You shouldn't assume I assumed that. As for Mueller, I'm not sure what relevance that has to what we're talking about, but for what it's worth, I couldn't agree more.
He's had a very significant and totally unhidden role in blocking investigations into 9.11. It's as out in the open as Paris Hilton. Part of my whole point here is that info regarding Mueller and the 9.11 investigations, for one, is so fundamental that if someone doesn't know about his actions, then they simply haven't really looked into it.
Quote:
"My links are smarter than your links" war.
But, see, that's the thing. It's not a matter of 'links,' it's a matter of actually tracking down the information, then learning the techniques needed to filter it and notice trends.
Quote:
Let's assume for a moment all the information you have studied for the 2 years, 3 months and 8 days since the terrorist attacks points to the fact that there was enough information available at the time of the attacks to stop them (note: I don't actually disagree with this, rather I disagree with what some think this implies).
But part of the big thing that is revealed when studying this is that they clearly did know. That's the whole point.
Quote:
Ultimately what I believe is that this was a very large intelligence failure, which is what you seem to feel. But the intelligence community was not established the day Bush took office.
Of course it was an intel failure. But the failure was a failure to act, not a failure to get the info (though, of course, there was a failure to move details around the government efficiently).
There is a push by the bush admin to avoid responsibility for 9.11 and Iraqi WMD by putting the blame on the 'intelligence community.' The fact is, with regard to 9.11, not only did the bush admin know something was coming up, but most western governments knew as well. It was an open secret.
Furthermore, we haven't even gone into all of the crazy details that come out, like the possible assassination attempt on bush (same MO as the assassination of Ahmed Shah Massoud) or the fishy stuff surrounding hijacker evidence.
2001-2002 was a crazy time period for the US, and it only gets crazier the more you look into it. A good place to start is the amazing 9.11 timeline: http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timeline/ . It's a few hundred pages long, but it really is a great place to start learning the facts and seeing the patterns. Once that's read, you can start moving out to other sources that further detail different parts.
Quote:
Bickering aside, thanks for exercising my mind quite a bit today. It's been fun!
I like the sharing of ideas. BR's post on wage equality was very interesting. AO is fun that way. The only problems come in when folks make decisions before learning the facts. Humans seem to like to do that, but I think a good goal to have is to learn first, decide later. If I come off as heavy-handed about it, it's only because there sometimes can be such a gulf between people with the info and people without it.
There's nothing wrong with not knowing something, but here on AO there is a strong tendency to just take a 'stance on an issue' and then gather info to defend it. It's backwards, but look how much some folks do it. It's clear now that you probably aren't like that, so I apologize.
Anyway, I'm going to go enjoy some winter downtime.
Giant you exaggerate things so much it is ridiculous.
You wouldn't say that if you bothered to look.
Quote:
I'll wait for an official report rather than yours, thanks.
Of course, the official report will be limited by what it can say. Say, for instance, everything surrounding Saeed Sheikh. There are a few reasons you won't see much about him in the report.
Quote:
I think your two years of intensive study have been wasted if these are all the more logical your conlusions are.
When you say this kind of stuff, you might as well say that the germans won WWII.
Before you can rely on this argument Nick, you need to prove that people really do believe that nothing will go wrong if we jump through enough hoops. No one is saying that. You're arguing that to deflect the discussion. Cut it out.
A worldview that is pure nurture? Where do you make up this crap? You need to show a connection between this 'pure nurture' BS you're spouting and preventing the attacks. It doesn't exist though.
What do you mean no one is saying that? The post was related to Thomas Kean said and whether I would believe it. As for whether people will believe nothing will go wrong with enough prevention, I think you can simply take just about every trend and see the bigger hammer syndrome at work. The answer to school underachievement, have them in school from 2 years old on, 225 days a year from 9-5.
I'm not trying to deflect the discussion. I have NO DOUBT that someone once recommended in a report that a scenario could happen using a plane to destroy a target. However the leap between that and knowing these 14 men were going to jump on those exact planes with box cutters on 9/11 is a pretty big leap. The ability to know a scenario could happen and knowing about the exact action taking place is just a huge gap.
How many times have we heard about possible action being taken against soft targets since 9/11? Poisoning of water supplies and things of that nature? So if tomorrow some terrorist poisoned the water supply of Boise, Idaho are you willing to say Bush knew it was going to happen and didn't prevent it?
That is a big leap. There are plenty of people that believe that knowing of a scenario = preventing all instances of that scenario. That just isn't true.
It isn't brushing the issue aside. It is the reality of the matter that one person or one administration cannot know what all people are doing all the time.
Poisoning of water supplies and things of that nature? So if tomorrow some terrorist poisoned the water supply of Boise, Idaho are you willing to say Bush knew it was going to happen and didn't prevent it?
no, but depending on who i was i might post excerpts of your post and try to tell people that it was common knowledge that the water supply in Boise, Idho was going to be poisoned. And that it's Bush's fault.
but then i'd probably have some cracked out inferiority complex, so what do you expect.
My point is saying that this administration had only 8 months of time to figure it out isn't true. They were working off many years of intelligence that was gathered prior to the 2000 elections. They weren't starting from scratch.
I said the same thing, so we agree.
Quote:
Originally posted by bunge
To say this is Bubba's fault isn't true. To say this is Coke-Boy's fault isn't true.
Ok, we've reached the obligatory insults. Early on too. Nice job.
Quote:
Originally posted by bunge
To say that neither can be held responsible is just wrong. Either one could still legitimately be held responsible and the facts will bear this out. To pretend that Bush is somehow safe because he had only been in office for 8 months is silly. He could have been in office for 8 days and it would be possible for him to be responsible. The facts would have to prove that though.
I never said they should not be held responsible, but to say that an attack was preventable (which it likely was) = administration failure/corruption/ignorance/whatever is drawing conclusions that aren't as black and white as people would like to believe.
Quote:
Originally posted by bunge
People like Trumptman, and apparently you to some degree, want to brush this aside. There may never be any blame to lay, or it may fall squarely on the shoulders of one person. There is no telling at this point, and saying Bush couldn't know is just flat out wrong. If we took your line of thinking rageous, we wouldn't even bother investigating the Bush administration because we would all just say "8 months wasn't enough time so they can't be held responsible." If we look at it that way I hope you can see how ludicrous it sounds.
Hmmm... I can't seem to recall saying the administration shouldn't be looked at, so in the future, please interpret what I say, not what you think I said.
Now, You are absolutely correct in saying "there is no telling at this point." This is essentially what I've been arguing. It means anyone claiming the current administration is somehow responsible for what happened is just as misguided as those saying there is no way they were responsible. There is evidence that can be presented by both sides to bolster their argument, but unless someone can come up with evidence that the current administration knowingly and purposefully impeded, subverted or closed investigations that were actively attempting to stop this attack, then the people claiming administration responsibility have an uphill battle.
In closing (boy that sounds official!), I'll leave it by stating my position on this issue once and for all, and hope it is not twisted into meaning anything other than what it says:
I believe there was indeed a great deal of evidence pointing to attacks of the nature that occurred on 9/11/2001. I believe there was also evidence, though of a lesser quantity, pertaining to those specific attacks. It's virtually impossible to dispute that the evidence proves that there was the potential to stop the attacks, but there is no guarantee it was a certainty the attacks could have been averted had the system worked flawlessly.
Time will tell how much certain people knew, and of what worth the knowledge they had was. In my opinion, now is not that time.
Again, people choose to filter terminology in order to take what someone says out of context.
The one place where I admittedly should have been more clear was when I said the following:
Quote:
. I am not blaming the former administration either, mind you. This was a failure of the Intelligence Community in the end, if one must lay blame somewhere.
What I meant was given what evidence we have available to us now, it would appear that this was a failure of the Intelligence Comm....
I should have communicated more effectively than I did.
I'm not trying to deflect the discussion. I have NO DOUBT that someone once recommended in a report that a scenario could happen using a plane to destroy a target. However the leap between that and knowing these 14 men were going to jump on those exact planes with box cutters on 9/11 is a pretty big leap.
Here we go again.
No one expects Bush to have known the names of the hijackers. You're intentionally setting the bar so high it would be impossible to consider Bush guilty. That's silly.
Take this stupid color system we have in place now. Let's pretend that system existed internally for the White House Administration. If it did, for the sake of argument, let's pretend that it was RED on 9/10/01 but the Administration did nothing. Then even if Bush didn't know the names of the attackers or the exact planes you could make a very strong argument that he were responsible.
What I meant was given what evidence we have available to us now, it would appear that this was a failure of the Intelligence [Community]
I'm sorry, man, but this is exactly what I am talking about. How could you know at all whether this statement is true or not if you don't know the events leading up to 9.11?
There is so much detail to look at, so many weird twists and turns, from the large Israeli intelligence network in the US to the killing of Daniel Pearl.
Then, what's this intelligence community? In some areas, there is a lot of overlap. Especially when you start talking about Pakistan, there is just a huge gray mass of individuals making up the ISI, al-qaeda, mossad and CIA operatives all involved in their own little areas. Wait until you start seeing the mix of people at Karachi parties (yes, house parties!).
And this is just a teeny, tiny part of what falls under 'intel community.' Of course, most of the members of the US intel community are analysts. And remember that this is a detailed science. Just like a lay-person can't understand the functions of the heart, a lay-person who hasn't studied any angle of it can't understand how to figure out what happened. Just learning about the structure of the US Intel agencies and programs is enough to make anyone's head spin.
You can say 'intelligence community,' but you and I both know that you don't really know what you mean by that term or at which points the failure occurred.
I, like any of the rest of the researchers, have more questions than answers. However, it is a grave mistake to think that this means there isn't a lot of clarity about the events.
I'm sorry, man, but this is exactly what I am talking about. How could you know at all whether this statement is true or not if you don't know the events leading up to 9.11?
There is so much detail to look at, so many weird twists and turns, from the large Israeli intelligence network in the US to the killing of Daniel Pearl.
Then, what's this intelligence community? In some areas, there is a lot of overlap. Especially when you start talking about Pakistan, there is just a huge gray mass of individuals making up the ISI, al-qaeda, mossad and CIA operatives all involved in their own little areas. Wait until you start seeing the mix of people at Karachi parties (yes, house parties!).
You can say 'intelligence community,' but you and I both know that you don't really know what you mean by that term or at which points the failure occurred.
I, like any of the rest of the researchers, have more questions than answers. However, it is a grave mistake to think that this means there isn't a lot of clarity about the events.
You are right and I am wrong. Is that good?
You must stop assuming that because you have researched events thoroughly, that you have intellectual superiority over me or anyone else in this given subject who offer a dissenting opinion. It is quite arrogant. I choose to challenge you on your conclusions, not your knowledge. With the exception of the quote you posted about what some children knew, I have in no way disputed any of your facts. What you need to understand is that given the same set of facts, individual human beings inherently come to different conclusions. You and I disagree in our assessment of the evidence. That's all.
You must stop assuming that because you have researched events thoroughly, that you have intellectual superiority over me or anyone else in this given subject who offer a dissenting opinion...You and I disagree in our assessment of the evidence. That's all.
Why would you get offended. I don't know C++ very well. Sure, I've taken a class in it and understand some basic concepts, but I wouldn't argue about how to write a large program with one of my buddies that have been programming for 10+ years.
You clearly don't have all of the same evidence. For example, you've already demonstrated that you don't know what the FBI has done in the investigation since you aren't familiar with Mueller's role and statements.
I'm also pretty sure you couldn't list the main intelligence collection disciplines. Can you name the two important coincidental meetings with people directly connected to the attacks happening in washington on the morning of 9.11, and can you say what makes the more obscure of them all the more unusual?
I wouldn't just assume that I knew the history of the roman empire without first spending time actually learning about it.
No one expects Bush to have known the names of the hijackers. You're intentionally setting the bar so high it would be impossible to consider Bush guilty. That's silly.
Take this stupid color system we have in place now. Let's pretend that system existed internally for the White House Administration. If it did, for the sake of argument, let's pretend that it was RED on 9/10/01 but the Administration did nothing. Then even if Bush didn't know the names of the attackers or the exact planes you could make a very strong argument that he were responsible.
You propose a strange scenario, a system that would be in place and necessitate no action for an extreme alert. Typically with these types of systems, (and I'm sure it is with the current one as well) certain actions are assigned with certain colors.
So basically he would have to declare the color and then suspend all action associated with that color. I think that would be pretty easy to jump on. He would be bypassing security measures that were already in place. I've not seen that argued. What I have seen argued is that someone suggested in the past that a plane could have been used in this manner. There was a statement from Rice suggesting it was absurd to assume such a thing. Then the logical leap was made that since the hypothetical had been proposed but not acted one, Bush was responsible. I don't consider that a valid conclusion because no one can act on or even afford to remedy all hypotheticals everywhere.
Well there you go then. You are obviously much more educated than I am, because you say so. Why bother discussing this further?
I didn't say anything about your education. I'm simply pointing out that on this particular topic you simply haven't looked into it. I've never bothered to really look into russian history, but you don't see me making big claims about it or getting upset when discussing it with someone who has actually studied it.
You are clearly an intelligent person, and for all I know you could be the world authority on math theory.
If you are happy and productive in your life, then isn't that what counts? If you want to learn about intelligence collection, analysis and methods or 9.11, then learn about them. If not, then you simply have a different set of priorities.
It just comes down to different being compelled by differing interests.
Comments
Originally posted by rageous
You shouldn't assume I assumed that. As for Mueller, I'm not sure what relevance that has to what we're talking about, but for what it's worth, I couldn't agree more.
He's had a very significant and totally unhidden role in blocking investigations into 9.11. It's as out in the open as Paris Hilton. Part of my whole point here is that info regarding Mueller and the 9.11 investigations, for one, is so fundamental that if someone doesn't know about his actions, then they simply haven't really looked into it.
"My links are smarter than your links" war.
But, see, that's the thing. It's not a matter of 'links,' it's a matter of actually tracking down the information, then learning the techniques needed to filter it and notice trends.
Let's assume for a moment all the information you have studied for the 2 years, 3 months and 8 days since the terrorist attacks points to the fact that there was enough information available at the time of the attacks to stop them (note: I don't actually disagree with this, rather I disagree with what some think this implies).
But part of the big thing that is revealed when studying this is that they clearly did know. That's the whole point.
Ultimately what I believe is that this was a very large intelligence failure, which is what you seem to feel. But the intelligence community was not established the day Bush took office.
Of course it was an intel failure. But the failure was a failure to act, not a failure to get the info (though, of course, there was a failure to move details around the government efficiently).
There is a push by the bush admin to avoid responsibility for 9.11 and Iraqi WMD by putting the blame on the 'intelligence community.' The fact is, with regard to 9.11, not only did the bush admin know something was coming up, but most western governments knew as well. It was an open secret.
Furthermore, we haven't even gone into all of the crazy details that come out, like the possible assassination attempt on bush (same MO as the assassination of Ahmed Shah Massoud) or the fishy stuff surrounding hijacker evidence.
2001-2002 was a crazy time period for the US, and it only gets crazier the more you look into it. A good place to start is the amazing 9.11 timeline: http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timeline/ . It's a few hundred pages long, but it really is a great place to start learning the facts and seeing the patterns. Once that's read, you can start moving out to other sources that further detail different parts.
Bickering aside, thanks for exercising my mind quite a bit today. It's been fun!
I like the sharing of ideas. BR's post on wage equality was very interesting. AO is fun that way. The only problems come in when folks make decisions before learning the facts. Humans seem to like to do that, but I think a good goal to have is to learn first, decide later. If I come off as heavy-handed about it, it's only because there sometimes can be such a gulf between people with the info and people without it.
There's nothing wrong with not knowing something, but here on AO there is a strong tendency to just take a 'stance on an issue' and then gather info to defend it. It's backwards, but look how much some folks do it. It's clear now that you probably aren't like that, so I apologize.
Anyway, I'm going to go enjoy some winter downtime.
Originally posted by Moogs
Giant you exaggerate things so much it is ridiculous.
You wouldn't say that if you bothered to look.
I'll wait for an official report rather than yours, thanks.
Of course, the official report will be limited by what it can say. Say, for instance, everything surrounding Saeed Sheikh. There are a few reasons you won't see much about him in the report.
I think your two years of intensive study have been wasted if these are all the more logical your conlusions are.
When you say this kind of stuff, you might as well say that the germans won WWII.
Originally posted by bunge
Nick, king of the strawmen.
Before you can rely on this argument Nick, you need to prove that people really do believe that nothing will go wrong if we jump through enough hoops. No one is saying that. You're arguing that to deflect the discussion. Cut it out.
A worldview that is pure nurture? Where do you make up this crap? You need to show a connection between this 'pure nurture' BS you're spouting and preventing the attacks. It doesn't exist though.
What do you mean no one is saying that? The post was related to Thomas Kean said and whether I would believe it. As for whether people will believe nothing will go wrong with enough prevention, I think you can simply take just about every trend and see the bigger hammer syndrome at work. The answer to school underachievement, have them in school from 2 years old on, 225 days a year from 9-5.
I'm not trying to deflect the discussion. I have NO DOUBT that someone once recommended in a report that a scenario could happen using a plane to destroy a target. However the leap between that and knowing these 14 men were going to jump on those exact planes with box cutters on 9/11 is a pretty big leap. The ability to know a scenario could happen and knowing about the exact action taking place is just a huge gap.
How many times have we heard about possible action being taken against soft targets since 9/11? Poisoning of water supplies and things of that nature? So if tomorrow some terrorist poisoned the water supply of Boise, Idaho are you willing to say Bush knew it was going to happen and didn't prevent it?
That is a big leap. There are plenty of people that believe that knowing of a scenario = preventing all instances of that scenario. That just isn't true.
It isn't brushing the issue aside. It is the reality of the matter that one person or one administration cannot know what all people are doing all the time.
Nick
Poisoning of water supplies and things of that nature? So if tomorrow some terrorist poisoned the water supply of Boise, Idaho are you willing to say Bush knew it was going to happen and didn't prevent it?
no, but depending on who i was i might post excerpts of your post and try to tell people that it was common knowledge that the water supply in Boise, Idho was going to be poisoned. And that it's Bush's fault.
but then i'd probably have some cracked out inferiority complex, so what do you expect.
Originally posted by bunge
My point is saying that this administration had only 8 months of time to figure it out isn't true. They were working off many years of intelligence that was gathered prior to the 2000 elections. They weren't starting from scratch.
I said the same thing, so we agree.
Originally posted by bunge
To say this is Bubba's fault isn't true. To say this is Coke-Boy's fault isn't true.
Ok, we've reached the obligatory insults. Early on too. Nice job.
Originally posted by bunge
To say that neither can be held responsible is just wrong. Either one could still legitimately be held responsible and the facts will bear this out. To pretend that Bush is somehow safe because he had only been in office for 8 months is silly. He could have been in office for 8 days and it would be possible for him to be responsible. The facts would have to prove that though.
I never said they should not be held responsible, but to say that an attack was preventable (which it likely was) = administration failure/corruption/ignorance/whatever is drawing conclusions that aren't as black and white as people would like to believe.
Originally posted by bunge
People like Trumptman, and apparently you to some degree, want to brush this aside. There may never be any blame to lay, or it may fall squarely on the shoulders of one person. There is no telling at this point, and saying Bush couldn't know is just flat out wrong. If we took your line of thinking rageous, we wouldn't even bother investigating the Bush administration because we would all just say "8 months wasn't enough time so they can't be held responsible." If we look at it that way I hope you can see how ludicrous it sounds.
Hmmm... I can't seem to recall saying the administration shouldn't be looked at, so in the future, please interpret what I say, not what you think I said.
Now, You are absolutely correct in saying "there is no telling at this point." This is essentially what I've been arguing. It means anyone claiming the current administration is somehow responsible for what happened is just as misguided as those saying there is no way they were responsible. There is evidence that can be presented by both sides to bolster their argument, but unless someone can come up with evidence that the current administration knowingly and purposefully impeded, subverted or closed investigations that were actively attempting to stop this attack, then the people claiming administration responsibility have an uphill battle.
In closing (boy that sounds official!), I'll leave it by stating my position on this issue once and for all, and hope it is not twisted into meaning anything other than what it says:
I believe there was indeed a great deal of evidence pointing to attacks of the nature that occurred on 9/11/2001. I believe there was also evidence, though of a lesser quantity, pertaining to those specific attacks. It's virtually impossible to dispute that the evidence proves that there was the potential to stop the attacks, but there is no guarantee it was a certainty the attacks could have been averted had the system worked flawlessly.
Time will tell how much certain people knew, and of what worth the knowledge they had was. In my opinion, now is not that time.
Originally posted by rageous
...pinning it on the current administration is...ludicrous.
I think it's incorrect to believe this statement.
Originally posted by bunge
To simplify:
I think it's incorrect to believe this statement.
Again, people choose to filter terminology in order to take what someone says out of context.
The one place where I admittedly should have been more clear was when I said the following:
. I am not blaming the former administration either, mind you. This was a failure of the Intelligence Community in the end, if one must lay blame somewhere.
What I meant was given what evidence we have available to us now, it would appear that this was a failure of the Intelligence Comm....
I should have communicated more effectively than I did.
Originally posted by trumptman
I'm not trying to deflect the discussion. I have NO DOUBT that someone once recommended in a report that a scenario could happen using a plane to destroy a target. However the leap between that and knowing these 14 men were going to jump on those exact planes with box cutters on 9/11 is a pretty big leap.
Here we go again.
No one expects Bush to have known the names of the hijackers. You're intentionally setting the bar so high it would be impossible to consider Bush guilty. That's silly.
Take this stupid color system we have in place now. Let's pretend that system existed internally for the White House Administration. If it did, for the sake of argument, let's pretend that it was RED on 9/10/01 but the Administration did nothing. Then even if Bush didn't know the names of the attackers or the exact planes you could make a very strong argument that he were responsible.
Originally posted by rageous
What I meant was given what evidence we have available to us now, it would appear that this was a failure of the Intelligence [Community]
I'm sorry, man, but this is exactly what I am talking about. How could you know at all whether this statement is true or not if you don't know the events leading up to 9.11?
There is so much detail to look at, so many weird twists and turns, from the large Israeli intelligence network in the US to the killing of Daniel Pearl.
Then, what's this intelligence community? In some areas, there is a lot of overlap. Especially when you start talking about Pakistan, there is just a huge gray mass of individuals making up the ISI, al-qaeda, mossad and CIA operatives all involved in their own little areas. Wait until you start seeing the mix of people at Karachi parties (yes, house parties!).
And this is just a teeny, tiny part of what falls under 'intel community.' Of course, most of the members of the US intel community are analysts. And remember that this is a detailed science. Just like a lay-person can't understand the functions of the heart, a lay-person who hasn't studied any angle of it can't understand how to figure out what happened. Just learning about the structure of the US Intel agencies and programs is enough to make anyone's head spin.
You can say 'intelligence community,' but you and I both know that you don't really know what you mean by that term or at which points the failure occurred.
I, like any of the rest of the researchers, have more questions than answers. However, it is a grave mistake to think that this means there isn't a lot of clarity about the events.
Originally posted by giant
I'm sorry, man, but this is exactly what I am talking about. How could you know at all whether this statement is true or not if you don't know the events leading up to 9.11?
There is so much detail to look at, so many weird twists and turns, from the large Israeli intelligence network in the US to the killing of Daniel Pearl.
Then, what's this intelligence community? In some areas, there is a lot of overlap. Especially when you start talking about Pakistan, there is just a huge gray mass of individuals making up the ISI, al-qaeda, mossad and CIA operatives all involved in their own little areas. Wait until you start seeing the mix of people at Karachi parties (yes, house parties!).
You can say 'intelligence community,' but you and I both know that you don't really know what you mean by that term or at which points the failure occurred.
I, like any of the rest of the researchers, have more questions than answers. However, it is a grave mistake to think that this means there isn't a lot of clarity about the events.
You are right and I am wrong. Is that good?
You must stop assuming that because you have researched events thoroughly, that you have intellectual superiority over me or anyone else in this given subject who offer a dissenting opinion. It is quite arrogant. I choose to challenge you on your conclusions, not your knowledge. With the exception of the quote you posted about what some children knew, I have in no way disputed any of your facts. What you need to understand is that given the same set of facts, individual human beings inherently come to different conclusions. You and I disagree in our assessment of the evidence. That's all.
Originally posted by rageous
You must stop assuming that because you have researched events thoroughly, that you have intellectual superiority over me or anyone else in this given subject who offer a dissenting opinion...You and I disagree in our assessment of the evidence. That's all.
Why would you get offended. I don't know C++ very well. Sure, I've taken a class in it and understand some basic concepts, but I wouldn't argue about how to write a large program with one of my buddies that have been programming for 10+ years.
You clearly don't have all of the same evidence. For example, you've already demonstrated that you don't know what the FBI has done in the investigation since you aren't familiar with Mueller's role and statements.
I'm also pretty sure you couldn't list the main intelligence collection disciplines. Can you name the two important coincidental meetings with people directly connected to the attacks happening in washington on the morning of 9.11, and can you say what makes the more obscure of them all the more unusual?
I wouldn't just assume that I knew the history of the roman empire without first spending time actually learning about it.
Originally posted by bunge
Here we go again.
No one expects Bush to have known the names of the hijackers. You're intentionally setting the bar so high it would be impossible to consider Bush guilty. That's silly.
Take this stupid color system we have in place now. Let's pretend that system existed internally for the White House Administration. If it did, for the sake of argument, let's pretend that it was RED on 9/10/01 but the Administration did nothing. Then even if Bush didn't know the names of the attackers or the exact planes you could make a very strong argument that he were responsible.
You propose a strange scenario, a system that would be in place and necessitate no action for an extreme alert. Typically with these types of systems, (and I'm sure it is with the current one as well) certain actions are assigned with certain colors.
So basically he would have to declare the color and then suspend all action associated with that color. I think that would be pretty easy to jump on. He would be bypassing security measures that were already in place. I've not seen that argued. What I have seen argued is that someone suggested in the past that a plane could have been used in this manner. There was a statement from Rice suggesting it was absurd to assume such a thing. Then the logical leap was made that since the hypothetical had been proposed but not acted one, Bush was responsible. I don't consider that a valid conclusion because no one can act on or even afford to remedy all hypotheticals everywhere.
Nick
Originally posted by rageous
Well there you go then. You are obviously much more educated than I am, because you say so. Why bother discussing this further?
I didn't say anything about your education. I'm simply pointing out that on this particular topic you simply haven't looked into it. I've never bothered to really look into russian history, but you don't see me making big claims about it or getting upset when discussing it with someone who has actually studied it.
You are clearly an intelligent person, and for all I know you could be the world authority on math theory.
If you are happy and productive in your life, then isn't that what counts? If you want to learn about intelligence collection, analysis and methods or 9.11, then learn about them. If not, then you simply have a different set of priorities.
It just comes down to different being compelled by differing interests.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/edi...he_911_report/
I think that pretty much sums it up.