As a non-sequitor, I'm watching the "Padre de Familia" episode of Family Guy, which lampoons the 9/11 attacks. Ironically, Seth MacFarlane is in a unique position to discuss it, having been saved from certain death on American Airlines flight 11 by a hangover.

At the risk of stretching my analogy, suppose that the in-house security guy tells you that there was no way of knowing about the exploit, and refused to answer any questions about how the patch that used to be there had been removed — or whether there was any connection to the huge budget increase and sweeping new authority he was demanding to fight future intrusions.

At the very least, you'd have to consider the possibility that he was grossly negligent and attempting, with breathtaking audacity, to turn his own fuckup into an opportunity for self-advancement.

And you'd have to at least think about whether he'd been willfully negligent.

Gross fuckups, audacity and negligence are the rule in the computer security world. That's why, to this day, obvious security holes remain unclosed.

One need not dig too deep into the security world to see that this is true. One needs to merely scratch the surface.

9/11 is the classic example of someone turning their own fuckups into an opportunity for self-advancement.

According to the official story, al-Qaeda has at least two successful attacks against American interests using different methods each time than those used on 9/11.. the Kenyan embassy attacks and the US Cole.

Anyway, never underestimate your opponent's ability to fuck themselves by being lazy, stupid or just greedy.

That's what happened on 9/11/2001.

introducing specious and hard to verify claims is another good way of distracting people from the issues at hand.

if action A causes event B, but introducing coincidence X, Y an Z take the attention off action A, then the real cause can get confused.

better to just confine yourself to the issues at hand, and then work outward.

How? How on earth did they benefit from 9/11?

Are you being daft or adversarial?

We are now engaged in land wars on two fronts, one of them in the Arabian penninsula.. there is a third front planned.

Al-Qaeda recruitment is up, as is resentment against the United States and Israel.

This is also exactly what bin Laden, in 1998, claimed he and al-Qaeda wanted to accomplish. Mission Accomplished: al-Qaeda.

I'm sure I'm not alone in saying that your meaningful contribution to this discussion is greatly appreciated

Amity,

It really seems to me that you are throwing things at the wall in an effort to see what sticks.

Having been involved in actual forensic post-mortem investigations of security breeches, I can tell you that this approach does not help and does not work.

You start with the crime and you work outward from that. You have to start with the 5 "W"s of investigative journalism.. who, what when where and why.

The classic recent example of the failure of using a pre-supposition to guide an investigation is TWA flight 800.

The crash happened on the eve of the Atlanta Olympic games, everyone assumed that it was an act of terrorism, and the FBI was brought in.

Turns out that a known flaw in the design of that particular jet, and airliners in general, brought down the plane.

The evidence I have seen is irrefutable and the reason that safety precautions weren't taken are typical: it cost too much.

It was too expensive to fit jets with systems that would filter inert gas into the fuel tanks, and it was impossible to upgrade the wiring in those sorts of jets.

Greed, negligence and laziness are usually the most plausible causes. Millions of dollars were spent investigating what brought down Flight 800, and in the name of due diligence I cannot blame them, but much time was wasted in tracking down unlikely causes based on presumptive evidence and innuendo.

touche!

I have to agree with Steve_D at least with regards to his editorial criticisms on the piece.

But fixing those errors would not change the general tone of the article, which I also agree with.

As for the why, that's the question. But surely we can't accept the conventional explanation that there was simply no way of knowing about this brand-new threat from "al Qaeda" and its mysterious leader "bin Laden."

Then we are, essentially, in agreement.

You too can play along kids!

It's called "Spot the Clinton Concern Troll!"

Fun and prizes await you in Denver!

But how you play the game.

At least, that's what I'd like to believe. May Obama is right, maybe the electorate is smarter than FOX, CNN, MSNBC, Time, Newsweek and other traditional media harbingers of conventional wisdom purport them to be.

Hopefully Obama is part of a new vanguard of politicians who can bring politics back to the people.

How much do you get paid by the Clinton campaign? Can I get in on that racket?

Just not f*cking Hillary Clinton.

Drop out.

Clinton wins, America loses.

I'm still trying to figure out what he said that was so bad.

Can someone clear this up for me? He didn't say anything I necessarily disagree with.