600 Pages of Blather

Also known as the 9/11 Report.

We can have Commissions. We can listen to pundits. We can watch the politicians jockey for the high ground, and we can watch the fingers point anywhere and everywhere. I've listened to a lot of commentary and read a few points of view, and still we can't be sure that what happened that day could have been averted. "Serious intelligence failures" are only part of the problem, I fear. Because the reason 9/11 occurred goes far beyond 19 terrorists - both known and unknown - making their way onto commercial airlines with sharp instruments.

An aside here, though: why was it ever okay for someone to board an airplane with no luggage save for a box cutter? Have you ever, when you're packing for a trip, said to yourself, "toothbrush, floss, clean underwear - ooo! almost forgot the box cutter!" The CIA and FBI weren't the only ones experiencing serious intelligence failures.

9/11 stands as the most horrifying day in a long line of them - from the Beirut bombing, to the Cole, to our embassies in Africa. The hatred was there long ago and according to the report,

...In this sense, 9/11 has taught us that terrorism against American interests “over there” should be regarded just as we regard terrorism against America “over here.” In this same sense, the American homeland is the planet. But the enemy is not just “terrorism,” some generic evil. This vagueness blurs the strategy. The catastrophic threat at this moment in history is more specific. It is the threat posed by Islamist terrorism —especially the al Qaeda network, its affiliates, and its ideology.

As we mentioned in chapter 2, Usama Bin Ladin and other Islamist terrorist leaders draw on a long tradition of extreme intolerance within one stream of Islam (a minority tradition), from at least Ibn Taimiyyah, through the founders of Wahhabism, through the Muslim Brotherhood, to Sayyid Qutb. That stream is motivated by religion and does not distinguish politics from religion, thus distorting both. It is further fed by grievances stressed by Bin Ladin and widely felt throughout the Muslim world—against the U.S. military presence in the Middle East, policies perceived as anti-Arab and anti-Muslim, and support of Israel. Bin Ladin and Islamist terrorists mean exactly what they say: to them America is the font of all evil, the “head of the snake,” and it must be converted or destroyed.

It is not a position with which Americans can bargain or negotiate. With it there is no common ground—not even respect for life—on which to begin a dialogue. It can only be destroyed or utterly isolated.

Emphasis added. (via Wizbang)

Destroyed or isolated. Well, we've seen that they refuse to be isolated, especially since our conversion or destruction is their goal. So "destroyed" is our other option. Kill or be killed. How black-and-white.

So without endorsing pre-emptive war, the report seems to endorse pre-emptive war.

This is the world we're living in - the one we never hoped for, but the one we're stuck with, nevertheless. I imagine the many ways that statement "destroyed or utterly isolated" can be implemented.

And I'm afraid.