I was busily thrashing away on Google earlier this evening trying to find confirmation for something I had hear on the radio on the way home. If it pans out it could be the most startling example of Richard Clarke's Kerryism to date. According to the report I heard, it would seem that Clarke refused to testify before a senate committee on Y2K citing the same executive privilege for which he has recently criticized Condoleeza Rice. But I was interrupted and I no longer care.

In fact I no longer give a damn about Richard Clarke, his book, or the 9/11 commission. At this moment it all seems like a tremendous amount of fuss and bluster about nothing. That we are in the midst of congressional hearings to answer what are essentially rhetorical questions seems ridiculous.

Did the Clinton administration do enough to fight terrorism over its eight years? Did the Bush administration do enough in the 8 months prior to 9/11? Well, 9/11 did happen so the answer to both questions is clearly no. Could 9/11 have been prevented if both administrations had done things differently? I suppose it's possible. If Clinton did this and that, and Bush did the other thing And Then A Miracle Occurs and 9/11 doesn't happen.

But there was no this, that or the other thing. There was no miracle.

The interruption I mentioned before, my wife asked me to record a movie on TV. I grabbed a blank tape from a box recently brought in from storage in the garage. Half way through rewinding it I wondered if after spending a summer and a winter in the garage if the tape was still any good. I stopped it and hit play.

The tape had been used to record a documentary that ran just after 9/11. I happened to stop the tape just moments before the first tower collapsed. I was unprepared for this. The shock and surprise were almost as brutal as they were on that day. When they pulled back to a wide shot of Manhattan shrouded in smoke the anger came back too.

That a serious candidate for president thinks that the solution to the problem of terrorism is law enforcement action is deplorable. Kerry also wants to increase the number of first responders to deal with terrorism after it happens. The bulk of the footage I watched tonight was shot by a cameraman who was at the scene with firefighters in the Trade Center when the first tower collapsed and escaped with those firefighters moments before the second tower came down. More first responders are not the answer. If there had been a 1000 more first responders on the scene at Ground Zero, the only difference it would have made is that there would have been more dead firefighters.

The solution to bringing an end to terrorism and to preventing another 9/11 it to bring a swift and merciless end to the terrorists.

Posted by: Stephen Macklin at 05:49 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment