The Blame Game

Bill Clinton has come under fire recently for his interview with Chris Wallace this past Sunday on FOX. As the fallout continues, the debate over who to blame for 9/11 has become increasingly heated. It has also become increasingly partisan, as both the Hilary Clinton and Condi Rice have exchanged comments over the matter. However, what strikes me the most about this matter is the assumption that 9/11 was either the fault of Bill Clinton or George W. Bush - which is completely ridiculous. The reasons 9/11 happened are pretty obvious to anyone with a bit of common sense; and who to blame is perhaps the most obvious thing of all.

Indeed, believe it or not, the terrorists who hijacked the planes on September 11th are, in fact, the ones responsible for the terrorist attacks! So, let's review. Did Bill Clinton hijack a plane? No. Did George W. Bush hijack a plane? No. Okay, so it's nice to have cleared that matter up. Neither Bush nor Clinton is directly responsible for 9/11. Al-Qaeda and Islamic terrorists are.

Now, for something that's a little bit tougher to grasp but still fairly commonsensical: what led to 9/11? The honest answer is that we as a country caused 9/11. Think about it. Sure, prior to 9/11 we might have known there were terrorists in the world, but we didn't take them seriously. We didn't think they could really attack us here, in the United States. We had successfully won the Cold War, and perhaps consequently had begun to believe in the Wilsonian ideal that we really could create world peace. I mean, sure we saw terrorists killing civilians in Israel and other places around the world, but those were on News reports, and oh-so far away. Thus, in a way, 9/11 was a wake up call to Americans that evil people could still exist in the post Soviet era.

Another way we caused 9/11 was by not responding to terrorism prior to September 11th. Islamic fascists attacked the United States in '79 in Tehran, in '83 in Beirut, in '91 in Kuwait, in '93 at the failed World Trade Center Bombings, in '98 in Kenya and Tanzania, in '00 on the U.S.S Cole, and many other times; and, excepting Kuwait in 1991, the United States' response was to do absolutely nothing. We hear the phrase 'emboldening our enemies' get tossed around a lot these days, and you want to know what did that more than anything else? Not responding when they directly challenged us. This is why bin Laden called America the "paper tiger" back in 1998, and this is also one of the reasons why it was important to invade Iraq in 2003. For too long, Islamic Radicals have been led to believe that they can 'cross' the United States without having to worry about facing repercussions. That is what caused 9/11. We continually reinforced the wrong lesson. We allowed them to believe that they really could attack and beat the United States.

So, let's move past the bickering over which of 2 Presidents holds more of the 'blame' for 9/11. It's time to realize that the United States' "paper tiger" persona is more of a grave threat to National Security than Chris Wallace's supposed "Conservative hit job" on President Clinton. Moreover, the only way to solve that serious problem is by kicking some Islamic terrorist ass in the Middle East.