Thursday, March 25, 2004
Buried deep, very deep, inside the Wall Street Journal's coverage of the 9/11 hearings is the following statement:
In addition, officials of both administrations interviewed by the commission's staff pointed out that there would have been little support from Congress or the public for large-scale military action against Afghanistan prior to the Sept. 11 attacks.
Why isn't this more of the point? I am no military expert, so I have no idea what it would required to eliminate Al Qaeda pre-9/11, but anything that would have taken more than minimal resources would most likely have had very little public support. Can you imagine taking military action when the public does not perceive a threat? Well, you can. Just picture Iraq...except this would have been worse because even fewer people would have seen an actual threat there. Perhaps Clinton or Bush pre-9/11 could have explained the threat to the public and we would have supported the war, but somehow I doubt it.
In addition, officials of both administrations interviewed by the commission's staff pointed out that there would have been little support from Congress or the public for large-scale military action against Afghanistan prior to the Sept. 11 attacks.
Why isn't this more of the point? I am no military expert, so I have no idea what it would required to eliminate Al Qaeda pre-9/11, but anything that would have taken more than minimal resources would most likely have had very little public support. Can you imagine taking military action when the public does not perceive a threat? Well, you can. Just picture Iraq...except this would have been worse because even fewer people would have seen an actual threat there. Perhaps Clinton or Bush pre-9/11 could have explained the threat to the public and we would have supported the war, but somehow I doubt it.
# posted by Julia @ 3:58 PM 
