Is Bin Laden Dead? - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

Infinite_Loser · 09-23-2006, 09:08 AM

http://www.time.com/time/world/artic...0.html?cnn=yes

Quote:

Is Bin Laden Dead?

Posted Saturday, Sep. 23, 2006

Fugitive Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, believed to be on the run in rugged terrain in the Afghan-Pakistani border region since the September 11 attacks five years ago, has become seriously ill and may have already died, a Saudi source tells TIME, echoing earlier reports in the French media.

The source, speaking on condition of anonymity, says that Saudi officials have received multiple credible reports over the last several weeks that Bin Laden has been suffering from a water-borne illness. The source believes that there is a "high probability" that Bin Laden has already died from the disease, but stressed that Saudi officials have thus far received no concrete evidence of Bin Laden's death.

"This is not a rumor," says the source. "He is very ill. He got a water-related sickness and it could be terminal. There are a lot of serious facts about things that have actually happened. There is a lot to it. But we don't have any concrete information to say that he is dead."

On Saturday, the French newspaper L'Est Republicain cited a report by the French intelligence service, Direction Generale des Services Exteriors (DGSE), saying that Saudi intelligence officials "seem to have become convinced that Osama bin Laden is dead." The report quoted by the newspaper said the Saudis believe bin Laden "might have succumbed to a very serious case of typhoid fever resulting in partial paralysis of his lower limbs while in Pakistan on August 23, 2006."

The DGSE report quoted by L'Est Republicain said that its information on the Saudi findings came from a "usually reliable source," indicating that it did not necessarily come directly from Saudi intelligence officials. The DGSE report cited by the newspaper said that Bin Laden's geographic isolation made it difficult for him to receive proper medical assistance for his ailment. The report said that Saudi intelligence picked up the first news of bin Laden's alleged demise on September 4. The DGSE says that Saudi authorities are waiting to get more details, "notably the exact place of his burial, before officially announcing the news," the newspaper said, citing what it called verbatim text from the report.

L'est Republicain, based in Metz in eastern France covering the Lorraine region, says the French secret services considered the DGSE report reliable enough to transmit it last Thursday to the highest levels of the French government, specifically to French President Jacques Chirac, Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy and Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie. Alliot-Marie has reportedly demanded an investigation into the leak of the DGSE report to L'Est Republicain.

Do I personally believe Bin Laden is dead? I'm not sure. I'm more inclined to believe that the reports of his death are fraudulent and only an attempt by the United States and its allies to mask the fact that Bin Laden will never be caught. If he's dead, then the manhunt is over and the invasion of Afghanistan was a success (Though, in recent months, it seems as if everyone has forgotten about Bin Laden all together).

Ustwo · 09-23-2006, 09:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Infinite_Loser

http://www.time.com/time/world/artic...0.html?cnn=yes

Do I personally believe Bin Laden is dead? I'm not sure. I' I'm more inclined to believe that the reports of his death are fraudulent and only an attempt by the United States and its allies to mask the fact that Bin Laden will never be caught. If he's dead, then the manhunt is over and the invasion of Afghanistan was a success (Though, in recent months, it seems as if everyone has forgotten about Bin Laden all together).

I can't see this as why make people think he is dead when a new video makes you look like an idiot. Based on how he would have to live and his medical conditions he may well be dead, or it may be a ploy to hope to convince the west he is dead to ease on pressure to find him, or it just might be the usual anonymous source talking out his ass.

Edit: The other possibility is to draw him out. Say he is dead so he feels the need to make another video with the hope being something with the video is a clue to his location.

Infinite_Loser · 09-23-2006, 01:40 PM

It's been five years since 9/11 and the subsequent invasion of Afghanistan, yet the United States is no closer to finding Bin Laden than they were during the Clinton administration.

At this point, they already look like an idiot.

Ustwo · 09-23-2006, 02:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Infinite_Loser

It's been five years since 9/11 and the subsequent invasion of Afghanistan, yet the United States is no closer to finding Bin Laden than they were during the Clinton administration.

At this point, they already look like an idiot.

That nice that you think that, you are obviously a member of the intelligence community and I am glad you have given us your assessment of hunt for OBL.

Marvelous Marv · 09-23-2006, 02:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Infinite_Loser

It's been five years since 9/11 and the subsequent invasion of Afghanistan, yet the United States is no closer to finding Bin Laden than they were during the Clinton administration.

At this point, they already look like an idiot.

Correction: During the Clinton administration, the US was offered Bin Laden on a platter, twice. Clinton declined.

Who's the idiot?

Elphaba · 09-23-2006, 04:04 PM

Chirac says that the information isn't confirmed.

Would this be the "October Surprise" that Rove is predicting?

host · 09-23-2006, 04:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Marvelous Marv

Correction: During the Clinton administration, the US was offered Bin Laden on a platter, twice. Clinton declined.

Who's the idiot?

I guess I am, Marv, for taking your "bait". I can't tell if you're throwing out some partisan talking points, or if you have some support for what you are posting.
My research indicates that there is a low probability that your "on a platter, twice", statement is supported by the actual record.

Kindly show us what you got, and a link to each supporting reference, would be much appreciated, and a welcome change from what has been seen around here lately from some posters.

Elphaba · 09-23-2006, 04:31 PM

Tecoyah had some very good data on the Clinton administration's attempts to find obl on another politics forum. I miss his posts here but I can also understand why he no longer bothers to make the effort.

Ustwo · 09-23-2006, 06:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by host

I guess I am, Marv, for taking your "bait". I can't tell if you're throwing out some partisan talking points, or if you have some support for what you are posting.
My research indicates that there is a low probability that your "on a platter, twice", statement is supported by the actual record.

Kindly show us what you got, and a link to each supporting reference, would be much appreciated, and a welcome change from what has been seen around here lately from some posters.

Clinton admited much in a speech he gave, and no I dont' have a link, but you enjoy searches.

The ironic thing is that his reason for not taking was he didn't think we had a legal reason to hold and try him. Its ironic based on the 'fair trial' thread we have going on.

Oh wait it took me a second and a half.....

http://www.newsmax.com/audio/BILLVH.mp3

Bonus it contains Hilary too!

It amazes me how someone of your google power can't find this stuff.

Oh and this is part of it too...

Quote:

TRANSCRIPT: Ex-President Clinton's Remarks on Osama bin Laden Delivered to the Long Island Association's Annual Luncheon Crest Hollow Country Club, Woodbury, NY Feb. 15, 2002

Question from LIA President Matthew Crosson:

CROSSON: In hindsight, would you have handled the issue of terrorism, and al-Qaeda specifically, in a different way during your administration?

CLINTON: Well, it's interesting now, you know, that I would be asked that question because, at the time, a lot of people thought I was too obsessed with Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda.

And when I bombed his training camp and tried to kill him and his high command in 1998 after the African embassy bombings, some people criticized me for doing it. We just barely missed him by a couple of hours.

I think whoever told us he was going to be there told somebody who told him that our missiles might be there. I think we were ratted out.

We also bombed a chemical facility in Sudan where we were criticized, even in this country, for overreaching. But in the trial in New York City of the al-Qaeda people who bombed the African embassy, they testified in the trial that the Sudanese facility was, in fact, a part of their attempt to stockpile chemical weapons.

So we tried to be quite aggressive with them. We got - uh - well, Mr. bin Laden used to live in Sudan. He was expelled from Saudi Arabia in 1991, then he went to Sudan.

And we'd been hearing that the Sudanese wanted America to start dealing with them again.

They released him. At the time, 1996, he had committed no crime against America so I did not bring him here because we had no basis on which to hold him, though we knew he wanted to commit crimes against America.

So I pleaded with the Saudis to take him, 'cause they could have. But they thought it was a hot potato and they didn't and that's how he wound up in Afghanistan.

We then put a lot of sanctions on the Afghan government and - but they inter-married, Mullah Omar and bin Laden. So that essentially the Taliban didn't care what we did to them.

Now, if you look back - in the hindsight of history, everybody's got 20/20 vision - the real issue is should we have attacked the al-Qaeda network in 1999 or in 2000 in Afghanistan.

Here's the problem. Before September 11 we would have had no support for it - no allied support and no basing rights. So we actually trained to do this. I actually trained people to do this. We trained people.

But in order to do it, we would have had to take them in on attack helicopters 900 miles from the nearest boat - maybe illegally violating the airspace of people if they wouldn't give us approval. And we would have had to do a refueling stop.

And we would have had to make the decision in advance that's the reverse of what President Bush made - and I agreed with what he did. They basically decided - this may be frustrating to you now that we don't have bin Laden. But the president had to decide after Sept. 11, which am I going to do first? Just go after bin Laden or get rid of the Taliban?

He decided to get rid of the Taliban. I personally agree with that decision, even though it may or may not have delayed the capture of bin Laden. Why?

Because, first of all the Taliban was the most reactionary government on earth and there was an inherent value in getting rid of them.

Secondly, they supported terrorism and we'd send a good signal to governments that if you support terrorism and they attack us in America, we will hold you responsible.

Thirdly, it enabled our soldiers and Marines and others to operate more safely in-country as they look for bin Laden and the other senior leadership, because if we'd have had to have gone in there to just sort of clean out one area, try to establish a base camp and operate.

So for all those reasons the military recommended against it. There was a high probability that it wouldn't succeed.

Now I had one other option. I could have bombed or sent more missiles in. As far as we knew he never went back to his training camp. So the only place bin Laden ever went that we knew was occasionally he went to Khandahar where he always spent the night in a compound that had 200 women and children.

So I could have, on any given night, ordered an attack that I knew would kill 200 women and children that had less than a 50 percent chance of getting him.

Now, after he murdered 3,100 of our people and others who came to our country seeking their livelihood you may say, "Well, Mr. President, you should have killed those 200 women and children."

But at the time we didn't think he had the capacity to do that. And no one thought that I should do that. Although I take full responsibility for it. You need to know that those are the two options I had. And there was less than a 50/50 chance that the intelligence was right that on this particular night he was in Afghanistan.

Now, we did do a lot of things. We tried to get the Pakistanis to go get him. They could have done it and they wouldn't. They changed governments at the time from Mr. Sharif to President Musharraf. And we tried to get others to do it. We had a standing contract between the CIA and some groups in Afghanistan authorizing them and paying them if they should be successful in arresting and/or killing him.

So I tried hard to - I always thought this guy was a big problem. And apparently the options I had were the options that the President and Vice President Cheney and Secretary Powell and all the people that were involved in the Gulf War thought that they had, too, during the first eight months that they were there - until Sept. 11 changed everything.

But I did the best I could with it and I do not believe, based on what options were available to me, that I could have done much more than I did. Obviously, I wish I'd been successful. I tried a lot of different ways to get bin Laden 'cause I always thought he was a very dangerous man. He's smart, he's bold and committed.

But I think it's very important that the Bush administration do what they're doing to keep the soldiers over there to keep chasing him. But I know - like I said - I know it might be frustrating to you. But it's still better for bin Laden to worry every day more about whether he's going to see the sun come up in the morning than whether he's going to drop a bomb, another bomb somewhere in the U.S. or in Europe or on some other innocent civilians. (END OF TRANSCRIPT)

Infinite_Loser · 09-23-2006, 10:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ustwo

That nice that you think that, you are obviously a member of the intelligence community and I am glad you have given us your assessment of hunt for OBL.

Ask any member of the CIA or any member of the Bush administration where Bin Laden is. I'd be willing to bet that they have as much information on his where abouts as I do.

Marvelous Marv · 09-23-2006, 10:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ustwo

Oh wait it took me a second and a half.....
http://www.newsmax.com/audio/BILLVH.mp3

Bonus it contains Hilary too!

Wow. Hearing Bill HIMSELF say it, I guess host won't be able to say that "newsmax.com isn't a real news agency, and [insert name here] isn't a real reporter."

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ustwo

It amazes me how someone of your google power can't find this stuff.

Yes, it's quite amazing, all right.

Quote:

Originally Posted by host

My research indicates that there is a low probability that your "on a platter, twice", statement is supported by the actual record.

Your research seems inaccurate again.

host · 09-24-2006, 01:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Marvelous Marv

.......Your research seems inaccurate again.

When was it inaccurate, the last time?

I'm sorry....I still don't see anything to support your "on a platter, twice" statement, and neither did the 9/11 Commission report, or the reporting on this, last year, of this reporter:

Quote:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/17/in...gewanted=print
August 17, 2005
State Dept. Says It Warned About bin Laden in 1996
By ERIC LICHTBLAU

WASHINGTON, Aug. 16 - State Department analysts warned the Clinton administration in July 1996 that Osama bin Laden's move to Afghanistan would give him an even more dangerous haven as he sought to expand radical Islam "well beyond the Middle East," but the government chose not to deter the move, newly declassified documents show.

In what would prove a prescient warning, the State Department intelligence analysts said in a top-secret assessment on Mr. bin Laden that summer that "his prolonged stay in Afghanistan - where hundreds of 'Arab mujahedeen' receive terrorist training and key extremist leaders often congregate - could prove more dangerous to U.S. interests in the long run than his three-year liaison with Khartoum," in Sudan.

The declassified documents, obtained by the conservative legal advocacy group Judicial Watch as part of a Freedom of Information Act request and provided to The New York Times, ,b>shed light on a murky and controversial chapter in Mr. bin Laden's history: his relocation from Sudan to Afghanistan as the Clinton administration was striving to understand the threat he posed and explore ways of confronting him.</b>

Before 1996, Mr. bin Laden was regarded more as a financier of terrorism than a mastermind. But the State Department assessment, which came a year before he publicly urged Muslims to attack the United States, indicated that officials suspected he was taking a more active role, including in the bombings in June 1996 that killed 19 members American soldiers at the Khobar Towers in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia.

Two years after the State Department's warning, with Mr. bin Laden firmly entrenched in Afghanistan and overseeing terrorist training and financing operations, Al Qaeda struck two American embassies in East Africa, leading to failed military attempts by the Clinton administration to capture or kill him in Afghanistan. Three years later, on Sept. 11, 2001, Al Qaeda struck the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in an operation overseen from the base in Afghanistan.

Critics of the Clinton administration have accused it of ignoring the threat posed by Mr. bin Laden in the mid-1990's while he was still in Sudan, and they point to claims by some Sudanese officials that they offered to turn him over to the Americans before ultimately expelling him in 1996 under international pressure. <h3>But Clinton administration diplomats have adamantly denied that they received such an offer, and the Sept. 11 commission concluded in one of its staff reports that it had "not found any reliable evidence to support the Sudanese claim."

The newly declassified documents do not directly address the question of whether Sudan ever offered to turn over Mr. bin Laden.</h3> But the documents go well beyond previous news and historical accounts in detailing the Clinton administration's active monitoring of Mr. bin Laden's movements and the realization that his move to Afghanistan could make him an even greater national security threat.

Several former senior officials in the Clinton administration did not return phone calls this week seeking comment on the newly declassified documents.

Adam Ereli, a spokesman for the State Department, said the documents should be viewed in the context of what was happening globally in 1996, rather than in the hindsight of events after the Sept. 11 attacks.

In 1996, Mr. Ereli said, "the question was getting him out of Sudan."

"The priority was to deny him safe haven, period, and to disrupt his activities any way you could," he continued. "There was a lot we didn't know, and the priority was to keep him on the run, keep him on guard, and try to maximize the opportunities to nail him."

Before the East Africa bombings in 1998, however, Mr. bin Laden "wasn't recognized then as the threat he is now," Mr. Ereli said. "Yes, he was a bad guy, he was a threat, but he was one of many, and by no means of the prominence that he later came to be."

The State Department assessment, written July 18, 1996, <h3>after Mr. bin Laden had been expelled from Sudan and was thought to be relocating to Afghanistan,</h3> said Afghanistan would make an "ideal haven" for Mr. bin Laden to run his financial networks and attract support from radicalized Muslims. Moreover, his wealth, his personal plane and many passports "allow him considerable freedom to travel with little fear of being intercepted or tracked," and his public statements suggested an "emboldened" man capable of "increased terrorism," the assessment said.

While a strategy of keeping Mr. bin Laden on the run could "inconvenience" him, the assessment said, "even a bin Laden on the move can retain the capability to support individuals and groups who have the motive and wherewithal to attack U.S. interests almost world-wide."

Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, said the declassified material released to his group "says to me that the Clinton administration knew the broad outlines in 1996 of bin Laden's capabilities and his intent, and unfortunately, almost nothing was done about it."

Judicial Watch, a conservative legal group, was highly critical of President Clinton during his two terms in office. The group has also been critical of some Bush administration actions after the Sept. 11 attacks, releasing documents in March that detailed government efforts to facilitate flights out of the United States for dozens of well-connected Saudis just days after the attacks.

Michael F. Scheuer, who from 1996 to 1999 led the Central Intelligence Agency unit that tracked Mr. bin Laden, said the State Department documents reflected a keen awareness of the danger posed by Mr. bin Laden's relocation.

"The analytical side of the State Department had it exactly right - that's genius analysis," he said in an interview when told of the declassified documents. But Mr. Scheuer, who wrote a book in 2004 titled "Imperial Hubris," under the pseudonym "Anonymous," that was highly critical of American counterterrorism strategies, said <b>many officials in the C.I.A.'s operational side thought they would have a better chance to kill Mr. bin Laden in Afghanistan than they did in Sudan because the Sudan government protected him.

"The thinking was that he was in Afghanistan, and he was dangerous, but because he was there, we had a better chance to kill him," Mr. Scheuer said.</b> "But at the end of the day, we settled for the worst possibility - he was there and we didn't do anything."

<b>Marv....and Ustwo.....you post as if you have been spending too much time with Hannitized "ditto heads", or whatever the minions of Hannity and Rush call themselves. In the real world, Tenet, Clinton, and Richard Clarke all say the same thing....the "platter" offer from Sudan, never happened, and the 9/11 Commission could find no proof that it did, either. This is an example of why there can be no discussion on these threads. I offer statments from the actual folks who were there, and you offer "spin", repeated over and over and over.....by newsmax.com, Hannity, Rush....etc. The contrast is startlingly obvious....and the "closed loop" isn't the source of my opinions. There is no validity to the idea that Clinton was offered "Bin Laden on a platter", ever. We also did not live in an age of "pre-emption", until 9/11 "changed everything".....Remember, that on September the eleventh....(Insert terror comment here:________ !!!!)</b>

Quote:

https://www.cia.gov/cia/public_affai..._10172002.html
Written Statement for the Record of the
Director of Central Intelligence
Before the
Joint Inquiry Committee

17 October 2002

.....<b>The Early Years: Terrorist Financier (1986-1996)</b>

The first rule of warfare is "know your enemy." My statement documents our knowledge and analysis of Bin Ladin, from his early years as a terrorist financier to his leadership of a worldwide network of terrorism based in Afghanistan.....

...........<b>Taliban Sanctuary Years: Becoming a Strategic Threat</b>

Beginning in January 1996, we began to receive reports that Bin Ladin planned to move from Sudan. Confirming these reports was especially difficult because of the closure in February of the US Embassy as well as the CIA station in Khartoum for security reasons.

<h3>* We have read the allegations that, around this time, the Sudanese Government offered to surrender Bin Ladin to American custody.

* Mr. Chairman, CIA has no knowledge of such an offer.</h3>

Later in 1996, it became clear that he had moved to Afghanistan. From that safehaven, he defined himself publicly as a threat to the United States. In a series of declarations, he made clear his hatred for Americans and all we represent........

Quote:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/...in625205.shtml
Clinton Was 'Obsessed' With Osama

NEW YORK, June 21, 2004

........<i>President Clinton says he was "obsessed" with bin Laden during his time in office and denies he refused opportunities to capture the al Qaeda leader.</i>

Clinton: To the best of my knowledge it is not true that we were ever offered him by the Sudanese even though they later claimed it. I think it's total bull. Mr. Absurabi, the head of the Sudanese government was a buddy of bin Laden's. They were business partners together. There was no way in the wide world this guy who was in business with bin Laden in Sudan was going to give him up to us.....

Quote:

http://edition.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLIT...on.transcript/
Clinton discusses foreign policy, security threats

Saturday, July 10, 2004 Posted: 1933 GMT (0333 HKT)

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Former President Bill Clinton sat down with CNN's Christiane Amanpour to talk about foreign policy during his presidency and today's security challenges. Here is a transcript of that interview....

....AMANPOUR: You mentioned what you could or might have been able to do. <b>Sometime in 1996 you spoke to a group of people in Long Island about this whole issue of Sudan, was Sudan ...

CLINTON: That was in 2001 ...</b>

AMANPOUR: OK. Was Sudan asked to extradite [bin Laden]? Did you miss the opportunity to have him extradited?

CLINTON: And I miss ... what I said there was wrong. What I said was in error. I went back now and did all this research for my book and I said that we were told we couldn't hold him, implying that we had a chance to get him and didn't. That's not factually accurate.

Here's what is factually accurate. In 1996 and before then, when we found out about bin Laden, we had first thought he was a financier of terrorism but not a ringleader. In the beginning. When he took up residence in Sudan after having been ejected from Saudi Arabia, it is true that at some point during that period, there was some discussion in the Justice Department casting a doubt on how long we could hold him ... on the question of had he committed, or did we have evidence that he committed, an offense against the United States.

But that was never part of the question about whether we could get him. When he left, the idea that the Sudanese offered to hand him over to us is just absurd. The idea that they told us when he was leaving, and he was landing in the Gulf and we could get him at another airport, is absurd, and the idea that they tried to give him to us instead of giving him to Afghanistan is just not true. I have now gone back and reconstructed all the records, read all the documents, and that is just not true.........

Quote:

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/23/po...l?pagewanted=1
March 23, 2004
Ex-Bush Aide Sets Off Debate as 9/11 Hearing Opens
By ELISABETH BUMILLER
and JUDITH MILLER

WASHINGTON, March 22 — As the White House opened an aggressive personal attack against its former counterterrorism chief, Richard A. Clarke, a furious debate broke out on Monday about the credibility of his assertion that President Bush pushed him the day after the Sept. 11 attacks to see if there was a link with Saddam Hussein.

The White House dismissed the accusations, described in a new book by Mr. Clarke, by casting him as a disgruntled, politically motivated job seeker and a "best buddy" of a top adviser to Senator John Kerry. But Mr. Clarke defended his account, and several allies rallied to his defense.

One ally, Mr. Clarke's former deputy, Roger Cressey, backed the thrust of one of the most incendiary accusations in the book, about a conversation that Mr. Clarke said he had with Mr. Bush in the White House Situation Room on the night of Sept. 12, 2001. Mr. Clarke said Mr. Bush pressed him three times to find evidence that Iraq was behind the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The accusation is explosive because no such link has ever been proved.

"I want you, as soon as you can, to go back over everything, everything," Mr. Clarke writes that Mr. Bush told him. "See if Saddam did this. See if he's linked in any way."

When Mr. Clarke protested that the culprit was Al Qaeda, not Iraq, Mr. Bush testily ordered him, he writes, to "look into Iraq, Saddam," and then left the room.

Scott McClellan, the White House press secretary, responded at a White House briefing on Monday that Mr. Bush did not remember having the conversation, and that there were no records that placed the president in the Situation Room at the time.

Mr. Clarke countered in a telephone interview on Monday that he had four witnesses, including Mr. Cressey, who is a partner with Mr. Clarke in a consulting company that advises on cybersecurity issues. In an interview, Mr. Cressey said the national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, also witnessed the exchange. Administration officials said Ms. Rice had no recollection of it.

Mr. Cressey cast Mr. Bush's instructions to Mr. Clarke less as an order to come up with a link between Mr. Hussein and Sept. 11, and more as a request to "take a look at all options, including Iraq." He backed off Mr. Clarke's suggestion that the president's tone was intimidating. "I'm not going to get into that," Mr. Cressey said. "That is Dick's characterization."

Mr. Clarke's book, "Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror," also asserts that the administration did not heed warnings about the Sept. 11 attacks, and then neglected the threat of Al Qaeda as it turned its attention to Saddam Hussein.

Another ally of Mr. Clarke, Thomas R. Maertens, confirmed the outlines of Mr. Clarke's critique of the White House. Mr. Maertens, who served as National Security Council director for nuclear nonproliferation on both the Clinton and Bush White House staffs, said that Mr. Clarke had repeatedly tried to warn senior officials in the Bush administration about the growing threat of Al Qaeda.

"He was the guy pushing hardest, saying again and again that something big was going to happen, including possibly here in the U.S.," Mr. Maertens said Monday from his home in Minnesota. But Mr. Maertens said that the Bush White House was reluctant to believe a holdover from the previous administration.

"They really believed their campaign rhetoric about the Clinton administration," Mr. Maertens said. "So anything they did was bad, and the Bushies were not going to repeat it. And it's disgusting to see the administration now putting a full-court smear on Clarke — for being right."

Mr. Clarke also charges in his book that Mr. Bush waged "an unnecessary and costly war in Iraq" that strengthened Islamic terrorist movements around the world, and has left the nation more vulnerable to future attacks.

His book is the first by a former administration member to challenge the president directly on what Mr. Bush considers his greatest electoral strength, national security. It is arriving in book stores not only during a presidential campaign, but in the same week that Mr. Clarke and Clinton and Bush administration officials are to publicly testify before the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks.

Mr. Clarke said last week that he was prepared to testify that Clinton administration officials repeatedly warned members of the incoming Bush administration in late 2000 about the threat posed by Al Qaeda.

In the hearings, which begin on Wednesday, the panel will call as witnesses four high-ranking officials from the Bush and Clinton administrations: Secretary of State Colin L. Powell; his predecessor, Madeleine K. Albright; Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld; and his predecessor, William S. Cohen.

The angry White House response to Mr. Clarke, which was authorized by Mr. Bush, reflects the administration's fears over the book's potential political damage. In a daylong assault on Monday, administration officials portrayed Mr. Clarke, a secretive, combative terrorism expert who spent more than three decades working in the Reagan, Clinton and both Bush administrations, as a bitter former employee who had been denied the No. 2 position in the Department of Homeland Security and who was now trying to help the Kerry campaign.

Vice President Dick Cheney, in an interview on Rush Limbaugh's radio program, noted that Mr. Clarke was in charge of counterterrorism at the time of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the 2000 attack on the American destroyer Cole, and "I didn't notice that they had any great success dealing with the terrorist threat."

Mr. McClellan told reporters: "He conveniently writes a book and releases it in the heat of a presidential campaign. We know that his best buddy is Senator Kerry's principal foreign policy adviser." Mr. McClellan was referring to Rand Beers, Mr. Kerry's chief foreign policy adviser.

Clearly, Mr. McClellan said, "this is more about politics and a book promotion than it is about policy."

Mr. Clarke fired back that the White House attacks were an effort to divert attention from the substantive information in his book, including his impression that Ms. Rice, as the new national security adviser in early 2001, had not heard of Al Qaeda. (Administration officials disputed the claim about Ms. Rice.)

"This is the way the Bush administration deals with people, with ad hominem attacks, and trying to suppress the truth," Mr. Clarke said by telephone from New York. He added that he had been friends for 25 years with Mr. Beers, "and I'm not going to run away from him just because he's John Kerry's national security adviser."

Administration officials said Mr. Clarke, who was on Ms. Rice's staff, was kept on after the Clinton administration because she wanted to maintain continuity in counterterrorism policy.

Mr. Clarke, they said, proved to be almost obsessive — a description he applies to himself in the book — about attacking Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden and impatient that many of his ideas, like forging a closer alliance with the Northern Alliance, the Taliban resistance in Afghanistan, were not adopted.

But administration officials said that throughout his tenure in the Bush administration, Mr. Clarke appeared to be generally supportive of the president's policies, and never brought to Ms. Rice a broad critique of either the administration's approach to terrorism or its plan for invading Iraq.

Sean McCormack, Ms. Rice's spokesman, said that Mr. Clarke ate lunch with Ms. Rice in her West Wing office after he had left the administration, a month or two before the attack on Iraq, and gave none of the warnings he gave in the book.

Quote:

<b>from Richard A. Clarke in his book Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror, page 142:</b>

"In recent years <b>Sudanese intelligence officials and Americans friendly to the Sudan regime have invented a fable about bin Laden's final days in Khartoum.</b> In the fable the Sudanese government offers to arrest bin Laden and hand him over in chains to FBI agents, but Washington rejects the offer because the Clinton Administration does not see bin Laden as important or does and cannot find anywhere to put him on trial.

"The only slivers of truth in this fable are that a) the Sudanese government was denying its support for terrorism in the wake of the U.N. sanctions, and b) the [Counterterrorism Security Group] had initiated informal inquiries with several nations about incarcerating bin Laden, or putting him on trial. There were no takers. Nonetheless, had we been able to put our hands on him then we would have gladly done so...<b>The facts about the supposed Sudanese offer to give us bin Laden are that [National Islamic Front leader Hasan al-]Turabi was not about to turn over his partner in terror to us and no real attempt to do so ever occurred."</b>

In addition to Mr. Cressey, at least two other former officials with knowledge of what occurred in the Situation Room that day also backed up the thrust of Mr. Clarke's account, though one of the two challenged Mr. Clarke's assertion that Mr. Bush's demeanor and that of other senior White House officials was intimidating.

Elisabeth Bumiller reported from Washington for this article and Judith Miller from New York. Richard W. Stevenson contributed reporting from Washington.

Quote:

http://mediamatters.org/items/200406220008
Tue, Jun 22, 2004 5:41pm EST

......This false claim originated in a 2002 article by the right-wing news site NewsMax.com that distorted a 2002 statement by Clinton. Lanny J. Davis, former White House special counsel to Clinton, pointed out that Hannity was lying, but Hannity persisted.

From the June 21 edition of FOX News Channel's Hannity & Colmes:

HANNITY: Here's what bothers me. Is Bill Clinton gave a speech and he said "I couldn't take him [Osama bin Laden] for legal reasons, so I tried to get Saudi Arabia to take him but it was too hot a potato." He admitted to the Sudan offer.

DAVIS: No. That's a lie.

HANNITY: He offered it. It's not a lie. I have the tape, Lanny.

DAVIS: It is.

HANNITY: Lanny, I have the tape of the speech.

DAVIS: And I've heard tape. You've played it for me. He never refused, never refused to take Osama bin Laden.

HANNITY: How can he offer -- "I asked Saudi Arabia to take him but it was too hot a potato" -- how can he offer bin Laden to them if he doesn't have him?

The truth is that Clinton never offered Osama bin Laden to Saudi Arabia. Hannity distorted a remark Clinton made in a speech to the Long Island Association's annual luncheon on February 15, 2002, in which Clinton said that he "pleaded with the Saudis" to accept Sudan's offer to hand bin Laden to Saudi Arabia. Sudan never offered bin Laden to the United States. Hannity's mention of "the tape" is a reference to a video of this speech. NewsMax.com <a href="http://mediamatters.org/rd?http://www.newsmax.com/cgi-bin/showinside.pl?a=2002/8/10/230919">obtained</a> a video of the speech in 2002 and began hyping the supposed Clinton "admission" (see <a href="http://mediamatters.org/rd?http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2004/4/20/112336.shtml">transcript</a> and listen to the <a href="http://mediamatters.org/rd?http://www.newsmax.com/clinton2.mp3">audio</a>). In fact, Clinton did not "admit" to the Sudan offer in that speech or anywhere else. Here's the relevant portion of Clinton's remarks to the Long Island Association:

CLINTON: So we tried to be quite aggressive with them [Al Qaeda]. We got -- well, Mr. bin Laden used to live in Sudan. He was expelled from Saudi Arabia in 1991, then he went to Sudan. And we'd been hearing that the Sudanese wanted America to start dealing with them again. They released him. At the time, 1996, he had committed no crime against America, so I did not bring him here because we had no basis on which to hold him, though we knew he wanted to commit crimes against America. So I pleaded with the Saudis to take him, 'cause they could have. But they thought it was a hot potato and they didn't and that's how he wound up in Afghanistan.

Furthermore, during his June 20 <a href="http://mediamatters.org/rd?http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/06/18/60minutes/main624848.shtml">interview</a> on 60 Minutes with CBS anchor Dan Rather, Clinton categorically denied that such an offer was made: "'There was a story which is factually inaccurate that the Sudanese offered bin Laden to us,' says Mr. Clinton. 'As far as I know, there is not a shred of evidence of that.'"

No one involved in the 1996 negotiations apart from former officials of Sudan -- a country that the U.S. State Department has designated as a state sponsor of terrorism every year since 1993 -- has verified the claim that Sudan offered bin Laden to the United States. In light of this lack of evidence, the 9-11 Commission <a href="http://mediamatters.org/rd?http://www.9-11commission.gov/hearings/hearing8/staff_statement_5.pdf">"Staff Statement No. 5,"</a> issued in March, rejected the Sudanese claim:

Former Sudanese officials claim that Sudan offered to expel Bin Ladin to the United States. Clinton administration officials deny ever receiving such an offer. We have not found any reliable evidence to support the Sudanese claim.

Sudan did offer to expel Bin Ladin to Saudi Arabia and asked the Saudis to pardon him. U.S. officials became aware of these secret discussions, certainly by March 1996. The evidence suggests that the Saudi government wanted Bin Ladin expelled from Sudan, but would not agree to pardon him. The Saudis did not want Bin Ladin back in their country at all.

Nonetheless, Hannity picked up the claim in his book, <a href="http://mediamatters.org/rd?http://www.harpercollins.com/catalog/book_xml.asp?isbn=0060582510">Deliver Us from Evil: Defeating Terrorism, Despotism, and Liberalism</a> (released in February by ReganBooks), and he repeats it regularly on Hannity & Colmes (cf. 12/19/03, 3/23/04, 3/26/04, 4/19/04).

Quote:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/...in624848.shtml
Clinton's Fight Against Terrorism

June 20, 2004

<b>60 Minutes:</b>....The commission’s final report is expected to be released next month. Rather asked Mr. Clinton what his response was to commission member and former Democratic Sen. Bob Kerrey’s comment that he had “let pass opportunities to arrest or kill the al Qaeda leadership.”

<b>Mr. Clinton:</b>“I don't believe that is true. There was a story which is factually inaccurate that the Sudanese offered bin Laden to us,” says Mr. Clinton. “As far as I know, there is not a shred of evidence of that.” .......

Quote:

http://www.9-11commission.gov/staff_...tatement_5.pdf
Bottom of page 3 to top of page 4:

Diplomacy
Staff Statement No. 5

.....Since 1979 the Secretary of State has had the authority to name State Sponsors of
Terrorism, subjecting such countries to significant economic sanctions. Sudan was so
designated in 1993. In February 1996, for security reasons, U.S. diplomats left
Khartoum. International pressure further increased as the regime failed to hand over
three individuals involved in a 1995 attempt to assassinate Egyptian president Hosni
Mubarak. The United Nations Security Council imposed sanctions on the regime.
Diplomacy had an effect. In exchanges beginning in February 1996, Sudanese officials
began approaching U.S. officials, asking what they could do to ease the pressure. During
the winter and spring of 1996, Sudan’s defense minister visited Washington and had a
series of meetings with representatives of the U.S. government. To test Sudan’s
willingness to cooperate on terrorism the United States presented eight demands to their
Sudanese contact. The one that concerned Bin Ladin was a request for intelligence
information about Bin Ladin’s contacts in Sudan.

These contacts with Sudan, which went on for years, have become a source of
controversy. Former Sudanese officials claim that Sudan offered to expel Bin Ladin to
the United States. Clinton administration officials deny ever receiving such an offer.<h3>We
have not found any reliable evidence to support the Sudanese claim.</h3>
Sudan did offer to expel Bin Ladin to Saudi Arabia and asked the Saudis to pardon him.
U.S. officials became aware of these secret discussions, certainly by March 1996. The
evidence suggests that the Saudi government wanted Bin Ladin expelled from Sudan, but
would not agree to pardon him. The Saudis did not want Bin Ladin back in their country
at all.

U.S. officials also wanted Bin Ladin expelled from Sudan. They knew the Sudanese
were considering it. The U.S. government did not ask Sudan to render him into U.S.
custody.

According to Samuel Berger, who was then the deputy national security adviser, the
interagency Counterterrorism and Security Group (CSG) chaired by Richard Clarke had a
hypothetical discussion about bringing Bin Ladin to the United States. In that discussion
a Justice Department representative reportedly said there was no basis for bringing him to
the United States since there was no way to hold him here, absent an indictment. Berger
adds that in 1996 he was not aware of any intelligence that said Bin Ladin was
responsible for any act against an American citizen. No rendition plan targeting Bin
Ladin, who was still perceived as a terrorist financier, was requested by or presented to
senior policymakers during 1996.
Yet both Berger and Clarke also said the lack of an indictment made no difference.
Instead they said the idea was not worth pursuing because there was no chance that
Sudan would ever turn Bin Ladin over to a hostile country. If Sudan had been serious,
Clarke said, the United States would have worked something out.
However, the U.S. government did approach other countries hostile to Sudan and Bin
Ladin about whether they would take Bin Ladin. One was apparently interested. No
handover took place.

Under pressure to leave, Bin Ladin worked with the Sudanese government to procure safe
passage and possibly funding for his departure. In May 1996, Bin Ladin and his
associates leased an Ariana Airlines jet and traveled to Afghanistan, stopping to refuel in
the United Arab Emirates. Approximately two days after his departure, the Sudanese
informed the U.S. government that Bin Ladin had left. It is unclear whether any U.S.
officials considered whether or how to intercept Bin Ladin......

Quote:

http://mediamatters.org/items/200408120011
Thu, Aug 12, 2004 6:02pm EST

.........On the August 11 edition of the Rush Limbaugh Show, radio host Rush Limbaugh repeated one of the favorite discredited accusations of fellow conservative radio host Sean Hannity.

From the August 11 edition of the nationally syndicated Rush Limbaugh Show:

LIMBAUGH: [Former President Bill] Clinton was offered [Osama] bin Laden two or three times, turned him down. Turned down Sudan. Sudan offered it. So Clinton wasn't serious about it [terrorism].

As Media Matters for America has noted, the false claim originated in an August 11, 2002, article on the right-wing news website NewsMax.com that blared the headline "Clinton Admits: I Nixed Bin Laden Extradition Offer," distorting a speech Clinton made in 2002. While he did acknowledge in a July 8 interview with CNN chief international correspondent Christiane Amanpour that he mistakenly implied that the United States was offered bin Laden in that 2002 speech, at no point did Clinton say that Sudan offered bin Laden to the United States in the speech.

The bipartisan 9-11 Commission found (pdf) "no reliable evidence to support" the claim that Sudan offered bin Laden to the United States and determined (pdf) that, based on Clinton's testimony, in "wrongly recounting a number of press stories he had read," Clinton had "misspoken" in his 2002 speech. Clinton further refuted the allegation in a June 20 interview on CBS's 60 Minutes when he said: "There was a story which is factually inaccurate that the Sudanese offered bin Laden to us. ... As far as I know, there is not a shred of evidence of that."

Limbaugh has made the claim at least once before; on May 16 (RUSH 24/7 subscription required), he said, "Remember, the Sudanese government offered to hand Clinton Osama bin Laden's head on a silver platter, and Clinton didn't want him."

[/quote]

Quote:

http://www.9-11commission.gov/report...t.pdf#page=497

Page 480
President Clinton, in a February 2002 speech to the Long Island Association, said that the United States did not accept a Sudanese offer and take Bin Ladin because there was no indictment. President Clinton speech to the Long Island Association, Feb. 15, 2002 (videotape of speech). But the President told us that he had “misspoken” and was, wrongly, recounting a number of press stories he had read. After reviewing this matter in preparation for his Commission meeting, President Clinton told us that Sudan never offered to turn Bin Ladin over to the United States. President Clinton meeting (Apr. 8, 2004). Berger told us that he saw no chance that Sudan would have handed Bin Ladin over and also noted that in 1996, the U.S. government still did not know of any al Qaeda attacks on U.S. citizens. Samuel Berger interview (Jan. 14, 2004).

Quote:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...-2005Apr1.html
Berger Is Likely to Face Fine

By Carol D. Leonnig
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, April 2, 2005; Page A08

The Justice Department said yesterday there was no evidence that former national security adviser Samuel R. "Sandy" Berger was trying to conceal information when he illegally took copies of classified terrorism documents out of the National Archives in 2003.....

.....Noel L. Hillman, chief of the Justice Department's public integrity section, said Berger "did not have an intent to hide any of the content of the documents" or conceal facts from the commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. But he did hide the document copies in his coat jacket as he left the archives after two visits in September and October 2003. "As a former high-ranking government official, he knew and understood that what he did was wrong," Hillman said.....

.......Hillman noted that Berger only had copies of the documents -- not the originals -- and so was not charged with the more serious crime of destroying documents.....

Quote:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontl...ws/clarke.html
<B>Interview With Richard Clarke:</B><I>President Clinton's national coordinator for counterterrorism, he is currently President Bush's special adviser for cyberspace security. In this interview he talks about the attributes that made John O'Neill stand apart in the world of counterterrorism, sketches Al Qaeda's threat and how it came into focus for U.S. intelligence, and discusses some of John O'Neill's battles, including the USS Cole investigation. This interview was conducted March 20, 2002.</I>

.....<B>Let's talk a little bit about 1996 and the CIA. O'Neill was involved in helping set up Station Alex -- the mission to track bin Laden, the money, his base of operations and such. Why was this important, and what did it achieve?</B>

There was a lot of pressure on the CIA from the White House to do more about bin Laden in the 1995-1996 time frame. At the time, bin Laden had a lot of his operations based in Sudan. But Sudan was not some place where the CIA could easily set up a large operation, so they created what they called a virtual station. Rather than having it in Sudan, it was in Virginia. It was not in CIA headquarters, so it wouldn't be part of all of that culture.

The FBI decided that they would be a part of the station. They would contribute FBI agents to a joint CIA/FBI effort to figure out where this network was. Who was bin Laden? Where did the money come from? Where did the money go? Where did the people come from who were trained at these camps? Where did they go after they were trained? It was a joint FBI/CIA project.

<B>And the success of it?</B>

The success of it was that it proved that there was a huge network. <B>Prior to that activity, beginning in 1996, 1997, we thought there might have been a widespread bin Laden network. We couldn't prove it.</B> What this did, it started taking a string, pulling it and pulling it, then finding the spread of the web, more and more people, in more and more countries. We were able, over the course of about 18 months, to go from thinking there was a bin Laden network, to seeing it in 56 countries. .......

ShaniFaye · 09-24-2006, 04:47 AM

Correct me if Im wrong but didnt they scrap plans that had been in the works for months in 1998 to attack Tarnak Farms, which was set to be carried out June 23 1998...when they KNEW BL was there and KNEW which bunker he was in?

dc_dux · 09-24-2006, 05:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ShaniFaye

Correct me if Im wrong but didnt they scrap plans that had been in the works for months in 1998 to attack Tarnak Farms, which was set to be carried out June 23 1998...when they KNEW BL was there and KNEW which bunker he was in?

Shani...as I understand it, contrary to the recent ABC movie, the CIA knew it was OBL's base, but had no confirmation he was there or would be there on the date of the proposed attack, weighed the options and potential fallout, and nixed the plan:

I wont paste the full section, "The CIA Develops a Capture Plan". I know you dont like long cut/pastes :

Quote:

Impressions vary as to who actually decided not to proceed with the operation. Clarke told us that the CSG saw the plan as flawed. He was said to have described it to a colleague on the NSC staff as "half-assed" and predicted that the principals would not approve it. "Jeff " thought the decision had been made at the cabinet level. Pavitt thought that it was Berger's doing, though perhaps on Tenet's advice. Tenet told us that given the recommendation of his chief operations officers, he alone had decided to "turn off" the operation. He had simply informed Berger, who had not pushed back. Berger's recollection was similar. He said the plan was never presented to the White House for a decision.30

The CIA's senior management clearly did not think the plan would work. Tenet's deputy director of operations wrote to Berger a few weeks later that the CIA assessed the tribals' ability to capture Bin Ladin and deliver him to U.S. officials as low. But working-level CIA officers were disappointed. Before it was canceled, Schroen described it as the "best plan we are going to come up with to capture [Bin Ladin] while he is in Afghanistan and bring him to justice."31 No capture plan before 9/11 ever again attained the same level of detail and preparation. The tribals' reported readiness to act diminished. And Bin Ladin's security precautions and defenses became more elaborate and formidable.

At this time, 9/11 was more than three years away. It was the duty of Tenet and the CIA leadership to balance the risks of inaction against jeopardizing the lives of their operatives and agents. And they had reason to worry about failure: millions of dollars down the drain; a shoot-out that could be seen as an assassination; and, if there were repercussions in Pakistan, perhaps a coup. The decisions of the U.S. government in May 1998 were made, as Berger has put it, from the vantage point of the driver looking through a muddy windshield moving forward, not through a clean rearview mirror.32

http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report_Ch4.htm

ShaniFaye · 09-24-2006, 05:47 AM

thanks for clearing that up for me...I knew it happened but I thought it was the administration that told Tenet no they couldnt justify it

Marvelous Marv · 09-24-2006, 05:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by host

When was it inaccurate, the last time?

I'm sorry....I still don't see anything to support your "on a platter, twice" statement, and neither did the 9/11 Commission report, or the reporting on this, last year, of this reporter...

.

host, this is insane, even for you. You have a RECORDING, in which Clinton says that Sudan had OBL, and immediately after that, he says, "I didn't want to bring him here."

Unless you have some REAL evidence that the recording is a forgery, contesting something that cut-and-dried just makes you look bad. Especially if you chose the words "I still don't see" because the recording is something you have to HEAR.

Edit: I'll grant you this. I do not accept Clinton's lame, years-later response that what he said in the recording was "factually inaccurate," in spite of all of the memory problems he and Hillary displayed over the years, under oath.

However, if you're saying that Clinton was "misinformed," then I'm sure we can expect a great deal more sympathy and understanding in regard to Niger and yellowcake.

dc_dux · 09-24-2006, 06:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ShaniFaye

thanks for clearing that up for me...I knew it happened but I thought it was the administration that told Tenet no they couldnt justify it

Shani....the concern I have is that as more and more people turn to infotainment talk radio, made for TV movies, ideological blogs and "news" agencies as their primary news source (btw, I am not suggestion that any of these were your sources), policymakers will begin to second-guess their actions, wondering to themselves how their decision will play out in these "media" before making a final decision.....a terrible way to make policy!

Charlatan · 09-24-2006, 06:05 AM

As I see it, there are missed opportunities all over the place.

The biggest one to me is Bush and company taking their eyes off the ball and shifting their resources to Iraq. To do this without first completing the Afghanistan mission (i.e. capturing OBL) is inexcusable.

You can point fingers at Clinton or whomever you please, but please don't omit this fact.

ratbastid · 09-24-2006, 06:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Marvelous Marv

host, this is insane, even for you. You have a RECORDING, in which Clinton says that Sudan had OBL, and immediately after that, he says, "I didn't want to bring him here."

Unless you have some REAL evidence that the recording is a forgery, contesting something that cut-and-dried just makes you look bad. Especially if you chose the words "I still don't see" because the recording is something you have to HEAR.

Edit: I'll grant you this. I do not accept Clinton's lame, years-later response that what he said in the recording was "factually inaccurate," in spite of all of the memory problems he and Hillary displayed over the years, under oath.

However, if you're saying that Clinton was "misinformed," then I'm sure we can expect a great deal more sympathy and understanding in regard to Niger and yellowcake.

Your recording and the news article surrounding it (which I haven't researched, I only know from what I've read in this post) indicate there was ONE time in which Sudan may or may not have had Bin Laden, and there was no crime they could charge him with to extradite him, and so were forced not to take action.

In this country (until recently) we only take legal action against people who we can charge with crimes. It's part of the constitution. Which is to say, it currently is covered in jackboot prints, but it's a crucial part of our (erstwhile) liberties nonetheless.

But okay, so perhaps he was "on a platter"--although legally inaccessible to a country that follows the rule of law--once. What's the second one?

TO RETURN TO THE TOPIC: I don't really see why it matters if Bin Laden is dead. He's a figurehead anyway. The danger in Al Qaida isn't the personality of the leader, it's the structure and mission. A network of independent cells is completely unbeholden to a central leadership structure. This is the crucial part of the war on terror that our "command and control" oriented military compex can't get its head around. It might be a moral victory--and I'm sure that those who think going into Iraq was a great idea probably feel great that he might be dead. But it changes nothing.

host · 09-24-2006, 06:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Marvelous Marv

host, this is insane, even for you. You have a RECORDING, in which Clinton says that Sudan had OBL, and immediately after that, he says, "I didn't want to bring him here."

Unless you have some REAL evidence that the recording is a forgery, contesting something that cut-and-dried just makes you look bad. Especially if you chose the words "I still don't see" because the recording is something you have to HEAR.

Edit: I'll grant you this. I do not accept Clinton's lame, years-later response that what he said in the recording was "factually inaccurate," in spite of all of the memory problems he and Hillary displayed over the years, under oath.

However, if you're saying that Clinton was "misinformed," then I'm sure we can expect a great deal more sympathy and understanding in regard to Niger and yellowcake.

Marv, Clinton's clarification, regarding his Feb., 2002 speech, is displayed as happening in June and in July 2004.

The 9/11 Commission, "bought it", and they could find nothing that contradicted it. I've provided corroborating statements from Clarke and from Tenet, that the "on a platter" offer from Sudan, did not happen, and from NY Times reporters who either confirmed the "no evidence" statement of the 9/11 Commission, or that Clarke was credible in his BUsh/situation room story, since the Times found three witnesses who backed his claim about Bush and Iraq.

,,,,,and you Marv, all you seem to have 4 years of repitition of the "recording" spin, about Clinton, from the entire chorus of wingers, drummed into your head, to the point that m info cannot fit next to it, let alone displace it!

....and you now demand "real proof", from me? SHEESH !

dc_dux · 09-24-2006, 07:19 AM

It is MARVELOUSLY hypocritical that someone would take Clinton at his word when it suits a political agenda (and which Clinton later clarified) and which has been contradicted by the 9-11 Commission...and on all other matters refer to Clinton as a lying SOB.

Marv....since you believe Clinton on his first comment about Sudan, why dont you believe him on his other actions to try to get OBL?

From the Fox interview aired today:

Quote:

CLINTON: I authorized the CIA to get groups together to try to kill him.

The CIA, which was run by George Tenet, that President Bush gave the Medal of Freedom to, he said, He did a good job setting up all these counterterrorism things.

The country never had a comprehensive anti-terror operation until I came there.

Now, if you want to criticize me for one thing, you can criticize me for this: After the Cole, I had battle plans drawn to go into Afghanistan, overthrow the Taliban, and launch a full-scale attack search for bin Laden.

But we needed basing rights in Uzbekistan, which we got after 9/11.

The CIA and the FBI refused to certify that bin Laden was responsible while I was there. They refused to certify. So that meant I would’ve had to send a few hundred Special Forces in in helicopters and refuel at night.

Even the 9/11 Commission didn’t do that. Now, the 9/11 Commission was a political document, too. All I’m asking is, anybody who wants to say I didn’t do enough, you read Richard Clarke’s book.

WALLACE: Do you think you did enough, sir?

CLINTON: No, because I didn’t get him.

WALLACE: Right.

CLINTON: But at least I tried. That’s the difference in me and some, including all the right-wingers who are attacking me now. They ridiculed me for trying. They had eight months to try. They did not try. I tried.

So I tried and failed. When I failed, I left a comprehensive anti-terror strategy and the best guy in the country, Dick Clarke, who got demoted.

pan6467 · 09-24-2006, 08:10 AM

I agree with Rat, doesn't matter if he's dead or alive, there will be someone there to take his place.

It amazes me. A rather tall, 6' something arab, who needs dialysis to live, can make movies and send them out and has a satelite phone yet cannot be found. But we can find Saddam buried in an outhouse?

We have the technology to focus in so precisely we can read someone's credit card numbers off their card but we can't find this man?

We fight a war in Iraq, that we started on false pretenses, we don't even hear a fucking word about our men in Afghanistan (to me that's a sign it's not going well there), we have the North Koreans and the Iranians building nukes, to which we do nothing. We are funding our war on debt to China and the fucking Saudi Royal family, by the billions daily. We are so indebted to these people we may as well kiss our asses goodbye.

And all the GOP can do is still blame Clinton????????????

Wow, let's turn a total blind eye to Nero as Rome burns and blame the previous guy, we wouldn't let take a shit without harassing, summonsing, threatening and holding impeachment hearings on.

The GOP still want to have a "Not our fault" fucking attitude??????? Yet they claim to be "the true patriotic party"??????????

How anyone can support these treasonous traitors selling out our nation is beyond me.

roachboy · 09-24-2006, 08:23 AM

bin laden could have been dead for years and it would not have mattered.

the bush administration was the best pr outfit bin laden could have asked for, but the paradox is that the publicity he has recieved does not and did not require that he actually be alive--he worked just fine as the recurring bogeyman used to sell the entire fraud that is the "war on terror"--a fuzzy video image done far away referenced on fox news to assure the conservative set that there is some coherence behind the policies of this administration.

it is interesting to me how this story got into the press, and i wonder what might have taken place had this not happened--perhaps a bit of noxious theater showing the american capture of the corpse---from which would follow claims that this capture of a corpse vindicates everything and everyone. of course these claims would be tempered with rationales for not beginning to wind down this idiotic, self-defeating "war on terror"....

but now all that is shot to hell.

no wonder you get the bizarre turn in this thread above, the one that seeks to blame clinton for all this.
if the right didnt have clinton, they;ve have to face the disaster that is their politics.
can't have that.

Willravel · 09-24-2006, 08:33 AM

Alive Bin Laden is living proof that the US can't do shit.

Dead Bin Laden is a maryter.

It doesn't matter.

ratbastid · 09-24-2006, 02:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pan6467

Wow, let's turn a total blind eye to Nero as Rome burns and blame the previous guy,

Hunh! So Clinton is Caligula?

Sort of fitting, actually. I don't know if he'd be flattered, though.

Willravel · 09-24-2006, 03:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ratbastid

Hunh! So Clinton is Caligula?

Sort of fitting, actually. I don't know if he'd be flattered, though.

I'd say Clinton should be labeled with a word like cunnilungus before Caligula.

Marvelous Marv · 09-25-2006, 05:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ratbastid

In this country (until recently) we only take legal action against people who we can charge with crimes. It's part of the constitution. Which is to say, it currently is covered in jackboot prints, but it's a crucial part of our (erstwhile) liberties nonetheless.

Tell me, is killing someone part of the constitution?

(No link, because this was a subscription service)

Quote:

Bill Clinton Angrily Defends bin Laden Handling
'You Got That Little Smirk on Your Face and You Think You're So Clever'
By KAREN MATTHEWS, AP

NEW YORK (Sept. 25) -- In a combative interview on "Fox News Sunday," former President Clinton defended his handling of the threat posed by Osama bin Laden, saying he tried to have bin Laden killed and was attacked for his efforts by the same people who now criticize him for not doing enough.

"That's the difference in me and some, including all of the right-wingers who are attacking me now," Clinton said in the interview. "They ridiculed me for trying. They had eight months to try, they did not try."

"I'd LOVE to see some actual argumentation around here. But as long as certain factions keep themselves safely on the "Oh yeah, well you!" card, there's zero chance of that."
--ratbastid

Clinton accused host Chris Wallace of a "conservative hit job" and asked: "I want to know how many people in the Bush administration you asked, 'Why didn't you do anything about the Cole?' I want to know how many people you asked, 'Why did you fire Dick Clarke?'"

"I'd LOVE to see some actual argumentation around here. But as long as certain factions keep themselves safely on the "Oh yeah, well you!" card, there's zero chance of that.
--ratbastid

He was referring to the USS Cole, attacked by terrorists in Yemen in 2000, and former White House anti-terrorism chief Richard A. Clarke.

Wallace said Sunday he was surprised by Clinton's "conspiratorial view" of "a very non-confrontational question, 'Did you do enough to connect the dots and go after al-Qaida?'"

"All I did was ask him a question, and I think it was a legitimate news question. I was surprised that he would conjure up that this was a hit job," Wallace said in a telephone interview.

Clinton said he "worked hard" to try to kill bin Laden.

"We contracted with people to kill him. I got closer to killing him than anybody's gotten since," he said.

[Constitution?]

He told Wallace, "And you got that little smirk on your face and you think you're so clever, [personal attack] but I had responsibility for trying to protect this country. I tried and I failed to get bin Laden. I regret it, but I did try and I did everything I thought I responsibly could."

The interview was taped Friday during Clinton's three-day Global Initiative conference.

On NBC's "Meet the Press," also taped Friday and aired Sunday, Clinton told interviewer Tim Russert that the biggest problem confronting the world today is "the illusion that our differences matter more than our common humanity."

"That's what's driving the terrorism," he said. "It's not just that there's an unresolved Arab-Israeli conflict. Osama Bin Laden and Dr. al-Zawahiri can convince young Sunni Arab men, who have _ and some women _ who have despairing conditions in their lives, that they get a one-way ticket to heaven in a hurry if they kill a lot of innocent people who don't share their reality."

09-25-06 03:35 EDT

ratbastid · 09-25-2006, 05:59 AM

Imagine! Former President Bill Clinton quoting little ol' me! In great big bold red letters, even!

Marv: It's ironic that you would quote me in huge red in the middle of doing the very thing I was complaining about in that quote. I very much appreciate you making my point for me.

To address what I assume is the point you're attempting to make: I'm actually not crazy about Clinton's talking about "killing him". If that had actually happened, I'm pretty sure I would have had a problem with it. Difference is, I'm not slavishly in favor of whatever "my guy" does the way you are with "your guy". I don't mean that as a "no, YOU"--I say that because it speaks to why you would post what you just posted. Just because Clinton says it doesn't mean I'm for it. I suspect that's a shocking notion to you, given that whatever Bush says, you're for.

Marvelous Marv · 09-25-2006, 06:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ratbastid

Marv: It's ironic that you would quote me in huge red in the middle of doing the very thing I was complaining about in that quote. I very much appreciate you making my point for me.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ratbastid

To address what I assume is the point you're attempting to make: I'm actually not crazy about Clinton's talking about "killing him". If that had actually happened, I'm pretty sure I would have had a problem with it. Difference is, I'm not slavishly in favor of whatever "my guy" does the way you are with "your guy". I don't mean that as a "no, YOU"--I say that because it speaks to why you would post what you just posted. Just because Clinton says it doesn't mean I'm for it. I suspect that's a shocking notion to you, given that whatever Bush says, you're for.

You want to provide some proof about the "slavish part?" I've quoted you--why don't you do the same for something I've said?

And speaking of "slavish," it would sure be fun to post Dick Cheney's interview with Tim Russert. No matter how much Cheney was attacked, unlike Clinton, he kept his cool, even when Tim made hunting jokes. How do you think your boy would have reacted if a blue dress had been mentioned, which was probably why Clinton couldn't concentrate enough to kill Bin Laden?

It's pretty obvious who deserved to be a leader of our country, and it wasn't Clinton.

Lastly, if I understand you correctly, you accept Clinton's story that we didn't have enough legal basis to take custody of Bin Laden, so Slick decided he DID have the basis to kill him. Unless, of course, in a couple of years, good 'ol Bill says he "spoke inaccurately" again.

Maybe his "slaves" would believe that line again, but nobody else would.

ratbastid · 09-25-2006, 06:55 AM

You just refuse to actually discuss the issue, don't you? It always goes to ad hominem with you. There's no point in responding to this because you didn't actually deal with the meat of what I posted. I'm not rising to this bait, and instead refer you to my earlier statement.

dc_dux · 09-25-2006, 06:56 AM

Marv.....I am still trying to figure out when you believe Clinton and when you don't. Is it based soley on when it fits your political agenda or do you have other criteria?

pan6467 · 09-25-2006, 08:04 AM

I'm sure someone can help me here...... what was it exactly Bush said..... something along the lines of, "I don't care about where Bin Laden is, he doesn't matter."

I love the way some in here keep going off on Clinton, then point to the Left and say, "we (the Left) can't move on, the left's politics are ones full of hate". Seems almost laughable, until you realize that is what politics is today.... noone offering solutions, trying to make things better, just hate and finger pointing and wars that never end when they never should have started.

silent_jay · 09-25-2006, 08:29 AM

I believe this is the quote you are looking for pan.

Quote:

So I don't know where he is. You know, I just don't spend that much time on him, Kelly, to be honest with you.

pan6467 · 09-25-2006, 09:05 AM

Thank you Silent Jay.

Mojo_PeiPei · 09-25-2006, 09:17 AM

What point does that soundbyte serve? Talk about nitpicking. Not to say he isn't, or shouldn't be concerned about him, I can see what he means. With everything the President is charged with doing, it would seem to be missplaced to be overly pre-occupied with one man, when all Bush can really do is put the military on him, which is the way it should, Bush should in no way micro-manage the OBL case, we have people better qualified for that.

pan6467 · 09-25-2006, 09:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mojo_PeiPei

What point does that soundbyte serve? Talk about nitpicking. Not to say he isn't, or shouldn't be concerned about him, I can see what he means. With everything the President is charged with doing, it would seem to be missplaced to be overly pre-occupied with one man, when all Bush can really do is put the military on him, which is the way it should, Bush should in no way micro-manage the OBL case, we have people better qualified for that.

But wait a minute..... Clinton was just answering a question and as a former president, with a lot on his plate and the fact he had all those affairs and was tried for impeachment and unable to do the job a majority elected him to do TWICE, he should be judged by one of his soundbytes?

I see...... Bush says he doesn't care, give him carte blanche, understand what he means, and act like it is nothing. Clinton opens his mouth, lets rehash and retry and keep harping on every day of his last 8 years, so we can prove in our own minds but not to anyone else, we are far superior.

Makes sense to me.

Mojo_PeiPei · 09-25-2006, 09:29 AM

I haven't chimed in about Clinton. So in that sense am I in no way trying to prove anything to myself one way or the other; it appears by your last post you may be though.

host · 09-25-2006, 10:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mojo_PeiPei

What point does that soundbyte serve? Talk about nitpicking. Not to say he isn't, or shouldn't be concerned about him, I can see what he means. With everything the President is charged with doing, it would seem to be missplaced to be overly pre-occupied with one man, when all Bush can really do is put the military on him, which is the way it should, Bush should in no way micro-manage the OBL case, we have people better qualified for that.

Well....then, please explain what these contradictions are about, Mojo. When was the last time in our history when intelligence was either utterly wrong, on every level, when it came to justification for invading another country, Iraq, and then the POTUS gave the Director of Intelligence gathering and analysis, the highest civilian award, when did a POTUS ever "flip-flop" over the importance of apprehending a man who he earlier ordered the invasion of an entire country, Afghanistan, for that sole purpose, only to say the following, just months later? When.....in what other presidential administration, after all of the blunders and contradictions, in challenges of the pre and post 9/11 magnitude, were only officials who objected to the mistakes, and the coverups, the ones fired....and the "fuck ups", kept in their jobs, or promoted, or given very public praise by the POTUS, and "merit awards".

What will it take to "turn", the last 37 percent, Mojo? Is there anything that will?

Quote:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0020313-8.html
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
March 13, 2002

President Bush Holds Press Conference
Press Conference by the President
The James S. Brady Briefing Room

.... Q Mr. President, in your speeches now you rarely talk or mention Osama bin Laden. Why is that? Also, can you tell the American people if you have any more information, if you know if he is dead or alive? Final part -- deep in your heart, don't you truly believe that until you find out if he is dead or alive, you won't really eliminate the threat of --

THE PRESIDENT: Deep in my heart I know the man is on the run, if he's alive at all. Who knows if he's hiding in some cave or not; we haven't heard from him in a long time. And the idea of focusing on one person is -- really indicates to me people don't understand the scope of the mission.

Terror is bigger than one person. And he's just -- he's a person who's now been marginalized. His network, his host government has been destroyed. He's the ultimate parasite who found weakness, exploited it, and met his match. He is -- as I mentioned in my speech, I do mention the fact that this is a fellow who is willing to commit youngsters to their death and he, himself, tries to hide -- if, in fact, he's hiding at all.

So I don't know where he is. <b>You know, I just don't spend that much time on him, Kelly, to be honest with you.</b> I'm more worried about making sure that our soldiers are well-supplied; that the strategy is clear; that the coalition is strong; that when we find enemy bunched up like we did in Shahikot Mountains, that the military has all the support it needs to go in and do the job, which they did.

And there will be other battles in Afghanistan. There's going to be other struggles like Shahikot, and I'm just as confident about the outcome of those future battles as I was about Shahikot, where our soldiers are performing brilliantly. We're tough, we're strong, they're well-equipped. We have a good strategy. We are showing the world we know how to fight a guerrilla war with conventional means.

Q But don't you believe that the threat that bin Laden posed won't truly be eliminated until he is found either dead or alive?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, as I say, we haven't heard much from him. And I wouldn't necessarily say he's at the center of any command structure. And, again, I don't know where he is. I -- I'll repeat what I said. I truly am not that concerned about him. I know he is on the run. I was concerned about him, when he had taken over a country. I was concerned about the fact that he was basically running Afghanistan and calling the shots for the Taliban.

But once we set out the policy and started executing the plan, he became -- we shoved him out more and more on the margins. He has no place to train his al Qaeda killers anymore. And if we -- excuse me for a minute -- and if we find a training camp, we'll take care of it. Either we will or our friends will. That's one of the things -- part of the new phase that's becoming apparent to the American people is that we're working closely with other governments to deny sanctuary, or training, or a place to hide, or a place to raise money.

And we've got more work to do. See, that's the thing the American people have got to understand, that we've only been at this six months. This is going to be a long struggle. I keep saying that; I don't know whether you all believe me or not. But time will show you that it's going to take a long time to achieve this objective. And I can assure you, I am not going to blink. And I'm not going to get tired. Because I know what is at stake. And history has called us to action, and I am going to seize this moment for the good of the world, for peace in the world and for freedom.

Mike Allen. I'm working my way back, slowly but surely. Michael. .....

Quote:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0060911-3.html
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
September 11, 2006

President's Address to the Nation
The Oval Office

.....For America, 9/11 was more than a tragedy -- it changed the way we look at the world. On September the 11th, we resolved that we would go on the offense against our enemies, and we would not distinguish between the terrorists and those who harbor or support them. So we helped drive the Taliban from power in Afghanistan. We put al Qaeda on the run, and killed or captured most of those who planned the 9/11 attacks, including the man believed to be the mastermind, Khalid Sheik Mohammed. He and other suspected terrorists have been questioned by the Central Intelligence Agency, and they provided valuable information that has helped stop attacks in America and across the world. Now these men have been transferred to Guantanamo Bay, so they can be held to account for their actions. <b>Osama bin Laden and other terrorists are still in hiding. Our message to them is clear: No matter how long it takes, America will find you, and we will bring you to justice.</b>

On September the 11th, we learned that America must confront threats before they reach our shores, whether those threats come from terrorist networks or terrorist states. I'm often asked why we're in Iraq when Saddam Hussein was not responsible for the 9/11 attacks. The answer is that the regime of Saddam Hussein was a clear threat.........

Quote:

http://www.weeklystandard.com/conten...2/696wnfcp.asp
Inside the Oval Office
President Bush gives journalists a "heads up" about the mid-term elections, among other things.
by Fred Barnes
09/13/2006 1:54:00 PM

WE NOW KNOW WHY the Bush administration hasn't made the capture of Osama bin Laden a paramount goal of the war on terror. Emphasis on bin Laden doesn't fit with the administration's strategy for combating terrorism. Here's how President Bush explained this Tuesday: "This thing about . . . let's put 100,000 of our special forces stomping through Pakistan in order to find bin Laden is just simply not the strategy that will work."

Rather, Bush says there's a better way to stay on offense against terrorists. "The way you win the war on terror," Bush said, "is to find people [who are terrorists] and get them to give you information about what their buddies are fixing to do." In a speech last week, the president explained how this had worked--starting with the arrest and interrogation of 9/11 planner Khalid Sheik Muhammad--to break up a terrorist operation that was planning post-9/11 attacks on America.

"It's really important at this stage . . . to be thinking about how to institutionalize courses of action that will enable future presidents to gain the information necessary to prevent attack," he said. This, presumably, would include the use of secret prisons, tough but legal interrogation techniques, a ban on lawsuits against interrogators, electronic eavesdropping, and monitoring of bank transfers, among other measures.

Bush talked about his strategy in the fight against Islamic jihadists in a 95-minute session in the Oval Office with seven journalists. At the outset of the interview, which occurred the morning after his speech to
the nation on the fifth anniversary of 9/11, Bush declared: "I've never been more convinced that the decisions I made are the right decisions."

An unusual aspect of the session was the president's request for some of his remarks to be considered off the record. Nevertheless, several of these comments were reported anyway, including his observation that he senses a new spiritual awakening in the country. That view, he indicated, is at least partly based on the many times average citizens tell him they are praying for him.....

....and video of Fred Barnes on the preceding "topic".

Quote:

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/09/14/barnes-osama/
Bush Tells Barnes Capturing Bin Laden Is ‘Not A Top Priority Use of American Resources’

Weekly Standard editor Fred Barnes appeared on Fox this morning to discuss his recent meeting with President Bush in the Oval Office. The key takeaway for Barnes was that “bin Laden doesn’t fit with the administration’s strategy for combating terrorism.” Barnes said that Bush told him capturing bin Laden is “not a top priority use of American resources.” Watch it.

IMO, the only possible explanation is that Bush is an incoherent incompetent.

Willravel · 09-25-2006, 10:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by host

IMO, the only possible explanation is that Bush is an incoherent incompetent.

...or he is taking an active role in decieving his constituants. He's either as dumb as a stump or he's a traitor. Either way, this man should not be the "leader of the free world".

dc_dux · 09-25-2006, 01:14 PM

Perhaps Marv or UStwo will comment on these actions of Clinton v Bush, re: focus on bin Laden:

Quote:

March - June, 1998
CIA Develops a Capture Plan bin Laden at Tarnak Farms in Afghanistan, then vetos the plan after risk assessment and probabiitly of catching bin Laden deemed "low". Plan never presented to the White House.

http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report_Ch4.htm

Aug. 20, 1998
Clinton orders Tomahawk missiles fired at a suspected Al Qaeda camp in Afghanistan and a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan, which was suspected of producing chemical weapons for bin Laden. The effectiveness of the strikes is later questioned.

http://www.cnn.com/US/9808/20/us.strikes.02/

Jan. 25, 2001
Richard Clarke, the National Security Council counterterrorism chief, sends a memo to Deputy National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley warning that Al Qaeda sleeper cells within the U.S. are “a major threat.” Clarke also advocates targeting Al Qaeda training camps in response to the Cole bombing.

"We urgently need . . . a Principals level review on the al Qida network."
Clarke's memo requests an immediate meeting of the National Security Council's Principals Committee to discuss broad strategies for combating al-Qaeda by giving counterterrorism aid to the Northern Alliance and Uzbekistan, expanding the counterterrorism budget and responding to the U.S.S. Cole attack.

Despite Clarke's request, there was no Principals Committee meeting on al-Qaeda until September 4, 2001.

http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB...B147/index.htm

http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB...rke%20memo.pdf

August 6, 2001
Bush received Presidential Daily Brief "bin Laden Determined to Strike in US".
In a single 17-sentence document, the intelligence briefing delivered to President Bush spells out the who, hints at the what and points towards the where of the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington that followed 36 days later.

Administration takes no action.

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/...db8-6-2001.pdf

Sept. 11, 2001
Condi Rice has major foreign policy speeched planned, with primary focus on missle defense, with passing reference to terrorism and no mention of al queda

"National security adviser Condoleeza Rice planned to deliver a speech on September 11, 2001, about national security that said nothing about Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda or Islamic fundamentalist groups.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/...ech/index.html

SPEECH CANCELED

I think we all know the rest. We invade Afghanistan, with the support of the world, putting bin Laden and al Queda on the run.........we abandon the mission before its complete and invade Iraq.

Marv, Ustwo:
Agreed that certainly Clinton could have done more. But, can you point to anythng that demonstrates the Bush administration had its eyes on bin Laden and al Queda before 9/11/01 even with the warnings from Clarke and subsequent intelligence (PDB)?

If not, give it a rest.

09-23-2006, 01:40 PM	#3 (permalink)
Infinite_Loser Junkie Location: Lake Mary, FL	It's been five years since 9/11 and the subsequent invasion of Afghanistan, yet the United States is no closer to finding Bin Laden than they were during the Clinton administration. At this point, they already look like an idiot. __________________ I believe in equality; Everyone is equally inferior to me.

09-24-2006, 04:47 AM	#13 (permalink)
ShaniFaye Submit to me, you know you want to Location: Lilburn, Ga	Correct me if Im wrong but didnt they scrap plans that had been in the works for months in 1998 to attack Tarnak Farms, which was set to be carried out June 23 1998...when they KNEW BL was there and KNEW which bunker he was in? __________________ *I want the diabetic plan that comes with rollover carbs. I dont like the unused one expiring at midnite!!*

09-24-2006, 05:47 AM	#15 (permalink)
ShaniFaye Submit to me, you know you want to Location: Lilburn, Ga	thanks for clearing that up for me...I knew it happened but I thought it was the administration that told Tenet no they couldnt justify it __________________ *I want the diabetic plan that comes with rollover carbs. I dont like the unused one expiring at midnite!!*

09-24-2006, 06:05 AM	#18 (permalink)
Charlatan Getting it. Super Moderator Location: Lion City	As I see it, there are missed opportunities all over the place. The biggest one to me is Bush and company taking their eyes off the ball and shifting their resources to Iraq. To do this without first completing the Afghanistan mission (i.e. capturing OBL) is inexcusable. You can point fingers at Clinton or whomever you please, but please don't omit this fact. __________________ "My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars." - Old Man Luedecke

09-24-2006, 08:10 AM	#22 (permalink)
pan6467 Lennonite Priest Location: Mansfield, Ohio USA	I agree with Rat, doesn't matter if he's dead or alive, there will be someone there to take his place. It amazes me. A rather tall, 6' something arab, who needs dialysis to live, can make movies and send them out and has a satelite phone yet cannot be found. But we can find Saddam buried in an outhouse? We have the technology to focus in so precisely we can read someone's credit card numbers off their card but we can't find this man? We fight a war in Iraq, that we started on false pretenses, we don't even hear a fucking word about our men in Afghanistan (to me that's a sign it's not going well there), we have the North Koreans and the Iranians building nukes, to which we do nothing. We are funding our war on debt to China and the fucking Saudi Royal family, by the billions daily. We are so indebted to these people we may as well kiss our asses goodbye. And all the GOP can do is still blame Clinton???????????? Wow, let's turn a total blind eye to Nero as Rome burns and blame the previous guy, we wouldn't let take a shit without harassing, summonsing, threatening and holding impeachment hearings on. The GOP still want to have a "Not our fault" fucking attitude??????? Yet they claim to be "the true patriotic party"?????????? How anyone can support these treasonous traitors selling out our nation is beyond me. __________________ I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"

09-23-2006, 04:04 PM	#6 (permalink)
Elphaba Deja Moo Location: Olympic Peninsula, WA	Chirac says that the information isn't confirmed. Would this be the "October Surprise" that Rove is predicting?

09-23-2006, 04:31 PM	#8 (permalink)
Elphaba Deja Moo Location: Olympic Peninsula, WA	Tecoyah had some very good data on the Clinton administration's attempts to find obl on another politics forum. I miss his posts here but I can also understand why he no longer bothers to make the effort.

09-24-2006, 08:23 AM	#23 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	bin laden could have been dead for years and it would not have mattered. the bush administration was the best pr outfit bin laden could have asked for, but the paradox is that the publicity he has recieved does not and did not require that he actually be alive--he worked just fine as the recurring bogeyman used to sell the entire fraud that is the "war on terror"--a fuzzy video image done far away referenced on fox news to assure the conservative set that there is some coherence behind the policies of this administration. it is interesting to me how this story got into the press, and i wonder what might have taken place had this not happened--perhaps a bit of noxious theater showing the american capture of the corpse---from which would follow claims that this capture of a corpse vindicates everything and everyone. of course these claims would be tempered with rationales for not beginning to wind down this idiotic, self-defeating "war on terror".... but now all that is shot to hell. no wonder you get the bizarre turn in this thread above, the one that seeks to blame clinton for all this. if the right didnt have clinton, they;ve have to face the disaster that is their politics. can't have that. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

09-24-2006, 08:33 AM	#24 (permalink)
Willravel ... a sort of licensed troubleshooter.	Alive Bin Laden is living proof that the US can't do shit. Dead Bin Laden is a maryter. It doesn't matter.

09-25-2006, 05:59 AM	#28 (permalink)
ratbastid Darth Papa Location: Yonder	Imagine! Former President Bill Clinton quoting little ol' me! In great big bold red letters, even! Marv: It's ironic that you would quote me in huge red in the middle of doing the very thing I was complaining about in that quote. I very much appreciate you making my point for me. To address what I assume is the point you're attempting to make: I'm actually not crazy about Clinton's talking about "killing him". If that had actually happened, I'm pretty sure I would have had a problem with it. Difference is, I'm not slavishly in favor of whatever "my guy" does the way you are with "your guy". I don't mean that as a "no, YOU"--I say that because it speaks to why you would post what you just posted. Just because Clinton says it doesn't mean I'm for it. I suspect that's a shocking notion to you, given that whatever Bush says, you're for.

09-25-2006, 06:55 AM	#30 (permalink)
ratbastid Darth Papa Location: Yonder	You just refuse to actually discuss the issue, don't you? It always goes to ad hominem with you. There's no point in responding to this because you didn't actually deal with the meat of what I posted. I'm not rising to this bait, and instead refer you to my earlier statement.

09-25-2006, 06:56 AM	#31 (permalink)
dc_dux Location: Washington DC	Marv.....I am still trying to figure out when you believe Clinton and when you don't. Is it based soley on when it fits your political agenda or do you have other criteria? __________________ "The perfect is the enemy of the good." ~ Voltaire

09-25-2006, 08:04 AM	#32 (permalink)
pan6467 Lennonite Priest Location: Mansfield, Ohio USA	I'm sure someone can help me here...... what was it exactly Bush said..... something along the lines of, "I don't care about where Bin Laden is, he doesn't matter." I love the way some in here keep going off on Clinton, then point to the Left and say, "we (the Left) can't move on, the left's politics are ones full of hate". Seems almost laughable, until you realize that is what politics is today.... noone offering solutions, trying to make things better, just hate and finger pointing and wars that never end when they never should have started. __________________ I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"

09-25-2006, 09:05 AM	#34 (permalink)
pan6467 Lennonite Priest Location: Mansfield, Ohio USA	Thank you Silent Jay. __________________ I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"

09-25-2006, 09:17 AM	#35 (permalink)
Mojo_PeiPei Kiss of Death Location: Perpetual wind and sorrow	What point does that soundbyte serve? Talk about nitpicking. Not to say he isn't, or shouldn't be concerned about him, I can see what he means. With everything the President is charged with doing, it would seem to be missplaced to be overly pre-occupied with one man, when all Bush can really do is put the military on him, which is the way it should, Bush should in no way micro-manage the OBL case, we have people better qualified for that. __________________ To win a war you must serve no master but your ambition.

09-25-2006, 09:29 AM	#37 (permalink)
Mojo_PeiPei Kiss of Death Location: Perpetual wind and sorrow	I haven't chimed in about Clinton. So in that sense am I in no way trying to prove anything to myself one way or the other; it appears by your last post you may be though. __________________ To win a war you must serve no master but your ambition. Last edited by Mojo_PeiPei; 09-25-2006 at 09:35 AM..