A Candidate for Commitment
Posted by Richard on Sunday, 29 August 2004Richard Posner: “The narrative points to something different, banal and deeply disturbing: that it is almost impossible to take effective action to prevent something that hasn't occurred previously. Once the 9/11 attacks did occur, measures were taken that have reduced the likelihood of a recurrence. But before the attacks, it was psychologically and politically impossible to take those measures. The government knew that Al Qaeda had attacked United States facilities and would do so again. But the idea that it would do so by infiltrating operatives into this country to learn to fly commercial aircraft and then crash such aircraft into buildings was so grotesque that anyone who had proposed that we take costly measures to prevent such an event would have been considered a candidate for commitment.”
Posner argues the report, which I have not yet read, is excellent in terms of quality of writing, is very flawed in its analysis and recommendations. It criticizes Presidents Clinton and Bush for “narrow and unimaginative menu of options for action” when Posner writes that instead “[t]he options considered were varied and imaginative” but not feasible. He then lists recommendations that the narrative section of the report implied would be made—there is a risk that they could be read as Posner's recommendations, which is not necessarily true (except the biometric passport recommendation)—compared to the recommendations actually made. The main argument Posner is making, though, is that the commission, much like American culture, is predisposed to ascribing the success of a surprise attack to structural problems rather than the fact that the attack was, by definition, inconceivable, or, in Nassim Taleb's words, a black swan. Americans have been successful in planning for an attack similar to Sept. 11th, but the problem is that the next major attack will be nothing like what they have planned for.