What Rummy Didn't Learn in Lebanon

[maha]

Old Dogs. Old Tricks.

Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld continues the Bush Administration tradition of revisionist history in today's Washington Post. He's written an op ed headlined "Take the Fight to the Terrorists" in which he declares he learned all he needed to know about terrorism from the Beirut U.S. Marine barricks bombing that occurred 20 years ago this week.

(snips)

Rummy says,

When the Marine barracks was attacked two decades ago, the terrorist threat was largely conventional. Terrorists had weapons that could kill dozens or, in the case of the Beirut bombing, hundreds of people. On Sept. 11 the terrorists grew even bolder -- bringing the war to our shores and using techniques that allowed them to kill not hundreds but thousands.

I hate to break it to you, Rummy, but folks had box cutters and passenger planes and jet fuel 20 years ago. Terrorists have not, on the whole, developed new and more dangerous weapons technologies in the past 20 years. The biggest difference is that there are more terrorists now than then, and they are a lot more determined.

Let's skip back to Beirut. The lesson Rummy learned was that those nasty terrorists were an inventive group who did not respect barricades. But what other lessons might Rummy have learned?

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