One of the most frustrating aspects of understanding our tepid response to Islamism is how America was so slow to react. The distrust between the CIA and the FBI made both agencies less effective and in fact we've made little progress on the IT issues in the meantime. Years after the fact data collection and sharing is still problematic between law enforcement. The handling by law enforcement and political administrations in viewing the original 1993 attack on the World Trade Center as individual criminal issues, and not part of a concerted effort against Western infidels, was wrong-headed. While the American public was dazzled by the O.J. Simpson trial and the Jon Benet Ramsay murder investigation the West was under attack. The blind Sheik Rahman and his fellow terrorists were already conspiring to blow up N.Y. city landmarks and bridges. This nation slept during the Reagan years when we withdrew from Lebanon after the Marine barracks truck bombing right through the Clinton years when we pulled out of Somalia after the downing of a Blackhawk.
It is little wonder that America was viewed as a tepid power. Weakness emboldens the desperate to increase their efforts. The victims on 9/11 paid the price.
