“History, in general, only informs us of what bad government is.” Thomas Jefferson, first Secretary of State of the United States
On September 11 of 2001 Islamic Terrorists flew hijacked airliners into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, killing some three thousand innocent people. Fifteen of the nineteen 9/11 hijackers had been fast-tracked into this country from Saudi Arabia, despite a large number of obvious red flags that should have prevented any of them from getting visas. This attack on our nation had at least one thing in common with the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963; it could have been, and should have been, prevented by the US State Department.
Don’t expect to hear that in a college history course. College professors, like other liberals, are reluctant to question the efficacy of government bureaucracies. Leftist tend to view Government as the source of all wisdom, and the solution to every problem. It would be hard for any left winger to admit that negligence on the part of government officials facilitated the deaths of thousands of innocent people.
And the State Department is held to be even more sacrosanct than other government agencies. Criticizing the State Department for sloppiness in security matters is, after all, the original sin of right wing “McCarthyism.” It shouldn’t surprise anyone that stories of bureaucratic inefficiency and irresponsibility at Foggy Bottom tend to be left out of mainstream history books.
