Kuri-The real problem with the lessons of history is that they are best read after falling flat on our face. Previous to Dec.7 1941, it was common knowledge that the most likey U.S. target for Japan was the Phillippines. Before 1972, it was common knowledge that the Olympics would never be directly attacked. Terrorist organizations specialize in attacking in ways that cannot be prevented, or even conceived of. The real problem is that our law enforecement activities tend to be reactive. It takes a huge event to get things to change. The Bush administration focused on Rogue nations because that seemed the most likely threat. To hold them responsible for not preventing 9/11 is stretching it. Did anyone conceive of the possibility of using commercial planes as missles? Only in fiction.
Just for kicks while I’ve got a minute here:
the NSA in June 2001 warned of intelligence reporting Mideast terrorists were planning to hijack and crash airliners in the US, and Condi Rice stated “it is highly likely that a significant Al Qaeda attack is in the near future”.
Prior to this, in Jan. 2001 the Hart Rudman commission warned of terrorist strikes and “a weapon of mass destruction in a high-rise building.”
The Bush admin ignored it’s reports and stymied a Congressional hearing of it on May 7th, because “It did not want Congress out front on the issues, at least with a report originated by a Democratic President” (Harold Evans).
See: http://dir.salon.com/politics/feature/2001/09/12/bush/index.html
Enjoy 
I would love to see Rush try to refute White House admissions & the independent commission that has subpoena power & has already subpoenaed the Federal Aviation Administration to see what their reaction was on the day. I would love to see Ann Coulter especially try to refute that commission.
Larry, I agree wholeheartedly with you that the CLinton Admin. didn’t do enough either, and neither has the CIA.
Heres an interesting article written in mid-2001 by a former CIA operative regarding Osama and CIA failings:
MQ:
Indeed, we shall wait and see. That was an interesting post on the topic of conspiracy theories, but it does not at all address the sheer improbability of most of the scenarios you have posted – at least the ones I have read (unfortunately, I do not have the time to check them all – my apologies). It’s nice to have a list of a bunch of “facts” (I used quotes due to the speculative nature of some of the things on your lists), but there should be some good, solid reason to link them together, especially when the apparent weight of evidence and common sense points to simpler, more rational explanations. I am tempted to point to Occam’s Razor, but we established last time your distaste for that reference.
I’m sure you’ll let us know if any other pieces to these theories seem to fall into place. Cheers.
Kuri –
Very interesting article from salon. I have a couple excerpts from that article that seem relevant:
from page 2
Neither Hart nor Rudman claim that their recommendations, if enacted, would have necessarily prevented Tuesday’s tragedy. “Had they adopted every recommendation we had put forward at that time I don’t think it would have changed what happened,” Rudman says. “There wasn’t enough time to enact everything. But certainly I would hope they pay more attention now.”
“Could this have been prevented?” Hart asks. “The answer is, ‘We’ll never know.’ Possibly not.” It was a struggle to convince President Clinton of the need for such a commission, Hart says. He urged Clinton to address this problem in '94 and '95, but Clinton didn’t act until 1998, prompted by politics. “He saw Gingrich was about to do it, so he moved to collaborate,” Hart says. “Seven years had gone by since the end of the Cold War. It could have been much sooner.”
from page 3
Three days ago [Note: The date of this article was 9/12/02 – B.B.], if asked to predict what the first major foreign terrorist attack on America soil would involve, Hart says he would have guessed small nuclear warheads simultaneously unleashed on three American cities. But, he says, “there wasn’t doubt in anyone’s mind on that commission” that something horrific would happen “probably sooner rather than later. We just didn’t know how.”
In addition to the Bush administration, Hart has another group that he wishes had paid the commission’s suggestions more heed. “The national media didn’t pay attention,” Hart says. One senior reporter from a well-known publication told one of Hart’s fellow commissioners, “This isn’t important, none of this is ever going to happen,” Hart says. “That’s a direct quote.”
…
Hart says he just shook his head when he saw a former Clinton administration Cabinet official on TV Tuesday calling for the formation of a commission to study the best way to combat terrorism. “If a former Cabinet officer didn’t know, how could the average man on the street? I do hope the American people understand that somebody was paying attention.”
This is me again – obviously, those were selected excerpts, and I agree that both the Clinton and Bush Administrations could have done a whole lot more to combat terrorist threats. But the will wasn’t there. Read the whole article – it’s quite good.
And to reference a sub discussion with M.Q. above, there surely wasn’t some plan to let an attack happen in order to benefit defense contractors and oil-related businesses.
One more quote, from Professor Daniel Drezner’s of the University of Chicago’s Political Science Dept. piece yesterday in Slate, appropos to the above conspiracy theory:
"There are three ways to criticize the Bush administration’s approach to foreign policy. The first way is both simple and simple-minded: Bush is the evil creature of corporate interests, pursuing militarized disputes merely to reward his cronies. Adherents to this line suspect there may be something to the conspiracy theory that Bush knew something about the Sept. 11 attacks before they took place. Most serious people?with the possible exception of Howard Dean?reject this line of argumentation out of hand.
The second kind of criticism is more substantive. It holds that the costs of Bush’s pre-emption doctrine?weakened international legitimacy, fraying alliances, increased global public hostility to the United States?are greater than the benefits. Click on any Democratic candidate’s Web site (including Dean’s) and you’ll find a version of this criticism. It will be with us at least until November 2004.
A third criticism has slowly emerged over the past six months. It agrees with the logic of Bush’s grand strategy, but questions whether the policy implementation has been up to snuff. This line of argumentation has less to do with substance and more to do with process. To sum it up, Bush’s management of foreign policy has been too detached for his own good. The president would proudly admit that he’s not a detail guy, preferring to enunciate firm principles and let his subordinates hash out the specifics. However, this disengagement has encouraged bureaucratic rivalries to fester, diverting the attention of officials from the actual substance of foreign policy."
BTW, the article builds on the third criticism of Bush, which I tend to agree is completely valid.
Forgot the link:
BostonBarrister kicks ass! Nice work, I don’t know where you find the time and patience to continue to try to drum logical thought into mq’s head even though it’s pretty obvious that he’s just never going to get it.
BBarrister, don’t know if you saw this on CBS but it seems the 9/11 investigation is turning up evidence that it the Bush admin knew more than they have admitted, and that its possible the attack could have been prevented:
(CBS) For the first time, the chairman of the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks is saying publicly that 9/11 could have and should have been prevented, reports CBS News Correspondent Randall Pinkston.
“This is a very, very important part of history and we’ve got to tell it right,” said Thomas Kean.
“As you read the report, you’re going to have a pretty clear idea what wasn’t done and what should have been done,” he said. “This was not something that had to happen.”
Appointed by the Bush administration, Kean, a former Republican governor of New Jersey, is now pointing fingers inside the administration and laying blame.
“There are people that, if I was doing the job, would certainly not be in the position they were in at that time because they failed. They simply failed,” Kean said.
link: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/12/17/eveningnews/main589137.shtml?cmp=EM8707
Kuri:
That is the article M.Q. linked above. And, now it seems the chairman is backing off of those initial claims.
Here is the money excerpt:
WASHINGTON Dec. 18 ? The chairman of a federal commission looking into the Sept. 11 attacks said Thursday that mistakes over many years left the United States vulnerable to such an attack, but he resisted pinning blame on either of the last two presidential teams.
“We have no evidence that anybody high in the Clinton administration or the Bush administration did anything wrong,” chairman Thomas Kean said in an interview with ABC’s “Nightline” taped for airing Thursday night.
Here is the link to the entire story:
(oops, didn’t have the time to check each link posted thus far)
And I wonder why he’s backing off those comments?
Doesn’t take a scholar to read between those lines.
What irks me is the degree to which the White House has prevented a thorough investigation. Its been more than 2 years now, and it seems that a detailed analysis of what happened and how to remedy the problems would do a great deal in preventing another.