I haven't posted a think on the Richard Clarke allegation NOT because I don't think he has some legitimate points, but mostly because I'm willing to give everyone a pass on the pre-9/11 security issue. I'm sure there are hundreds of things hundreds of different people could have done differently, from low levels of government to high levels of government. But I, like almost everyone, was smug about the threat of Islamic Fascism. How our government was supposed to respond to this minor threat (how I viewed it at the time), I'm not sure. I know no one would have advocated invading Afghanistan at the time, although in hindsight we should have. And of course, if the FBI had done their job and tracked the terrorists more effectively earlier, 9-11 could have been prevented. But we all know the FBI is set up to find criminals once crimes are committed, not the preventative force that we need to fight terrorism.

To me, it is now important to acknowledge Islamic Fascism as a major threat to the US and the rest of the world and to understand that it is not only a war against specific terrorist groups, but against an entire apparatus, of financing, recruiting, and conditions that give rise to this threat.