When al-Qaeda hit the USS Cole, one of my first thoughts was that Al Gore was going to win the election. Surely Clinton was going to take some decisive measures that would prove to the American people that no American administration, Republican or Democrat, was going to sit idly by while our enemies attacked us with impunity.
I should have known better. Clinton's response to the embassy bombings, 150 cruise missiles launched into Afghanistan, was tepid. Lob the missiles in and move on. Apologize to Pakistan because a few fell short. No boots on the ground. Over three hundred dead, mostly Africans. Not the right type of casualties, I guess, for a more appropriate response.
As for the threat to LAX, the "plot", if it was that, was thwarted by an alert customs agent. Did the intelligence agencies have any advance knowledge about this plot? I don't think so. Thank God for the alert customs agent. The concern about a potential Millennium terrorist event was almost as well publicized as the Y2K scare.
History will be the final judge of 9/11 and I believe that Bush will receive higher marks than Clinton. Clinton did absolutely nothing to prepare the American people for an extended war against al-Qaeda. Why risk political capital? Did Al Gore, who had access to daily national security briefings, make terrorism a campaign issue? If he did, I don't recall it. Do you?
What about that Gore commission that was supposed to fix the security problems at our airports? There was no follow up. |
