How did we get attacked by Islamic Extremists?

Dinesh D'Souza states,

"During the mid to late 1990s, the radical Muslims tested America’s resolve by
launching a series of attacks on American targets. These were massive attacks,
unprecedented in the damage they inflicted. There was the Khobar Towers attack
on American facilities in Saudi Arabia, the bombing of U.S. embassies in East
Africa, the suicide assault on the American warship the U.S.S. Cole.
Yet in
every case the Clinton administration reacted either by doing nothing, or with
desultory counterattacks like a missile strike against largely unoccupied Afghan
tents and the bombing of what was reported to be a pharmaceutical factory in the
Sudan. Clearly these responses inflicted little harm to Al Qaeda and actually
made America look ridiculous in the eyes of the Muslim world. Consequently, Bin
Laden became convinced that his theory of American irresolution and weakness was
substantially correct. By his own account he became emboldened to conceive of a
grander and more devastating strike on American shores, the strike that occurred
on 9/11.
Even so, this strike could have been prevented had the Clinton
administration acted on intelligence leads and struck back at Bin Laden, when it
had the chance. Former CIA agent Michael Scheuer estimates that during the
second term of the Clinton administration America had approximately 10
opportunities to kill Bin Laden, and took none of them. Even Richard Clarke,
Clinton’s terrorism adviser and a Clinton apologist, admits he is mystified why
the American government did not go after and eliminate Bin Laden. After all Bin
Laden had already declared war on America and made war on American targets
abroad"

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