In order to fail at preventing an act you first must have prior Knowledge of the specific act.

Invalid conclusion. Bank guards, air marshals, store security personnel, etc., may fail to do the jobs they've been hired to do, but that doesn't mean they must have prior knowledge of specfic acts.

If shoplifters boost a couple thousand dollars of merchandise from a store and store security doesn't stop them, the security guards have failed in their jobs, but that doesn't necessarily mean they had prior knowledge of those specific acts of theft.

Thats what you've outlined here. I can only assume you are one of those people that believe Bush knew ahead of time about 911 and did nothing about it so he could go to war.

Bad assumption. We don't know what Bush, et al knew before 9-11. They won't tell us. Like I said before, we don't know how much they should be blamed because we don't know what they knew or should have known. If they were blameless, would they be reluctant to tell us everything they knew about the terrorist threat before 9-11?

That stinks of conspiracy theory like- smelly sock stink or really stinky cheese stink. Most outrageous conspiracy theories come from writers trying to make a buck on the fears of others. If you have a link that lead you to believe this way please post it. I'd be curious to see it.

Nobody in their right mind believes the Bushies sacrificed 3,000 people so that the U.S. could invade Iraq. The issue is competence, not culpability. Until we know what information the Bushies knew, we can't properly assess how much they should be blamed for being incompetent.

Condi Rice said nobody could have dreamed that terrorists would take over planes and fly them into buildings. Does that sound like competence to you? Do you consider it truthful? And if it is the truth, why won't she testify under oath?

As far as the government dissallowing us to protect ourselves from a 9/11 attack- I don't get it. I'm not sure what the public could have done to prevent this or defend themselves?

I was addressing government's responsibility to provide safety, not whether or not a specific act of terrorism could've been prevented by armed citizens. If government refuses to accept that responsibility, then citizens have an obligation to themselves and their loved ones to provide for their own safety.
The court record is replete with cases in which people allowed civil law to trump natural law and then paid a horrific price.