What would Mr. Obama do? After all, if we’d gotten our hands on a senior member of Al Qaeda before 9/11, and knew that an attack likely to kill thousands of Americans was imminent, wouldn’t waterboarding, or taking advantage of the skills of our Jordanian friends, have been the sensible, moral thing to do with a holy warrior who didn’t fear death but might have feared pain?
Hey, I have a better, more realistic set of pre-9/11 questions. And they actually lead us down a path where we have to consider sound analysis and sound judgment . . . you know, the policy stuff that's proactive and actually would have kept us safe.
* What would have happened if the Bush administration had not ignored the outgoing Clinton administration's warning to keep an eye on al Qaeda and bin Laden because they would be their number one concern throughout Bush's presidency?
* What would have happened if we had had a president and an administration that actually read and understood its National Intelligence memos?
* What would have happened if the Bush administration had not downgraded the National Coordinator for Counterterrorism away from Cabinet-level access?
* What would have happened if the Bush administration had listened to Richard A. Clarke, their top counterterrorism official, who was running Washington DC during the summer of 2001, telling agency heads to cancel summer vacations because something big was coming?
* What would have happened if Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, and Condaleeza Rice had not locked Richard A. Clarke out of a Cabinet-level meeting until one week before 9/11?
* What would have happened if Paul Wolfowitz and Donald Rumsfeld had actually paid attention to Richard A. Clarke's warnings during the September 4, 2001 meeting, instead of wanting to discuss Iraq?
The point here is that REUEL MARC GERECHT's op-ed is asking the wrong set of questions. He's focused on scenarios that, while possible, are highly improbable. More importantly, his line of thinking exposes the U.S. to the world as a nation of bedwetters, so fearful that we compromise our values and institutions.
It almost seems that REUEL MARC GERECHT is unaware that we've already tried his approach. It's called the Bush years. And we all know how that turned out.
- Mark
2 comments:
Dr. Martinez definitely has some points here. It was known to many within the intelligence community that Osama bin Laden was operating several banks and training camps for terrorists in Darfur, yet during the first year of his presidency "Dubya" chose to ignore such information. This may have to do with his connection to bin Laden through Arbusto Energy and other economic interests shared between the Bush and the bin Laden family. The National Intelligence memos from 2000 clearly stated that Islamic Egyptian Brotherhood, the Taliban, Al Martyrs Brother Brigade, and Hamas were operating in the Darfur region under the aegis of Kartoum's government and in conjunction with the Janjaweed.In fact money was wired from the region to one of the 9-11 hijackers the night before the attack. Had Bush been able to properly interpret National Intelligence memos, perhaps he could have saved the lives of those who perished during 9-11 rather tan blowing a bunch of smoke about the U.S. capturing one of his closest former business allies.
Dr. Martinez definitely has some points here. It was known to many within the intelligence community that Osama bin Laden was operating several banks and training camps for terrorists in Darfur, yet during the first year of his presidency "Dubya" chose to ignore such information. This may have to do with his connection to bin Laden through Arbusto Energy and other economic interests shared between the Bush and the bin Laden family. The National Intelligence memos from 2000 clearly stated that Islamic Egyptian Brotherhood, the Taliban, Al Martyrs Brother Brigade, and Hamas were operating in the Darfur region under the aegis of Kartoum's government and in conjunction with the Janjaweed.In fact money was wired from the region to one of the 9-11 hijackers the night before the attack. Had Bush been able to properly interpret National Intelligence memos, perhaps he could have saved the lives of those who perished during 9-11 rather tan blowing a bunch of smoke about the U.S. capturing one of his closest former business allies.
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