Reply #223: My overall take:

[scottxyz]

The overall take I got from this interview (and the following report on Zawahiri) was OPTIMISM.

When we have snipers or rapists or whatever here in the US, we send law enforcement after them, we all go on the lookout, we post pictures on TV, and after a while we catch them.

Up until now, I had been kind of unsure how you go about getting terrorists who blow up buildings. The main point I came away with after watching the Clarke interview (and the following report on Zawahiri) was that this is just like any other sleuthing and enforcement operation: You pay attention, you "go to the battlestations", you have daily meetings with intelligence heads, you report if "a sparrow falls out of the tree".

The really important fact to notice in the interview was this: The LAST time they had a spike in chatter similar to the summer of 2001, was late 1999 before Y2K. So Clinton had daily meeting with the head of the CIA and FBI and Clarke, and they told their people to report upwards anything strange that they picked up - and they caught that Islamofascist coming in at the Canadian border heading to blow up LAX.

So paying extra attention, being on alert, checking the borders - these things WORK. There are concrete steps we can take to reduce terrorism, and our top anti-terrorism people have all this stuff already worked out.

Now switch to the second half of the show. Some top spokesman from Egypt is talking about the #2 at Al-Qaeda, Zawahiri, the brains behind Osama's money, and it turns out this guy has been in jail in Egypt for the plot to assassinate Anwar, and then he got out and was wandering all over Europe and the US. The Egyptian spokesman then says that Egypt was still after him, but they couldn't get cooperation from Europe and the US because Egypt had a death sentence over the guy's head and that violated some European laws.

So the guy who thought up 9/11 was running all over Europe and the US during the 90s raising money and making plans, his home government knew about him and wanted other governments to help get him, but they were ignored.

So we have the following scenarios:

(1) Chatter spikes around end of 1999, Clinton goes on high alert, everyone's under orders to keep their eyes and ears open, and we catch a guy and prevent LAX from getting blown up.

(2) Zawahiri helps assassinate the president of Egypt, he gets to Europe and the US while Egypt is saying "Catch this guy", everyone ignores Egypt, he dreams up a plot to blow up the WTC, and he succeeds.

(3) Chatter spikes in the summer of 2001, it's ignored, we get attacked, thousands die.

What's the point here? The point is:

It's not that hard to reduce terrorism! You just go on alert and tell your intelligence people to pay attention and you cooperate with foreign governments too.

Duh.

So this gives a big message of hope. There ARE intelligent, competent counter-terrorism professionals available, there ARE tried and true standard operating procedures for preventing or at least reducing terrorism, and when ideology and international cooperation allows it, these procedures WORK!

Of course, Bush is NOT following standard operating procedures, he DEMOTED the top terrorism czar of the preceding 3 administrations, IGNORED all the guy's warnings plus the warnings from the CIA and the FBI and our allies - so we got attacked.

QED. You follow the rules, and you safe. You break the rules, and you're fucked.

But at least it's doable. At least there ARE rules that work. All that remains to be done is throw the guys in jail who break the rules, and hire back / vote back in the people who know how to follow the simple anti-terrorism rules.