9-11 Commission Report - Have We Learned Anything?

Plenty has changed in America over the last decade. A spectacular stock market advance in the late 1990’s fueled in part by an incredible Internet boom gave way to a bursting of the bubble in early 2000 (nine months before the end of the Clinton presidency and just after Y2K went off without a hitch). In the early part of the first decade of the new millennium, horrific scandals rocked corporate boardrooms resulting in jail terms for a number of scoundrels. And nine years ago this Saturday, suicidal hijackers brought the world to a halt when they crashed passenger jets into the World Trade Center Towers and the Pentagon. Only the heroism of American passengers on a fourth hijacked airliner prevented even greater damage and more loss of life in our nation’s capital. America regained its confidence after 9-11. But over the last three years America has lost it again. As the mid-term election approaches we find that partisan political discussions in the United States are thinly disguised efforts to pit neighbors against neighbors and sometimes even family members against one another.
Even when partisan politics gets set aside, Americans seem to be having a difficult time sorting out the new reality. Unemployment is stubbornly high and international terrorism is a permanent fixture on the landscape. With the shootings at Fort Hood and failed attacks at Times Square, it has become clear that radical Muslim terrorist have made their presence known INSIDE our borders. Could it happen again? Of course it could.

It is fair to say that the U.S. economy and financial markets have been in a bit of a rut now for more than a decade. Interest rates available to savers and investors are minuscule. Despite the fact that our society has always faced problems, today’s challenges seem particularly hard to digest. Tracing America’s problem-solving challenges, we can easily identify at least six key historical turning points since 1776. The Civil War, WWI, The Great Depression, WWII, The Cold War, and 9-11 are pivot points in history.

We believe that each of these events or turning points in American history have something in common. Each of these points in history ushered in drastic changes in the attitudes of our citizens and subsequently changes in the policies of our leaders. In the summer of 2004 the 9-11 Commission released its report to the public (read here). We remember having waited anxiously for this report for quite some time. It is important to recognize that The 9-11 Commission Report was written and endorsed unanimously by a bi-partisan group of respected public servants (five democrats and five republicans signed the final document). While we had no intention of pretending to become experts on terrorism in general or the events of 9-11 in particular, we felt it was absolutely critical as professional investors to read the 9-11 Commission’s Report thoroughly.

Gaining a deep understanding of the commission’s unanimous recommendations was crucial for a number of reasons. It remains our belief that not long after the partisan chatter of each ensuing election has died down, the commission recommendations should have established the framework for the change of policy debates that will define America’s approach to international terror and homeland security. Sadly this has not been the case. Clues about the nature of changes that should have been made are still available to those willing to do the homework. With all of the violence in Mexico, the clear evidence of the boldness of Mexican drug cartels to engage in human smuggling, and now the safety corridor proposed for human smugglers which will be part of the Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks Wilderness Act (read here), one has to wonder if our New Mexico senators and congressmen have even read the 9-11 Commission Report. We doubt that they have because it does not take much “imagination” to see the folly in what has been proposed for our southern border.

9-11 Commission Report - Have We Learned Anything?