What a ridiculous argument.

To pretend that policy makers are not responsible for the consequences of their policies is foolish.

Im not giving AQ a pass. I view them as criminally responsible. I view the policy makers who helped them exist as politically responsible. Why do you give the policy makers a pass?

Andrew

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Ethanol is a fabulous solution to our energy dilemma because it will provide more fuel for us to drive around and look for food.

-- Unknown

I get what you are saying, but it's the approach and conclusions in assessment that I think are not drawn correctly.

Let's bring it down to a simpler and more personal example, something that I hope never happens to you or any other decent person.

Let's say you are married with daughters. Two rapist/robbers/murderers choose to break into your home in the middle of the night. You do not possess any firearms in your home because you are 'just a nice Canadian family.' Because you are unarmed, the criminals succeed in robbing your home, tying you up, raping your family and killing them and then shooting you on the way out to leave no witnesses. You luckily survive, the criminals having felt they shot you to death but you weren't dead.

Who is at fault? Them, or you? Under the same lines, arguments can be made that it is really your fault it happened because you didn't keep a gun in your home and had you kept that gun, the criminals may not have succeeded in their heinous crimes. To me, that kind of 'reverse-blame' is bunk. Only the criminals are to blame, not you as their victim.

That is why I don't like the 'internal blame game.' AQ committed the atrocity. Therefore they are solely responsible for it.

Now, I do get your point. Indeed it is important to go over breaches of security to determine what may have helped AQ commit that atrocity. One thing amongst many is the law Reagan helped pass concerning armed commercial airline pilots. That has now been corrected, so I now see the point as moot.

I don't think it is productive to spend much time over spilt milk. Rather, what is important is to learn from the events and fix matters going forward. This is something very useful that I learnt when I was in Japan to watch the soccer World Cup in 2002 but also to attend very important business meetings and exchanges with a large company.

The Japanese, when any problem happens in business or elsewhere, generally take an approach to see what may have helped a calamity occur, and instead of pointing fingers destructively at others, take the constructive approach to simply examine what happened and why and fix the problems. They recognise that if a finger pointing exercise occurs, generally some sort of blame can be assessed on everyone. What someone did or did not do erroneously, the rest missed or allowed. For an inexplicable and/or unacceptable reason, Western thought seems to reject that. It's a blame shifting and 'cover your ass' society, and that actually hinders fixing problems.

I get what the OP was saying too. He was trying to point out out the fraud of the bullshit blame game that some GOPers like to lay on Democrats concerning 9.11 by trying to put all the blame on Clinton and the Dems to escape their own party's lapses. It is indeed contemptible, fallacious and cowardly bullshit meant to serve partisan agendas and misuses the tragedy. After all, Bush 43 himself made huge blunders and 9.11 happened on his watch.

That said, the Dems can't claim to be clean-faced and play the same game. Both parties have had their share of power and offices over the many years AQ has been in existence. Collectively they are all involved in the total sum of security breaches and owe the equal responsibility to mature themselves to fix them.

Citizens likewise who are genuinely interested owe it to themselves, their loved ones and their country to put all partisan gimmicks aside as to past blame games and focus on fixing the problems. The past is spilt milk, but the future is milk not yet even poured. It is, therefore, fair and expected to require politicians to fix the gaps and do so properly. Failing to do that is what is important, and is something voters should make a voting issue, never mind a speaking issue. If someone is repeatedly negligent, that is a justifiable reason to 'fire' them at the voting poll.

Still, the blame for crimes goes to the criminals. A negligent person is not the one committing the crimes. The criminals are committing their crimes with greater ease because of someone's ongoing negligence.

And on that note, I think you missed the overall mark the US's role in your post.

Islamic fundamentalism has been occurring and growing for a long time and for many reasons outside the US's control. The fact that African AQ membership and Islamic fanaticism exists has nothing to do, for example, with what you cited. A great number of the factors are totally indigenous to the areas in which fanaticism exists. Bin Laden is originally from Saudi Arabia. His second in command, Ayman al Zawahiri, is from Egypt. Both came from wealthy connected backgrounds and had higher educations (Zawahiri is a doctor for example). Bin Laden himself only went to Afghanistan shortly before 9.11. He was in other places before that, like Sudan. The US's activities in Afghanistan had little or nothing legitimately to do with shaping bin Laden, Zawahiri, (their blames are more a product of their fanaticism and its agendas), how Sudan came to be and its problems or AQ activities and fundamentalism there, etc. Afghanistan has been as it is in one shape or form for eons.

Thus, that is the second problem with the 'internal blame game'--it oversimplifies the whole situation and allows other more germane issues to a problem to escape attention insofar as examining what caused them and/or why they continue.

While AQ would bear all criminal responsibility for 9/11, the idea of arming the very fundamentalist Islamic groups who became the Taliban, so they could overthrow the secular government of Afghanistan was probably a bad policy decision.

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“ The subjects of every state ought to contribute towards the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities; that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the state.”

Adam Smith , The Wealth of Nations 1776

"We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals; we know now that it is bad economics"
FDR's second Inaugural Address

That's a reasonable comment. However, I do find many times it is an overstated and/or overly assumptive one when alleged. Gorbachev advised the US that he felt it was only going to make matters worse by helping topple the Soviet's puppet regime there under Najibullah, and it retrospect it may have.

However, time would only tell what the Najibullah regime would produce, if not the same eventual outcome had it been left alone. Afghanistan has forever been an unruly place and the Soviet exchequer was going broke as it stood, and the Soviet presence and funding there was very draining. The US gave aid, but the kind of aid and to whom is also often overstated directly and in assumptions. It gave aid to the mujahideen, much of whom later formed the Northern Alliance against the Taliban. The Taliban was more or less the brainchild and was funded and aided by the Saudis, Pakistanis, AQ (whose ideologues and sourcings came from all sorts of Muslim areas) and others.

That’s an odd sentiment. According to OBL it was our reaction to things like Beirut and Somalia that makes them think we’re a paper tiger. They respect action, and ignore negotiation.

frontline: hunting bin laden: who is bin laden?: interview with osama bin laden (in may 1998) | PBS

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Election 2008 – Addicted to Placebos

So it was Reagan turning tail and running from Lebanon that was responsible?

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“ The subjects of every state ought to contribute towards the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities; that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the state.”

Adam Smith , The Wealth of Nations 1776

"We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals; we know now that it is bad economics"
FDR's second Inaugural Address

It didn't help.

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Election 2008 – Addicted to Placebos

Until the day reagan paid ransom we had always upheld the idea that the US does not negotiate with terrorists. That, combined with Beruit and Lebanon gave people like Bin Laden every reason to believe this country would abandon every principle and back off in the face of terrorist violence. The fact that reagan was responsible for two of these incidents is especially ironic. Republican politicians today are belicose and swaggering cowboys who boast of their courage in sending troops to iraq, where they seem ready for 100 years of occupation. They denigrate dems as "soft on terra". Yet the hero reagan turns out to be the most heinous surrender monkey, making the whole country look soft.

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A nation of slaves is always prepared to applaud the clemency of their master who, in the abuse of absolute power, does not proceed to the utmost extremes of injustice and oppression.
Edward Gibbon

Of course it is. It is just as ridiculous as two or three degrees of separation of blame as is six or 16 degrees. Thus, my point. The blame for the deaths on 9/11/2001 fall on AQ - no degrees of separation there.

Of course, analysis and re-analysis of policies/politics can be re-examined based on events in the world (as they should be and are), but that is very different than blame.

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I am an American. That's the way most of us put it, just matter of factly. They are plain words, those four: you could write them on your thumbnail, or sweep them clear across this bright autumn sky. But remember too, that they are more than just words. They are a way of life. So whenever you speak them; speak them firmly, speak them proudly, speak them gratefully. I am an American. ...a tradition

I think you'll find that the British gave their aid to Massoud, who later headed the Northern Alliance, and urged the CIA to do the same, though the US directed most of it's aid to Hekmatyr Gulbuddin, a founder of the taliban, because the Reagan administration felt more comfortable with "deeply religious people".

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“ The subjects of every state ought to contribute towards the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities; that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the state.”

Adam Smith , The Wealth of Nations 1776

"We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals; we know now that it is bad economics"
FDR's second Inaugural Address

That’s just idiotic and simplistic. No one who was around at the time and paying any attention, thought Reagan was Mr. Softie; on the contrary, he was widely thought to be a cowboy who was going to start WWIII/ Armageddon with the Soviet Union. Carter tried the military option in Iran. If you hadn’t noticed, that didn’t work out too well, especially since he gutted Special Forces. Not negotiating with terrorists is a great platitude, but what do you call Carter’s policy of support for the Mujahidin? Of course, at the time, the nation had bigger problems than terrorism, like the Cold War, and Reagan was the ultimate Cold Warrior. The Dems were hardly supportive of those policies, but history has proven him right. When Carter was in office, the Soviets were an expanding force threatening to take over the Middle East. Within 10 years of Reagan’s election, the Soviet Union was gone.

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Election 2008 – Addicted to Placebos

None of our perceptions from the 80s change the irony of today's cowboy republicans worshipping at the altar of the man who surrendered to the terrorists twice.

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A nation of slaves is always prepared to applaud the clemency of their master who, in the abuse of absolute power, does not proceed to the utmost extremes of injustice and oppression.
Edward Gibbon

...and your assumptions have nothing to do with the real war Reagan was waging.

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Election 2008 – Addicted to Placebos

thats somewhat selective, but your non partisanship was never in doubt ...at least with me....thx for dropping the veil already...

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No individual can plan his own existence in their view.

So the state planners must arrogate to themselves the right to manipulate any sector of the economic system if the good of “society” or the “general welfare” is paramount.

Ipso- if the rights of the individual get in the way, the rights of the individual must be sublimated.

The Road to Serfdom
FA Hayek (interpretation)


Mortgage Backed Security survivor

now your rollin'....

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No individual can plan his own existence in their view.

So the state planners must arrogate to themselves the right to manipulate any sector of the economic system if the good of “society” or the “general welfare” is paramount.

Ipso- if the rights of the individual get in the way, the rights of the individual must be sublimated.

The Road to Serfdom
FA Hayek (interpretation)


Mortgage Backed Security survivor