Ann Coulter has certainly stirred the pot of debate recently. Her new book, while possibly offensive to some, is refreshing in the sense that it is unbridled and free of the political correctness our society seems to demand. Political Correctness, for me, is a concept that is only demanded to be adhered to when one is being lambasted with facts and doesn’t want to or simply refuses to face the truth or reality of our world. It is something that might have a place and time depending on circumstances but it should not be controlling of who and what we are. I applaud Ann’s frankness, even if her words can be seen as hurtful to those being spoken of.
For those that think she went too far or overstepped the boundaries of decency you have to remember that this is one of the essences of our Bill of Rights. Ann is doing nothing more then exercising a protected freedom that guarantees her the ability to say what she believes as long as it is accurate and truthful. I think she truly sees the activities of these women as being about how certain people are exploited by others with the sole agenda of bashing our current President and showing him in the worst possible light.
Furthermore, those being exploited, known as the New Jersey Four (NJ4), are Kristen Breitweiser, Patty Casazza, Lorie Van Auken and Mindy Kleinberg, and they are not new to the limelight of the public. The eagerly stepped forward demanding answers to why 9/11 happened, as was their right, but once they were exposed by the media they set themselves up to become an instrument for others to use, and used they have been. First, if I’m not mistaken, it was NOW that initiated their molding, that turned them into spokeswomen shortly after the tragedy of 9/11 and got them chanting the NOW agenda. Then it was Presidential hopeful, John Kerry, that advanced their exploitation when he courted them to become part of his campaign machine feeling that he could capitalize upon their pain and suffering to secure his bid by garnering the nation’s sympathy and compassion of the losses of 9/11. It probably did help him somewhat but it wasn’t enough.
I see these women as being no more then pawns to a completely political process, one in which they don’t understand that they are being used by others to facilitate agendas that they might not truly comprehend. It’s an abusive behavior that those in politics decry as demeaning but are ever so read to exploit when it is to their benefit. They have been doing this for so long that I suspect that they rarely have a word to say that is of their own creation, they are now nothing more then mouth-pieces for others that continue with the exploitation.
The messages of the NJ4 contend that the events of 9/11 are the sole responsibility and fault of Bush and his administration, an administration that was in its infancy when the attacks took place. They further contend that the administration negligently ignored prior warnings as to the imminence of the impending attack and that Bush and his people should have known the specifics of what was about to happen.
Well, to a certain extent I agree with the NJ4 in that contention. I absolutely agree that it should be the function of our government to thwart those that seek to unleash savage brutality like what was set upon our nation that tragic September morning. It is after all one of the few express functions of our government and is clearly stated in the Constitution as a specific responsibility of the government to provide for the common defense, a function that woefully failed resulting in approximately 3,000 fatalities of our fellow citizens in just a few short moments. It is completely obvious that our nation’s government failed in performing one of its primary and basic duties.
But the idea that the blame must be laid solely upon the feet of the current administration is one that I have a problem getting on board with. For me I believe that those responsible for our safety had fallen asleep at the wheel years before President Bush came to office and that the attack was successful due to the failure to understand the dangers of not remaining constantly vigilant to those that seek to bring death and destruction to our nation.
For years our intelligence activities had been dwindling because the “red menace” of the Soviet Union had collapsed and was no longer the threat it once was. It is apparent that those tasked with the oversight of our intelligence activities wrongly surmised that there was now no longer a great need to maintain an aggressive, robust, active and effective intelligence mechanism. Thusly our human intelligence efforts had become almost nonexistent as we relied almost singularly on signal intelligence, as a consequence our ability to learn of impending efforts was severely diminished. Add to that our reactions, or should I say lack there of, to prior terrorist attacks against our embassies, assets and people that had been mostly ignored by not responding in a manner that demonstrated that we would not fall as silent victims was in my opinion a clear message to our enemies that we were weak and nothing to fear. This in my mind validated to these criminals that they could conduct continued attacks as others had done and is what I believe allowed for the brazen escalation that eventually led to the 9/11 murders.
If one looks back prior to 9/11 you will remember that we had legislatively hampered the various investigative activities of our government instead of manifesting cooperative effort and the sharing of information amongst them. We created, through agency segregation, the inability to provide for a comprehensive structure to provide for our security. The CIA, DIA, and FBI operated independently and didn’t share the data each held. So the pieces to the puzzle may have been at hand but those hands were hidden in different pockets. Some of these inadequacies were immediately identified and are being corrected by the acts of the Bush administration in response to the reality of today’s world. But acting after the fact is never satisfactory and even more frustrating when we now know that the previous administration had much of the same knowledge and information in its possession and did little to nothing in response simply because it did nothing to correct what it knew was wrong.
Had the previous administration been working to correct the intelligence deficiencies as had been regularly communicated to them, which is evident as is shown in this report from 1997 pertaining to intelligence challenges of the 21st Century (
http://www.dtic.mil/ndp/FullDoc2.pdf), we might have not suffered as we did on 9/11. Had those in power heeded the need for continued effort and change we might have been in a position to prevent these acts that, by all evidence to date, had been being prepared for as long as 18 months prior to the execution of the dastardly plot.
So while the NJ4 and others throw blame at Bush and Bush alone I will not do so as it is painfully obvious to me that he was nothing more then unfortunate when he inherited our broken government. He was handed a system that, to be honest, was inadequate to the needs of the nation and he should not be held at fault for that. The actual fault lies with those that craft the laws and oversee its functioning. If you need to blame someone, rather then fix the problem; focus on those serving on the committees and specifically those that have become long term fixtures that have directly caused or allowed our capabilities to erode. They are the true culprits that placed us in the position we found ourselves in and they are the ones that should account for why they allowed for it to happen.
Whether you agree or not I say we have been fortunate as a whole to have at this time and day a leader that isn’t afraid to make the unpopular decisions to correct our deficiencies or to act against those that dare threaten our security and way of life. Furthermore I can only hope that when the time comes up again we will select a replacement with equal fortitude to continue along this path, one that will make the decisions regardless of how unpopular they are and one that will ignore those that seem so willing to concede our safety and freedom because of the cost it requires in lives or how we are seen by others around the globe.
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