Sibel Edmonds' claims that Bush administration failed to heed "warnings" that al Qaeda would "hijack airlines" to "attack" unspecified cities with "skyscrapers" are manifestations of half-hindsight.

April 2, 2004: #01 Political Satire/Commentary where satire is always commentary but commentary isn't always satire ™·2004.
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Sibel Edmonds' claims that Bush administration failed to heed "warnings" that al Qaeda would "hijack airlines" to "attack" unspecified cities with "skyscrapers" are manifestations of half-hindsight.·

Among people professing expertise in matters pertaining to counter-terrorism, half-hindsight is becoming pandemic. News reports are awash with articles fawning over allegations by Mrs. Sibel Edmonds, one of a number of mid-eastern-language translators hired after 9-11 by the FBI to translate intelligence data collected, but not translated, before 9-11. Edmonds alleges that before being fired, she saw data which she claims prove that months before 9-11, the Bush administration had knowledge of intelligence warnings that al Qaeda would "hijack" planes for the purpose of "attacking" unspecified cities "with tall buildings."

Bush-haters are so cravenly eager to prove that he either knew too much, or too little, before 9-11, they embrace such allegations without bothering to apply rudimentary common sense to determine whether they have any value in the real world. That such is the case with respect to Edmonds' allegations become self-evident to anyone performing a common-sense thought experiment predicated upon assumptions (for purposes of argument) that her allegations are 100% correct:

Sibel like Cybil or Sibel like Libel?

For translating needs that were dire,
'twas post-9-11 we hired
some mid-eastern speakers
|as translating readers
of mid-eastern data acquired.

The backlog in which we were mired
was mid-eastern data acquired
remaining unleavened
before 9-11
in oceans of dots we'd acquired.

And one who is named "Sibel Edmonds"
is claiming before 9-11
the data explained
'twas hijacking planes
to crash into buildings envisioned.

Assume, arguendo, she's right
that Tenet and Dubya and Rice
had learned there were clues
that airlines they'd use
as missiles by hijacking flights.

Assume you were told, "Make a plan
to stop such attack on our land,"
but also assume
there also were clues
of hijackers planning to land.

Assume you must furnish the clues
as warnings to airliner crews.
Should warnings prescribe
"resist or you'll die"
or "let 'em prescribe where to land"?

Without 9-11 as hindsight,
you'd not know which warning's designed right,
so which would you choose:
"Resist or you'll lose"
or "Let them take-over the flight"?

The only "safe" choice would be a third one: Ground all passenger flights until intelligence could be sufficiently refined to determine with a high degree of confidence whether such possible hijackings would constitute the traditional hostage-taking, negotiation-oriented form of hijacking or the suicidal kind not previously experienced despite having been previously predicted as a possible change of tactics. Following the "safe" choice would make us permanent hostages to such threats. In the pre-9-11 world, to have relied upon clues such as those alleged by Edmonds as justification for immediately instructing all airline crews to resist to the death any hijacking attempt (and thereby doom the passengers on the assumption that such hijacking necessarily must be the suicidal type) would have been irresponsible. It may be difficult to do, but we simply must face the reality that those barbarians outsmarted us. In the post-9-11 world, potential hijackers now know that passengers (such as those who helped subdue Richard Reid) will resist on the assumption that they will die anyway if they were to remain passive. That's the effect of full-hindsight in contrast to the self-serving, self-important, half-hindsight theories of "experts" such as Edmonds (and Clarke).

--Jim Wrenn, Editor@PoliSat.Com.

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