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Res Ipsa Loquitur
While I'm getting a bagel this morning I see a photo of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld on the front page of a local newspaper, testifying before Congress. His hands are raised in a weird gesture, half-imploring, half balling his fists, his mouth a rictus of mock-agony. "Even if bin Laden had been captured or killed in the weeks before 9/11, no one I know believes it could have prevented 9/11," the caption has him saying. The same day, President Bush said, "Had my administration had any information that terrorists were going to attack New York City on September the 11th, we would have acted." These statements make 9/11 sound like an inevitability, a work of subtle genius that no one could have stopped or anticipated.
But think about it--how subtle was it, really? 19 terrorists pass airport security, four planes are hijacked from three different locations, three planes reach their targets, one of which is the military command center of the United States. No fighter jets intervene during their copious flight time. In law, there is an expression "res ipsa loquitur" (the thing speaks for itself), as when a surgeon sews up a sponge inside someone's body after operating. Meaning, this is the type of thing that would never happen absent negligence. 9/11 is one of those events. And yet no one, not one person, has been fired. The dissemblers in the Administration think if they refer to it often enough as an unpreventable, act of God-like event, people will be worn down and start to disbelieve their own common sense about it.