9/11 Security: failure or deliberate?

[geggy]

June 2001 The decade-old procedure for a quick response by the
nation's air defense was changed. NORAD's military commanders could no
longer issue the command to launch fighter jets because approval had to
be sought from the civilian Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

http://www.9-11commission.gov/hearin...ord_ashley.pdf

Full length video of W. Bush's whereabout during the WTC attack:


"I am very aware of the cameras." Bush recalled later. "I'm trying to
absorb that knowledge. I have nobody to talk to. I'm sitting in the
midst of a classroom with little kids, listening to a children's story
and I realize I'm the Commander in Cheif and the country has just come
under attack."

http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/bushbook.mov

North tower was struck at 8:46 am. W. Bush was in his limo on the way to the elementary school shortly before 9 am. He arrived the classroom at approx. 9 am. Whose responisbility was it to relay information to Bush that the north tower of WTC had been bombed?

Dick Cheney's whereabout on 9/11:


Transportation Secretary Mineta arrives at the White House bunker containing Vice President Cheney and others at 9:20 a.m.. In later testimony, he recalls that Cheney is already there when he arrives.

This supports accounts of Cheney reaching the bunker not long after the second WTC crash, but the 9/11 Commission concludes Cheney doesn’t arrive until a few minutes before 10:00 a.m.. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5233007

While we do not have photographic evidence that the secret service has performed their duty to protect Cheney, we do have photographic evidence that the secret service did not follow the same prodecure for Bush.

Rumsfeld's whereabout on the morning of 9/11:
The National Military Command Center (NMCC) inside the Pentagon was the nerve center of the military’s response to the attacks on 9-11. But the lead military officer that day, Brigadier General Montague Winfield, told the commission that the center had been leaderless.“For 30 minutes we
couldn’t find [Secretary Rumsfeld].” Where was Rumsfeld on 9-11? I
put the question to the commission's vice chair, Lee Hamilton, following
the release of the report the commissioners call “the definitive
account of 9-11.”

“We investigated very carefully Mr. Rumsfeld’s actions,” said
Hamilton. “He was having breakfast with Congressional leaders, and
they hear a plane has hit the Pentagon, and he runs out.”

“He had to have been told before the Pentagon was hit that two trade
centers were hit and the country was under attack,” I suggested.

http://www.motherjones.com/news/upda...07/07_400.html

Numerous reports confirming that the time of first deployment of fighter
jets on 9/11 was after the pentagon hit:
The day before this announcement, acting Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff Richard Myers in congressional testimony stated that the first
fighters got airborne only after the Pentagon was hit at 9:37 a.m. [US
Congress, 10/13/2001]

NORAD spokesman Marine Corps Major Mike Snyder also claimed no fighters
launched anywhere until after the Pentagon was hit. [Boston Globe,
10/15/2001]

New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani later testifies before the 9/11
Commission that he found out from the White House at about 9:58 a.m.
that the first fighters were not launched toward New York City until
twelve minutes earlier—9:46 a.m. [9/11 Commission, 6/19/2004]

http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/c...01noradaccount

NORAD's official time sheet for United flight 175 (sept 18, 2001):


DIRECTORATE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS, NORTH AMERICAN AEROSPACE DEFENSE
COMMAND,

250 S Peterson Blvd, Suite 116, PETERSON AFB, CO 80914-3190

(719) 554-6889 Website: http://www.norad.mil/

NORAD’s Response Times

United Airlines Flight 175 – Boston enroute to Los Angeles

FAA Notification to NEADS 0843

Fighter Scramble Order (Otis ANGB, Falmouth, Mass. Same 2 F-15s as
Flight 11) 0846

Fighters Airborne 0852

Airline Impact Time (World Trade Center 2) 0902 (estimated)

Fighter Time/Distance from Airline Impact Location approx 8 min****/71
miles

From the 9/11 commission report:


Military Notification and Response. The first indication that the NORAD
air defenders had of the second hijacked aircraft, United 175, came
in a phone call from New York Center to NEADS at 9:03.The notice
came at about the time the plane was hitting the South Tower.

http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report_Ch1.htm

American Airline 77/Pentagon Hijackers...

Khalid al-Mihdhar, Majed Moqed, Nawaf al-Hazmi, and Salem al-Hazmi were all on the plane, all of whom had ties to Al Qaeda.

Khalid al-Mihdhar: Fought along side Bosnian muslims in 1995, in Afghanistan against the Northern Alliance, and with Chechnyan muslims in 1998. Was randomly selected for extra screening during boarding, records show he stayed at a hotel in Herndon, VA the night before.

Majed Moqed: Also proven to be on the flight, and an picture taken in Green Belt, MD (right near DC) places him there with Hani Hanjour on 9/2/01.



Nawaf al-Hazmi: Also fought in Afghanistan, Bosnia, and Chechnya. Malaysian officials who recorded proceedings at the Al Qaeda summit that same year in January reported him talking at length on potential terrorist activities. Below is a picture of him being checked at Dulles on 9/11:



Salem al-Hazmi: Brother of nawaf, and Travelocity shows that <b>they both bought tix for Flight 77 in August online.</b>

How was it that, if they were implicated in some of the terrorist acitivites and in fact were on FBI's terrorist watch list, they were be able to buy plane tickets online using credit cards with their real name without red flag signaling indicating they're on FBI's terrorist watch list in the file of Travelcity's computer? How were they able to gain VISA for entry into the US?

Hani Hanjour: Hani Hanjour goes to the Freeway Airport in Bowie, Maryland, about 20 miles west of Washington. He wants to rent a single engine Cessna airplane. However, when two instructors take him on three test runs, they find he has trouble controlling and landing the plane. One instructor has to help him land. Due to his poor skills, therefore, he is not allowed to rent one of their planes without more lessons. Further, while Hanjour appears to have logged over 600 hours of flying experience and possesses a valid pilot’s license (though it has in fact expired), he refuses to provide contact information: He gives no phone number and only gives his address as being a hotel in Laurel. In spite of Hanjour’s lack of flying skills, chief instructor Marcel Bernard later claims, “There’s no doubt in my mind that once [Flight 77] got going, he could have pointed that plane at a building and hit it.” [Washington Post, 10/15/2001; Capital News, 9/19/2001; Gazette (Greenbelt), 9/21/2001; Newsday, 9/23/2001] However, on 9/11, in piloting Flight 77 into the Pentagon, Hanjour would have needed to do much more than simply point the plane at a target. Because Flight 77 at first seemed to overshoot its target, the Washington Post will note that “the unidentified pilot executed a pivot so tight that it reminded observers of a fighter jet maneuver. The plane circled 270 degrees to the right to approach the Pentagon from the west, whereupon Flight 77 fell below radar level... Aviation sources said the plane was flown with extraordinary skill, making it highly likely that a trained pilot was at the helm...” [Washington Post, 9/12/2001] One Washington flight controller will later comment, “The speed, the maneuverability, the way that he turned, we all thought in the radar room, all of us experienced air traffic controllers, that that was a military plane.” [ABC News, 10/24/2001] One law enforcement official who will study Flight 77’s descent after 9/11 will call it the work of “a great talent ... virtually a textbook turn and landing.” [Washington Post, 9/10/2002] Remarkably, the 9/11 Commission will overlook the numerous accounts of Hanjour’s terrible piloting skills (see April 15, 1999; January-February 2001) and state that 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed assigned the Pentagon target specifically to Hanjour because he was “the operation�s most experienced pilot.” [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 530]

http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/t...rs=haniHanjour

Why did they change one of the hijackers' name from Mosear Caned http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIP.../14/bn.01.html to Hani Hanjour in the same day without explaining who Caned was and why he appeared on the original list of hijackers? http://archives.cnn.com/2001/US/09/14/fbi.document

Moreover, why was Hani Hanjour's name not on the AA77 passenger manifest?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv...hijackers.html

Keep in mind, the first WTC bombing occured in 1993 and the Oklahoma city bombing occured few years later. Intelligence failure with total incompetence or was the security system preceding and on 9/11 designed to fail???

[CptColumbo]

Short answer: Incompetence.

And welcome back Geggy.

[Ladewig]

If Cheney, Rumsfeld and the others did everything that you state or imply and if they were caught, then they would almost certainly be tried and executed for treason and mass murder. What was the motivation for them to risk their lives in order to commit this most heinous of crimes?

[Apollyon]

As far as changing the hijacker's names, the "they" you refer to is CNN, correct? Because the transcript you linked specifically notes:

Quote:

So this is a good starting point. Again, this list not officially released yet by the Justice Department. We obtained this list of name through sources

The media frequently gets things wrong in their rush to scoops. As an example, refer to the Katrina reporting when we were hearing about murders and rapes in the Superdome, and a long list of travesties, the vast majority of which were ultimately shown to be untrue.

You have to take reporting with a grain of salt and the changing of the hijacker's names doesn't appear to demonstrate any great conspiracy whatsoever.

[gumboot]

I don't think 9/11 was a security failure myself. I think it was a policy failure.

-Andrew

[JPK]

Welcome back Geggy.

Originally Posted by geggy

Intelligence failure with total incompetence or was the security system preceding and on 9/11 designed to fail???

Are these my only two options? Care to predict the next terroist attack that will occur in the USA? Do you believe that a 100% fool proof security system can be put into place?
JPK

[Pardalis]

geggy boy!

[Pardalis]

Oh, and in answer to your question: failure.

BTW, we do know what Rumsfeld, Bush and Cheney look like.

[Apollyon]

Originally Posted by gumboot

I don't think 9/11 was a security failure myself. I think it was a policy failure.

-Andrew

The 64 dollar question is, whose policy failed?

[Ducky]

Originally Posted by geggy

http://bozzysworld.com/images/rumsfeld.jpg

June 2001 The decade-old procedure for a quick response by the
nation's air defense was changed. NORAD's military commanders could no
longer issue the command to launch fighter jets because approval had to
be sought from the civilian Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

Absolutely not correct. please refer to this thread to understand why. The document in questions did not in any way take away first response capability from NORAD in immediate threat situations. It simply established a chain of command in non-immediate requests.

In fact, the document you refer to specifically states that

Quote:

In the event of a hijacking, the NMCC will be notified by the most expeditious means by the FAA. The NMCC will, with the exception of immediate responses as authorized by reference d, forward requests for DOD assistance to the Secretary of Defense for approval.

and if you were educated on the subject, you'd know that reference d is DOD Directive 3025.15, 18 February 1997, “Military Assistance to Civil Authorities” which gives explicit permission to respond to immediate threats without the approval of the Secretary of Defense.

[Polaris]

That top photo of Rumsfeld is obviously an actor. Look at the nose, maaan! It's an actor, probably hired by al-Qaida to play the part of Rumsfeld, because al-Qaida's always been a conspiracy for them all to commit suicide by America. And everybody knows that Secretaries of Defense are forbidden from wearing ties with gray in them - since they should only deal in black and white. And where are his glasses? All previous photos or Rumsfeld show him with glasses. It's obviously a fake Rumsfeld.

[Stellafane]

Originally Posted by Polaris

That top photo of Rumsfeld is obviously an actor. Look at the nose, maaan! It's an actor, probably hired by al-Qaida to play the part of Rumsfeld, because al-Qaida's always been a conspiracy for them all to commit suicide by America. And everybody knows that Secretaries of Defense are forbidden from wearing ties with gray in them - since they should only deal in black and white. And where are his glasses? All previous photos or Rumsfeld show him with glasses. It's obviously a fake Rumsfeld.

Actually, it's Rumsfield all right -- suddenly discovering a misplaced microphone has been left standing upright in his chair.

[hellaeon]

Welcom back geggy. I must correct you when you say the WTC was bombed on 9/11. Also, since your implying sinister behaviour, what did you expect these people to do. What would be a sufficient behaviour to not warrant them as suspect?

And please tell me why they did orchestrate all this. Whats the outcome?

Quote:

FAA Notification to NEADS 0843

Quote:

Military Notification and Response. The first indication that the NORAD
air defenders had of the second hijacked aircraft, United 175, came
in a phone call from New York Center to NEADS at 9:03.The notice
came at about the time the plane was hitting the South Tower.

S E C O N D aircraft. In other words, they knew of a SECOND AIRCRAFT at 9:03.

This is not a 'discrepancy' between official timeline reports as your trying to highlight. You fail to read the sentence before the one you bolded just data mining for the bits you want to piece together your story. Geggy, please READ things properly. Its just silly little oversights like this that make you seem deliberate in your ignorance, not innocent.

Why is this so hard to fathom. I think the response time was incredible considering within an hour or so of the first incident occuring and the traffic controller noticing something was wrong the place was on high alert.

[Ginarley]

It is really very simple. A group of people hijacked planes and flew them into buildings deliberately to kill people. 911 is their fault, blame them. You can try all you want to pin blame on America for getting attacked but the guts of the matter is that the group of people that organised this attack are 100% to blame. If you are claiming that members of US administration were part of the attack itself then thats quite different.

However a poor defence is all too easy to blame and the media loves doing that because we are conditioned to look to those in charge for responsibility - but seriously, how many people would have taken the 911 threat seriously before it happened? Every one of us would have laughed and said "never happen". It is like saying the Sri lankans should have moved to higher ground just in case there was a tsunami... perhaps we should make a rule that no-one can ever live within 5km of the coast? Or that no person be allowed on a plane ever again? Or that no person be allowed in a tall building ever again? Life is risk.

Those people that seek to end life are bad people - blame where blame is due!

[aggle-rithm]

Originally Posted by Stellafane

Actually, it's Rumsfield all right -- suddenly discovering a misplaced microphone has been left standing upright in his chair.

"It was a one in a million shot, Doc! One in a million!"

[Sword_Of_Truth]

If Geggy and Childlike Emperess had a love child, would he be Christophera?

[aggle-rithm]

Originally Posted by Ginarley

It is really very simple. A group of people hijacked planes and flew them into buildings deliberately to kill people. 911 is their fault, blame them. You can try all you want to pin blame on America for getting attacked but the guts of the matter is that the group of people that organised this attack are 100% to blame. If you are claiming that members of US administration were part of the attack itself then thats quite different.

However a poor defence is all too easy to blame and the media loves doing that because we are conditioned to look to those in charge for responsibility - but seriously, how many people would have taken the 911 threat seriously before it happened? Every one of us would have laughed and said "never happen". It is like saying the Sri lankans should have moved to higher ground just in case there was a tsunami... perhaps we should make a rule that no-one can ever live within 5km of the coast? Or that no person be allowed on a plane ever again? Or that no person be allowed in a tall building ever again? Life is risk.

Those people that seek to end life are bad people - blame where blame is due!

I was just thinking the other day: What if, by some chance, the Feds had managed to foil the terrorist attack? Would we be going around saying, "Whew! That was close!"

Nope. We would be saying, "Yeah, right. Like they ever could have pulled that one off!"

And, in fact, terrorist plots are being foiled all the time. There's no way of knowing whether they WOULD HAVE been successful or not. However, people tend to think, "If it didn't happen, then what's the big deal?"

[aggle-rithm]

Originally Posted by Sword_Of_Truth

If Geggy and Childlike Emperess had a love child, would he be Christophera?

I always assumed Christophera already had parents. Shows what I know.

[Pardalis]

Originally Posted by Ginarley

It is really very simple. A group of people hijacked planes and flew them into buildings deliberately to kill people. 911 is their fault, blame them. You can try all you want to pin blame on America for getting attacked but the guts of the matter is that the group of people that organised this attack are 100% to blame. If you are claiming that members of US administration were part of the attack itself then thats quite different.

However a poor defence is all too easy to blame and the media loves doing that because we are conditioned to look to those in charge for responsibility - but seriously, how many people would have taken the 911 threat seriously before it happened? Every one of us would have laughed and said "never happen". It is like saying the Sri lankans should have moved to higher ground just in case there was a tsunami... perhaps we should make a rule that no-one can ever live within 5km of the coast? Or that no person be allowed on a plane ever again? Or that no person be allowed in a tall building ever again? Life is risk.

Those people that seek to end life are bad people - blame where blame is due!

Wow, quite a post!

[Gravy]

I wish I could welcome you back like some others here, geggy, but that's not how I feel. Your presence on this forum is very unwelcome to me, because you've made almost 200 posts filled with misinformation and ignorance and you've showed no signs of learning.

By the way, the issues in your post above have been covered here before, several of times in response to your posts. Please get a grip.

[delphi_ote]

The three punctuation marks you placed at the end of your last sentence were very persuasive, but I'm not quite convinced. Think maybe you could work a little more useless text and images in there, geggy? Or you could add another dozen incoherent non sequiturs?

[Sword_Of_Truth]

Originally Posted by aggle-rithm

I always assumed Christophera already had parents. Shows what I know.

Christopherb, maybe?

[Gravy]

Originally Posted by Sword_Of_Truth

Christopherb, maybe?

[Pardalis]

Quite a frightfull idea to contemplate isn't it ? geggy reproducing...

[Cheap Thrills]

Originally Posted by aggle-rithm

"It was a one in a million shot, Doc! One in a million!"

Jerry: Who would order a license plate that says "Assman"?

George: Maybe they're Wilt Chamberlain's.

Jerry: It doesn't have to be someone who gets a lot of women. It could be just some guy with a big ass.

Kramer: Yeah, or it could be a proctologist.

Jerry: Yeah. Proctologist.

George: Come on! No doctor would put that on his car.

Kramer: Have you ever *met* a proctologist? Well, they usually have a very good sense of humor. You meet a proctologist at a party, don't walk away. *Plant* yourself there, because you will hear the funniest stories you've ever heard. See, no one wants to admit to them that they *stuck* something up there. Never! It's always an accident. Every proctologist story ends in the same way: "It was a million to one shot, Doc. Million to one."

[gumboot]

Originally Posted by Apollyon

The 64 dollar question is, whose policy failed?

Well there is that...

I'm inclined to lay the blame at the Clinton Administration, but those who think the US somehow created terrorism would probably lay the blame at some earlier government.

-Andrew

[gumboot]

Originally Posted by aggle-rithm

I was just thinking the other day: What if, by some chance, the Feds had managed to foil the terrorist attack? Would we be going around saying, "Whew! That was close!"

Nope. We would be saying, "Yeah, right. Like they ever could have pulled that one off!"

And, in fact, terrorist plots are being foiled all the time. There's no way of knowing whether they WOULD HAVE been successful or not. However, people tend to think, "If it didn't happen, then what's the big deal?"

Great point...

Afterall, the intelligence agencies foiled Operation Bojinka in 1995, which would have been much worse than 9/11, but even after that no one really considered terrorism much more than a nuisance.

-Andrew

[delphi_ote]

Originally Posted by gumboot

I'm inclined to lay the blame at the Clinton Administration, but those who think the US somehow created terrorism would probably lay the blame at some earlier government.

Making this about Republican/Democrat is the worst way to treat this issue. You're lowering yourself to the Looser's level.

[Ducky]

Originally Posted by delphi_ote

The three punctuation marks you placed at the end of your last sentence were very persuasive, but I'm not quite convinced. Think maybe you could work a little more useless text and images in there, geggy? Or you could add another dozen incoherent non sequiturs?

Not just non-sequiturs, there's some blatant falsehoods. See my post about the NORAD orders/chain of command.

[delphi_ote]

Originally Posted by fowlsound

Not just non-sequiturs, there's some blatant falsehoods. See my post about the NORAD orders/chain of command.

Who has time for facts these days? Stop living in the past, man!

[gumboot]

Originally Posted by delphi_ote

Making this about Republican/Democrat is the worst way to treat this issue. You're lowering yourself to the Looser's level.

I didn't think I was... I'm not an American, and I really have no interest in Republican/Democrat issues.

I believe that US policy, specifically foreign policy and policy towards terrorism, made infiltration of the US by terrorists much easier than it needed to be. Clinton happened to be the president during this period, so it was the policies of his administration that I am referring to.

I really couldn't care less which particular political party he belonged to.

-Andrew

[Hellbound]

Originally Posted by delphi_ote

Making this about Republican/Democrat is the worst way to treat this issue. You're lowering yourself to the Looser's level.

I have to agree with gumboot to a degree. I don't think he was making it a party issue.

During Clinton, there were extensive drawdowns and cutbacks to defense and intelligence...part of the reaason our current military operations are costing so much (we have to build back up as well as pay for the war). Not to mention that he did not seem to place as high a focus on finding and punishing the terrorists when attacks did occur.

There's room for disagreement here, but it's not a party issue. Just a policy one.

[valis]

Originally Posted by gumboot

Well there is that...

I'm inclined to lay the blame at the Clinton Administration, but those who think the US somehow created terrorism would probably lay the blame at some earlier government.

-Andrew

I would argue that this war started in 1979 with the Iranian hostage crisis and that every administration bears some blame.

Also to blame are the people of the United States including myself. When terrorist attacks took place overseas I complained about the way they were handled but did I do anything? Did I write a letter to a Congress person or attend a meeting demanding the Government do something to stop the problem? We had plenty of chances, embassys bombed, the first World Trade Center bombing and the targeting of American citizens overseas. As I recall we all allowed the situations to be handled as individual police matters. In the polls before the 2000 elections I would wager terrorism did not even show in the top ten voter concerns.

True the Government should show leadership and is privy to more information that the average schmo; but we could see plainly that radical Islam wanted to kill us and we were content to look the other way as long as it took place far away.

[fuelair]

Part of the problem is that given the people involved, it is easy to accept Cheney and Rummy making those kinds of plans to advance themselves - and leaving Shrub out in the cold. They are just that kind of guy.....

PS : but I don't think that is what happened, just that they make it easy for people to believe.

[valis]

Originally Posted by fuelair

Part of the problem is that given the people involved, it is easy to accept Cheney and Rummy making those kinds of plans to advance themselves - and leaving Shrub out in the cold. They are just that kind of guy.....

PS : but I don't think that is what happened, just that they make it easy for people to believe.

I'm sorry but Shrub should be spelled President Bush or President of the United States or Mr. Bush or George W. Bush or some variation.

I did not much care for President Clinton as a person but he is still President Clinton.

Assuming of course that you are an American he is the President; you can always work to put someone else in that spot next time around.

[delphi_ote]

Originally Posted by valis

I would argue that this war started in 1979 with the Iranian hostage crisis and that every administration bears some blame.

Also to blame are the people of the United States including myself. When terrorist attacks took place overseas I complained about the way they were handled but did I do anything? Did I write a letter to a Congress person or attend a meeting demanding the Government do something to stop the problem? We had plenty of chances, embassys bombed, the first World Trade Center bombing and the targeting of American citizens overseas. As I recall we all allowed the situations to be handled as individual police matters. In the polls before the 2000 elections I would wager terrorism did not even show in the top ten voter concerns.

True the Government should show leadership and is privy to more information that the average schmo; but we could see plainly that radical Islam wanted to kill us and we were content to look the other way as long as it took place far away.

Well said. That is what I was trying to get at.

Pointing at anyone except the terrorists and saying, "It's their fault this happened!" is a huge oversimplifcation. In the end, you're blaming someone for a horrible crime because you'd rather neglect the complexity of this event.

[Apollyon]

Originally Posted by gumboot

Well there is that...

I'm inclined to lay the blame at the Clinton Administration, but those who think the US somehow created terrorism would probably lay the blame at some earlier government.

-Andrew

There's a huge slippery slope in regard to that question. Mistakes of one sort or another have been made straight down the line, going way past Jimmy Carter. We could also blame Truman. If we really wanted we could blame the UN. Or we could blame the Brits because of the British Mandate, except the US was part of that whole League of Nations thing too.

We love to blame something or someone, don't we? There's almost this urgent human desire to assign blame.

Ultimately though I don't feel that any particular political policy is to blame. imo, the problem boils down to human nature. 9/11 was a result of who and what human beings are and have been since time immemorial. Until humanity changes this will continue to happen.

[Ducky]

geggy? Hello? Gonna respond to getting your rear end handed to you again?

[gumboot]

Originally Posted by Apollyon

There's a huge slippery slope in regard to that question. Mistakes of one sort or another have been made straight down the line, going way past Jimmy Carter.

Sorry, I'm not trying to blame the US government for the attacks in any way. I thoroughly hate modern society's need to blame someone other than the perpetrator for everything that happened. If a bystander is hurt by a criminal during a police chase, it's always the police's fault, etc.

The only people in the entire world to blame for 9/11 are the 19 Hijackers that took over those planes and the organisation that sent them. They could have decided not to. They could have decided that it was wrong. They did not.


But...

I understood this thread was about 9/11 Security, not blame for the event. Obviously security didn't prevent the perpetrators from acting, because 9/11 happened. The question is, was it a failure or deliberate? I think neither. As I said, I blame policy. But I'm blaming policy for the security situation within which 9/11 happened, I'm NOT blaming policy for 9/11.

In consideration of valis' post, I would ammend that the security situation was not specifically a result of government policy, but of the entire country's "policy". Even, the entire western world's "policy".

I remember after the London Bombings, Tony Blair made a very simple and very true observation:

(apologies the wording may not be exact, as I am taking this from memory)

September 11 was a wake-up call for the world. The problem is we all just went back to sleep again.

To me this sums up what I meant by "policy". I now realise that official policy of the US administration is too narrow a focus - their policy was nothing but a reflection of the way western society thought at the time.

Because we love freedom and hate war and death, we don't want to accept that there's evil extremist organisations and cults and people out in the world who want to destroy us, and who are willing to make every attempt to do so.

We have seen it for decades, in countries around the world, but it was easy to ignore it because it was so far away. Even when it happened to our own people, like in Somalia, we could just pack up and leave, and go back to pretending it didn't exist.

But it does. And on Sept 11 we had a wake up call because it was in our own backyard and we COULDN'T ignore it.

Except after 9/11, once the hype had died down, most of the world just went back to pretending again. And each time the monster reared its head again, in Bali, in Madrid, in London, we cried in shock and alarm, as if we had never expected such a thing to ever happen. And when it happened in Afghanistan, and later in Iraq, people cried "it only happened because we're there" because, of course, there's no way people would blow up civilians and cause such carnage otherwise. People like that don't really exist. It doesn't happen anywhere else. I know it doesn't, because when it does, I ignore it, and pretend it didn't happen, and so on... So then the call to run away began, just like every other time we sent people somewhere, and suddenly we had to confront that nasty thing we're trying to ignore.

But, as each of these events died down, when the news report about the car bomb in Baghdad ended, when the aid appeal ads for London stopped, we went back to pretending again. And most of the world is still pretending.

-Andrew

[delphi_ote]

Originally Posted by Apollyon

We love to blame something or someone, don't we? There's almost this urgent human desire to assign blame.

Blame. The. Hijackers.

It's not that hard to figure out who is at fault, people. These guys woke up on that fateful September morning planning to murder as many people as they could before they died and outperformed even their own horrible expectations. They lived, breathed, slept, and ate a plan to kill innocent people for years.

Equating that kind of evil with mere incompitence or negligence is an injustice to the accused and makes light of the nightmare we all witnessed again and again on our televisions.