War not Realistic Option Before 9/11

[kskiska]

WASHINGTON — In retrospect, it seems obvious: President Clinton or President Bush could have gotten a head start in the war on terror and might even have averted the 9/11 attacks by acting sooner to invade Afghanistan, depose the Taliban regime and hunt down the al-Qaeda terrorists based there.

But Democrats and Republicans alike told a bipartisan commission Tuesday that neither U.S. nor world opinion would have stood for such aggression before the fall of 2001. It was only after the Sept. 11 attacks that public opinion here and abroad changed enough to make an invasion politically possible.

"The very hard part," Clinton administration secretary of State Madeleine Albright told the commission Tuesday, "is that we have to put ourselves into the pre-9/11 mode. ... It would be very hard pre-9/11 to have persuaded anybody that an invasion of Afghanistan was appropriate. I think it did take the mega-shock, unfortunately, of 9/11 to make people understand the considerable threat."

Secretary of State Colin Powell testified Tuesday that the option of an invasion was not seriously considered until a week before the Sept. 11 attacks, when Bush's senior foreign policy advisers approved a detailed counterterrorism strategy. Even then, an invasion was a last option in a plan that was designed to rely first on diplomacy and would take three years to implement.

more…
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2004-03-23-war-analysis_x.htm

[KissMyAsscroft]

1. She is right and everyone knows this.

Think back to 1998. Would ANYONE have accpeted Clinton attacking Afghanistan? They flipped out when he struck them with cruise missiles, and now there are some who are arguing that they should have invaded?

They flipped out when 8 soliders died in Somalia, the public would not have tolerated it.

[RobertSeattle]

3. It's the "prism" thing

The Bush Admin says they should be judged against the "prism" of 9/11 but Clinton is not allowed to be judged based on the pre 9/11 paradigms.

I think it more like 18 Rangers died in the "Blackhawn Down" incident in Somolia.

[wickerwoman]

2. But the real point is not how we could have aggressively prevented 9/11

but how we could have worked on our own security to catch the perpetrators in the act and minimize the damage.

The real story is the fact that Bush's administration was caught with its pants down and thousands died when only hundreds were threatened.

[Bridget Burke]

4. An invasion wouldn't have helped....

What we needed before 9/11 was adoption of airline security procedures that had been recommended by the previous administration.

And FBI higher-ups who didn't ignore questions from their agents in the field.

And people in DC who would use warnings from foreign intelligence agencies to protect someone besides themselves.

[lumpy]

5. What about the scuttlebutt

that AlQueda agents were known to have been in the US before 9/11?

[dbt]

6. Re: Catching the perps in the act:

We might well have done so if fighter planes had been sent up to intercept the airliners, as standard operating procedure dictates.

The fact that they went up so late in the attack is still one of the most glaring curiousities of the whole morning. Maybe "outrage" is a better term...

:freak:
dbt

[yltlatl]

7. Yeah what's w/ the focus on aggressive solutions?

I can't understand what Kerrey's trying to accomplish by hammering them so hard as to why they didn't start lobbing bombs the day Al Qaeda issued their famous fatwa. OBVIOUSLY the political climate would not have supported military action then--and has military action really gotten us anywhere since then? One more piece of proof of the bankruptcy of the establishment. Where's Kucinich?

[Cooley Hurd]

8. Hi kskiska

There's an existing LBN thread about this topic (different source but essentially the same story. Please feel free to repost your story link & continue the discussion here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x440874

Thanks! :hi: