I have been following the 9/11 Commission hearings, and one jibe I keep hearing from conservatives, jingoists, political cartoons, Colin Quinn, and the Leno/Letterman monologues falls along these lines: we’re all trying to point fingers at who is to blame for 9/11. Was it the FBI, the CIA, the Democrats, the Republicans, George Bush, Bill Clinton, Richard Clarke, Condoleeza Rice, etc.? And then the punch line is that we’re wasting a lot of time because the person really to blame is Osama bin Laden.
Well duh.
This attack is used by those who don’t fully understand the point of the commission. We all know that Osama ordered 9/11. We’re trying to investigate the intelligence failures that gave Osama the opportunity to perpetrate 9/11, in the hopes that he won’t be able to perpetrate another terrorist horror against America.
Think of it this way. You own a mansion. You’re watching the news and you see a story about how the police were looking for a bearded man wearing a robe and a turban who was setting fire to local mansions. So you hire Brinks Security to install alarms on your doors and windows and to patrol the grounds of your mansion.
One day in September, you come home to find that your mansion has been broken into and is currently on fire. You see a bearded man in a robe and turban running away from your mansion with a crowbar in one hand and a can of gasoline in the other. So what do you do? You probably get on the phone to Brinks to find out what went wrong! Why did the door and window alarms not work? Where was that Brinks patrol car? Why did we spend all that money on Brinks Security? How could Brinks not pay attention to a bearded guy in a robe and turban carrying a can of gas especially when he was just on the news!
Now of course you want the cops to catch the guy in the robe and turban. But you’d also want to figure out what went wrong with Brinks so you can be more confident in the security of the next mansion you purchase. You wouldn’t let Brinks get off scot free for such a huge lapse in security. You wouldn’t complain about the investigation into Brinks Security and say, “the person really to blame for my burned-down mansion is that bearded guy in the turban!”
Speaking of the bearded guy in the turban, you decide to follow-up on the police department’s investigation and tracking of the turban-wearing arsonist. Imagine how shocked you are to find that the cops are spending very little in labor and money on the arson case. Instead, the police chief has most of his manpower concentrated in a bad neighborhood in another city. You see, twelve years ago the leader of a vicious gang once tried to attack the police chief’s dad. The gang, while ruthless and despicable, came nowhere near your mansion and don’t even know the turban-wearing arsonist. And they’ve already caught the gangleader sleeping under a bridge.
“That doesn’t matter,” the police chief tells you. “We’re engaged in a broad-based war on crime!”
Don’t you think it’s time to hire a new police chief this November?
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