Old Fogey's Quotes on the Aftermath of 9/11

How could everything have gone so wrong?

"The problem is that we are the victims of shifting winds here. I can't sit here and tell you in all cases that I will be able to defend you."
Robert M. McNamara Jr. , the CIA's general counsel from 1997 to November 2001, advising station chiefs to buy the insurance against prosecution for interrogation excesses
Worried CIA Officers Buy Legal Insurance
[If CIA employees can be prosecuted for actions approved by this administration, what about the people at the top?]

"Guerrillas are learning faster than Western armies, and the West makes appalling strategic mistakes while the extremists make brilliant tactical moves."
Ahmed Rashid, a Pakistani journalist, and author of "Taliban" and "Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia."
Losing the War on Terror
[This would seem to call for a change in military leadership, but the 'Good Old Boy's Club' is still alive and well]

"In the analytical world, there is a real pall of gloom descending."
Jeffrey White, a former analyst of Middle Eastern militaries for the Defense Intelligence Agency
Situation Called Dire in West Iraq
[How incredibly derelict Congress was for allowing us to get into the quagmire of Iraq, while letting Osama bin Laden and the Taliban to survive]

"With no call to work together on some effort greater than ourselves, we were free to relapse into a self- centeredness that became a second national tragedy. We have spent the last few years fighting each other with more avidity than we fight the enemy."
Editorial in NYTimes about Bush's failure to capitalize on the unity of the nation immediately after 9/11
Editorial: 9/11/06
[The world also displayed a sense of unity with us with services and vigils held all across the globe. Five years later anti-Americanism is at an all time historical high]

I will never again say, "How much harm can one person do?"