Haven't read all of this Vanity Fair article yet, but apparently the gist of it is that the 9/11 hijackers did have help from the US government--not in the form of a conspiratorial green light but a Keystone Kops leadership vacuum. According to a "complete" set of tapes listened to by the VF reporter, the air defense agency NORAD was scrambling jets late, and to the wrong places, as it followed up on rumors of 10 possible hijackings the morning of 9/11. By 9/12 it had 300 jets aloft over various US cities but when its efforts mattered most, all the hijackers slipped through our air defenses.
Fortunately, Americans knew that the biggest problem of 9/11 was not a "worldwide terrorist network based in Afghanistan" but our own government's incompetence in the face of a spectacular, tragic one-off incident. The people rose up as one, and pressured Congress to impeach Bush and "shut down the government" through the power of the purse, until more competent leadership could be put in key Executive Branch positions. A triumph for our democratic system: It would have been doubly tragic if the US had gone off half cocked and invaded sovereign nations, weakening our military even further.
I especially liked the part where Bush, upon realizing that he had been convicted by the Senate, curled up in a fetal position (a la Jim Bakker) under his desk in the Oval Office, and was bodily carried out of the White House by the Secret Service while he wept inconsolably.
That was sweet.
I liked that part too.
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Haven't read all of this Vanity Fair article yet, but apparently the gist of it is that the 9/11 hijackers did have help from the US government--not in the form of a conspiratorial green light but a Keystone Kops leadership vacuum. According to a "complete" set of tapes listened to by the VF reporter, the air defense agency NORAD was scrambling jets late, and to the wrong places, as it followed up on rumors of 10 possible hijackings the morning of 9/11. By 9/12 it had 300 jets aloft over various US cities but when its efforts mattered most, all the hijackers slipped through our air defenses.
Fortunately, Americans knew that the biggest problem of 9/11 was not a "worldwide terrorist network based in Afghanistan" but our own government's incompetence in the face of a spectacular, tragic one-off incident. The people rose up as one, and pressured Congress to impeach Bush and "shut down the government" through the power of the purse, until more competent leadership could be put in key Executive Branch positions. A triumph for our democratic system: It would have been doubly tragic if the US had gone off half cocked and invaded sovereign nations, weakening our military even further.
- tom moody 8-02-2006 8:10 pm
I especially liked the part where Bush, upon realizing that he had been convicted by the Senate, curled up in a fetal position (a la Jim Bakker) under his desk in the Oval Office, and was bodily carried out of the White House by the Secret Service while he wept inconsolably.
That was sweet.
- mark 8-02-2006 9:41 pm
I liked that part too.
- tom moody 8-02-2006 9:44 pm