    44

    to

    search for the murderers and attempt to stop them from attacking

    Americans in the future.  Instead, U.S. journalists and politicos kicked

    off an investigation to find... an American villain--some U.S. citizen who

    had "failed to provide the base with adequate security."  The tendency

    to bicker internally had totally obliterated our ability to look carefully

    at outside threats.  And we will never be able to overcome threats we

    refuse to see.

    No one stays on top of the pecking order forever.  This is a

    difficult lesson to learn.  Debate is a necessity.  But if it becomes

    irrational, violent, and blind to the menaces beyond our borders, it can

    doom us.  Just ask the Byzantines.

      be smashed with an "iron hand."  Governmental agencies did not

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