In article ,
Mike Marron writes:
OXMORON1 wrote:
Mike Marron wrote:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the USAF an integral part of the
intelligence community? If yes, then doesn't the USAF share the
blame for 9/11?

Yes the USAF has a place within the intelligence community, but they/it is
primarily tasked with intelligence matters concerning air warfare.

Don't look now, but since 9/11 the USAF has been flying CAP over
American cities. Now, why do you s'pose that is?

As a sop to the fears of the General Public, and most of the
politicians, who have a hard time understanding stuff like "Realistic
Threat Assessment", but do understand that they feel better if the can
"See that Something is Being Done."

The likelihod of the next large-scale terrorist attack mirriring the
last one is very, very small.

Before you snap back, IIRC the FBI,CIA, INS and Dept of the Treasury are
primarily concerned with areas from which the attack came.

So, the USAF is exempt from any blame whatsoever for the 9/11 attacks?

Until the moment that the first airplane flew into the WTC, it was
just another hijacking. The airplane was going to land somewhere, and
it would get dealt with on the ground. Up to that point, hijackings
had been done for publicity, and to try to gain some sort of lever to
pry some concession from somebody.

Also under your accusation the Coast Guard Aux., Army, Navy, Air Force Reserve,
National Guard screwed up, so did Barney Fife and the officer responsible for
intelligence in the Talequah. OK PD.
Under your reasoning, I am responsible for the outcome in the Unpleasantness
during the SEA wargames. And no, I was not an intelligence type, just your
ordinary navigator, but one bomb might have missed the Command Staff of the
Vietnamese Freedom Loving Good Guys.

You can continue to misconstrue what I wrote and put words in my
mouth, but my contention is simply that the USAF, along with the
various civilian U.S. intelligence agencies, dropped the ball BIG time
on 9/11.

You can say that about anything that takes us by surprise. And
something else will, in the future, as well. Unforunately, it's one
of the misfortunes of the Intelligence Biz. The Hell's Angels motto
pretty much sums it up: "When we do right, nobody hears about it.
WHen we do wrong, everybody hears about it."

There's plenty of blame to go around, I'll agree with that - but in
order to create teh sort of fully integrated monitoring system
required to ensure that nobody plots anything nefarious again...
Well, truth to tell, I wouldn't want to like in tht sort of society.
Stalin, and Saddam come close, but the plots got cooked up anyway, and
the only thing that suffered was the normal folks. Not a good
trade-off, to my mind.

--
Pete Stickney
A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many
bad measures. -- Daniel Webster