I have pointed out on numerous occasions that the “blame” for 9/11 is shared by Administrations going back to the Reagan years.

I would say it goes back farther yet, to the bumbling Jimmy Carter and his incompetent handling of the Iranian hostage crisis. That incident showed the jihadists that they could punch us right in the nose and get away with it.

At one time or another during the past month or so, the four or five people who frequent this site may have noticed the new banner to the left that links to The Twin Towers Alliance. If the Alliance’s site is getting much traffic to speak of, it…

It may seem obvious in hindsight that those supposed “missed opportunities” were a huge screw-up. Hindsight is like that. You also neglect to mention that an attempt was made on Bin Laden which failed. Finally, even if we killed Bin Laden, it’s no guarantee that 9/11 or a similar attack would not have taken place.

Given the failures re Osama of BOTH administrations the following article is tragic:

Major General Shaukat Sultan Khan, press secretary to the president of Pakistan, tells ABC News that — if found — Osama bin Laden won’t be arrested, as long as he promises to behave like a “peaceful citizen.”

“If he is in Pakistan, bin Laden ‘would not be taken into custody,’ Major General Shaukat Sultan Khan told ABC News in a telephone interview, ‘as long as one is being like a peaceful citizen,” report Brian Ross and Gretchen Peters at ABC’s blog, The Blotter.

“No, as long as one is being like a peaceful citizen, one would not be taken into custody,” said Khan. “One has to stay like a peaceful citizen and not allowed to participate in any kind of terrorist activity.”

“The surprising announcement comes as Pakistani army officials announced they were pulling their troops out of the North Waziristan region as part of a ‘peace deal’ with the Taliban,” reports ABC.

Pakistan will also be returning many Taliban prisoners and seized weapons.

According to VOA, “security experts say Afghan insurgents and remnants of Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida terrorist network have managed to establish several bases in the region.”

The president also said that “we’re working with friends and allies to deny the terrorists the enclaves they seek to establish in ungoverned areas across the world.”

If true, very, very, sad.

I’m surprised that you would even say that you think that the Democrats would pursue the terrorists as actively as the Republicans given their statements on the war and their activity that actually harms the war effor (against efforts to discover terrorists).

I guess that either you believe that they will change their attitude when in office or come up with a better plan - neither of which has been expoused to the public.

I really don’t understand their actions or your understanding on this - seriously…

You are probably right that I attack the left more than I should for a variety of things/\.

But this and most other cases revolve around a deliberate attempt to alter historical perceptions or, in some cases, history itself. This is a dishonesty that anyone who loves history cannot abide.

And I disagree that Democrats would pursue the prevention of terrorist attacks with the same vigor as Republicans. They have made it clear that even legal programs (terrorist finance surveillance) are unacceptable. And as far as other, more constitutionally problematic programs like the NSA intercept effort, I find their hypocrisy on the subject extremely troubling. They want it to continue but they want the opportunity to continue their attacks on the President.

That kind of playing politics with terrorism worries me immensely. Just what would they do to protect the US? Less, it seems, than Republicans.

Pissing around further in Iraq will not end terrorism, if we stay for 50 years. That said, President Bush has done a lot right with pursuing the financial interests of terrorists, and in domestic and foreign survelliance to prevent attacks.

It is past time to stop the blame game, and Rick, it pains me to say you play the blame game frequently. It is NOT more important for conservatives to win than to prevent terrorism. And to say that Democratic politicians would not pursue prevention of terror attacks is disingenuous at best. The fruitballs on the left will not make defense decisions, no more that the batshit crazy religious righties will.