My favorite line:
"The Clinton administration did not present an aggressive new plan to topple al-Qaeda during the transition," a White House spokesman, Sean McCormack, said at the time.
Telling Bush about it wasn't enough - they needed directions.
He did nothing!! Not after the first WTC bombing, the two embassies, and the Cole. Oh, pardon me he did bomb an aspirin factory. I understand he lit the fuses with his cigar.
Convoluted Rice said in her testimony before the commission that Bin Laden wasn't identified for the Cole incident until after Bush took office, and even then they didn't consider it an act of war. Call the White House about that one.
Stated during her testimony that there was no "international" agreement that would have allowed the US to go into Afganistan after Bin Laden until after the murders on 9/11/2001. One of the issues that we face is the we live in a more and more connected world, which, in some unfortunate cases limits what we can do in response to threats.
-- Modified on 4/15/2004 7:00:04 PM
Le Figaro reported in Summer 2001 that the CIA station chief in Dubai met with OBL in his hospital room while undergoing dialysis. Curiously, the American media thought reporting that little factoid was not important enough to be printed.
Do a Google search if you don't believe me. Some alternative news sites have translated the article into English.
I noticed you only addressed one of the incidents!
The ticket to go after Bin Laden did not exist until after 9/11. The best that could have been done would be to try those captured for crimes, as Clinton did or launch missiles at a camp that may have held Bin Laden, as Clinton did. The only other possible path would have been to insert covert teams to get Bin Laden, which would almost surely have been committing those brave commandos to death. What would have Clinton done had he been president on 9/11/2001? Impossible to tell, because he obviously was retired.
Bush did the right thing in response to 9/11 by going after the Taliban and Bin Laden. The only regret that I have today is that the effort in Afganistan was not pressed relentlessly from the first minute that it was launched. I really do not know whether Clinton or Gore, or whoever, would have done the job better. Determining whether, in hind sight, things would be different with someone else in office other than Bush is a silly exercise in revisionist logic. Facts are obvious, speculation is not.
-- Modified on 4/15/2004 7:03:26 PM
-- Modified on 4/15/2004 7:04:50 PM
Truth be told, the American people did nothing either. Believe me, if there had been sustained public interest after our embassies the Cole, and the WTC(1) were attacked, it would have been moved higher on the agenda. My question is, would conservatives have supported Clinton in a more "hawkish" stance then? Get out of here! They would have fought him every step of the way, and did every time he got a little hawkish (i.e. "aspirin factory"). They didn't want action more than anybody else, they didn't agitate for it. It wasn't made a campaign issue for Bush. Nobody voted for him because he was going to stick it to Bin Laden.
/Zin
Yeah, I can just imagine this conversation (though probably not in as much detail as Clinton imagined it):
(Doing your best Slick Willie impression)
"Yeah, George, and ah believe that the biggest threat you'll face is from Osamer bin Laaden. 'Been growing for years, and yeah, ah know ah haven't actually done anything 'bout it. Too busy gettin' hummers from that lard-assed Jewess. And ah thought the difference between a JAP and death was that death sucks! Ark, ark! Guess we disproved that. But hey, it's your problem now. Osamer, I mean, not Monica. Handle it immediately, why don't y'all?"
And I seem to remember that Arkansas Slick also pointed his finger and said "I did not have sex with that woman. Ms. Lewinsky."
Yeah,
I suppose he pointed his finger at us, shook it and said "I did not have sexual relations with"...I mean "I told Bush about bin Laden".
When are people going to realize that Clinton can't or won't tell the truth unless there is something in it for him.
It is a sad state of affairs when all you have to go on is which politician lies better than the other.
B
"Those guys get blow jobs! You can't trust anything they say because they get blow jobs!"
Grow up.
Puhl---eeeze!
And Bush is some amazing paragon of selflessness? What the hell is going on with Haliburton and his buddies fleecing the American taxpayer at Bush's and Cheney's invitation while the blood of people that they would'nt even associate with if not for the blood they are willing to spill for such greedy profiteers runs in the streets?