Freud, Windbags, And The 9/11 Commission

Dr. Freud said that there are no such things as coincidences, and at least on this one thing we agree with him. And talking about Freud, nobody outside of a lunatic asylum would believe that it was just a coincidence that Richard Clarke’s book came out the same week that he appeared before the 9/11 Commission. But before we talk about lunatics (and worse) there should be a word said about anti-terrorism experts in general.

Anti-terrorism experts are as phony as they come. Your brother-in-law – well, maybe not your brother-in-law, but any reasonably intelligent person – could call himself an anti-terrorism expert. We have not seen any signs outside a college saying “Anti-Terrorism University,” or any Internet diplomas being sold that proclaim “Ph.D. in anti-terrorism.” Nor will you ever hear a kid saying, “I have to hurry or I’ll be late for my class in anti-terrorism.”

There are, of course, trained professionals who do the field work. They are the people who bug the terrorists? communication systems, who infiltrate their camps and who man the satellites that track them. But anyone who doesn’t move his lips when he reads, or who studies all the reports, intercepts, analysis, and recommendations from field people, or who reads Soldier of Fortune magazine, or who can live under one roof with some of the women we know for six months or more, will qualify as an anti-terrorism expert.

In fact, Clarke himself earned his degree from MIT in Management. At the State Department, they appointed him an intelligence official. However, he was forced to leave in 1992 because of poor performance. He was transferred to the White House where he became an anti-terrorism adviser to President Bill Clinton.

Even Clarke, despite all his condemnations of the Bush administration’s anti-terrorism policies, admitted, when directly asked at the 9/11 hearings, that the 9/11 attacks could not have been prevented.

It is no coincidence that it was only after much of Clarke’s staff was taken away from him (along with his fancy office in the White House) and after he did not receive a high position in the newly-formed Department of Home Land Security, that he quit government and decided to write a book.

Clarke attempted to make one woman the cause of 9/11. But Condoleezza Rice’s matter-of-fact, calm presentation was an effective antidote to Clarke’s testimony – to the point that he quickly found himself in yesterday’s newspaper dust bin. The six-hundred pound factoid that the Democrats had to deal with was the reality that Clinton had been in office for a full eight years and Bush for only eight months before 9/11 occurred – and that the attack clearly was years in the planning.

When that allegedly explosive Presidential Briefing memo finally was released, it caused more of a whimper than a bang. It was basically historical and non-specific and, indeed, supported Ms. Rice’s testimony and her description of it. If anything, it reminded us that the situation leading to 9/11 was ongoing for years. We also know that the criminals responsible for 9/11 had established residences in the U.S., and some had legitimate jobs and attended flight school here. All of this, of course, pre-dates Bush’s presidency by many months; in some cases, years.