Originally posted by duotiga83:
http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0206/S00087.htm
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From Straits Times:
http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/analysis/story/0,1870,142045-1031435940,00.html
Sept 11 due to government incompetence, not terrorists' prowess
By RICHARD COHEN
THE WASHINGTON POST
NEW YORK - What should I write about Sept 11, I asked a former New York City official. We were at a Labour Day weekend event and he was munching on a hot dog. He suggested I choose four people, firefighters or police officers, and tell their stories. I guess I had disappointment written all over my face, because the former official - in office back when the World Trade Center collapsed - looked down, paused for a moment, and then said: 'Write that the government let us down.'
Then he could not be stopped. He started with the first bombing of the World Trade Center back in 1993 and what was learnt about Al-Qaeda and terrorism then.
He went on to the bombing of the United States Navy warship, the Cole, in the harbour at Aden, Yemen, and how that was for sure an Al-Qaeda operation. He did not mention the 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, a residence for American servicemen, but he did mention the bombing of two American embassies in Africa. Those cost 224 lives.
It has been almost a year since Sept 11, but still the anger was in his voice. The government should have known something was coming, he said. The government should have done something.
'I lost a lot of good men,' he said. 'The best men we had.'
Not a day goes by when I do not think of Sept 11. People talk about 'closure' - a silly, psychobabblish term - but there is no such thing.
At whom should our anger be directed? Well, certainly at the murderers and those who helped them. Kill them. Kill them all.
But a piece of the anger - or maybe just outrage - has to be reserved for the government, the federal government. It screwed up. It screwed up bad. That was the message of a column I wrote shortly after Sept 11. I called the terrorist attack a 'massive intelligence failure', which it was on its face.
Back then, though, we knew little. I pointed out that there had been ample warnings - including an article in The Washington Post in which Mr William Cohen, then the Secretary of Defence, had warned of the imminence of a terrorist attack. The Secretary of Defence, for crying out loud.
Almost no one paid any attention. Now we know so much more.
We know that the Clinton administration was lethargic in trying to nail Osama bin Laden. It mounted a missile attack on his Afghan compound, but when that failed, nothing much more was done. We also know, though, that government officials were growing increasingly concerned.
The National Security Adviser, Mr Samuel Berger, told his incoming replacement, Ms Condoleezza Rice, that the new Bush administration would spend more time on terrorism and Al-Qaeda than on any other subject. The new administration dawdled.
CLUES, BUT NO FOLLOW-UP
THE Federal Bureau of Investigation had warnings - tips about shenanigans at flight schools. The memorandums were filed and forgotten. The Central Intelligence Agency was on the case but short on operatives who spoke either Arabic or Pashto. The airlines were asleep.
A terrorist had been seized in the Philippines with a laptop stuffed with airline timetables, but no one was putting two and two together. Maybe in another column I will dwell on grief, mourn the dead and salute the heroes.
But this one is a reminder that planes crashed into the Pentagon, the World Trade Center and a Pennsylvania field not because the terrorists were so awfully competent but because the government was so awfully incompetent.
From the Oval Office on down the line, what should have been done was not. The terrorists succeeded because the government failed.
The former city official had one other thing to say. The people who died - the firemen, the cops, the office workers - were often brave. But to label them all 'heroes', while sometimes apt, obscures the fact that they were also victims who were ill served by their superiors, their equipment, their government.
The tendency now is to play the sad bagpipes, fly the glorious flag and rally around those whose job it was to ensure that nothing like Sept 11 ever happened. Yet it did. An accounting has yet to be made.
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pardon me... but wat is so damn funny that you have to go HA HA HA ???
if you were on that tower when its on fire... i sincerely doubt you can HA anything out of your mouth...
And true that the US govt have failed... but there were cases where their govt has succeeded... but as usual.. people tends to remember other's shortcoming or failure... especially big ones...
And seriously.... its sure as hell not easy when you are in the light... while the enemy lurks in the shadows.... dare anyone says that any nations on this world is prepared for EVERYTHING??
That is why military forces are needed... even if they could not prevent an enemy attack... they sure as hell can do a pay back on the enemy....
Mahatir says that military force cannot deal with terrorism except through genocide against the muslims...
MAHARAJA tends to forgets..... USA has the power to launch a genocidal war and the power to destroy the entire world if ever they feels that its the best way to ensure USA survival.... let the MUSLIMS beware.....
EVEN terrorist knew the power of USA... which is why they change their targets from nuclear plants to skyscrappers... they merely wanna slap the americans... they didnt want to incur USA's full wrath... the terrorist hide in afganistan.. believing that its remote location would grant them some protection.... HOW WRONG THEY ARE........
HaD the terrorist hits a nuclear plant to cause a massive casualty in america..... MAY ALLAH SAVE THE MUSLIMS .... because HELL WOULD BE RIDING IN UNDER THE WINGS OF AMERICA....