There was a New York Times article yesterday indicating that it was the Neocons focus on Iraq that was the cause of the Bush Administration not reacting to warnings by the CIA of an impending attack by Al Qaeda. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/11/opini ... ef=opinion

http://www.democracynow.org/2012/9/12/5 ... nwalds_new

Was it just a consequence of choosing sides with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, rather than Russia & Iran? The interests of Israel are involved, our power over the oil trade, and who will control the future/current pipelines out of central Asia. We chose that the positives of those alliances outweighed the risks posed by the Taliban that were being supported by our allies. It bit us in the ass. Pakistan has been duplicitous this whole time, acting as friend and supporting our enemies at the same time.

Our foreign policy has been the have your cake and eat it too approach. We've insisted that we could be allies with those that support and enable our mortal enemies. So if that's the case even if 9/11 specifically had been thwarted it would have just been followed by something else our allies were fomenting in the form of the Taliban and global jihad.

Add to that the Iraq obsession of the early Bush Admin and the whole thing was headed off a cliff one way or the other.

Last paragraph of the article Freeman cited:

Could the 9/11 attack have been stopped, had the Bush team reacted with urgency to the warnings contained in all of those daily briefs? We can’t ever know. And that may be the most agonizing reality of all.

Especially agonizing if you have a deep psychological need to blame Bush or some shady band of unnamed "neocons".

You know Purple the failure to stop 9-11 should have meant sure Bush did not get re-elected (along with the unnecessary war with Iraq). At the time, all the 9-11 commission could get was the August 6 briefing, which while bad enough was not enough by itself. Ok so Bush ignored one briefing was kind of the feeling.. Now it looks like it was not one briefing but a series of briefings over a period of months and the explanation it appears is that these briefs were ignored for ideological reasons. And since Romney is planning on using holdovers from the Bush Administration team, tjhis is highly relevant politically (and of course historically). Making reference to psychological need trivializes the subject (which is your point I know), but I think there are more important considerations here than simply a desire to blame the other side because it makes us feel good.

freeman2 wrote:You know Purple the failure to stop 9-11 should have meant sure Bush did not get re-elected (along with the unnecessary war with Iraq). At the time, all the 9-11 commission could get was the August 6 briefing, which while bad enough was not enough by itself. Ok so Bush ignored one briefing was kind of the feeling.. Now it looks like it was not one briefing but a series of briefings over a period of months and the explanation it appears is that these briefs were ignored for ideological reasons. And since Romney is planning on using holdovers from the Bush Administration team, tjhis is highly relevant politically (and of course historically). Making reference to psychological need trivializes the subject (which is your point I know), but I think there are more important considerations here than simply a desire to blame the other side because it makes us feel good.

Wow, really? From "Could Bush . . . " to "Yet another reason not to vote for Romney?"

Pretty weak. Bill Clinton is campaigning for Obama. Maybe it's to make up for the chances he had to get OBL and passed on? Maybe Clinton is more responsible for 9/11 than Bush? And, you know, Obama is using . . . Hillary as Secretary of State and many other Clinton holdovers.

And, Obama is looking more and more like Carter everyday with the apologies and understanding of Islamic "hurt feelings" while they murder an ambassador on the 9/11 anniversary. So, yeah, let's politicize terrorism.

The fact that the CIA had some kind of inkling that an attack was in the pipeline doesn't mean that they had any prior knowledge of the specifics. Had they been aware of what was going on then no amount of 'ideological' obsession with Iraq would have prevented action being taken to try and prevent it. I don't think you can really try to blame an inexperienced President for failing to predict and prevent an event which totally shocked the world by its audacity and unprecedented brutality. Perhaps more could have been done, but I tend to doubt it would have made a lot of difference.

This is just like Roosevelt knew the Japanese were going to attack Pearl Harbor. Why else have the Carriers out to sea.

sass

The fact that the CIA had some kind of inkling that an attack was in the pipeline doesn't mean that they had any prior knowledge of the specifics.

You have to beleive that Eichenwald is presenting a comprehensive and honest representation of the memos and reports he says he read. But if he is, then this is the conclusion

Throughout the spring and summer of 2001, Eichenwald claims the CIA presented the administration with compelling evidence that al-Qaida operatives were in the United States, that they were planning a major terrorist attack intended to produce mass casualties, and that this attack was imminent

.

The CIA apparently had names of suspects, but didn't share them with the FBI. Perhaps the first thing that an alert administration could have done is coordinate the CIA and FBI and round up the suspects? They knew, for instance, of one suspect taking flying lessons...
However, Eichenwald doesn't offer any specifics about what he thinks could have been done. And without the CIA anti terrorism group offering up specifics of what they thought could be done, it isn't clear that their obvious condemnation of the Bush administration is completely justified. It was, after all , the CIA that failed. Twice. Once in not interdicting the plot, and secondly in not getting the executive to act .... in whatever way they thought they should act... I mean if they really feel its important ...shouldn't they have tried harder?
These are the guys, after all, who missed any anticipation or prediction of the end of communism in Russia... Their largest focus for decades...

The one thing that is clear is that the 9/11 commission didn't get all the evidence.
Abd the fundamental take away, is that without a thorough honest post mortem of what went wrong, how do you learn from the mistakes?

You could take the Libyan Embassy attack as illustrative of how dumb the government operates. No marines protecting a US embassy in a volatile Muslim country. How dumb is that? But sure as the sun rises they'll have one of the world's most expensive and secure embassies after the fact.

Neal Anderth wrote:You could take the Libyan Embassy attack as illustrative of how dumb the government operates. No marines protecting a US embassy in a volatile Muslim country. How dumb is that? But sure as the sun rises they'll have one of the world's most expensive and secure embassies after the fact.

And, it's worse than that.

It was 9/11. Terrorists like to hit on anniversaries. Think an unguarded embassy in an unstable Muslim country was a likely target?

Duh.

Secretary Clinton should resign. In other systems, the State Department head (equivalent) would be so ashamed over her department's lack of preparedness that she would resign.

If there were 'no marines' protecting the consulate (it is not an embassy, as Tripoli is the capital, not Benghazi), then how come two of the dead are US marines?

danivon wrote:If there were 'no marines' protecting the consulate (it is not an embassy, as Tripoli is the capital, not Benghazi), then how come two of the dead are US marines?

Either you're misinformed or the Marines are.

Thanks for your non-link.

Despite earlier reports from CBS we've heard that no Marines were killed in Benghazi during Tuesday's raid on the US consulate there.
Marine Capt. Kendra Motz told us: "We don't have any Marine equities in the consulate in Benghazi, nor do we have any reports of Marine casualties from there at this time."
Motz says that reporters are hearing that security was killed and "assuming" it's Marines.
The Marine Corps Times reports that Ambassador Chris Stevens was killed along with "three members of his staff" and that the State Department has confirmed only one death.

Go ahead. Make your case.

Meanwhile, the Middle East is on fire. President Obama is making half-hearted statements in between fundraisers.

Leadership?

Not so much.

Not only did the Egyptian Embassy apologize for an American exercising freedom of speech, they also did this BEFORE the attack. They knew what was coming. What did Obama tell Morsi? He knew about the attack in Egypt. What did he do?

Jimmy Carter had more backbone. Barely.

Oh, here's another link: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0912/81134.html

Again, it's 9/11 Mr. President. How could our consulate in Libya, which has little in the way of effectual government, not be guarded?

It's one thing to critique Bush for what may/may not have been known, but this is a no-brainer.

Of course, the main question the press wants to know: should Romney be criticizing the President?

What they should be asking: why is the President so clueless?

I was going by the reports I'd seen up to then. It seems they may be wrong about the security personnel who were killed. Still, it is not an 'embassy', there was security (are Marines the only way to guard an embassy/consulate?).

as for the rest, quit trying to outdo Romney for crassness. The Egyptian Embassy did not 'apologise', but did respond to protests at the embassy in Cairo to distance itself (and by extension, the USA) from bigotry. Yes you have freedom of speech, but you also have to accept respopnsibility for what you say. Using it to lie, to incite violence, or to exploit division is wrong, even if it may be legal.

and so that statement from Cairo was not related to the 'attack', and was not pre-emting it. It was deploring efforts to offend the religious (not just Muslims). Even so, it was not authorised and was actually repudiated by the White House.

Unless you can provide evidence that the US government up to Obama knew, you are offering conjecture with less basis than the guff that started this thread.

Besides, what is 'half-hearted' about "Make no mistake: justice will be done", "There is no justification for this senseless violence. None. The world must stand together to unequivocally reject these brutal acts" as well as sending warships, marines and searching using drones?

Perhaps he should have shown his sincerity by smirking about it? That may be the moment when Romney lost the election.

danivon wrote:I was going by the reports I'd seen up to then. It seems they may be wrong about the security personnel who were killed. Still, it is not an 'embassy', there was security (are Marines the only way to guard an embassy/consulate?).

Interesting. You want to harp on what I got wrong, but you couldn't be bothered to make sure you were right?

I'll let anyone reading decide what hypocrisy is.

as for the rest, quit trying to outdo Romney for crassness. The Egyptian Embassy did not 'apologise', but did respond to protests at the embassy in Cairo to distance itself (and by extension, the USA) from bigotry.

Romney was not crass and neither was I. If the truth offends, so be it.

The Embassy is an arm of the State Department, thus it speaks officially for the US in Egypt. It did "apologize." If not, why even mention the movie--which Hillary did repeatedly today? Why do we have to tell the Muslim world that violence is not an acceptable response to a film? If they have not learned it yet, they won't learn it.

The President didn't even condemn the assault on our Embassy in Cairo.

Yes you have freedom of speech, but you also have to accept respopnsibility for what you say. Using it to lie, to incite violence, or to exploit division is wrong, even if it may be legal.

Incite violence? In a foreign country?

You're as bad as the PC shmoes in the State Department.

Christianity is not only insulted everyday, but Christians are murdered in the name of Allah everyday. Do we round up Muslims? Do we have pogroms to restrict Muslims' freedoms?

and so that statement from Cairo was not related to the 'attack', and was not pre-emting it. It was deploring efforts to offend the religious (not just Muslims). Even so, it was not authorised and was actually repudiated by the White House.

Yeah, it was repudiated--AFTER the Obama campaign attacked Romney for repudiating it.

It was authorized. It went out twice--before and after the attack.

Unless you can provide evidence that the US government up to Obama knew, you are offering conjecture with less basis than the guff that started this thread.

Rubbish.

It's 9/11. Recent history suggests terrorists try to strike on "meaningful" days. We had a consulate that was unprotected. So, it's surprising that it was attacked?

Besides, what is 'half-hearted' about "Make no mistake: justice will be done", "There is no justification for this senseless violence. None. The world must stand together to unequivocally reject these brutal acts" as well as sending warships, marines and searching using drones?

Because they've heard bluster over and over.

Make no mistake Iran will not get nuclear weapons.

Make no mistake Assad's days are numbered.

It's a favorite Obamaism.

Perhaps he should have shown his sincerity by smirking about it? That may be the moment when Romney lost the election.

Nope, this is Obama's Iranian Embassy moment.