My biggest objections to Condi's contentions

[kurtyboy]

I only got to watch a few minutes of the testimony this morning, but a couple of items stood out for their logical difficulties.

A] Condi finally admitted that the PDB of August 6th was titled in such a way to show clearly that OBL intended to attack the US on our soil, "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States." This is important, because of a simple argument:
IF you have the intent to perform an action AND you have the means to perform and action, THEN you will perform that action.
According to the PDB and Condi, Osama had the INTENT (she brushes this aside by insinuating that he did not have the means). By admitting this, we see that if OBL also had the means, then attack was inevitable. All that's left, it seems, is to evaluate whether the means were there. It is safe to conclude in hindsight that they were there.

But could have concluded before the events of 911 that he had the means? Overwhelmingly, the answer must be affirmative. In fact, it was so obvious that in Genoa (WTO) and Atlantla (Olympics) precautions were taken to avert or mitigate exactly the kind of attack that happened on 911 (Aircraft as missiles).

Now in that paragraph, I've mentioned something pretty important--the concept of mitigation. Even if an event cannot be averted (as Condi so loudly contends) it can still be anticipated and mitigated against. An event's impact can be diminished by, say, upping the alert status at fighter-interceptor bases. And even if you don't know hwen the attack is coming, you can still advise NORAD to, "Be alert for suspicious activity." (Hell, I thought that was their job). This simple advice has seemed to be the administration's cornerstone of defense for citizen's ever since 911--why couldn't NORAD and the FAA have been on that footing for a few months in 2001?

B] My second objection came while Condi was answering a question relating the bustup of the Millenium Bomb plot. Condi likened this to a stroke of luck since there was no standing order for Customs to be extra vigilant before New Years 2000. (Again, I don't think this is really relevant--vigilance is in their job description...) But what really infuriated me is that she said no matter how many trees we shook, we might not have been able to prevent 911.

How far off the point can you get? First, you stand a far greater chance of breaking up a plot if you at least TRY SOMETHING (even to no effect.) But worse, far worse, is the fact that we didn't have to shake any trees. The clues were falling into our lap of their own volition--Minnesota FBI arrest of Moussoui, Arizona FBI awareness of Flight Schools, elevated international chatter about a big event, a warning from Russia, etc.

It's not that we had to shake any trees, it's more like we had to admit that we were standing under one with stuff falling out of it. Instead, Condi at the time (pre 911) was very busy telling us that the real threat to our security was some kind of out-of-the-blue missile attack. Frankly, threat assessment for nearly a decade held international terrorism as more dangerous--but that doesn't sell hundreds of billions of dollars in defense contracts.

Overall, I'm glad I caught less that a half hour of her comments on television. If the whole session was filled with as much bad thinking as she spewed in that short period, I believe I'd be very drunk right now.

[SoDesuKa]

1. Defense Contracts

threat assessment for nearly a decade held international terrorism as more dangerous--but that doesn't sell hundreds of billions of dollars in defense contracts

I wonder if you're right about this. It would be very cynical of them if it's true. Then again, Dick Cheney strikes me as capable of anything. What did Lili Tomlin say about cynicism? Something to the effect that you can't keep up!

[muchacho]

2. I'm with ya

>>But what really infuriated me is that she said no matter how many trees we shook, we might not have been able to prevent 911.

I believe the media's falling for the Bushites red herring with the "Could we have stopped 9-11?" tact. I think the real question to be asked is "Was the Bush administration doing at least as much, or preferably more, than the Clinton administration to stop terror?"

This needs to be the question, the other is too easy for these bastards to deflect.