In case you need some easy reading for a Sunday night: The 10 Most Startling Speculations about September 11 (via Long Story, Short Pier)
For about thirty minutes after his chief of staff told him that America was under attack, George W. Bush continued to sit in an elementary school classroom listening to a second-grader tell a story about a pet goat. He did a marvelous job of looking completely unsurprised. Meanwhile, four hijacked jumbo jets were able to fly off-course across several states without encountering any opposition from the most powerful and responsive air force in the world.
Less than a month later, on the pretext of pursuing terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden, the Bush administration began what it called a “war” on the impoverished and already war-torn country of Afghanistan. It turns out this assault had been in the works well before September 11 took place.
Soon after replacing the Taliban government with one more to its liking (and, in what is surely a coincidence, resuscitating the world’s most bountiful opium fields), the administration began agitating for a similar, but even more destructive, bombardment of the oil-rich nation of Iraq. This, although Osama bin Laden was still at large and no link between him and Saddam Hussein could be established…
I hate to make the Shrub look any better but there was an existing Clinton Administration plan to attack Afghanistan. After Osama bin Laden was linked to the attack on USS Cole, his organization was considered the greatest danger to the country.
Clinton’s people had the attack ready to go but it was October 2000 and he didn’t want to look like he was interfering with the election. After the election, Presidents avoid engaging in foreign policy to make the change of administration simpler.
The plan was given in whole to the current misadministration. Unfortunately, the Shrub’s people shelved the excellent plan do to their extreme Clinton allergy. Of course, they copied it for their own plan shortly after the attacks.
I love lazy sunday’s where I don’t do anything at all, but enjoy just being in bed!