I agree that it was a big surprise to many people, including myself. However, I am even more surprised to hear about their 'plans for Islamic world domination'. If such plans indeed existed then it's really bad that the Bush administration or any other previous American administration did not find out about them sooner. This is, in fact, much worse, than the 9/11 attack surprise. But if they did know about them, then it was easy to predict something like 9/11. It's just a simple corollary as we say in mathematical literature. Personally, I do not believe that the Islam world is after our cherished Western civilization. I suspect that all they want from us, Westerners, is to be left alone. Let me remind you that OBL was a staunch American ally against Soviets in Afghanistan and it was only after the US had established military bases in Saudi Arabia, his motherland, that he turned against America. It's a simple cause and effect type of phenomenon on which our Western science has been largely built and I am surprised that you do not seem to embrace it.
Quote from spect8or: Anyway, back to reality. It's just that idiots like you seem to forget just how shocked people in America were that, in this day and age, other human beings would actually crash a plane carrying themselves into a building for no apparent purpose other than to let us know how pissed off they are their plans for Islamic world domination aren't panning out. Yeah, most Americans could not have conceived of human beings crashing a planeful of passengers into a building. However, our intelligence agencies like the CIA and the NIC had known about this for years. To say otherwise is foolish and naive. But then again I guess that Condi Rice is a typical paper-pushing "bureaucrat" that has no leadership qualities whatsoever. WOODWARD AND EGGEN: But a 1999 report prepared for the National Intelligence Council, an affiliate of the CIA, warned that terrorists associated with bin Laden might hijack an airplane and crash it into the Pentagon, White House or CIA headquarters. The report recounts well-known case studies of similar plots, including a 1995 plan by al Qaeda operatives to hijack and crash a dozen U.S. airliners in the South Pacific and pilot a light aircraft into Langley. âSuicide bomber(s) belonging to al-Qaidaâs 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,â the September 1999 report said. Woodward and Eggen recounted case studies which they said were âwell-known.â But if these cases were well-known to some, they apparently werenât well-known to Rice.
A handful of Sept. 11 widows are outraged that President Bush didn't act on the Aug. 6, 2001, briefing he got from the CIA. "Everything is in [the President's Daily Brief, or PDB] but the date 9/11," complained Lori Van Auken, whose husband died in the Twin Towers, in comments to the New York Daily News. "You have the who, what, where, why and how. The only thing you don't have is the when." Actually, as far as the "who" goes, none of the hijackers' names appear in the Bush CIA briefing memo. And the "what"? Nowhere does the memo warn that hijackers would use airplanes as kamikaze missiles. "Where"? The memo mentions "federal buildings in New York." But Bush could have closed every one of them and the World Trade Center, which is not a federal building, would have still been packed with 50,000 workers on the morning of 9/11. How about the "why" cited by Mrs. Van Auken? The CIA briefing says that "after US missile strikes on his base in Afghanistan in 1998, bin Ladin told followers he wanted to retaliate in Washington." But those attacks were launched by President Clinton, not Bush. And the "how"? The memo makes no mention of hijackers overtaking U.S. flight crews with small knives. Of course, if President Bush had treated the Aug. 6 PDB as actionable intelligence, there are indeed several measures he could have taken that would have guaranteed that a Sept. 11-style attack on America would never have happened. * Because the CIA memo mentions only Osama bin Laden by name, Bush would have had to round up any and all of bin Laden's potential followers inside the U.S., i.e., every Muslim in America, and throw them into internment camps - just as FDR did with Japanese-Americans after Pearl Harbor. * Since reporters have been able to sneak any number of weapons past airport screeners even with post-9/11 security measures in place, President Bush would have had to close all of America's airports to completely eliminate the possibility of hijackings. * In order to protect against another Millennium Plot bombing attack - which the memo explicitly refers to - Bush would have had to order that all shopping malls, schools, museums, movie theaters, train stations, large office buildings and other potential high-value targets be closed till further notice. * Because Millennium Plot potential bomber Ahmed Ressam tried to sneak across the Canadian border, Bush would have had to seal both the Canadian and Mexican borders until the war on terrorism was won. * In order to assure the elimination of the bin Laden threat, Bush would have had to launch a pre-9/11 invasion of Afghanistan. If the master terrorist ran to Pakistan, the U.S. would have needed to invade that country as well. Had Bush taken the above steps, the economy would have been in shambles, the airline industry destroyed, most of the nation unemployed, the U.S. at war, and 6 million Muslims - nearly all of them innocent - would be behind bars. But the Sept. 11 attacks would have been prevented - at least for the few months that it would have taken for the Congress to impeach and remove President Bush from office for massive abuses of power. -By Carl Limbacher, April 11 2004
But the CIA was already "following" 2 of the hijackers from September 11th, and they already had Moussoui under surveillance as well. Sending out a "Watch-List" to the FAA would not have crippled the Airline Industry at all. There might have been some "delays" due to the "Watch-List" but your statement that the Bush Administration would have had to round-up every Muslim in American and close down the borders is totally absurd. Just think, the CIA already had several hijackers under surveillance and a simple "Watch-List" could have well prevented 911. But we will never know because our President and his NSA were too busy being "bureaucrats" and not leaders.
By the way, can anyone tell me why General Attorney John Ashcroft was flying around on a private government jet before 911? Seems to me that he heard of the security threat regarding a potential hijacking, but apparently "counter-terrorism" was not a priority for his office since for him it was all about Guns and Drugs. Mayor Willie Brown of San Francisco was also "tipped-off" to stay out of the sky a few weeks before 911 as well. Ashcroft obviously has some questions to answer when it is his turn before the "911 Commission". Perhaps he can tell us why Guns and Drugs were his priority, and NOT counter-terrorism measures.
Coming from you, that's classic! Oh really? So now you're an expert in national security, even more so than your your icon Clarke who admitted 9/11 could not have been foiled? LOL! Having a watch-list is very different from actively being able to detect those people and detain them. By the way, some of the hijackers WERE on watch lists. Also, on American Airlines Flight 11, three of the five hijackers turned up on the FAA security system as being possible security risks. One didn't check any baggage, so he was dismissed. The other two had their checked bags scanned for explosives before they were loaded onto the plane. Waggie, keep trying. Eventually you'll come to the conclusion that Bush himself ordered the attacks, and Trade(jack)Off will chime in from the peanut gallery to applaud your "thinking."
Didn't you just start a thread on that very same subject, Shaggie? Good grief, there you go again, posting crap that doesn't even belong on the thread. Waggie is the Mother of all Thread Spammers!
Waggie, Terrorism cannot be prevented. Period. End of story. If someone wants to commit an act of terror, only their own conscience can be the hero and prevent the act from happening. Let's go back in time shall we. It was April 19,1995 â a perfect, sun-drenched Oklahoma morning in springtime. Against a perfect blue-sky background, a yellow Ryder Rental truck carefully made its way through the streets of downtown Oklahoma City. Just after 9 am, the vehicle pulled into a parking area outside the Alfred P. Murrah Building and the driver stepped down from the truckâs cab and casually walked away. A few minutes later, at 9:02, all hell broke loose as the truckâs deadly 4000-pound cargo blasted the government building with enough force to shatter one third of the seven-story structure to bits. Glass, concrete, and steel rained down. Indiscriminately mixed in the smoldering rubble were adults and children âalive and dead. The perpetrator âtwenty-seven-year-old Timothy James McVeigh. Was he an Arab? Nope. Was he a member of Al Qaida? Nope. He was a white American kid from Michigan. He was a decorated solider in the first Gulf War. He had no criminal record. I will say this again. Terrorism cannot be stopped. You never know where it will come from. It might even be your neighbor. Your neighbor might be planning the next major attack in the US that could take the lives of 100,000 innocent Americans. Pretty scary huh? BTW, why didn't Bill Clinton prevent Oklahoma city from happening? BTW, this is a rhetorical question.