Quote:
Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
I'll dumb it down, so I can understnad:
Clarke says: AQ is an urgent threat- implied or explicit- We should do something about the threat.
Rice says: What should we do, Czar?
Clarke says: We should have a meeting.
SAM, we didn't need a meeting we needed to go into Afghanistan. As I understand it Clarke did suggest this, and the administration had a plan ready on this before 9/11. At that point, however, how would that have stopped 9/11? The guys were here, they knew how to fly.
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(a) You can stop being a dick now.
(b) With the caveat that I have ordered, but not yet read the book (which I understand does cover his entire WH career):
Neither I nor Clarke ( I think) suggest that it would/should have stopped 9/11. I rather doubt it could have at that point without some massive manhunt that we may not have had evidence to properly direct.
Nor do I think that, except in perfect hindsight, the Administration was a pack of fools for not having terrorism/al Qaeda absolutely at the top of the priority list.
At worst, they may have had some misplaced priorities and perhaps didn't give AQ the threat priority it turned out to deserve. Happens all the time, to everyone. However, this is all inconsistent with the image that the Administration has worked so damn hard to project.
That's why I think that the most important part of this whole thing may be the way the Administration is reacting to it. They seem not to be taking the Hank Chinaski-recommended approach (as you said for the WMD/threat issue re Iraq) of just plainly saying:
"OK. Maybe some mistakes were made, in hindsight, but no one is perfect and we did the best we could (or anyone could expect) with what we had."**
This Administration's default instinct is to hit back, hard, when challenged. That reaction may not always be the best one -- not substantively nor with public perception. We'll see.
S_A_M
**Note the use of the special Washington D.C. grammar -- the "post-passive exonerative".
