The Apology Mr. Bush Will Not Give

A lot of energy has gone into trying to get Bush to apologize for the September 11 attacks on his watch. Richard Clarke came forward during his congressional testimony to state blankly: We failed you, I failed you. Many feel that Bush should also come forward to make a similar statement, or fault him for not making that statement first. I think these efforts are misspent.

We have the virtue of a free and open society. This virtue gives people the power to be themselves -- not derived only from our constitutional rights, but from American culture as well. It's not wrong for us to pick up and move 5000 miles to a new job, a new family, or just to see what it's like to live in a different city, bum around, write bad short-stories while working as a dishwasher. This lets us do great things, which people in other countries have not historically been able to do, or -- most importantly -- it lets us do what we want, to be happy. We have never crawled into each other's motives. We've also been a nation of immigrants -- people who come here because they aren't wanted somewhere else, somebody elsewhere doesn't like them, and they come to be who they are, and we don't impugn them for doing so.

What Bush probably would like to say, so ineloquently, is that it's not his fault that someone took enormous advantage of our open society and culture to our detriment. The blame for September 11 does not lie with those who shape our society and culture -- including its legal strictures and governmental operations. It lies squarely with those who use our virtues against us.

There is, of course, the issue of indolent negligence, or even simple negligence. Was the mass-murder of Sept 11 obvious -- as obvious as a man holding a gun to your face -- or was it just below the surface -- the man outside the door, knocking at midnight? A case can be made for criminal negligence -- our government should have known an act on this scale would eventually take place if nothing was done. Al Qaida was blowing things up, killing tens or scores of people in other countries (Cole Bombing, Embassy Bombings) and doing so without the intention of blackmail or hostages -- such as the Bush Administration claims they considered was the main threat in the US (taking hostages on a plane to secure someone's release). It was clear that Al Qaida had designed similar activities in the US (the Jan 1 2000 strikes in Los Angeles, for example) which were designed only to kill people, destroy symbolic property, and disrupt commerce.

Anyone inside the executive branch -- including the National Security Advisor, the heads of the CIA, the FBI, the Defense Department, and State, as well as the President -- should have simply looked at what at happened in the past and concluded that we were going to be hit, big, soon. Al Qaida can make bombs, had people willing to be martyred, was operating in the US, and was looking for a big hit. And then, they should have done *something* about it -- not nothing, which is what the Bush administration did do, under the excuse "we were not on a war footing", which translates directly to "You liberties-loving folks wouldn't let us do what was necessary even if we wanted to". In other words, it was just too hard to contemplate taking effective action. Indolence. Negligence.


So, for the particular instance of 9/11, the blame lies squarely with those who used our virtues against us. But, for the general failure to read what was obviously on the page and to take effective action to protect the country -- that blame does lie squarely with the administration. Whether or not it is unfair to expect our leaders to do the hard work necessary to protect the country, which this administration failed to do, is something to be decided in November.