...but granting that all of these items are true (I sure as hell ain't going to check them all out, but some of them are a bit fuzzy you must admit) you will note that there is no real constant link between the theoretical discussions early on about flying planes into buildings, and the actual intelligence of a specific attack that started filtering in, which was mostly along the lines of "a major attack is about to take place." Some of them get as specific as "planes may be involved." Not too useful.

We were by definition "blindsided," since the only logical alternative to having been surprised was that we knew this precise attack was going to happen ahead of time and did nothing to stop it*. I am willing to grant that there are a number of screwups in high positions in both the CIA and the FBI who should maybe have followed some leads that didn't. I will also grant that had all the data been put together in the right way, some bright fellow in the FBI could have connected some of the dots and tried to do something.

But does it really make a difference? What if the dots HAD been connected, even assuming the dots were there?

"Arab terrorists are planning on boarding airliners, taking them over, and crashing them into buildings!" Okay, Mr. Bright Fellow in the FBI, now what?

Only obvious answer is to start going over Arab airline passengers with a fine-toothed comb, and rousting suspicious characters across the country like anyone with an old visa, or anyone taking pilot training. Maybe hand guns to the airline pilots.

Profile Arab passengers. Harass Arab nationals in the U.S. Arm pilots. And this before anything bad has happened.

Right. Beginning to see the problem?

Our bright fellow would have been immediately shitcanned for cosmic political incorrectness, joining all those airline passengers who had been condemned as racist bastards for complaining about Arabs "acting funny" on airline trips.

Good Lord, even after 9/11 we can neither profile Arabs, restrict our borders, or arm pilots. If we even can't do it now--which is frankly nuts--obviously none of these methods would have been permitted before the fact.

If you had gotten a message in a fortune cookie telling you that sometime in the end of 2001 Arabs were going to take over airliners and plow them into buildings, how would YOU have stopped it? And would you have been allowed to do it? Clamping down on a specific target, or a specific event in time like the Olympics is barely feasible. Trying to fly protection over every major target would be almost impossible.

If you had that much information, what could YOU have done?

*The author of your link obviously feels this way, which is frankly, psychotic, but I suppose that's neither here nor there as far as the accuracy of the data goes. Is it? Well, let's let him speak for himself:

...So what's my take on all of this? I believe the Bush Administration is guilty of one of the greatest crimes in history. They were either 1) criminally negligent and deserve impeachment, or 2) had foreknowledge of 9/11 and did nothing to stop it, or 3) actively manipulated events to make sure 9/11 happened just the way they wanted it.



I believe the last is most likely, with elements of all three being true for different actors.

But if any of the three are true, we as inhabitants of this Earth need to make our voices heard soon or we will inevitably see more of the same in the future. I frankly don't know if bin Laden is still a CIA asset or was duped, or if the role of Israel was observational or active or what. But clearly there are more elements involved than just al-Qaeda (the ISI, Pakistan's intelligence agency, for one). As for Clinton, it looks like elements within the government prevented him from eliminating bin Laden. The military and intelligence agencies had lacked a unifying enemy since the end of the Cold War. That's just one reason why certain factions within government would see bin Laden more valuable alive and free even before Bush came to power. I am sure that within both the Clinton and Bush Administrations a majority of government officials in all governmental agencies were doing and continue to do good work with the best of motives, but it only takes a small number of higher ups to foil that work (look at what happened to the Minnesota FBI office for a blatant example of this).



George W. Bush, a sinister evil genius if ever I saw one, wanted the terrorists to wreck the WTC and kill thousands of citizens. Why? So he could take over the world of course! (Don't you watch "Pinky and the Brain?") You can just see the mighty brain seething behind those gimlet eyes. For some reason he hasn't taken over the world yet. I suppose he's waiting for the stars to move into the right positions or something, or waiting for orders from the Grand Illuminati. Geez. And the bit about Evil Forces keeping Clinton from eliminating Bin Laden is really priceless. Do these people even know what they sound like?