17/02 6:22:59 PM Reply	Very concise and well thought out... but just begs the question, "how much are we willing to commit to security and how much are we willing to pay?" This is not really directed towards the points you brought out. I think the intelligence community should have known that the World Trade Center was a primary target (due to the previous attack carried out on same structure in '93 or '94) and the Pentagon/White House/Congress buildings make juicy targets for all... Hijackings have been standard terrorist operating procedure since at least the '70's... I still think that the suicide guiding of jet airliners into buildings was a bit novel and probably noone in the intelligence community would have given these scenarios (especially considering the sequence and precise planning involved, the low tech nature - even down to using boxcutters) a serious chance of succeeding. Pre - 911, these events would have seemed "far fetched" and without being tipped off to the exact plans - not a cause for major action. In hindsight, this is a naive viewpoint, but I don't think that we should try to shift the blame onto ourselves, the intelligence community or the White House or congress for what those Al Quaeda sons of bitches did... Period. It may help us feel a bit better psychologically if we felt that we were really "in control" but someone screwed up, but I don't really think that was the case. We screwed up by underestimating the hatred these people had for us and their ability for cruelty and for orchestrating massive scale destruction. Fool us once, shame on you - fool us again... Just a few thoughts, Screamer "As people assemble, civilization Is trying to find a new way to die, But killing is really, merely scene changer,all men are bored, with other men's lives" ... "We all know success, when we all find our own dreams And our love is enough to knock down any walls And the future's been seen, as men try to realize The simple secret of the note in us all in us all" P. Townshend - Pure and Easy
Post #39,098 by Ashton 5/17/02 7:48:27 PM Reply	Pretty much agreed. A pointless exercise - and the Admin have tried to learn from the "one-time" 20/20 hindsight - witness Ashcroft's several "general alerts"... kinda like the HMO's "diagnosis": Sir, you have non-specific ___itis and here's a new antibiotic to take, which I found in the PDR - just in case and to make you feel you got a Rx for your trouble.. Nah dunno if it's a virus, but.. Next! I'd imagine that most folks reading this forum are well aware of how bloody infinite is the capacity for screwing up any complex mechanism ergo - how impossible to cover even a fraction of the possibilities. But that factoid will never interfere with random politicobabble and the perpetually hungry maw of the newsfotainment industry. Right? Ashton who wouldn't dream of blaming Dubya for not being omniscient.. I can't even blame him for being a bit of a C- rote thinker; if he had a brain he'd be anathema to his buddies, and might stray from the text of his speeches.. Maybe a War Against Just Evul-Warz slip?
Post #39,139 by Simon_Jester 5/18/02 1:01:12 PM Reply	Re: Very concise and well thought out... Hijackings have been standard terrorist operating procedure since at least the '70's... I still think that the suicide guiding of jet airliners into buildings was a bit novel and probably noone in the intelligence community would have given these scenarios (especially considering the sequence and precise planning involved, the low tech nature - even down to using boxcutters) a serious chance of succeeding. Pre - 911, these events would have seemed "far fetched" and without being tipped off to the exact plans - not a cause for major action. Certainly the idea that people would hijack aircraft just to fly it (like a bomb) into a building seemed like the stuff of fiction (and a certain John Clancy novel). I'll even concede that government reports could've been considered "over the top". (Like this one: [link\|http://www.loc.gov/rr/frd/Sociology-Psychology%20of%20Terrorism.htm\| Suicide bomber(s) belonging to al-Qaida's Martyrdom Battalion could crash-land an aircraft packed with high explosives (C-4 and semtex) into the Pentagon, the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), or the White House. Ramzi Yousef had planned to do this against the CIA headquarters. ] ) However, I still don't understand this excuse. Does it REALLY matter, as Bush has said, that he didn't know they were planning to fly the planes into building? He had intelligence reports that terrorists were planning to do SOMETHING with aircraft. Were normal hijackings somehow acceptable? In hindsight, this is a naive viewpoint, but I don't think that we should try to shift the blame onto ourselves, the intelligence community or the White House or congress for what those Al Quaeda sons of bitches did... Period. Well, I don't like the fingerpointing (and there's way too much of it from both the Democrats and White House). But...I can't blame the Al Quaeda either. Perhaps I'm an arrogant asshole, but frankly I don't consider them human. I consider them to be equivalent to dangerous wild animals that would kill if they get an opportunity. I would kill them with the same emotion that have when I kill a rattlesnake in my yard. But I can't blame the snake if I get bit. I still kill it....but blame it?
Post #39,145 by Ashton 5/18/02 4:02:26 PM Reply	If one follows up the muckraking link in Politics ref'd by Silverlock: There are stronger assertions of a more specific mention of the suicide intention / airliner-as-bomb. 'Assertions' being what they are - remains to be seen how much of this site's stuff is mere imaginitive puffery. All I know for Certain is: that "news" which filters into the infotainment SHALL be filtered and massaged a lot - for ideological correctness. I can merely suppose too, that such suggestions as might have been inserted into the Pres's leather bound daily folder -- would be couched in the Universal Language of CYA, lest some demi-operative become later embarrassed with a "sky is falling" attribution. I think I'd LIKE to see that minute investigation commence, which so horrifies the Enron-serviced staff around Dubya, even if it proves in hindsight to have been more about tawdry knee-jerk Murican politics than about Dumbth on a Cosmic scale. Ashton who wonders when Dubya's "Presidential Papers" shall be classified for 100 years.. for National Security Reasons\ufffd
Post #39,159 by mmoffitt 5/18/02 6:33:32 PM Reply	They must have known something was up. Why else devise the above referenced brief to "take out Al-Queda"? Surely such an effort is not undertaken unless there is some reasonable threat. I don't for a second think that Dubya is smart enough to have figured out, in advance, that an attack on US soil of any kind would save his presidency. I believe that his handlers/placers in office are that smart. But even I, in all my bias, do not think they would do such a thing - Call me Pollyanna. I am, however, GREATLY disturbed by the idiotic double-speak. Condosleeza Rice says "No one could have guessed..." I don't believe that. Hell, even boxley's (who agrees with me on virtually nothing) told us this was no tremendous surprise! I am ALARMED when the VP says, openly, that Congress should not oversee anything done by the Executive Branch. I am DUMB-FOUNDED that a story far larger than Iran-Contra (which, it should be noted, was a story broken not by the "on bended knee" minions of the White House Press Corps, but by a Beirut Bi-Weekly newspaper) is going completely without notice. I watched Moyers interview Kevin Phillips last night and Phillips (x-Nixon employee) was ranting over the fact that Bush Jr. and Sr.'s involvement in the Enron debacle was going to slip by the notice of the Murican people because the Media Dynasties don't want to talk about other dynasties for fear of having some one put a mirror in their faces. Dubya is an idiot, I don't care what anyone says, he IS the ruling elite's inbred idiot child. It is extremely dangerous to ask him to analyze anything. This is one example, I fear there will be more.
Post #39,228 by Ashton 5/19/02 6:31:23 PM Reply	On the scale of possibilities (?) 1) YES - something was scheduled - seems to have been grokked. Possibly with Al-Q name attached. 2) Less likely but as of 5/19/02 - hardly ruled-out: someone had indeed re-raised the airliner conundrum AND the possibility of these as missiles. In time - to have grounded-all and Then discuss. 3) A more sinister plot-line, involving the necessary (and easy) (in)subordinaton.. of not including Dubya's massive intellect much within it. As to 1) - well.. as I believe Silverlock [somewhere!] pointed out with links: When Bill C. was faced with a similar threat and of apparently equivalent non-specificity: On His Watch - that cockamamie clod with the fixings for LA International - was fucking CAUGHT. Luck? - surely a portion. But, luck wouldn't have helped! if NOTHING was said or done - as with Dubya and the Enron cadre. (In fact THIS Admin's phrasing of their now several, 'non-specific warnings' since 9/11.. copies! the IMhO pretty appropriate wording of the Repos' Nemesis, Bill C. Cackle.) 'Proving' 2 is apt to be an exercise in futility; it shall just lie around in the shadows for AM-radio screaming. As to 3): By it's very nature, such a 'conspiracy' is most unlikely for the simple fact of the profligacy and unpredictability of the Homo-sap Ego in Need of Gloating / Telling [The Secret]\ufffd. But that does not make it an impossible excuse for a Cabal, either: as with the soldier ("everyone else may get hit, but Not Me!" this time). Power Corruption R Us - and each guy thinks he can pull it off. As to whether Greed IS the perfect 5-letter encapsulation of the current incarnation of Vulture Capitalism via Corporate Rule, and the basis for a Cabal? It's surely close-enough and - predecessors like the slimy Newt G. demonstrate the calibre of the droids who scuttled aboard with the Dubya Selection - (which simultaneously put the USSC into sleaze-rep status, for at least a next decade IMO) Heh - talk about yin/yang, tit/tat - ya wins one / ya loses one. Now given India/Pak, US/Iraq/Israel nuke-each-other and the planned limitless progression of Warz on Everything Not Like US (or too-Much Like Us?) - only Q. remaining is: Will the Dubya Village Idiot Presidency be the Last Presidency of the former-US, in the scourged world? Certainly the Yes answer is quite unlikely, but I suggest that we live in a precarious moment where: The Q is not even insane. That tells us a lot. Ashton were there a 3) above? - mostly cave-dwelling successors would be around.. busily mining garbage dumps, as others sought to organize their digging and pay them min-wage.

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