Monday, April 12, 2004
PDB - Reader Participation
One of our regular readers posted the following comment under the PDB post below:
What the media is failing to mention, as it always does, is that every week, since Dubya's father was in office, the President would receive multiple PDBs like this with possible threats from terrorist nations. This one was no different than the 36,000 other PDB threats that came across the President's desk. How could ANYONE have known that something like 9/11 was going to happen when, where and how it did.
It's like Pearl Harbor, in hind-sight, all the indicators are there. But in that moment, when our nation was peacefully going about our day-to-day, NO ONE could have predicted! Let the dead rest!
I agree. It's difficult to prepare for something of this magnitude without specific information. What we could have hoped for would have been for the intelligence community to put together the terrorist "chatter", the arrest of Zacharias Moussaoui on 8/16/01 and the contents of the much discussed PDB. But that didn't happen.
So what we have now is making politics with our nation's worst disaster. What I've read is so much more partisan than finding out what happened and what it will take to be sure it doesn't happen again. I'm as guilty of this partisanship as anyone, but our President has made this bed. He opposed the formation of an independent 9/11 commission. He only relented after a political firestorm fueled by the Four Moms and pols in his own party. And then after he handpicked a commission he withheld documents from the very same commission. There are many other instances of untoward activities by the White House during the entire process. Which shouldn't be a surprise if you frequent this site.
This is why you won't see him get a free ride. His entire administration is KGB secretive and the only way to get something released is through pressure from all sides. If he admits they could have done more and accept SOME responsibility you would see much pressure alleviated. But all he (and his minions) say is, "...we were only in office for 233 days." Putting the blame at Clinton's doorstep. This is a nasty habit and could cost him the election or worse, could keep us from preventing another terrorist attack on our shores.
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One of our regular readers posted the following comment under the PDB post below:
What the media is failing to mention, as it always does, is that every week, since Dubya's father was in office, the President would receive multiple PDBs like this with possible threats from terrorist nations. This one was no different than the 36,000 other PDB threats that came across the President's desk. How could ANYONE have known that something like 9/11 was going to happen when, where and how it did.
It's like Pearl Harbor, in hind-sight, all the indicators are there. But in that moment, when our nation was peacefully going about our day-to-day, NO ONE could have predicted! Let the dead rest!
I agree. It's difficult to prepare for something of this magnitude without specific information. What we could have hoped for would have been for the intelligence community to put together the terrorist "chatter", the arrest of Zacharias Moussaoui on 8/16/01 and the contents of the much discussed PDB. But that didn't happen.
So what we have now is making politics with our nation's worst disaster. What I've read is so much more partisan than finding out what happened and what it will take to be sure it doesn't happen again. I'm as guilty of this partisanship as anyone, but our President has made this bed. He opposed the formation of an independent 9/11 commission. He only relented after a political firestorm fueled by the Four Moms and pols in his own party. And then after he handpicked a commission he withheld documents from the very same commission. There are many other instances of untoward activities by the White House during the entire process. Which shouldn't be a surprise if you frequent this site.
This is why you won't see him get a free ride. His entire administration is KGB secretive and the only way to get something released is through pressure from all sides. If he admits they could have done more and accept SOME responsibility you would see much pressure alleviated. But all he (and his minions) say is, "...we were only in office for 233 days." Putting the blame at Clinton's doorstep. This is a nasty habit and could cost him the election or worse, could keep us from preventing another terrorist attack on our shores.
| Permalink Here
