General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsLost in all of this: 9/11 could have been prevented if Bush had taken security briefings seriously.
We didn't need a Department of Homeland Security. We didn't need drone strikes. We didn't need to store the phone records of every American. We didn't need to outsource to private corporations. We didn't need 2 useless wars, with hundreds of thousands of innocent people dead. We just needed a competent President who read his fucking briefings and who believed what his intelligence agencies were telling him.
Everything that's been put into place since then has been designed to solve a problem that never existed. And our current President has bought into it hook, line, and sinker - in spite of the fact that 9/11 very likely would have been prevented if he was President then.
PearliePoo2
(7,768 posts)the PNAC had their own plan.
K&R
Buzz Clik
(38,437 posts)Where do you think the intel about bin Laden and 9/11 came from?
Pale Blue Dot
(16,831 posts)That cost about 1/1000th of what we're paying now?
There's certainly no evidence they used any of the tactics exposed by Snowden or mentioned in my OP.
Buzz Clik
(38,437 posts)Two guys chatting over a cup of coffee?
Pale Blue Dot
(16,831 posts)Such as collecting the phone records of all Americans, drone strikes, etc, were going on pre 9/11? And that 9/11 could not have been prevented without those things happening that we don't know happened? I anxiously await you explicitly going on record with this.
Buzz Clik
(38,437 posts)I was just curious if you had a clue where the pre-911 intel came from. You don't.
We can stop here.
Pale Blue Dot
(16,831 posts)JaneyVee
(19,877 posts)Excerpt: "Tenet had the NSA review all the intercepts, and the agency concluded they were of genuine al-Qaeda communications. On June 30, a top-secret senior executive intelligence brief contained an article headlined "Bin Laden Threats Are Real."
Pale Blue Dot
(16,831 posts)I don't see that in the article. Or any discussion of specifics.
JaneyVee
(19,877 posts)ETA: I agree, because of Bush incompetence this surveillance state was foisted upon us.
Pale Blue Dot
(16,831 posts)Discovered before the NSA had probable cause? They just stored all of the phone call data and then looked it up?
JaneyVee
(19,877 posts)Pale Blue Dot
(16,831 posts)citizens. There's not a court, jury, or American that would have objected to us monitoring every communication coming in and out of his headquarters. That's the very definition of probable cause. What the NSA did, therefore, was legal and reasonable. There's no reason to even imply that they needed anywhere near the power that they, and independent contractors that they (apparently) have little control over, have today.
My point stands: None of what we have created in the days since 9/11 was needed to stop 9/11.
JaneyVee
(19,877 posts)I'm agreeing with you about the "since 9/11" statement, but the NSA was created before 9/11 and I gave you a link that states they were the ones who gathered the pre-9/11 intel.
ehcross
(166 posts)These are the facts about 9/11:
1) The NSA properly identified the threat based on signals intelligence gathering.
2) The NSA duly warned Bush & Condi Rice. But nothing was done about it.
Because Al-Qaeda is still a clear and present danger to United States security, the NSA should continue to monitor communications so that threats can be identified and dealt with.
Triana
(22,666 posts)BENGHAZI!
Berlum
(7,044 posts)dkf
(37,305 posts)Yeah it's all Congress... donchaknow?
Pale Blue Dot
(16,831 posts)I'm alarmed by how few are responding to this basic, obvious point.
I was on DU in 2002, and I promise it was universally acknowledged then.