How having a GOP Administration in office would've prevented 9/11?

Particularly when the terrorist attacks that happened during Reagan and Bush Sr's administration were in some cases worse than what happened during Clinton's?

Or better yet, since it was Reagan's policies towards afghanistan that gave Bin Ladin and his cronies a good deal of the training that they turned and used against us?

Couldn't you say that Bush Sr. and Reagan not doing more to fight terrorism, gave terrorists the balls to try 9/11?

Couldn't you also say that Bush Sr. and Regan's policies were what angered people to the point where they attempted terroist attacks on our soil?

The Bush Administration is run by experienced people - they've been there before, you mean to tell me that there was NOTHING they could've done to prevent 9/11 - even though they were in office for 21 months beforehand and are experienced people?

If we're going to fair and objective about this - you have to say that the reason Iraq was taken down so easily, didn't scramble a single fighter jet and possessed not a single weapon of mass destruction, is due to Clinton era policies, as well as the times he attacked Iraq (which he did several times) whenever Iraqi Pilots violated the no-fly zone or there were issues with the inspectors.

People seem to forget how many times Clinton attacked Iraq.

Also - Clinton launched cruise missile strikes on places he suspected Bin Ladin was located in, right after the embassy attacks and was unsuccessful and was even at times accussed by the GOP of looking to take attention away from his own problems.

Considering the attack in lockerbie Scotland, the attack on the Marines in Beirut (Which just led to the US leaving the area) the hostage crisis and numerous other attacks on US Foreign Interests, shouldn't Reagan and Bush Sr. have done something?

My reserve Unit was attached to a unit in Korea, so the Korean Situation of 93' was very present in my mind back then - Clinton (IMO) defused it better than Bush is, all Bush has done is denote them as the enemy, and act Tough - which doesn't really help the situation.

As it is - 9/11 happened, we're still in danger from similar attacks, we've attacked two nations that were not a threat to us(I say this even though I supported the Afghanistan war - but in retrospect, what did we gain?) lost countless American lives in the process, eroded our own civil liberties in the name of freedom and have made American an even more hated country - which can only lead to more people willing to attack us.

So, what exactly have we gained with Bush in office?

From the looks of things - 9/11 would've happened with or without Clinton in office, we could've had another four years of Bush Sr. and be in our second term of Bush Jr. (and some other GOP candidate) and we 9/11 still would've happened.

The first attack (obviously planned during the Bush Sr. administration) failed, so they planned a bigger one, whomever the president was, wouldn't have changed that.

As it is - if it was such a huge issue or powder keg, the GOP should've used their power in congress to push for policies that would've prevented it AND or used it as a campaign issue.

Blaming this on one president/administration - instead of our government as a whole, in terms of foreign policy and national defense strategy, is stupid.

The intelligence community doesn't say "Clinton is in office" let's stop looking for threats.

Finally - here is a quick anecdote -


In the reserves one of my units biggest concerns was attacks on US soil, particularly since many of our leadership came from the intelligence & special operations communities, but the conversation would end like this:

"But the US is too big a Land Mass, and we have the right to bear arms, there will never be a major attack on US Soil" Let's worry about X, Y, Z overseas.

That's why we got attacked - that attitude right there, which is independent of who is in office.



Peace,









M2