Yes. Exactly
Jul. 22nd, 2004 12:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
demiurgentFrom the 9/11 Commission Report's Executive Summary:
This is completely right. This is exactly what we need, and exactly what we aren't getting. We don't need Tom Ridge and John Ashcroft occasionally having press conferences where they explain that there's horrible people out there, and they expect there to be an attack and we all need to be vigilant because we're all in terrible danger, but we have no information on who, where, or how. That's rumormongering and fearmongering at its worst, and it creates an omnipotent supervillain agency we must confront. We need honest status reports, we need honest communication, and we need an honest sense of how well our combined effort in protecting this Nation is going.
And we're not getting it.
What should Americans expect from their government? The goal seems unlimited: Defeat terrorism anywhere in the world. But Americans have also been told to exect the worst: An attack is probably coming; it may be more devestating still.
Vague goals match an amorphus picture of the enemy. Al Qaeda and other groups are popularly described as being all over the world, adaptable, resilient, needing little higher-level organization, and capable of anything. It is an image of an omnipotent hydra of destruction. That image lowers expectations of government effectiveness.
It lowers them too far. Our report shows a determined and capable group of plotters. Yet the group was fragile and occasionally left vulnerable by the marginal, unstable people often attracted to such causes. The enemy made mistakes. The U.S. government was not able to capitalize on them.
No president can promise that a catastrophic attack like that of 9/11 will not happen agaion. But the American people are entitled to expect that officials will have realistic objectives, clear guidence, and effective organization. They are entitled to see standards for performance so they can judge, with the help of their elected representatives, whether the objectives are being met.
This is completely right. This is exactly what we need, and exactly what we aren't getting. We don't need Tom Ridge and John Ashcroft occasionally having press conferences where they explain that there's horrible people out there, and they expect there to be an attack and we all need to be vigilant because we're all in terrible danger, but we have no information on who, where, or how. That's rumormongering and fearmongering at its worst, and it creates an omnipotent supervillain agency we must confront. We need honest status reports, we need honest communication, and we need an honest sense of how well our combined effort in protecting this Nation is going.
And we're not getting it.
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Date: 2004-07-22 10:18 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-07-22 12:28 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-07-22 12:35 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-07-22 08:51 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-07-23 10:44 am (UTC)You're unabashed about feeling the way you do. Me? I've been a liberal in arch-conservative's clothing for so long, I've scarcely remembered how to bleat.
Andrea