OT - Will someone please take responsiblity?

[jgruber]

Am I the only one who is sick of hearing people go in front of the 9/11 commission and tell us how it is someone else's fault that we couldn't do anything to prevent the attack?

Won't someone take responsibility?  Geez!   

[NerdyLaw]

I think someone DID take responsibility... His name is Osama bin Laden.

[jgruber]

He took responsiblity for the attack.

I want some answers about who is responsible for the failure to protect our country.
Everyone is pointing the finger elsewhere.  Someone has to accept responsibility.  It was someone's job.  I'm just sick to death of people who want to fill responsible positions, but won't accept responsibility.

I think someone DID take responsibility... His name is Osama bin Laden.

[jrmadtown]

Its not that simple.  Imagine if they had exact warning that this was going to happen back in say June before 9/11 and after Bush had just been in office a few months.  Wouldn't EVERYONE be complaining/bitching if he:

1.  Had armed US Air Marshalls on all US flights.
2.  Put out watch lists for "Arab looking air passangers"
3.  Arrested 19 men who hadn't yet done anything illegal other than taking flight lessons.
4.  Filled the sky with F-16s patrolling possible targets over big cities.
5.  Forced the airlines (which are never in good financial shape) to spend millions putting locked cabin doors in the fronts of all their planes immediately.
6.  Attacked Afghanistan PREEMPTIVELY.
7.  Spent billions trying to quickly update air security and implement the "search every bag" policy, probably impossible to do in time.

All of these steps taken in June could have prevented this attack.  However, don't you think the outrage would have been horrendous from the right and left and middle public when...guess what, no attack happened.  Bush impeached may make some of you happy, but it almost certainly would have been a serious possibility if these actions had all been taken for no apparent reason.  Truth is Bush was concerned about this threat which at the time was one of many probable threats.  There is still little political will from the American people to do even half of what is really necessary to prevent another similar attack.  Witness the outrage over the Patriot Act which is designed to allow the FBI and CIA to cooperate and share (among other things).  Hindsight is 20/20, but it serves no purpose for us to demand heads for something that for all intents and purposes could not have been prevented and was an enemy act of war.

[Ivy_Hopeful]

that scrolling rolling of the eyes was a nice touch! 

[jrmadtown]

Thanks.  I try.

[jgruber]

I have my opinion about who should be responsible, but it's not an informed opinion so I'll leave that out.

I am not pointing the finger at Bush or anyone else.  Regardless of who should have or could have or might have done what, someone needs to accept responsibility for the failure to protect this nation.  Is it Bush, is it the CIA, is it Clinton, is it the FBI?

I dunno, but enough of the finger pointing. I'm not going to assign blame or responsibility.  Someone needs to accept responsibility.  Someone has to have the guts to stand up and say 'I/we blew it.  It was my/our job and we failed.'  Why is it everyone has the courage to stand up to terrorism, but no one has the courage to accept responsibility?

Its not that simple.  Imagine if they had exact warning that this was going to happen back in say June before 9/11 and after Bush had just been in office a few months.  Wouldn't EVERYONE be complaining/bitching if he:

1.  Had armed US Air Marshalls on all US flights.
2.  Put out watch lists for "Arab looking air passangers"
3.  Arrested 19 men who hadn't yet done anything illegal other than taking flight lessons.
4.  Filled the sky with F-16s patrolling possible targets over big cities.
5.  Forced the airlines (which are never in good financial shape) to spend millions putting locked cabin doors in the fronts of all their planes immediately.
6.  Attacked Afghanistan PREEMPTIVELY.
7.  Spent billions trying to quickly update air security and implement the "search every bag" policy, probably impossible to do in time.

All of these steps taken in June could have prevented this attack.  However, don't you think the outrage would have been horrendous from the right and left and middle public when...guess what, no attack happened.  Bush impeached may make some of you happy, but it almost certainly would have been a serious possibility if these actions had all been taken for no apparent reason.  Truth is Bush was concerned about this threat which at the time was one of many probable threats.  There is still little political will from the American people to do even half of what is really necessary to prevent another similar attack.  Witness the outrage over the Patriot Act which is designed to allow the FBI and CIA to cooperate and share (among other things).  Hindsight is 20/20, but it serves no purpose for us to demand heads for something that for all intents and purposes could not have been prevented and was an enemy act of war.

[jrmadtown]

I recall that male private part Clark already admitted it was his fault and that he and our government failed us.  I think he can accept the blame and we'll be done with it.

[jas9999]

That's not exactly what Clarke said. I suggest reading his book. Most of the finger pointing in it goes to the FBI, actually. While all the news folks hype the Clarke/Rice debate, he really says almost nothing bad about her in the book, other than the whole not being interested in Al-Quaeda thing. And I don't mean that to sound ironic, because in the context of everything else he wrote, that was really a very minor issue. He's much harsher on Ashcroft, who's priority list didn't even mention terrorism, but was focused on things like pornography and drugs. 

Fact is, two of the hijackers were known terrorists, who were not supposed to get on planes or even be in America before 9/11. But the FBI never shared their information with the FAA. If they had caught the two of them, at the very least, there would have been one less plane hijacked. Combine that with the reports from Phoenix and Minnesota FBI, and it's pretty clear where the screwups happened.

Further, look at the way Ashcroft handled the Jose Padilla case. If you want to find out what terrorists are doing in America, it seems like the best way to go about gather intelligence would be to follow them and see who they were meeting with. When they arrested him, they knew he had no workable plans, and that he wasn't an immediate threat. But instead of doing the long slog of surveillance work, they just grabbed him at the airport so Ashcroft could have a nice press conference. But do they know anything about his associates? Whether there was a sleeper cell in place in America with which he was aligned? They don't know any of that, because they took the flash of an arrest over the substance of the detective work. This government only cares about looking good, regardless of the consequences. They govern by keeping the populace in a constant state of fear. It's abhorrent that this is happening in what is supposed to be a free country.

[NerdyLaw]

jas: Clarke's book is filled with partisan and fatuous bilge. He has been proven wrong and untruthful time and time again - not only from other sources but in HIS OWN WORDS! I don't understand how anyone can believe anything the man says. And jgruber, I don't think that we will ever be able to wrap up the blame in a nice little package and produce a concrete and simple explanation of the "what happened" and "who was responsible". We are now 63 years after the Pearl Harbor attacks and that debate is still raging in acedemic circles.

The 9/11 commission is a dog and pony show at best and a witch hunt by partisan hacks at worst. No good will come of it.