I know today is a day of remberance and maybe we shouldn't play the blame game today, but I will.
The first line from the top story on the New York Times website reads "Just as Sept. 11 was unthinkable, Sunday was inevitable..."
I beg to differ.
The events that unfolded were thinkable. In fact, they'd been thought of several times. Maybe not specifically in the presidential daily briefing, but at least two authors had thought of a plot along the same lines.
When I woke up September 11, 2001 and heard about the attacks, I realized I'd read about something like this before.
Spoiler Alert
First, in the book Storming Heaven by Dale Brown, a terrorist uses commercial aircraft to drop bombs on airports around the U.S. His final plot is to paint a 747 like Air Force One and then crash it into the White House. Coincidentally, around the time this book was released a whack job thought it would be a good idea to crash a plane into the White House lawn.
So not only had someone dedicated to creating fiction thought of it, someone tried to implement it on a smaller scale.
Second, in Tom Clancy's book Debt of Honor a suicidal Japanes airline pilot crashes a 747 into Congress killing the President and just about every member of the U.S. Legislature.
The events that happened on September 11, 2001 were not only thinkable, they were preventable. Along with the people who died and gave their lives on September 11, we should never forget that it didn't need to happen and it could have been prevented had an attitude of arrogance and invincibility not dominated the White House at the time.
Never forget, someone is to blame.