While watching the 9/11 hearings, I'm still looking for one in the highest levels of the Bush administration.
When was this question ever asked of Bill Clinton? And there's a difference between a mistake and the kind of moral exhibitionism which caused Slick Willie to issue meaningless apologies for things for which he was NOT responsible. Might've been nice if he'd done so for the wrongs for which he was, like Juanita Broadderick).
Someone else said it, so I'll quote him: "someone asked him if he ever admits any mistakes. He couldn't think of any. The liberals in the media must be seething over that one. Then came the question about the PDB, and they couldn't get him on that either. The underlying premise of many of the questions is the standard liberal mantra these days: that President Bush knew about the attacks on 9/11 before they happened and did nothing. To them, it's all a big conspiracy."
.. Dear Friend James, who cares about Bill Clinton? Mr Bush had the watch when this happened. The buck stops at his desk. Why is this so hard to understand? His administration was in place when this happened. He was sitting around waiting for a "strategy".
I am NOT saying Mr Bush should be fired for this. I am saying he has to take responsibility for it. Who cares what the Dems do with his statement! It will mean that he has to run on other parts of his record: Iraq, the Economy, the Environment, ... He just has to quit wrapping himself in the 9/11 flag.
Harry
No, but then again, it wasn't another speeder or his apologist who was issuing the ticket, either.
And if the idea is to determine how to prevent another 9/11 (and I don't think that's the purpose of the Commission, it just should be) then it's appropriate to determine where the most serious mistakes were made. Were they in a failure to shut down the nation's transportation system on August 6, where there was no specific warnning? Or was it more properly in the failure to take UBL from Sudan when he was offered? Or, as I tend to believe, would taking him have made no difference?
I don't think Bush "should take responsibility for this," any more than Clinton should have taken responsibility for the Murrah Building bombing in Oklahoma City. And unless you believe that Clinton should have, you shouldn't be trying to blame Bush for 9/11. The only people who bear the blame for that infamy are UBL, the 19 hijackers, and any bastard who aided their efforts.
The fact is, we were all complacent and taken off guard by the attacks. Virtually the only person who ever envisioned such a thing was Tom Clancy (Debt of Honor), and even he did not contemplate an organized terror attack on this scale. The fact is, until 9/11, your chances of surviving a hijacking were pretty good.
Trying to "blame" the Bush Administration for the attacks is the worst kind of partisanship. And if Democrats object to holding FDR responsible for the Pearl Harbor disaster --- an attack by a nation-state which was much more predictable than 9/11 --- then they are engaged on a fool's errand in trying to slander GWB with blame for 9/11.
The fact is, MOST people, including most Democrats, and moderates, do NOT hold Bush responsible for 9/11, and are fully willing to acknowledge that even had we had an inkling of what Bin Laden planned to do, we as a nation could not have POLITICALLY shown the will to engage in the type of drastic action (i.e. turning Afghanistan upside down) that would have been necessary to truly impact Al Qaida pre-9/11. This was as true in the first 8 months of the Bush administration as it was under Clinton. What we DO hold Bush responsible for is the fiasco that Iraq has become, and the arrogance that Bush has used in attempting to link his Iraq agenda with 9/11. He has essentially justified the Iraq overthrow the the American people on the 3000 corpses of 9/11, when there is PLENTY of evidence that the Iraqi invasion planning was already in the works pre-9/11, and Saddam had nothing to do with Al Qaida. What makes this even worse is how Iraq NOW has become a TRUE breeding ground for Moslem fundamentalist terror, directed at us and our allies, when before the invasion, it was simply a dictatorship that terrorized it's OWN people and occassionally blustered at a weak neighbor like Kuwait. In fact, the overthrow of Saddam has done MORE to consolidate and empower, and UNIFY the various factions of radical Islam against US, than anything ever had, before or since. And it is THAT long term disaster that Bush will have to answer for, as long as Radical Islamics remain a substantial terror threat to us. It is no longer one rich Saudi Lunatic and a band of several hundred of his followers. It's now something like the most extremist 5% of close to a BILLION people who are now united with the goal of inflicting harm on our way of life. Not all of these 10s of millions of moslems are now terrorists themselves, of course, but they ARE now terrorist sympathizers, who will help to fund the terrorists, and help to conceal their identities until they deliver harm to us. And THAT is what we hold George W. Bush accountable for. Not his failure to prevent 9/11, but his failure to take advantage of a moment in history when the ENTIRE civilized world was united in the horror of how wrong this terror was, and SQUANDERING this historic opportunity on his own petty agenda against Saddam Hussein.
I blame him for using it in a shameless political way to achieve his own agenda and that of Halliburton and the Saudi Royal Family.
Figuring out what to do to prevent attacks in the future is part of the presidents job. Mr Bush can use the 9/11 findings to help or not. He is responsible.
The President (the sitting president) has the responsibility to stop this kind of shit from happening. If they happen, he is responsible
The terrorists are responsible for the attacks. The govennment is responsible for allowing them to happen.
No, we were not all complacent. Read what Clark and Rice said in the hearings. The government was in a high state of alert in the US and abroad in June and July before the bombings. There were warnings popping up all over the place. Senior elements in the administration were ignoring them. There were mechanisms in place for dealing with the issues. They may not have been the best mechanisms and there may be something better, but we could have tried something.
No, the Dems don't have to take responsibiolity for FDR before the GOP will accept any responsibility for 9/11. If your attitude represents the current administration, Mr Bush will substantially reduce his chance to hold on to the White House. You are talking like some goddamn CEO reading a statement his legal team wrote for him "Without admitting guilt, we will agree not to contest the judgement...". The government failed in it's most fundamental duty.
Bush should say all this.. He should not mention Clinton. He should look and act like a president who is willing to stand up and face the consequences of his own successes and failures. Anything less leaves him looking like a man who can't look himself in the eye at night.
Too busy getting hummers to take care of small matters like this I suppose...
Naw, it was more important to get rid of Saddam. Well, he probably fantasized about killing 3000 Americans so that makes shifting the focus of the war on terrorism from Osama to him okay.
Based on the facts, your post doesn't make much sense. There is alot of focus on capturing Osama Bin Laden. That has not changed since 9/11. SOCOM soldiers have been operating along the border regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan non-stop. The total Army presence is about 10,000 soldiers, plus 2,200 Marines from the 22nd MEU were deployed as of March 31. Since things are going well, not much attention is given from the mainstream media.
My nephew (an outstanding Paratrooper following in his proud uncle's footsteps) returned from a 6 month tour of The Stan last summer. He's serving in the 504th PIR, 82nd Airborne Division. They were very aggressive with their operations.
RLTW
I didn't say that we've abandoned the hunt for Bin Laden. But it's absurd to say that he was a higher priority than Hussein on Bush's list when you consider the effort and resources we've spent to get each one. Or do you think that even if we had 100,000+ troops in Afghanistan for most of the past year that we still wouldn't have gotten him by now?
This is assinine! Who gives a fuck what Clinton does?
According to the captured Al Quaeda Chief of Operations (can't remember his name-the fat guy that the Pakistanis pulled out in the middle of the night), the 9/11 operation was being planned since 1995. Bin Laden was already living happily and freely in Afghanistan supported by the Taliban. Earlier during Clinton's presidency the Sudanese offered up Bin Laden to the U.S. when he was in their country, but Clinton turned down the offer because of being too controversial. And then after it was determined that Al Quaeda had a hand in the first attempt on the World Trade Center, Clinton responded by blowing up some Afghan desert with million dollar cruise missiles.
Because of these actions Bin Laden, Al Quaeda, & the Taliban looked upon the U.S. as too meek and afraid to risk actual military contact. They were in fact emboldened by Clinton's responses because they thought they could act against America with minimal consequences.
I kind of liked Clinton, could care less about his white house blow jobs (I'm sure he wasn't the first), but he was a political animal-his actions, or lack of, were always a result of opinion polls. At least Bush is pulling out the stops to get the extremists who would gladly kill you, me, and the rest of the civilized world to go to their psychotic view of paradise.
In spite of the political polarity, there's plenty of blame to go around for both parties.
-- Modified on 4/15/2004 10:53:37 AM
Clinton screwed up. I will agree. Lets start with that.
Here is what this does NOT mean:
- Clinton has to take blame "first"
- there is something "fair" about all this
- what Bush did after 9/11 gives him a pass for what he did (or did not)
do before 9/11. The country was successfully attacked and thousands of
people were killed
Here is a sure fire formula for the GOP to lose the national election.
i) Clinton gives a major speech and says "I should have done a lot of things to get
Ben Lauden when I was in charge. I knew the thrreat and underestimated it.
I consider it my greatest failure and it eats at me every day.... ".
ii) the GOP says "See, it's all Clinton's fault!!".
The way to handle this is to get out in front! It's obvious. The speech for Bush to do this writes itself.
I am concerned that the people in the White House are so ego driven and obsessed with being right (and frightened of failure) that they think they did not fail the American People. That's lawyer thinking, not leader thinking
The country has major foreign and domestic issues it will face in the next four years. Both parties have something to contribute to this debate. It won't go forward until the GOP deals with this wart on the end of it's nose. I, for one, hope they do.
What we're concerned about is the CURRENT arrogance of the sitting President, who's ACTIVE policies represent a security disaster for the country GOING FORWARD.
The ancient history of Bill Clinton's presidency is just a historical footnote, just as Bush 1's Iraq policies would be, if the same people were not STILL running things with a hard-on for Iraq, and now have gotten us into a quagmire that is being mismanaged into a catastrophy with the potential to escalate into WW III in the guise of a latter day crusade against the Moslem world.
... because he honestly believes that he has never and will never make a mistake. Since he truely believes that he was annoited by god to be president, he is incapable of making a mistake.