[D9 (RIP)]

The ridiculous thing about this commission is that it is completely focused on the wrong thing.

It's as if a man moves into your neighborhood, and you discover he is a child molester. Later, a child is flashed by this man in a park. The police hold a news conference, announce that he is a danger, warn the public to be on the lookout for him, and even call him to tell him that there will be "consequences," at the appropriate time. A security guard is hired to walk the park and help prevent flashers. Months go by.

Later, the same man fondles a child at the playground. The police again make announcements about the danger of this man to the community. At the request of the police department, the child molester is put under surveillance, and broadcasts are made on local media warning the community of the danger. The police commissioner promises to step up security around the playground, so that no more molestations will occur there. In a televised news conference, the police deliver a message to the molester: if he continues, there will be severe consequences. They even write him a parking ticket as a demonstration of their resolve. More months go by.

Eventually, the man is being reported by members of the community to be spending more and more time hovering around the schoolyard during reccess. The police scramble to keep him under constant surveillence, and even bring in some confidants of the molester to attempt to ascertain when he will strike again so that they can foil him. On a few occassions when it appears he is about to grab a child the police intervene, barring his way and chasing him away with stern language.

But a day finally comes when the man snatches a little girl off the playground and runs into the woods with her before the police can intervene. By the time they arrive the little girl has been savagely raped and strangled, and is lifeless at the feet of the giggling savage standing over her.

He is put in a holding cell while they determine what to do with him. The citizens are naturally horrified and shocked at such an attack, and are even more shocked to discover that a records check reveals that there are several other child molesters living in the area. They decide a committe will convene to investigate the failures in government that permitted this horrible murder to occur.

The commission convenes and spends all of its time addressing the question of how, on the day the murder occurred, the police:

1. failed to detect in advance that he had chosen that day to strike

2. had an escape route into the woods accessible so that they could not get to him before he made it there

3. did not have security in place to intervene immediately as soon as it was obvious that he was going to grab a child

The huge question in the example above that is obviously both relevant and conspicuous by its absence is: why wasn't he arrested after the first incidents? Why was he allowed to continue to exist among the community after the very first incident?

Al Qaeda was responsible for numerous terrorist incidents before 9/11/01, and any of them should have been enough to start the GWOT. IMO, any commission that focuses on how we could've prevented 9/11 without directing 99% of its attention to the question of why we never killed the bastards after they perpetrated the bombings in Africa, of the USS Cole, etc., is absurd on its face.