Ruminations and Reflections
Tom E M of Crofton MD USA

2004 August 15: Imperial Hubris

Got my copy of "Imperial Hubris" in early August, and have been skimming it. It's a mixed bag: tremendously critical of Bush (and Clinton), for going to war in Iraq (or for failing to attack al Qaeda), yet advocating much more decisive action against our terrorist foes. He buys the arguments that Iraq was irrelevant to the real battle we face, and apparently favors a much more aggressive war against al Qaeda. He is critical of the current US propensity for air war with limited casualties, and says that leaves things unresolved, with the foe undefeated. There is much here that a liberal Democrat can identify with, yet much more that will is questionable to such folks. Apparently, Bush is deficient mainly in effective truculence, directed toward our true foes, and is wasting our treasure on meaningless fights in Iraq.

Yet at the same, time, a substantial amount of this book deals with the very real grievances of al Qaeda against the US, which have nothing to do with the way we live and govern ourselves, and everything to do with the actions we have taken in the Middle East. This gives away the bottom line, I suppose: that we have a choice between modifying our behavior in the Middle East, or engaging in a bloody war to the end with Islamic terrorists and insurgents, who will never be satisfied with an American empire in their back yards.

2004 June 28: Rebutting Hitchens

Unfairenheit 9/11
(Oh this is so unfair! Talk about poor titles!)
The lies of Michael Moore.
By Christopher Hitchens
Posted Monday, June 21, 2004, at 12:26 PM PT

With Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11, ...., an entirely new note has been struck. Here we glimpse a possible fusion between the turgid routines of MoveOn.org and the filmic standards, if not exactly the filmic skills, of Sergei Eisenstein or Leni Riefenstahl.

* Intellectual puffery! Who outside film circles has ever heard of these Russian and German film directors, even if they were propagandists? Are we supposed to do web research to understand this review? But we're off to a good start with a recognition of an important role for work such as that of MM. I call it "counter-propaganda".

To describe this film as a piece of crap would be to run the risk of a discourse that would never again rise above the excremental.

* Risk taken and damage incurred. This review certainly never rises above itself.

Michael Moore ...[has]... stated his view that Osama Bin Laden should be considered innocent until proven guilty. This was, he said, the American way. The intervention in Afghanistan, he maintained, had been at least to that extent unjustified. SomethingÑI cannot guess what, since we knew as much then as we do nowÑhas since apparently persuaded Moore that Osama Bin Laden is as guilty as hell.

* Time for facts to sink in does make a difference; which is why it is a good idea to take time before going to war. "War is the unfolding of mistakes." Always. Not always our US mistakes, but in this case, most definitely.

Fahrenheit 9/11 makes the following points about Bin Laden and about Afghanistan, and makes them in this order:
...
It must be evident to anyone, despite the rapid-fire way in which Moore's direction eases the audience hastily past the contradictions, that these discrepant scatter shots do not cohere at any point.

* They "cohere to the point" that the administration did give at least the appearance of doing the essential job in Afghanistan, but having established the guilt of UBL, it gave UBL short shrift in comparison with the perceived threat of Iraq. To the degree that the Afghanistan mission was understaffed and never fully completed, soldiers lost their lives there in the absence of a full commitment to the objective, which is inexcusable. There was far more reason to be going into Saudi Arabia next than Iraq, but that was not tenable owing to important US relationships with the Saud family. It makes sense to me. Hitchens is hung up on Moore's earlier statement that he needed to see more proof of UBL's guilt. UBL himself soon provided that.

[Moore] makes heavy innuendoes about the flights that took members of the Bin Laden family out of the country after Sept. 11. I banged on about this myself at the time and wrote a Nation column drawing attention to the groveling Larry King interview with the insufferable Prince Bandar, which Moore excerpts. However, recent developments have not been kind to our Mike. In the interval between Moore's triumph at Cannes and the release of the film in the United States, the 9/11 commission has found nothing to complain of in the timing or arrangement of the flights. And Richard Clarke, Bush's former chief of counterterrorism, has come forward to say that he, and he alone, took the responsibility for authorizing those Saudi departures.

* So Hitchens made the same mistake as Moore is accused of making, yet Moore alone is culpable for it? Let's recall that Clarke was working for the administration and doing its bidding on this. The Bin Ladens were evacuated in private jets while private general aviation was still grounded, even though some civil aviation had been reactivated. Moreover, the entire idea that they would need a rapid evacuation assumes that life would be unacceptably dangerous for them in the US if they remained. Whereas, in fact, the American people were entitled to a full explanation from this family of what was going on and why the terrorists were nearly all Saudi! Before they were excused! We really don't care which administration official signed the paperwork.

The president is also captured in a well-worn TV news clip, on a golf course, making a boilerplate response to a question on terrorism and then asking the reporters to watch his drive. ...Bush is shown frozen on his chair at the infant school in Florida, looking stunned and useless for seven whole minutes after the news of the second plane on 9/11. Many are those who say that he should have leaped from his stool, adopted a Russell Crowe stance, and gone to work. I could even wish that myself.

* Yea, verily, so could we all. Or we might wish that he at least showed some realization that he had to suspend business as usual, with our nation under attack.

The other half would be saying what they already sayÑthat he knew the attack was coming, was using it to cement himself in power, and couldn't wait to get on with his coup. This is the line taken by Gore Vidal and by a scandalous recent book that also revives the charge of FDR's collusion over Pearl Harbor. At least Moore's film should put the shameful purveyors of that last theory back in their paranoid box.

* So now we are making constructive suggestions about how this film could have been improved. Evidently, Moore is responsible for things others have said. Interesting point of view.

We are introduced to Iraq, "a sovereign nation." (In fact, Iraq's "sovereignty" was heavily qualified by international sanctions, however questionable, which reflected its noncompliance with important U.N. resolutions.)

* The UN is otherwise dispensable to neocons, but when it imposes sanctions and resolutions, it apparently creates a country that no longer is sovereign in some folks minds. If neocons believe this, no wonder they refuse to be bound by UN resolutions.

...the "insurgent" side is presented in this film as justifiably outraged, whereas the 30-year record of Baathist war crimes and repression and aggression is not mentioned once. (Actually, that's not quite right. It is briefly mentioned but only, and smarmily, because of the bad period when Washington preferred Saddam to the likewise unmentioned Ayatollah Khomeini.)

* There is no relevance of Baathist bad behavior to a US invasion, because it has never involved an attack on the US. Bad behavior is only relevant in an international context and and with respect to the proceedings of the UN.

Moore asserts that Iraq under Saddam had never attacked or killed or even threatened (his words) any American. I never quite know whether Moore is as ignorant as he looks, or even if that would be humanly possible. Baghdad was for years the official, undisguised home address of Abu Nidal, then the most-wanted gangster in the world, who had been sentenced to death even by the PLO and had blown up airports in Vienna* and Rome. Baghdad was the safe house for the man whose "operation" murdered Leon Klinghoffer. Saddam boasted publicly of his financial sponsorship of suicide bombers in Israel. (Quite a few Americans of all denominations walk the streets of Jerusalem.)

* So I guess our idea of being the world's policeman is now to have a tourist in every nation. I'm sorry, but our nation has not been attacked whenever an American is injured as a collateral casualty. The idea kind of reminds me of that joke about Bostonian provinciality: If a nuclear bomb were detonated in Manhattan, a Boston Globe headline would likely scream "Hub man killed in big apple Blast".

In 1991, a large number of Western hostages were taken by the hideous Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and held in terrible conditions for a long time. After that same invasion was repelledÑSaddam having killed quite a few Americans and Egyptians and Syrians and Brits in the meantime and having threatened to kill many moreÑthe Iraqi secret police were caught trying to murder former President Bush during his visit to Kuwait. Never mind whether his son should take that personally. (Though why should he not?) Should you and I not resent any foreign dictatorship that attempts to kill one of our retired chief executives? (President Clinton certainly took it that way: He ordered the destruction by cruise missiles of the Baathist "security" headquarters.)

* Are our CIA and secret service always considered to be fully the responsibility of our leaders at the highest levels of government? Say, at Abu Graihb, for example?

Iraqi forces fired, every day, for 10 years, on the aircraft that patrolled the no-fly zones and staved off further genocide in the north and south of the country. In 1993, a certain Mr. Yasin helped mix the chemicals for the bomb at the World Trade Center and then skipped to Iraq, where he remained a guest of the state until the overthrow of Saddam. In 2001, Saddam's regime was the only one in the region that openly celebrated the attacks on New York and Washington and described them as just the beginning of a larger revenge. Its official media regularly spewed out a stream of anti-Semitic incitement. I think one might describe that as "threatening," even if one was narrow enough to think that anti-Semitism only menaces Jews. And it was after, and not before, the 9/11 attacks that Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi moved from Afghanistan to Baghdad and began to plan his now very open and lethal design for a holy and ethnic civil war. On Dec. 1, 2003, the New York Times reportedÑand the David Kay report had establishedÑthat Saddam had been secretly negotiating with the "Dear Leader" Kim Jong-il in a series of secret meetings in Syria, as late as the spring of 2003, to buy a North Korean missile system, and missile-production system, right off the shelf. (This attempt was not uncovered until after the fall of Baghdad, the coalition's presence having meanwhile put an end to the negotiations.)

* The conclusion one could make from this that the word "threatened" should be moderated or retracted. There is still no such thing as a counter-attack to a threat.

Thus, in spite of the film's loaded bias against the work of the mind, you can grasp even while watching it that Michael Moore has just said, in so many words, the one thing that no reflective or informed person can possibly believe: that Saddam Hussein was no problem. No problem at all.

* The movie extensively quotes multiple Bush administration members in support of this claim. None of them believed Saddam was a problem before 9/11, and he evidently became a problem afterward only because of his alleged involvement in it or a future terrorist action.

Now look again at the facts I have cited above. If these things had been allowed to happen under any other administration, you can be sure that Moore and others would now glibly be accusing the president of ignoring, or of having ignored, some fairly unmistakable "warnings."

* More serious and actionable had already occurred with respect to UBL and al Qaeda, well before 9/11, so rational prioritization is the problem here. An actual attack, such as had been committed by UBL, is always a higher priority than a threat or a warning.

The same "let's have it both ways" opportunism infects his treatment of another very serious subject, namely domestic counterterrorist policy. From being accused of overlooking too many warningsÑnot exactly an original pointÑthe administration is now lavishly taunted for issuing too many. (Would there not have been "fear" if the harbingers of 9/11 had been taken seriously?) We are shown some American civilians who have had absurd encounters with idiotic "security" staff. (Have you ever met anyone who can't tell such a story?) Then we are immediately shown underfunded police departments that don't have the means or the manpower to do any stop-and-search: a power suddenly demanded by Moore on their behalf that we know by definition would at least lead to some ridiculous interrogations. Finally, Moore complains that there isn't enough intrusion and confiscation at airports and says that it is appalling that every air traveler is not forcibly relieved of all matches and lighters. (Cue mood music for sinister influence of Big Tobacco.) SoÑhe wants even more pocket-rummaging by airport officials? Uh, no, not exactly. But by this stage, who's counting? Moore is having it three ways and asserting everything and nothing. AgainÑsimply not serious.

* Moore's objection is fairly typical of government action: it is too often inefficient, nonsensical and unresponsive to reality. Too often there is more attention given to the appearance of doing something than to actually doing something. This is not acceptable in cases of national security. Threat warnings are a dime a dozen, and serve no purpose but to alarm and engender fear, as the movie points out. Real action would consist of more than warnings. It would consist of apprehending UBL and his henchmen, instead of getting sidetracked with Iraq. It would also consist of improvements of actual readiness to handle future attacks, such as improved policing of border areas, and emergency communications, etc.

Circling back to where we began, why did Moore's evil Saudis not join "the Coalition of the Willing"? Why instead did they force the United States to switch its regional military headquarters to Qatar? If the Bush family and the al-Saud dynasty live in each other's pockets, as is alleged in a sort of vulgar sub-Brechtian scene with Arab headdresses replacing top hats, then how come the most reactionary regime in the region has been powerless to stop Bush from demolishing its clone in Kabul and its buffer regime in Baghdad? The Saudis hate, as they did in 1991, the idea that Iraq's recuperated oil industry might challenge their near-monopoly. They fear the liberation of the Shiite Muslims they so despise. To make these elementary points is to collapse the whole pathetic edifice of the film's "theory." Perhaps Moore prefers the pro-Saudi Kissinger/Scowcroft plan for the Middle East, where stability trumps every other consideration and where one dare not upset the local house of cards, or killing-field of Kurds? This would be a strange position for a purported radical. Then again, perhaps he does not take this conservative line because his real pitch is not to any audience member with a serious interest in foreign policy. It is to the provincial isolationist.

* Moore doesn't have to present a complete analysis and solution to a very complex set of circumstances and problems. It is sufficient to point out that serious conflicts of interest are present and that they do not seem to be supportive of rational action in the best interests of the country in accord with national and international laws. It is not isolationist to insist that no nation should be attacked that has not attacked the US or an important ally.

From Fahrenheit 9/11 you can glean even more astounding and hidden disclosures, such as the capitalist nature of American society, the existence of Eisenhower's "military-industrial complex," and the use of "spin" in the presentation of our politicians. It's high time someone had the nerve to point this out. There's more. Poor people often volunteer to join the army, and some of them are duskier than others. Betcha didn't know that. Back in Flint, Mich., Moore feels on safe ground. There are no martyred rabbits this time. Instead, it's the poor and black who shoulder the packs and rifles and march away. I'll merely ask this: In the film, Moore says loudly and repeatedly that not enough troops were sent to garrison Afghanistan and Iraq. (This is now a favorite cleverness of those who were, in the first place, against sending any soldiers at all.) Well, where does he think those needful heroes and heroines would have come from? Does he favor a draftÑthe most statist and oppressive solution? Does he think that only hapless and gullible proles sign up for the Marines? Does he thinkÑas he seems to suggestÑthat parents can "send" their children, as he stupidly asks elected members of Congress to do? ...He'll just try anything once and see if it floats or flies or gets a cheer.

* Here Moore is advancing the view that a core aspect of the situation is the very existence of poverty in this country, which makes it possible to operate a volunteer Army and to conduct military adventures without a draft. He would clearly prefer a draft that hits all social classes to a mercenary Army of the disenfranchised. That practice allows a special form of exploitation that I would say he correctly sees through. One only has to look at the reactions of congressmen to his suggestion. Quibbling with the verb "send" is pedantic.

...Todd Beamer and a few of his co-passengers, shouting "Let's roll," rammed the hijackers with a trolley, fought them tooth and nail, and helped bring down a United Airlines plane, in Pennsylvania, that was speeding toward either the White House or the Capitol. There are no words for real, impromptu bravery like that, which helped save our republic from worse than actually befell. The Pennsylvania drama also reminds one of the self-evident fact that this war is not fought only "overseas" or in uniform, but is being brought to our cities. ...

* The bravery of the people on that UA flight was the ONLY effort that successfully defended us from horrendous damage to the Capitol or White House, at the very core of our government. The agencies and services that should have been able to shoot the planes down, were ineffectual and disorganized, in spite of the advance warning of aircraft hijackings. Moore was saying that black folks might have been even more effective defenders had there been more of them on the various airplanes. That's a bit of a stretch to me, but it doesn't put me into a rant about the heroism that was shown, and I see no reason for Hitchens to get in a snit over it.

Moore has announced that he won't even appear on TV shows where he might face hostile questioning. I notice from the New York Times of June 20 that he has pompously established a rapid response team, and a fact-checking staff, and some tough lawyers, to bulwark himself against attack. He'll sue, Moore says, if anyone insults him or his pet.

* MM is entitled to operate as he chooses, in my view. He'll get plenty of written vitriol, as this review demonstrates. And he'll have plenty of chance to reply and rebut it, as he chooses. What's wrong with that? He has no obligation to be interviewed, much as Hitchens is spoiling for verbal jousting.

Some right-wing hack groups, I gather, are planning to bring pressure on their local movie theaters to drop the film. How dumb or thuggish do you have to be in order to counter one form of stupidity and cowardice with another? By all means go and see this terrible film, and take your friends, and if the fools in the audience strike up one cry, in favor of surrender or defeat, feel free to join in the conversation. v* At least Hitchens has some principles. The cheers are for the defeat of this administration, in place of surrender to it. The belief is that there is a better way to win than the one we are pursuing.

However, I think we can agree that the film is so flat-out phony that "fact-checking" is beside the point. And as for the scary lawyersÑget a life, or maybe see me in court. But I offer this, to Moore and to his rapid response rabble. Any time, Michael my boy. Let's redo Telluride. Any show. Any place. Any platform. Let's see what you're made of.

* Big time courage. Reminiscent of "bring it on". So he won't be troubling Michael with any matters of fact, it appears...

By the same token, if I write an article and I quote somebody and for space reasons put in an ellipsis like this (É), I swear on my children that I am not leaving out anything that, if quoted in full, would alter the original meaning or its significance. Those who violate this pact with readers or viewers are to be despised. At no point does Michael Moore make the smallest effort to be objective.

* The movie makes many efforts to present (and answer) arguments of the other side. Examples: administration officials present their case that Hussein was contained; then their case that he was a big problem, with WMD and al Qaeda links, then that the patriot act was needed, etc. etc. Admittedly, he makes these claims look ridiculous in as many cases as possible. What of it? He never pretended to be a journalist. This effort is more like that of Erin Brockovich than McNeil-Lehrer. If Hitchens wants dispassionate rationalism, perhaps he should check out "Imperial Hubris" by Anonymous. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3989-2004Jun24.html

At no moment does he pass up the chance of a cheap sneer or a jeer. He pitilessly focuses his camera, for minutes after he should have turned it off, on a distraught and bereaved mother whose grief we have already shared. (But then, this is the guy who thought it so clever and amusing to catch Charlton Heston, in Bowling for Columbine, at the onset of his senile dementia.) Such courage.

* Her grief was extremely discomfiting, and anyone watching it would beg for mercy. But that doesn't make it exploitative or wrong to show it. It was openly offered, and it was certainly honest and sincere. At the time of "Bowling", Charlton Heston was still a prominent leader of the NRA. If the NRA doesn't retire their senile leaders, that's their problem, in my view. Heston was still giving major speeches at NRA functions over a year after his visit to Denver in the wake of the Columbine shootings (and some of the footage used was from that later speech; a source of criticism for Moore).

Perhaps vaguely aware that his movie so completely lacks gravitas, Moore concludes with a sonorous reading of some words from George Orwell. The words are taken from 1984 and consist of a third-person analysis of a hypothetical, endless, and contrived war between three superpowers. The clear intention, as clumsily excerpted like this (...) is to suggest that there is no moral distinction between the United States, the Taliban, and the Baath Party and that the war against jihad is about nothing.

* Actually, the implication was that the war is about nothing of any significance, or that it is about money and wealth of the elite classes in the several countries, plus the ravings of a bunch of lunatic fundamentalists. Hitchens yet again conflates the war in Iraq with the war against jihad, just as the administration does. Moore and Moore people are no longer fooled by this.

If Moore had studied a bit more, or at all, he could have read Orwell really saying, and in his own voice, the following: There is a minority of intellectual pacifists, whose real though unacknowledged motive appears to be hatred of western democracy and admiration for totalitarianism. Pacifist propaganda usually boils down to saying that one side is as bad as the other, but if one looks closely at the writing of the younger intellectual pacifists, one finds that they do not by any means express impartial disapproval but are directed almost entirely against Britain and the United States É

* This is the usual retort by those who would like to regard changes like the Patriot Act as "done deals", to those who would defend the constitution against such assaults: "you hate America and our freedoms". How ironic is that? And it seems to imply that self-criticism is somehow unpatriotic. Why don't we declare a moratorium on changing our laws, if self-criticism is not what we are about as a people and not what our government is about as a democracy? One could make the same dumb accusation about folks who would like to amend our constitution to clarify the meaning of "marriage". You appear to hate America and our ideals of tolerance, equality, and nondiscrimination! Begone!

A short word of advice: In general, it's highly unwise to quote Orwell if you are already way out of your depth on the question of moral equivalence. It's also incautious to remind people of Orwell if you are engaged in a sophomoric celluloid rewriting of recent history.

* Actually, it is unwise to conflate the quote with the person. Orwell is a complex person with diverse views. Some of them are useful and penetrating in some contexts, and some in others. So what?

If Michael Moore had had his way, Slobodan Milosevic would still be the big man in a starved and tyrannical Serbia. Bosnia and Kosovo would have been cleansed and annexed. If Michael Moore had been listened to, Afghanistan would still be under Taliban rule, and Kuwait would have remained part of Iraq. And Iraq itself would still be the personal property of a psychopathic crime family, bargaining covertly with the slave state of North Korea for WMD. You might hope that a retrospective awareness of this kind would induce a little modesty. To the contrary, it is employed to pump air into one of the great sagging blimps of our sorry, mediocre, celeb-rotten culture. Rock the vote, indeed.

* If Christopher Hitchens had his way, culture would be controlled by intellectuals, rather than celebrities. And the US would quit fooling around "swatting flies" like al Qaeda, and go after bigger fish like Iran and N. Korea, by preemptively invading them (as soon as we get our Army out of Iraq, one wonders?). Moreover, the US would attempt to establish a worldwide American Empire, probably provoking a bloody nuclear mutual annihilation. One might hope that awareness of the unfolding of events in Iraq would create some awareness of the futility of "imposed democracy", especially in nations still wedded to theocracy. To the contrary, it is being used to prop up the egotistical rants of a thoroughly unpleasant presence in American journalism.

* Keep on Rockin' in the Free World!

2004 April 11: Miniter vs. Clarke

Got my copy of Miniter (Losing bin Laden: How Bill Clinton's Failures Unleashed Global Terror) from the library this week, and have been bouncing back and forth between it and Clarke (Against All Enemies...) this weekend. They pretty much agree on the history, except that Miniter is vitriolic rather than simply critical of the Clinton adm., and neglects to critique Bush (the extensive footnoting is fluff; this is no scholarly work, though it does document all the papers and magazines the author has read), whereas Clarke seems to accurately depict both sides of most arguments. Both books show that there was frenetic anti-terrorism activity during the Clinton admin. But the case that Miniter makes for an Iraq-al Qaeda connection is 90% motive, 10% means, and 0% fact. Bottom line: "the idea that loose networks of Islamic hard-liners come together to plot attacks is hard to credit." Hard, maybe, but necessary, to get it right. The Saudi's have a lot more to do with it than Hussein ever did.

Though Clarke would deny it, the Clinton-hating effort to discredit and preoccupy the president with bimbo-gate must take a lot of credit for booting the terrorist problem forward to a Republican adm. for handling, which may have been the intent. But that Republican adm. doesn't seem to have been ready to deal with the problem it inherited, until 9/11! The neocon fuming that our current adm. just needs bipartisan support from all Americans makes me wonder why anyone would ever expect or even hope for that, given the behavior of Republicans during the Clinton adm., when it's clear that no such obligation was recognized, despite big doings in terrorism and the Balkans. Instead, our esteemed Republican colleagues were busy attempting to demolish the Clinton adm.

But I and most Democrats were 100% behind the Bush adm. on going after al Qaeda in Afghanistan, and even in posturing against Saddam, in case there was something there. You didn't see Democrats digging in to expose the scandalous Bush inattention to al Qaeda earlier in 2001, or accusing Bush of "wagging the dog", at that time, did you! Indeed, independents and Democrats were elated to see some butt kicked, after the Cole and 9/11, among others. Which, BTW, demonstrates clearly the integrity and bipartisanship of Democrats where national defense is concerned, in contrast to earlier Republican behavior.

Then we witnessed the mistake of making war with an irrelevant Muslim nation for no defensible reason (WMD?), playing into the hands of al Qaeda in exactly the way that al Qaeda had sought in Bosnia and the Philippines. Now Bush quite deservedly has Democrats looking for a path out of the Iraqi war (as contrasted with the war against terrorism) that will maximally discredit Bush. Can you say "national embarrassment" with feeling, like Ken Starr?

I'm disgusted by all this. There is blame on both sides, but I believe Democratic behavior is reasonable under the circumstances, whereas Republicans are guilty of their own accusations, and are squandering our Nation's treasure and stature in the world, while aggravating, rather than addressing, the terrorism problem. But time will tell who is right (or at least who prevails), how the voting public comes to see and understand all this, and what the fallout is for our future security.

Some telling facts about the 9/11 investigation:

"The 9/11 commission is budgeted to spend fifteen million dollars, some fifty-five million less than Kenneth Starr & Co. spent on the pursuit of Bill Clinton.

"There will be no official electronic recording of Bush-and-Cheney's testimony (as there was none of RiceÕs four-hour private session with the commission on February 7th), and there will be no transcript. ... In its details and nuances, if not in its broad outlines, the record of what the President and the Vice-President say will necessarily be incomplete. This is the White House's choice, not the commission's. Trust, but don't verify.

- The New Yorker, 2004-04-12 Posted 2004-04-05

I end up agreeing with Clarke (no surprise): "The nation needs thoughtful leadership to deal with ... a radical deviant Islamist ideology on the rise, and real security vulnerabilities in the highly integrated global civilization. Instead, America got unthinking reactions, ham-handed responses, and a rejection of analysis in favor of received wisdom. It has left us less secure. We will pay the price for a long time."

© 2003 Tom E M, Moore Family, Inc. ™