From what I read in the early days of after 9/11, which is hardly fresh news (!!!) (I'm going to make it to fifty!)... A full-on high-yield nuclear detonation is not likely to be the first intrusion of this technology in our young century. It's most likely going to be a dirty bomb.

And dirty bombs can be cleaned up. Manhattan real estate is such a tremendously good investment that it's worthwhile.

To say that

| ...Only technical complications
| prevent Al Qaeda from executing
| a nuclear attack today.

is not a small thing.

Law enforcement was obviously unable to prevent the second World Trade Center attack;

It's not clear that in general law enforcement could not have prevented the second attack. If John P. O'Neill had been supported in his efforts, if the August 6 PDB "Bin Laden determined to attack inside the U.S." had been responded to appropriately, instead of with Bush telling his briefer, "You’ve covered your ass, now”" it's quite reasonable to think that history would have been different.

I'm with Goldberg. I read another scary story about A.Q. Khan. Not good.

And there's another thing that's rarely discussed: US retaliation policy. In response to an attack by weapons of mass destruction, the US will retaliate with nuclear weapons. This policy is correct, in my opinion, because it deters WMD attack.

This points to the fundamental policy question of the 21st century. Will a policy of retaliation deter Islamist terrorists from using WMD? Most policy analysts say no. I think any reasonable person would say no.

Nuclear proliferation cannot be stopped, and Islamists cannot be deterred. Then what is the least destructive alternative? Preemptive direct action. Conventional military action must destroy personnel, planning, logistics, and systems that aim to deploy WMD.

The policy of preemption isn't radical. It simply adds a new causus belli to long-standing traditions and practices in the conduct of war and diplomacy. It's exactly analogous to the authority we give police officers. Instead of waiting for the bad guy to shoot first, we're going to shoot a non-lethal taser when we just see the gun.

Does preemption involve murky judgments about human intent? Yes, but so do all intelligence, military, and political acts.

Does preemption increase the likelihood of error? Yes, but direct action on false positives carries less risk than inactivity oin a false negative. In other words, the political damage from direct action against a non-WMD threat is much less dangerous than inactivity towards a real, developing threat. In the new world of proliferating WMD, it's safer to do to much than too little. This approach is very different from static Cold War deterrence strategies.

The US policy of preemption is misunderstood and has been unfairly maligned.

Its almost enough to make Ann Coulter's suggestion of attempting to convert occupied nations to the Christian faith seem reasonable.

*insert rolling of eyes here* Never thought I'd say "reasonable" and "Coulter" in the same sentence. (I do enjoy her writing, but I'd not call her reasonable...amazing how refreshing a little unreasonable can be)

I've heard worse suggestions.

Yes and no.

Certainly it should be a major concern and should be addressed. Possibly the President's largest concern.

But to say that's all the President should concentrate is rather silly. Makes him sound rather Chicken Little. And I say that when one of my favorite posters of all time is one my sister had back in the '70's of Chicken Little standing on a globe with bombs and other weapons of war around and the caption, "Chicken Little was right!"

However, it does need to be a top concern. Obama is definitely out in my book because of his weak (there's no other word for it) stance on this. I was actually considering voting for McCain because of this issue only. His choice of Palin is screaming at me that he also has no common sense. And I already thought he couldn't be trusted.

So I'm right back to voting third party or not at all. Probably won't bother for the first time in 22 years.

I know this is rather akin to holding my breath and hoping for the best. However, a worse attack than 9/11 is probably eventually inevitable no matter who the President is, strong or weak, pre-emptive or reactive. You can't catch every rat trying to sneak in -- especially when you're so busy looking for the ones seeking to invade, you miss the ones already nesting within your walls. And look at the history of weaponry. It just keeps growing bigger and badder. We've already nukes and dirty bombs to worry about. What the fuck will there be in the future?

I have a real feeling of doom about this one and feel I can only hope the worst comes after my lifetime. I am not optimistic enough to even hope that it won't come during my grandson's.

Okay, Robert, no, it doesn't. I'd rather be nuked than be a Christian slave. Give me liberty or give me death.

The nuclear destruction of Lower Manhattan, or downtown Washington, would cause [...]

... would cause the conversion of Mecca into a glassy depression. Now you've got to ask yourself, Osama, do you feel lucky?

Jerry, I really don't know what to say. I mean, that's some industrial-grade wrong there.

It's not clear that in general law enforcement could not have prevented the second attack.

Unless you're suggesting that general law enforcement has some way of preventing planes being hijacked 250 miles away and flown into buildings, that is.

If John P. O'Neill had been supported in his efforts, if the August 6 PDB "Bin Laden determined to attack inside the U.S." had been responded to appropriately, instead of with Bush telling his briefer, "You’ve covered your ass, now”" it's quite reasonable to think that history would have been different.

Right.

Given the wailing over the state of airport security now, do you REALLY believe that the American people would have put up with something as intrusive or worse prior to 9/11?

Given the absolute howling over the invasion of Iraq on account of their lack of involvement in 9/11, how fast would Bush have been impeached if he'd invaded Afghanistan before 9/11?

And you're assuming that the Bush administration ought to have been clairvoyant enough to presume that planes hijacked used as missiles was the chosen attack vector.

That's an awful lot to hang on one sentence.

I'd rather be nuked than be a Christian slave. Give me liberty or give me death.

@T's Grammy: I am an Atheist Jew and I would rather be a Christian slave than a Free Muslim.

@Norman: "...would cause the conversion of Mecca into a glassy depression. Now you've got to ask yourself, Osama, do you feel lucky?"

It would please Osama no end if we did that. Instead of a piddling few recruits he would instantly have hundreds of millions of Jihadists. There is nothing that will deter al Qaeda from trying to restore the Caliphate and making the rest of the world submit to Islam. Nothing. On the other hand, the thuggees and assassins of the olden days were persuaded to stop their killing by the simple expedient of completely wiping them out. Completely wiping out works.

Bernie - It would please Osama no end if we did that.

You may well be right. Or, given the importance of the site, it might herald an Islamic diaspora. Either way, I didn't and wouldn't actually advocate this course of action - I just think it is a very likely outcome.

Unfortunately, there is only one solution to the terrorist threats. Washington has to make it very clear that any nuclear attack on the US will be met with such terrible reprisals that the Islamic world will be talking about it for the next 1000 years. It needs to be made clear that any attack will result in Hydrogen bombs being dropped on Mecca, Medina and any other Islamic holy city that supports Jihad.

The article certainly suggests that Obama isn't the idealistic dreamer many here have painted him to be...

Also, given the nature of these claims, I wonder why we refuse to release the necessary bunker buster bombs that Israel has been requesting for the last year.

Brian,

I have some big personal issues I need to take care of today, but, the record makes it clear:

The outgoing administration told the new one that Bin Laden was their big threat.

The new one never held the recommended terrorism principals meetings until September 4th.

At the time of the attacks, that summer, the FBI knew there were terrorists in the country. The FBI knew there was flight training going on.

The August 6 PDB did get to Bush and did warn him of plans, and Bush's reaction was:

crickets.

In contrast when similar happened during the prior Administration, the president got everyone together in a room and they "shook the trees." And it was successful.

Here many of the clues were known by the players, but unable to get to the right people. Shaking the trees would have acted to alert people that the reports of terrorists and investigations of the flight training should not be impeded as they were. Shaking the trees after the August 6 PDB, may have meant that John P. O'Neill, heading FBI Counterterrorism would not have been fired for pissing off Barbara Bodine for effectively running his investigation in "her country" of Yemen.

How much would it have taken to stop this plot? Perhaps as little as alerting the airports...?

Folks are upset with TSA, not because they try to act to stop terrorists but because of how poorly they do it. Harassing grandmothers in wheelchairs, demanding no fluids or knives on board.

Invading Afghanistan? How about at the time, invading Osama into Pakistan as Hot Pursuit? And how about not taking the treasonous act of invading Iraq and thereby diluting our resources in Afghanistan and pretty much setting the world against us and our efforts?

The WTC bombings are not the case against the use of "police work" to stop terrorism.

Shaking the trees after the August 6 PDB, may have meant that John P. O'Neill, heading FBI Counterterrorism would not have been fired for pissing off Barbara Bodine for effectively running his investigation in "her country" of Yemen.

So nice of Yemen to return the favor:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080917/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_yemen_us_embassy

Shaking the trees after the August 6 PDB, may have meant that John P. O'Neill, heading FBI Counterterrorism would not have been fired for pissing off Barbara Bodine for effectively running his investigation in "her country" of Yemen.

So nice of them to return the favor:

SAN'A, Yemen - Attackers armed with automatic weapons, rocket-propelled grenades and at least one suicide car bomb assaulted the U.S. Embassy in the Yemeni capital on Wednesday. Sixteen people were killed, including six assailants, officials said.

No Americans were hurt in the deadly attempt to breach the compound walls, which the U.S. said bore "all the hallmarks of an al-Qaida attack."

(The link to the article at Yahoo got kicked into Amy's spam filter.)

Jerry - your entire response is based upon falsehoods.

The FBI and CIA were unable to cooperate on the various pieces that they had because of Jamie Gorelick's "wall of separation" between them. What the FBI knew it was unable to correlate with what the CIA knew. And the FBI didn't have anything beyond guys in flight school to go by. This is Bush's fault how, precisely?

Furthermore, the FBI was either unwilling or unable to search Moussaoui's(sp?) machine.

And THERE WERE NO SPECIFICS BEYOND "BIN LADEN SEEKS ATTACKS IN US" in the security briefings.

Unless you've got access to internal documents the rest of us don't. In which case, you better share.

Oh! There it is! Spanks, Amy! o_O

I knew someone would bring up "the wall"
fyi the foundations for that wall were laid under Reagen and renewed by Bush AFTER 9/11.

Only difference these days is HLS sits on top of the wall

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamie_Gorelick#9.2F11_Commission

Furthermore, the FBI was either unwilling or unable to search Moussaoui's(sp?) machine.

As lujlp notes, the wall had nothing to do with 9/11 or cooperation. Regarding Moussaoui, shaking the trees and getting the principals meeting held is exactly what would have moved the FBI to approve the searches and gotten the information raised from field offices to HQ.

Regarding the PDB, I suspect all you (or I) have read is the redacted version. To say the redacted version has no specifics therefore there was nothing to go on, isn't terribly logical. The PDB does acknowledge that there are 70 ongoing investigations. Shaking the trees involves getting the principals together, and making everyone in the organization know this is a priority, and having some group overlook the 70 investigations to see if there are similarities. What happened, "Okay, you've covered your ass now."

Anyway, I have to pack and do somethings, and there is no way to refight the 9/11 investigations here.

What nation will expend millions and billions in dollars to develop nuclear weapons only to give one to a third-party which it only has the tenous of control over?

Nuclear weapons are a nation's family jewels. They are not parted with easily.

What brian said.

Actually, actually, Lujlp, the "wall" was a result of the Church committee during the Ford administration.

Gorelick was simply responsible for the memorandum of understanding that further strengthened the wall, directing the FBI and CIA to share pretty much nothing so as to avoid anything even approaching the appearance of impropriety.

"THE next president must do one thing, and one thing only, if he is to be judged a success: He must prevent Al Qaeda, or a Qaeda imitator, from gaining control of a nuclear device and detonating it in America."

Maybe. I'm no Bush apologist, but we're into year 7 of ZERO successful AQ terrorist attacks of any kind on U.S. soil, and it hasn't defined him as a 'success'.

A huge proportion of the U.S. population doesn't 'buy' the whole AQ terrorist threat, anyway. It's just a "distraction". Preventing a catastrophic attack will just confirm its non-existence.

Snoop, is it your feeling that that's actually due to Bush or just because they haven't had the capability yet?

As the invasion of Iraq has been such a success in stopping terror attacks around the world (11,884 and counting) since 9/11, I can see why some might contemplate turning Mecca and Medina into smoking nookyoolar wastelands... and if that doesn't work, well there's always Riyadh, Dubai, Damascus, Tehran, Cairo, Beirut, Islamabad, Kuala Lumpar, Dakka... why the list of potential irradiated craters is endless. And after taking out a few million Muzzies as a deterrent, well the 1.2 billion or so left are bound to stop their carry on, undergo an Islamic Reformation and just leave us in peace.

The strength of Islamist terrorism is in its decentralised approach to organising. Maybe you could stop it by closing down the Internet. Short of that I'd say the only way of preventing a nuke or two being detonated eventually in western cities is by convincing the average Muslim on the street, who is just having a life and not contemplating martyrdom 24/7, that overwhelmingly the real victims of Islamism are Muslims themselves.

As much as I appreciate & respect arguments against the war in Iraq (and I'm not suggesting the following was ever a part of Bush's "master plan"), but there is a lot to be said for 'taking the fight to the enemy'.

After 9/11, remember how we all 'knew' there would be more devastating attacks on American soil? I'll embarrass myself by admiting that I sure thought so. But when we invaded Afghanistan (and later Iraq), the jihadi's priorities clearly shifted. Prior to those invasions they had to develop intricate, expensive plans to attack Americans. Post-invasion(s) they just had to 'thumb' a ride to the border. Our military did what it has always done: it put itself between evil and the American people they're sworn to protect.

In short, we moved the focus from New York to the heart of the Middle East. Is that fair to Iraq? Probably not, but since when has 'fair' ever had anything to do with the human condition?

I've no doubt AQ will attempt to use a nuke device if/when (God forbid) they acquire one. And regretably I don't think any politician has the power to prevent them from getting one, particularly if Pakistan or Russia decides to "lose" one or two.

We DO have the power to respond, however. And we should decide now to be devastating if we ever have to.

AQ and Islamic Jihad and all the rest of that motley crew are not countries or corporations. They don't need much in the way of a base of operations. People keep carrying on about there being no attacks on American soil since 9/11 and how that shows that the wars overseas are working. Crap. How many attacks were there on American soil before 9/11 and how many Islamists are being investigated and charged (and frequently acquitted) every week all over the western world for planning attacks against their hosts?

They're parasites and their greatest advantage is being able to use our own laws and values and institutions to attack us. I'm afraid you can't nuke the entire Muslim world from sea to shining sea in the expectation of getting rid of them without destroying the planet. In the meantime they have a limitless supply of people waiting to carry out revenge attacks on the infidel kuffr.

"...no attacks on American soil since 9/11 and how that shows that the wars overseas are working. Crap."

Really? So if no terrorist attacks = "crap" for you, then what exactly constitutes success? Is there some magic phrase we need to use to make them like us?

"...you can't nuke the entire Muslim world from sea to shining sea in the expectation of getting rid of them without destroying the planet."

Correct. You can however make sure that leaders of Islamic nations understand very clearly that any attack 1) originating from within their borders or 2) deriving any form of support from their respective countries will result in their forced removal from power.

The only other 'solution' is surrender.

There is no way of evaluating whether invading Iraq and "shifting the focus" or "moving the war" from US soil to the Middle East is working to stop attacks on US cities. It's not like a 9/11 was happening every few months. My point is that something like 9/11 doesn't require a hornet's nest of Islamic militants all living in one place to plan in the modern world, and I believe it's hubris to claim that the invasion of Iraq has ensured there have been no attacks on American soil. I suspect that awareness of the likelihood such attacks are being planned plays a much greater role.

Do you really believe that, say, the Iranian people, who are among the innumerable victims of Islamism, should be nuked because of the psychopaths running the country at the moment? I doubt that the consequences would be to win more friends and fewer enemies.

Oh, boy. Time for the civics lesson - again.

The Lemuel Penn case established travel as a Constitutional right. Absent probable cause, that couldn't be set aside by a President.

So much for blaming George Bush - again - for something you'd certainly be squealing about absent that cause.

Next: you're dancing all around the primary issue of retaliation with nuclear weapons - that unless you can identify who did it to us, you're just killing people if you nuke somebody back. Also, if you do Mecca, Medina, etc., you will walk everywhere you want to go for the rest of your life - Middle East oil will be turned off, click.

So much for retaliation.

Showing a religious zealot how badly off they are is tough - but it brings me back to "bombing with WalMart": it would be cheaper to install Western stores, even as total losses, to introduce the consumer economy and make religion irrelevent or actively hostile to human comfort than it would to clean up the first bomb's debris.

Bernie, free Muslim is an oxymoron.

I'd rather die than live in a theocracy of any ilk. Frankly, the Christians (and the Jews for that matter) are only so benign because 1) they mostly don't take their holy book as literally as the majority of Muslims take the Koran and 2) because they don't have the power. I think the Religious Right has shown us that here in the US. Look how obnoxious they are with limited power. If they did get the theocracy they crave, you really think they'd be any gentler or kinder than the Taliban? I don't.

If you're not free to be Atheist (Jew or Gentile), you're not free. Again, give me liberty or give me death. That said, I'd want to live to bring said theocracy down or die trying.

I say its time we update that saying. give me liberty or give me a AA-12 shoutgun

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dKIZauSf5s
start around 2:30

GMan, you have quite a 'way' with taking words out of context.

"There is no way of evaluating whether invading Iraq and "shifting the focus" or "moving the war" from US soil to the Middle East is working to stop attacks on US cities. It's not like a 9/11 was happening every few months."

Precisely, GMan, and I never said invading Iraq definitively prevented further attacks. I simply offered it as a possible explanation for the lack of follow-on attacks. I have yet to hear you offer a coherent possible explanation, other than you think it's all "crap".

"My point is that something like 9/11 doesn't require a hornet's nest of Islamic militants all living in one place to plan in the modern world..."

Well, I'm sorry to disappoint you, GMan, but apparently it did. The AQ cell that conducted 9/11 was very much "a hornet's nest of Islamic militants all living in one place".

"...I believe it's hubris to claim that the invasion of Iraq has ensured there have been no attacks on American soil."

(Uh-oh. He used "hubris". Look out.)

"Do you really believe that, say, the Iranian people, who are among the innumerable victims of Islamism, should be nuked because of the psychopaths running the country at the moment?"

GMan, how in the hell did you distill "Iranian people...should be nuked" from my statement, "make sure that leaders of Islamic nations understand very clearly that any attack 1) originating from within their borders or 2) deriving any form of support from their respective countries will result in their forced removal from power."

But forget all that, GMan. Give us your insights. How do you define success, and what specifically would you do to achieve it?
How would you resolve our conflict with Islamic extremism?

Holy shit, lujlp, but you're right. With my aim, it could very well take something like that for me to go down fighting. Let's hope it never comes to that! (Well, one can always hope; yes, I know I just contradicted myself.)