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Arrogance Is Humility
by Sheldon Richman, Future of Freedom Foundation - December 4, 2002
Taking a step back from all the particulars, the lesson of 9/11 is that for more than 50 years the U.S. government has put the American people in harm’s way by its heavy-handed intervention in bitter disputes throughout the Middle East. Then, despite hundreds of billions spent each year on “national security” and countless signals of the coming threat, it was unable to protect us from the “blowback.” So the government went to war against al-Qaeda and the Taliban, proclaiming success all the way, even if it could not bag the top men. But then last week, the head of the CIA, George Tenet, went to Congress and said, “The threat environment we find ourselves in today is as bad as it was last summer, the summer before September 11. It is serious; they’ve reconstituted; they are coming after us, they want to execute attacks.” This has not stopped our national misleaders from insisting that they are our ticket to security. But for that assertion there has been as little evidence offered as there has been for the claims that Saddam Hussein is a threat to Americans or that he had anything to do with al-Qaeda. “We don’t need no stinkin’ evidence” is the attitude that oozes from President Bush and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

posted by An Old Curmudgeon 8:46 AM