The truth sometimes hurts.
Even though G.W is one of our own, despite the fact he was born in Connecticut, and he’s the grandson of a senator from Connectictut, the great-grandson it turns out of two different wealthy bankers from New York and Connecticut, and he’s spent summers at his daddy’s summer house in Maine since he was knee high to a bean pole, as he might be inclined to say, despite his patrician roots. One time partying at daddy’s summer place, he was busted for DWI. But the record was somehow magically erased, like a year or two of his supposed national guard service, … he’s just a good ‘ol country boy who cheated his way through Yale and Harvard. What you see is what you get.
But the truth is we have two and (discounting extreme conspiracy theories) only two theories of what happened on 9/11. We call them the “incompetence theory” and the “operation ignore” theory.
The “incompetence theory” is that espoused by the supposed liberal media such as NPR and David Corn of The Nation, but also by others, including folks like Richard Clarke, the NSC Counterterrorism Coordinator at the time, who apparently was running the situation room on 9/11 while Bush was somewhere over Nebraska, the rest of the White House had been evacuated and Cheney and Rice were in some bunker somewhere. But the incompetence theory is also espoused by respected analysts such as none other than Austin’s own Stratfor.com.
The incompetence theory holds that there undoubtedly were pockets of knowledge, which put together in retrospect, seem to indicate that various agencies of the government (as well as proxies such as British and Israeli intelligence operating within the US with our government’s knowledge and consent) had information which, in context, indicated a major operation against “symbols of American power” was being planned, but that these various pieces of the puzzle were not connected due to “institutional compartmentalization.”
There are a number of specific problems with the incompetence theory as put forth, but it would be premature to presume in the absence of facts that an intelligence failure of this magnitude was due solely to “institutional compartmentalization.”
Unfortunately, the facts may very well never be known, especially if they put the current administration in an unfavorable light.
While, as a general rule, it is unwise to attribute to active conspiracy what can be explained by simple greed or incompetence, neither assumption is a substitute for the facts. We, the American people, are assumed to acquiesce to the notion that we can never know the facts in any useful detail due to “national security concerns.”
Putting aside the obvious objection that the event has already occurred — we have already been attacked — we are told that we should not pry too deeply into the why and wherefore of what was and is known about the attacks and the attackers. “Just trust us” we are told, by the very folks who claim their own incompetence led to this tragedy.
On the other hand, the “Operation Ignore” theory put forth by folks like former Treasury Secretary O’Neill, Former CIA Director Tenet, who both served directly under President Bush, as well as some other well-informed individuals who presuppose that these compartmentalized facts may in fact have been synthesized into analysis, and that analysis had in fact been presented to the people responsible for policy formulation, but was intentionally ignored, because it jarred with preconceived notions of who America’s most dangerous enemies were.
So, our candidate must choose: either he’s a bumbling incompetent, or he’s a moron being manipulated by a small group of neo-conservatives toward ends only dimly perceived, and certainly unexamined.
Neither would seem to be a commendation for reelection.