Just to tie a couple threads together, I don’t see how picking these guys up for questioning would be an abuse of power, but large scale warrantless wiretapping of tens of millions of Americans wouldn’t be, but that’s just me.

The point is that some of the known 9/11 hijackers, and who knows how many in “spare” cells that weren’t activated, had no “valid” cause to be questioned, deported, jailed or whatever.

So PM, jumping to your post below, you more or less agree that there were no realistic options once the planes were in the air, right?

Your answer to the challenge, if I’m reading correctly, is that to stop 9/11, Bush (or Clinton) could/should have rounded up, detained and questioned lots of Arabic/Persian looking dudes who might have been connected to al-Q, even though most were here on valid visas and committed no crimes until they slit their first throat on the morning of 9/11, correct?

Kinda, sorta plausible, but think about the full ramifications of what you apparently suggest.

That brings us to the bonus question.

Considering how batshit people went when on 9/12, Bush did what you apparently suggest, what would have happened, what would the blowback have been if, without having the lens of 9/11 to look through, if Bush (or Clinton) had gone out and rounded up dozens/hundreds of “suspected” al-Q off the streets of America for no apparent crime?

I’m stipulating to foreknowledge of most of the plan, and not making a relative value judgment between LIHOP, MIHOP, or Couldn’tDoSquatHOP, I’m just looking to hear how your theory fully plays out, and insisting that “letting” something happen implies having a viable method for stopping it from happening in the real world.

okay, it’s the only one I remember……

doh

Disclaimer: Not that I’m in any way promoting or condoning harassment, of course. Not at all…

Sure, if you wait until the planes are in the air, it becomes a lot harder, but that’s the bass ackwards way of stopping the attack.

(Not that I’m convinced of the LIHOP theory, it’s just that your argument is piss poor.)

Yes, there was chatter, and many applied 20/20 hindsight to make inflated claims of expertise (Clarke being the least credible) after the fact, but remember, we’re already stipulating the hypothetical fax from Bin Laden on 9/10, taking knew or didn’t know out of the equation. We’re assuming that the date, the airports and at least some of the hijackers were known ahead of time.

To make the case of “letting” it happen, there needs to be a plausible scenario for stopping it from happening once the plan entered the operational phase.

So again, how to stop 9/11 before boarding/after takeover?

“Mohammed Atta and three other men who hijacked aircraft on September 11, 2001 were identified by the US Government as possible members of an al-Qaeda cell more than a year before the attacks, it was reported today.

A highly classified military intelligence unit prepared a chart showing likely al-Qaeda cells in the summer of 2000, which showed the names and photographs of the four men”

The FBI warned in May 2001 that Al Qaeda intended to launch attacks in London, Boston, and New York.

George Tenet, Director of Central Intelligence for the CIA from 1997 to 2004, said after the attacks that “The system was blinking red”, and received a report in August of 2001 of suspicious arabs who wanted to learn how to fly airplanes, but not how to land or take off.

Richard Clarke, counter-terrorism coordinator of the National Security Council from 1992 to 2003, couldn’t get a meeting with anyone in the administration to discuss his warnings of an imminent terrorist attack until after 9/11.

And during the summer of 2001, Bush, Cheney, Rice, and Rumsfeld stayed out of DC, NYC, and all other metropolitan areas identified as terrorist targets.

None of this is proof of the LIHOP theory, but when you take into consideration that Bush’s first biographer, Mickey Herskowitz (sp?) claims that Bush was looking for an opportunity to take the country into war, and that on 9/12, Richard Clarke says he was called in to discuss creating links between the 9/11 attack and Iraq, I find it makes a compelling case.

Of course, I *know* it’s not proof. It’s just convincing, to me.