Tag Archives: terrorism

Two months after the 1998 bombers of the U.S. embassy in Kenya were convicted, al-Qaeda destroyed the Twin Towers, struck the Pentagon, and was foiled by the martyred patriots of Flight 93 in an attempt to attack the Capitol or the White House. Unlike its predecessor, the Bush administration deemed the attack an act of war, as did Congress, which overwhelmingly authorized the use of military force a week later. American officials were dispatched to foreign lands to conduct military and intelligence operations, not criminal investigations. Prosecution, which in the eight previous years had managed to neutralize fewer than three dozen jihadists, most of them low-level, was aptly judged to have been a provocatively weak response to a transnational terrorist network with global aims and frightful capabilities. Continue reading →