The Trauma of 9/11 Is No Excuse

By Richard A. Clarke
Sunday, May 31, 2009

Top officials from the Bush administration have hit upon a revealing new theme as they retrospectively justify their national security policies. Call it the White House 9/11 trauma defense.

"Unless you were there, in a position of responsibility after September 11, you cannot possibly imagine the dilemmas that you faced in trying to protect Americans," Condoleezza Rice said last month as she admonished a Stanford University student who questioned the Bush-era interrogation program. And in his May 21 speech on national security, Dick Cheney called the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, a "defining" experience that "caused everyone to take a serious second look" at the threats to America. Critics of the administration have become more intense as memories of the attacks have faded, he argued. "Part of our responsibility, as we saw it," Cheney said, "was not to forget the terrible harm that had been done to America."

I remember that morning, too. Shortly after the second World Trade Center tower was hit, I burst in on Rice (then the president's national security adviser) and Cheney in the vice president's office and remember glimpsing horror on his face. Once in the bomb shelter, Cheney assembled his team while the crisis managers on the National Security Council staff coordinated the government response by video conference from the Situation Room. Many of us thought that we might not leave the White House alive. I remember the next day, too, when smoke still rose from the Pentagon as I sat in my office in the White House compound, a gas mask on my desk. The streets of Washington were empty, except for the armored vehicles, and the skies were clear, except for the F-15s on patrol. Every scene from those days is seared into my memory. I understand how it was a defining moment for Cheney, as it was for so many Americans.

Yet listening to Cheney and Rice, it seems that they want to be excused for the measures they authorized after the attacks on the grounds that 9/11 was traumatic. "If you were there in a position of authority and watched Americans drop out of eighty-story buildings because these murderous tyrants went after innocent people," Rice said in her recent comments, "then you were determined to do anything that you could that was legal to prevent that from happening again."

more at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/29/AR2009052901560_pf.html

"...were determined to do anything that you could that was legal to prevent that from happening again."
Pity what they did was illegal.

Time for a Special Prosecutor

sp.

then it's not illegal.
Where did I hear that before?

I wondered when he would speak on Cheney's and Condi's nonsense.

He has been too patient.

"I'll freely admit that watching a coordinated, devastating attack on our country from an underground bunker at the White House can affect how you view your responsibilities," Cheney said in his recent speech. But this defense does not stand up. The Bush administration's response actually undermined the principles and values America has always stood for in the world, values that should have survived this traumatic event. The White House thought that 9/11 changed everything. It may have changed many things, but it did not change the Constitution, which the vice president, the national security adviser and all of us who were in the White House that tragic day had pledged to protect and preserve.

Let me repeat, with emphasis

"I'll freely admit that watching a coordinated, devastating attack on our country from an underground bunker at the White House can affect how you view your responsibilities,"

So, he admits the attack came from a White House bunker.

Loose lips sink ships, Dick. What'll it be boys, brain tumor?

:eyes: This is even more rock solid than "pull it."

Then again you weren't my target audience.

If only this quote could be whittled a bit...

Thank god there was a reasonable person in the room that day, for history's sake.

for a diminished responsibility defence?

What Andrew Card said to George Bush that morning had absolutely nothing to do with "trauma". Furthermore, nothing says trauma like not being willing to testify to the 9/11 Commission except in tandem with the vice president and not under oath.

The country was traumatized, but not those who then went on to use that trauma to further their goals.

Not trauma. Trifecta.

WHEN WILL THE CORPORATE MEDIA BREAK DOWN AND TELL THE TRUTH

The sooner we all get it, the better off we'll be because we can make the media irrelevant.

"The first response they discussed was invading Iraq. While the Pentagon was still burning, Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld was in the White House suggesting an attack against Baghdad. Somehow the administration's leaders could not believe that al-Qaeda could have mounted such a devastating operation, so Iraqi involvement became the convenient explanation. Despite being told repeatedly that Iraq was not involved in 9/11, some, like Cheney, could not abandon the idea."

He's finally ratting them all out.

"I believe this zeal stemmed in part from concerns about the 2004 presidential election." -- Richard Clarke

--

Bush stole the '00 election which made it even easier to steal the '04 election. There is plenty of evidence to make a case that Bush/Cheney were behind 9/11. The unspeakable depravity they showed in the horrific torturing of the detainees is proof that nothing is beyond these sociopaths.

It seems to me after the initial shock of that morning, Cheney, Rove and gang saw a very convenient way to spin this horrific event to pursue their quest for Iraq and all it's gold (oil).

Edited for spelling

It's not possible to be confident that an election will be close enough to steal. They nearly managed a 20-40K margin in FL2000, but got caught. The bushvgore treason was not in the plan.

While their sociopathy and megalomania may know no bounds, their imagination and competence are those of thugs. There is no task at which they can't fail miserably. Iraq is just one horrific example.

Rove's "heckuva job" at forging (swindling) a "permanent majority" is another.

---

Many of the 9/11 Commission records are still classified.

Why did the CIA withhold information about al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar from 1/00 through 8/01? We are told by officials like Clarke and Tenet that al Qaeda was a very real threat. Yet at the very same time all sorts of warnings about a possible terrorist attack were coming in the CIA knew two al Qaeda operatives were in the US and didn't tell the FBI. In fact the FBI's Cole investigation was obstructed. James Bamford reported that two FBI agents assigned to Alec Station were ordered to keep from the FBI the fact that al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar were in the US. This doesn't sound like incompetence.

This is reasonably well explained in the following links, to articles by Kevin Fenton and Kyle Hence.

http://hcgroups.wordpress.com/2008/10/04/khalid-almihdhar-and-his-connections-to-the-uss-cole-bombing/

and http://911blogger.com/node/20200#comment

See the comments for a more complete explanation of the reasons the CIA kept the information on these al Qaeda terrorists secret from the FBI criminal investigators on the Cole bombing investigation. Keeping this information secret had nothing to do with incompetence

K&R

:kick:

and torturing wasn't in the playbook

9/11 didn't change the world, just our knowledge of it, with much ignorance remaining. The idea that everything was fine until 9/11 came out of the blue is bull. The oil economy of the 20th century, and the establishment of Israel in 1948 drew us into the Middle East. We went around pissing people off. Whether their anger was justified or not, it was real, and ultimately dangerous. If someone wants to argue that it was right to install the Shah of Iran in the '50's, defend Israel, or put troops on Saudi soil in the first Gulf War, fine let's have a debate. But when they can't connect the dots, and think 9/11 was unprovoked, I just pull out what's left of my hair.

On the use of 9/11 and its trauma to justify our responses, let's not forget that plans to invade Iraq were cooked up in rght-wing think tanks in the '90's. 9/11 didn't create the desire to start the Iraq war, it just removed the obstacles to plans already hatched.

Bin Laden claims to have seen a missile hit a tower, and destroy it. And at that moment got the idea of doing the same to us. Whether it's true or not, your summation is no doubt the almost complete cause of how and why we arrived at our present state. The military economy that supported the comfortable modern lifestyle. One that even the planet couldn't sustain.

people before 9/11. We had an opportunity to change and grow, and with effective leadership, we would have evolved to become a better country. On a positive note though, I think the "disaster" of the Bush administration was the real wake up call. I know I am a better, more informed person because of the last eight years.

:argh:

"If you were there in a position of authority and watched Americans drop out of eighty-story buildings because these murderous tyrants went after innocent people," Rice said in her recent comments, "then you were determined to do anything that you could that was legal to prevent that from happening again."

Right, Condi, but anything does not include going off ill-informed and half-cocked on some knee jerk tangent. This country has faced attack before. There was that little Pearl Harbor incident some decades back. You may have read about it. You do what you must during the attack to protect yourself. Then, when the immediate threat is contained, cool heads calmly deliberate on how to best proceed.

When we elect leaders, we have a right to expect and demand that they be professionals who can think and act professionally on their feet and under fire. Clearly Bushco wasn't up to the challenge, and Bushco needs to pay for that.

These War Criminals need to see the inside of a jail cell.

"Unless you were there, in a position of responsibility after September 11, you cannot possibly imagine the dilemmas that you faced in trying to protect Americans," Condoleezza Rice said last month as she admonished a Stanford University student who questioned the Bush-era interrogation program.



a position of responsibility AFTER SEPTEMBER 11.

Where the Hell were you BEFORE SEPTEMBER 11?

They don't even register that this happened on their watch, AFTER they had been warned and did nothing. Well, *Bush did vacation a LOT. It's like they pretend *Bush's presidency began on 9/12/01.

They saw a chance to get what they always wanted and they ran with it from The Patriot Act, illegal wiretapping, to the Iraq War etc etc. But Richard Clarke does a good job of painting them as fearful people whose cowardice comes out in their own actions and reactions. He knows what they are about, but he's using Cheney's own defense against him and showing that it's wrong on that level too. I just don't think he truly believes trauma was the true motive.

in their feeble brains, that and the opportunity to steal Iraqi oil for their oil buddies.

Two thumbs up!

so she can think about how using 9/11 justifies shitting on the bill of rights and the Constitution. She's a reptilian robot gone over the edge to the dark side. It would be a miracle if she ever came to her senses and recanted. She doesn't know right from wrong. None of them do. They need to be prosecuted and punished for the repugnant amount of ignorance it takes to consider human beings worthy of being subjected to pain, suffering and indefinite incarceration without charges. They literally dragged the US back 500 years. I HATE THEM ALL!!!!!

...you would have immediately torn up the Constitution, thrown out every moral principle cherished by mankind, alienated long time allies, terrorized the citizens who looked to you for firm but calm leadership, and evaluate how this action could be used to accelerate your drive toward global domination."

Could you imagine FDR saying such a thing? I didn't think so.