Writing in Sunday’s Washington Post, Richard Clarke, the former counterterrorism chief under Presidents Clinton and Bush, slammed Dick Cheney and Condoleezza Rice for invoking what he called “the White House 9/11 trauma defense” — namely, the shock of 9/11 was so great as to justify all and any actions taken in the name of national defense. Clarke called the decisions on interrogations, detentions, and Iraq were all “wrong,” and the White House panic proved that Cheney and company had simply been ignoring the warning signs:

Cheney’s admission that 9/11 caused him to reassess the threats to the nation only underscores how, for months, top officials had ignored warnings from the CIA and the NSC staff that urgent action was needed to preempt a major al-Qaeda attack.

Speaking at the National Press Club today, Cheney struck back at Clarke. When asked about Clarke’s argument, Cheney — once again — invoked the “burning ashes” of 9/11 and the victims who leaped to their deaths from the World Trade Center. Then, quite succinctly, Cheney pinned the entire blame for 9/11 on Clarke:

CHENEY: You know, Dick Clarke. Dick Clarke, who was the head of the counterrorism program in the run-up to 9/11. He obviously missed it. The fact is that we did what we felt we had to do, and if I had to do it all over again, I would do exactly the same thing.

Watch it:

When the moderator reminded Cheney that Clarke had repeatedly warned the administration about al Qaeda’s determination to attack the U.S., Cheney snarkily replied, “That’s not my recollection, but I haven’t read his book.”

In fact, it was Cheney who “missed” the warning signs, not Clarke. New York Times reporter Philip Shenon’s book, “The Commission: The Uncensored History of the 9/11 Investigation,” reprinted some of Clarke’s emphatic e-mails warning the Bush administration of the al Qaeda threat throughout 2001:

“Bin Ladin Public Profile May Presage Attack” (May 3)

“Terrorist Groups Said Co-operating on US Hostage Plot” (May 23)

“Bin Ladin’s Networks’ Plans Advancing” (May 26)

“Bin Ladin Attacks May Be Imminent” (June 23)

“Bin Ladin and Associates Making Near-Term Threats” (June 25)

“Bin Ladin Planning High-Profile Attacks” (June 30)

“Planning for Bin Ladin Attacks Continues, Despite Delays” (July 2)

Similarly, Time Magazine reported in 2002 that Clarke had an extensive plan to “roll back” al Qaeda — a plan that languished for months, ignored by senior Bush officials:

Clarke, using a Powerpoint presentation, outlined his thinking to Rice. … In fact, the heading on Slide 14 of the Powerpoint presentation reads, “Response to al Qaeda: Roll back.” … The proposals Clarke developed in the winter of 2000-01 were not given another hearing by top decision makers until late April, and then spent another four months making their laborious way through the bureaucracy before they were readied for approval by President Bush.

Cheney needs to check his “recollections” before blaming former employees for the single most devastating attack in American history.

An editorial in Israel’s Haaretz praises the Obama administration’s call for a settlement freeze, writing that “the settlements threaten to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and the implementation of the partition solution, which is essential for preserving Israel’s future as a Jewish and democratic state.”

Defending the settlements requires Israel to operate a complex system of access roads and roadblocks, which make Palestinians’ lives more difficult and inflict serious financial harm on them.

Every Israeli government since 1967 has insisted on building and developing the settlements, causing the country severe political damage. The massive resources invested in sustaining and enlarging the settlements come at the expense of other national goals, like the development of the Negev and the Galilee.

For all these reasons, the demand to freeze settlement construction is just and wise. The Obama administration is refusing to accept the natural growth excuse that Israel has made to previous American administrations. Under their protection, Israel has continually increased the number of settlers in the territories and the infrastructure meant for their use — primarily the segregated road system and the invasive route of the separation fence, which is intended to facilitate Israel’s de facto annexation of part of the West Bank.

Meanwhile, the Weekly Standard’s Mike Goldfarb takes time out from his role as the Internet’s leading purveyor of privileged white boy ressentiment to express outrage at the administration’s demand that Israel cease expansion of settlements in Arab East Jerusalem:

Now the Obama administration has decided that Jerusalem must be divided and that the Jews must stop building in areas that should be handed over to Palestinians at some undetermined date in the future. The State Department is demanding “that Israel limit Jewish growth in these areas of Jerusalem, ‘whose status remains to be determined’ in negotiations.” Apparently the third principle that must apply to Jerusalem is that Jews cannot build on land the Obama administration has set aside for other uses — like appeasing the Arabs.

Goldfarb also passes along a quote from an Israeli government spokesman, who complained that “I have to admire the residents of Iroquois territory for assuming that they have a right to determine where Jews should live in Jerusalem.” That’s funny, but I actually don’t think the comparison of Palestinians to Native Americans really works in Israel’s favor, given that most people now accept that the mass oppression and dispossession of indigenous peoples is a bad thing.

You will of course remember Goldfarb’s numerous posts condemning Israel’s bulldozing of Palestinian homes and the various other measures used to prevent Palestinian growth and strengthen the Jewish presence in East Jerusalem. Just kidding. Goldfarb has never expressed any problem with preventing Palestinians from building in Arab East Jerusalem. On the other hand, the Obama administration’s insistence that the Israelis stop expanding settlements on expropriated land elicits an immediate howl of injustice. And also appeasement.

On second thought, this still may qualify as privileged white boy ressentiment.

I completely agree with Cara Kulwicki and Ann Friedman: The murder of Dr. George Tiller was an act of terrorism. It’s goal was to intimidate women against exercising their right to choose abortion, and to intimidate doctors who perform them. The government has a duty to see that this intimidation fails — protecting the legal right of women to choose and secure a safe abortion is a U.S. national security issue.

I also think Adam Serwer is on to something important when he writes that “despite the fact that American politics has been fixated on terrorism for almost a decade, we’ve failed to establish a clear and concise definition for terrorism”:

I don’t think it’s because terrorism is so amorphous that it requires the pornography standard (“I know it when I see it”), but rather because any proper definition might implicate us as a nation in having participated in terrorism in the past. [...]

My working definition of terrorism is pretty simple: Terrorism is the deliberate murder of civilians or destruction of property in order to achieve a political objective. I think this definition works because it covers everything from cross-burnings and lynchings to the Weathermen bombings to the attack on the World Trade Center.

It’s not so much that we’ve failed to establish a definition of terrorism — I think the one Adam gives is generally accepted — as much as we just neglect or simply refuse to apply it to political violence on behalf of causes to which we’re sympathetic. Terrorism is what the other side does.

Greg Sargent makes the excellent point that the intent of the much-maligned Dept. of Homeland Security report on right-wing extremism “which was chock full of warnings about ‘lone wolf extremists’ capable of violence, now looks perfectly defensible, even reasonable.”

Despite the predictable whining of anti-choice extremists (is there any scenario in which conservatives can’t cast themselves as the real victims?), it is perfectly appropriate to ask what effect the sort of inflammatory rhetoric coming from Bill O’Reilly, Ann Coulter and others had on the Dr. Tiller’s murderer. We certainly shouldn’t lump all anti-choice Americans, the vast majority of whom are of course non-violent and seek to enforce their preferences primarily through the legal system, together with the terrorist who killed Tiller, but neither should we pretend that O’Reilly’s ominous promises of “judgment” to come and Coulter’s assassination humor had no effect at all.