Is That Legal?

(That's "pride" in the biblical sense, as in "Pride goeth before a fall.")

Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.

TFW:

Maybe you can explain this.

Why is it that America was "at peace" for 8 years after the first WTC attack in 2/93, but no one talks about it.

Instead, we hear how there've been now attacks since 9/11 -- so therefore everything Bush/Cheney did was the right recipe for security.

I'm not asking if we overreacted. We did. Or what the longterm impact on America will be from Iraq and our own shredding of the Bill of Rights, not to mention Articles I, II, and III. It'll be bad.

I'm only asking, why does no one -- not the print media, not politicians, not talking heads -- focus on the 8 years of uninterrupted "peace" before 9/11 to ask (in the words of Vince Lombardi):

"What the hell's goin' on out there?"

Naïve and narrow. Interesting monologs but unrealistic in all respects. Why was everything so peaceful after the first attack in the WTC? I guess they were working on getting it right the second time. So easy to criticize from 30,000 feet.

I don't know that even the best President would have done things just as Alter has laid them out, nor that he/whe would have gotten the results Alter describes. But I stand by the idea that no figure of either major party who might plausibly have been president on 9/11 would have gone into Iraq as Bush did. Bush himself might not have done it without Cheney et al. whispering in his ear. I believe that any of them would have invaded Afghanistan, and devoted more resources to it than Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld have. I'm sure that any of them would have made a greater effort not to alienate our major allies, and that most, perhaps all of them would have understood that we should fight terrorists without mercy, but avoid actions and policies that hand one propaganda victory after another to the enemy. I don't believe anybody who had a real chance to be elected President in 2000 or 2004 would have had the audacious imagination (and contempt for the Consititution) necessary to have made the arrogations of executive power and trampling of civil liberties that this crowd has casually embraced.

Those are my premises. If you buy them, Alter's view of what might have been is pretty much down the middle.

Here's what's naive and narrow: the idea that when attacked by Islamist terrorists based in Afghanistan, the solution is to put Afghanistan on the back burner and invade Baathist Iraq (with mainly Arab Muslim population, secular government, complex religious and ethnic dynamics, home to some of Islam's holiest places, armed to the teeth,etc.) and assume that you can impose democracy with one third the number of troops recommended by the generals, while firing the entire Iraqi military without disarming them or making any provision to deal with them. And then to assume that the Iraqis will thank us for this and it will lead to peace and a flowering of democracy throughout the Middle East and the broader Muslim world. And finally to assert that doing all this will not increase the number of crazy U.S.-hating radicals who would give their lives just for a chance to blow us up.

THAT'S naive and narrow.

Shertaugh, I think the short answer to your question is: politics.

But its natural for people to look for somebody to blame, especially incumbents who are talkin about their predecessors. Bush's flacks spun up a template for the eight years before 9/11: the time when the threat was allowed to grow by a weak administration. There were other attacks during that time, all on foreign soil, but attacks against the U.S. nonetheless, so criticism may be in order, but you are right to suggest that the coverage is skewed. I am more concerned about what comes next.

Alter says "the bulk of the Arab world had been in sympathy with the United States after 9/11". What hogwash. No need to read beyond that point.

Hey, let's desribe the "peace" that followed the first WTC attack: NYC landmark bomb plot. American diplomats assassinated in Pakistan. American embassies bombed in Africa. Millenium bomb plot (foiled). USS Cole bombed. They really loved us!