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A tribute to Condoleeza Rice and George W. Bush who, despite voluminious evidence to the contrary, said, "I don't think anybody could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center, take another one and slam it into the Pentagon, that they would try to use an airplane as a missile," adding that "even in retrospect" there was "nothing" to suggest that" and "I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees," respectively.

Tuesday, July 04, 2006

"The fact that we have not been attacked since 9/11 is no accident." 

This is the talking point consevatives are peddling, including George W. Bush and Richard Cheney. So, seemingly disparate stories come together such that finally I have to agree, it's no accident. OBL works to get Bush re-elected. A nearly operational plan to attack the NY subways is inexplicably cancelled. The most powerful military in the world with a multitude of success in Afghanistan, manages to fail to capture the most wanted man in the world. And finally, the professionals at the CIA who are charged with the capture and or killing of the worst mass-murderer ever on U.S. soil have their unit disbanded.

“What the CIA had learned over nearly a decade is that bin Laden speaks only for strategic reasons and those reasons are debated with often startling depths inside the organization’s leadership. Today’s conclusion: bin Laden’s message was clearly designed to assist the president’s re-election.”

http://www.martinirepublic.com/item/did-osama-bin-ladin-intervene-to-get-bush-reelected-on-purpose/

Al-Qaeda terrorists came within 45 days of attacking the New York subway system with a lethal gas similar to that used in Nazi death camps. They were stopped not by any intelligence breakthrough, but by an order from Osama bin Laden's deputy, Ayman Zawahiri.

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1205309,00.html

The Central Intelligence Agency has closed a unit that for a decade had the mission of hunting Osama bin Laden and his top lieutenants, intelligence officials confirmed Monday.
The unit, known as Alec Station, was disbanded late last year and its analysts reassigned within the C.I.A. Counterterrorist Center, the officials said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/04/washington/04intel.html?ex=1309665600&en=3779ed9b98bb9d22&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

The US-led war in Afghanistan was going exceedingly well up to that point. The Taliban regime had been pushed from the northern half of the country; the capital of Kabul and much of the rest of Afghanistan would fall within the next few days.
It was a war like no other. In an evolutionary leap powered by Information Age technology, US ground soldiers were mainly employed as observers, liaisons, and spotters for air power - not as direct combatants sent to occupy a foreign land. The success of the US was dazzling, save for the fight for Tora Bora, which may have been this unconventional war's most crucial battle. For the US, Tora Bora wasn't about capturing caverns or destroying fortifications - it was about taking the world's most wanted terrorist "dead or alive."
In retrospect, it becomes clear that the battle's underlying story is of how scant intelligence, poorly chosen allies, and dubious military tactics fumbled a golden opportunity to capture bin Laden as well as many senior Al Qaeda commanders.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0304/p01s03-wosc.html

I'd say the absence of a subsequent attack since 9/11 is anything but an accident.
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