Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lane3 who wrote (39192)	4/13/2004 9:53:25 AM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793843

Editorials The August Memo Tuesday, April 13, 2004; Page A18 THE RELEASE THIS weekend of the much-discussed Aug. 6, 2001, President's Daily Brief on al Qaeda was both welcome and anticlimactic. Both the title and the contents of the 17-sentence memorandum were essentially known even before national security adviser Condoleezza Rice's testimony last week. The congressional inquiry into the events of Sept. 11, 2001, for example, reported that "a closely held intelligence report" included references to "FBI judgments about patterns of activity consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks," as well as a warning in May 2001 that a group of Osama bin Laden supporters "was planning attacks in the United States with explosives" -- the guts of the three sentences that detail an ongoing threat from al Qaeda. Nonetheless, given the document's focus on the prospect of a domestic attack and the attention it received, the administration made the right decision in moving to declassify the PDB and give the public a chance to judge for itself. Reading the memo in its entirety, it's hard to see it, as some of President Bush's opponents contend, as a smoking gun that proves the administration was asleep at the switch before Sept. 11. To suggest that Mr. Bush, having received the memo, should have rushed back to the White House from Crawford, Tex., is unfair and unrealistic. Only with the benefit of hindsight does the document acquire that level of foreboding and urgency -- and in any event the plans were so far underway at that stage that even a presidential red alert might have made no difference. At the same time, Mr. Bush's dismissive characterizations of the document haven't been accurate either. The PDB was "no indication of a terrorist threat," Mr. Bush said Sunday. "It said nothing about an attack on America. It talked about intentions, about somebody who hated America -- well, we knew that." The document may not have specified "a time and place" of an attack, as Mr. Bush said, but it contained warnings that could have prompted him to do more. This is a legitimate subject for inquiry when the commission questions him. Mr. Bush should be asked if, having been informed about preparations for possible hijackings, he pressed hard enough to learn what that evidence consisted of and whether the government was doing enough to prevent such an occurrence. Before Sept. 11, neither the Bush administration nor its predecessor fully appreciated the threat from al Qaeda or the risk of a domestic attack. The Bush administration inherited the structural impediments and bureaucratic jealousies that contributed to the failure of government agencies to share information that might have unraveled the plot. And the specific lapses that occurred on its watch -- the failure to find the two hijackers on the terrorist watch list, to investigate training at flight schools and to connect all the other dots -- are questions not so much for the White House as for the relevant agencies. The commissioners will have a chance to ask such questions when they hear today and tomorrow from top FBI, Justice Department and CIA officials in the Clinton and Bush administrations. It's possible to wish that Mr. Bush would be more straightforward about accountability without suggesting that he's culpable for Sept. 11; it's also possible to understand his reluctance, given the partisanship now infusing the debate in commission questioning and in the presidential campaign. No doubt the commission will deal with issues of accountability in its final report. Even more important will be its judgment of whether enough is being done to diminish the likelihood of a recurrence. In their search for culprits, the commissioners should not lose sight of this larger mission. © 2004 The Washington Post Company

To: Lane3 who wrote (39192)	4/13/2004 10:53:37 AM
From: Michelino	Respond to of 793843

Yes, the myth has severely diminished the attention and the respect due our returning dead. The "liberal" press, even those on FOX, cannot without give them their due being without accused of being pawns in the propaganda war. War is now just another product whose bad taste can be overcome with the help of a little marketing. There is the belief around here that too much exposure to reality will turn us into a nation of 300 million copies of Neville Chamberlain. And this is compounded by the companion myth that respect for sacrifice died on the beaches of Normandy with so many of our relatives.