"Six Islamist extremist conspirators were convicted of the crime in 1997 and 1998 and given prison sentences of life in prison each. According to a presiding judge, the conspirators' chief aim at the time of the attack was to de-stabilize the north tower and send it crashing into the south tower, toppling both landmarks. [ I'll be greatly surprised if it does. The plan for WTC I was domino skyscraper destruction all over lower Manhattan and 250,000 dead. And Ramzi Yousef was KSM's nephew and travelling on an Iraqi passport. And when captured he said they would try again. And Yasin was inexplicably let go, fled back to Iraq, and was only later indicted by the U.S. in the plot as the bomb maker. But -- as with absolutely all terrorism -- there were absolutely no links to Iraq. And Leslie Stahl was absolutely right that Yasin was held by Saddam as a prisoner the whole time after arriving. It was absolutely not a show for Leslie -- she was too smart to let anything like that get by her. Why, she's nearly as smart as Bob Simon and everyone knows that he's sharper than a tack. After all, Saddam has said the U.S. is not his enemy -- why should anyone ever disbelieve that? -ed. ] "Pardon my contempt for this utter stinking Gramscian apologist garbage. Or not.
Their first try was 6 of ~250K. Their second try was ~3,000 -- plus huge economic damage -- of at least tens of thousands. What do you suppose the third set of results will be?
And do you suppose it might be a wee bit of a mistake to react in proportion to our enemy's results rather than their intentions?
Imagine this scenario: A man walks into the middle of a packed shopping center and pulls a submachine gun out of a guitar case. The gun fires a few shots before jamming and only a few people are lightly grazed. Basically a miracle -- clearly the intention was to kill tens or hundreds of people. Hugely more than the damage that was actually done.
If we treated this case like we treat incidents of terrorism, this man -- who common sense would clearly tag as incredibly dangerous -- would be sentenced to a few months of community service instead of immediately executed as a mass murderer. He gets a free pass since he forgot to clean his gun. So we assume he's too stupid to take seriously as an enemy.
Worse yet, I'm not sure that one of today's "judges" might not sentence the machine gunner just as I described if this scenario had really happened.
One can look back at history and see clear principles and pivot points in hindsight. The problem is that the lessons are never learned. As McQ said, we are like "geese" waking up to a new world every day.
Based on Hitler's rhetoric and aggressive actions, Germany should have been re-invaded at least by early 1937 when he renounced the Treaty of Versailles and had reoccupied the Rhineland. There could have been tens or even hundreds of thousands of casualties in the resulting war. But by waiting we nearly racked up 9 digits dead. For the mathematically inclined, that's a meaningful difference.
Likewise, any -- even circumstantial -- evidence of an Iraqi connection to WTC I with an intended death toll of hundreds of thousands together with continued hate propaganda from Saddam toward the U.S. should have prompted the immediate "finishing" of Gulf War I.
W finally learned that lesson. But by then Saddam and the Islamofascists had lots of time to prepare.
The problem is that W's leading "geese". And too many among them are wolves in geese feathers.
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