Call me stupid, but i´m working on that.
This may be a language barrier thing, but a statement like that worries me. Why would you specifically look for evidence of a particular thing? Surely the point of investigation is to gather ALL evidence and base a conclusion on that, not go hunting for specific evidence that supports a given point of view.
Do you think that "somethings rotten in state of denmark" concerning
the foreknowledge and coverup? pm? For me it looks like a real chance to find something - and i´m no LIHOP, MIHOP, HIBOB, HIPHOP at all. Still searching...
To a degree. But I don't see it as overly significant. The way I see it the US administration was (quite rightly) afraid that the US people would want to see them hang for allowing an attack to happen on their watch.
Bear in mind the 9/11 Commission Report was not an investigation into the attacks. The investigations into the attacks were carried out by the various departments that are responsible for such things - the FBI, NTSB, FAA, NIST, and so forth.
In simple terms, the commission report was a witch hunt. The families of victims wanted to blame someone in government for the attacks, and they pressured for the establishment of the commission to do just that. While I think governments should be as transparent as possible, and while I think the Bush administration really behaved wrongly in many ways, I completely understanded their resistance to the investigation.
The fact that the main instigators of the report so thoroughly rejected its conclusion that no one in government had been negligent to me confirms their bias and the simple fact that they were out for blood, not the truth.
And that doesn't surprise me either. It's just like the parents of a boy killed in a high speed police chase here who wanted the police to swing for the crime.
Typical blame mentality. It's part of the grieving processes. I'm not especially keen on societies indulging it, because it's irrational and it's a stage that victims' families need to get over. Otherwise they will never be able to get on with their lives.
In the end I don't believe there was a coverup. There were delays, and questionable tactics by the administration. But I see no evidence of anything being covered up.
As I've said before, for me the only gaping hole in the "official story" is why Bush remained where he was so long. That's a decision someone in the Secret Service made, and I've never ehard why. I'd like to know. Otherwise, the entire storyline fits together, in my opinion.
As for foreknowledge. As I've said in this thread. I've yet to see any evidence of specific actionable intelligence regarding the attacks. The "dots" that people so often bring up were not all that was out there - they were grains of sand on a beach. In hindsight they stick out, of course. At the time? No.
I've said it many times. The US was hit because of three flaws:
1) Treatment of terrorists as criminals who need to be brought to justice in a fair trail in a liberal western court of law.
2) US reluctance to act (militarily) in the international arena (this reluctance is evident throughout America's history but became especially prevalent in Clinton's administration)
3) US over-confidence in the capabilities of their military, security, and intelligence assets (combined with gross underestimation of the threat)
None of these, IMHO, point to incompetence or negligence. These above are all aspects of American SOCIETY, not American government or policy. These are features of the nation the American people WANTED (and mostly, still want).
In fact, these three features are the very same reason Islamic Terrorists target the US in the first place.
The choice for the US is, do we continue being as free as we want to be, and simply absorb a 9/11 attack every now and then, do we have a back-lash and become a sort of police state, or do we try find a balance?
The current administration seems to be trying to do the latter (which is what I'd recommend). Some think they're trying the second option, and others think the first is the best.
I go for the third, and I think the US government is too. I also think it takes trial and error. Like flicking a branch on a tree, the oscilations bounce side to side for a while before equilibrium is found. 9/11 was a horrific event, and I think the government have swung back too far, in their efforts to find balance. I think another government will probably react to that by swinging it back too far the other way. And so on. hopefully, one day, a government will find a balance between the two. I'd expect it to have more constraints than the pre 9/11 America, but it won't be a police state by a long shot.
-Andrew
