http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles...e.asp?ID=12794

snip
What administration could, before 9/11, have sent in American boys to
fight a regime in Afghanistan because it was implementing the ideas of
an old man with a long white beard, sitting crossed-legged in the
mountains talking about Satan America? Had I been in Congress before
9/11, knowing everything that was knowable about the Islamists, I
still doubt if I would have voted to send troops to the Hindu Kush to
topple the Taliban. Eardrums would have exploded all over Capital Hill
from outcries of racism and imperialism if there had been serious
efforts, pre-9/11, to round up suspected Muslim militants in the
United States and tighten security on Muslims entering the country. As
it is, the post-9/11 sensitivity to racial profiling makes travel
hazardous for white grannies who dislike body-searches.

What is possible in politics depends to a great extent on what is
blowing in the wind. There are times when even a Churchill can't
trudge against it, no matter how accurate his sense of direction. The
notion of terrorism as a lethal threat to America had no force, even
after the assassination of the radical Rabbi Kahane (New York, 1990),
the first bombing of the World Trade Centre (1993) and the deadly
attacks on America embassies, citizens and military abroad - all
carried out by Islamists. The American eagle was in ostrich mode.

snip

/quote

The rest of the article is worth reading.

Before 9-11, no politician could do anything at all to protect the US
from Moslem fanatics. The press was against it and most people were
not aware, or did not take the threat seriously.

Clinton *might* have been able to do something, but it would have been
an enormous gamble for him with next to no payoff. Success would have
made the threat disappear and there would have been no way to convince
people who wish to believe there was no threat that there really was a
threat.

You have no idea how much it pains me to say something in Clintons
defence.

--
The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that
English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words;
on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat
them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.
--James D. Nicoll