9/11: For The Record

The Washington Post ^ | Monday, March 22, 2004 | By Condoleezza Rice

[Jewels1091]

The al Qaeda terrorist network posed a threat to the United States for almost a decade before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Throughout that period -- during the eight years of the Clinton administration and the first eight months of the Bush administration prior to Sept. 11 -- the U.S. government worked hard to counter the al Qaeda threat.

During the transition, President-elect Bush's national security team was briefed on the Clinton administration's efforts to deal with al Qaeda. The seriousness of the threat was well understood by the president and his national security principals. In response to my request for a presidential initiative, the counterterrorism team, which we had held over from the Clinton administration, suggested several ideas, some of which had been around since 1998 but had not been adopted. No al Qaeda plan was turned over to the new administration

We adopted several of these ideas. We committed more funding to counterterrorism and intelligence efforts. We increased efforts to go after al Qaeda's finances. We increased American support for anti-terror activities in Uzbekistan.

[Fiddlstix]

BTTT

[swarthyguy]

Well, shall I hope you get your asinine wish?

Sad and pathetic, the memory of that day has degenerated into this.

Sounds like you must have been one of those cheering that the modern day Sodom, Gotham city got hit.

Did you? We know you'll cheer if an American "liberal" city melts.

[Fledermaus]

You really missed the point, didn't you? I clearly pointed out it was of a thought that was sick and usually gets pulled.

I was saying, easily understood since I said so, that if the people in those cities are going to protest, call Bush Hitler, promote Communism, love the Palestinians, want an appeaser in office (Kerry), then they better not come whining to me when their city gets hit.

They've made their beds, let them lie in them. Click on my profile...I have a picture of a framed poster in my house memorializing 9/11 and I'll never stop fighting the terrorist in anyway I can.

[Fledermaus]

Go back farther...FDR should have let Patton cross the Rhine and take out Stalin.

[Fledermaus]

Go back farther...FDR should have let Patton cross the Rhine and take out Stalin.

[Fledermaus]

Go back farther...FDR should have let Patton cross the Rhine and take out Stalin.

[Fledermaus]

Yep. Bush's hands were tied by the coalition. That's why the son changed the parameters and lets the mission now define the coalition and not the other way around.

Tens of thousands, if not hundreds, of those dead in mass graves in Iraq were put there after the 1991 Gulf War.

And the Kurds were smart this time to be weary. Before the battle in Iraq last year, I attended a pro-America rally and we had some Kurdish speakers. They were happy we were going to finally take Saddam out but clearly were burnt after 1991 and said so.

And your comments to risk about us being too tired to go after Uncle Joe under Truman is correct. Remember, after many years of brutal war we wanted to take a break. And our economy was booming with new homes, new appliances, new jobs, new suburbanites, etc. And many of us were born during that time of euphoria.

The same thing happened after WWI...roaring 20's leading to depression and global war again.

[risk]

FDR should have let Patton cross the Rhine and take out Stalin.

FDR was dead. The big decision was to halt at the river Elbe, and if minds had been made up before, Truman supported the conclusion, backing his general Eisenhower. Eisenhower apparently felt is was the right thing to do as well. Remember, we had been fighting a world war with the Russians as our official allies. We knew about the evils of communism, the gulags, and Stalin's murderous capriciousness. But Russia had taken the brunt of the German attack and started to them push back on their own -- before we even had a beach head on Europe's mainland. Millions of Russians had given their lives to defeat Hitler.

Despite the pleas of the Czechoslovak leaders and the appeals of Mr. Churchill, these units were not sent forward. Many observers have concluded that only a political decision, perhaps made weeks before, could have held General Dwight D. Eisenhower's forces at the Elbe. Careful examination of the Supreme Commander's action indicates that he halted his troops short of Berlin and Prague for military reasons only. --The Decision To Halt at the Elbe by Forrest C. Pogue.

Poge was the Director of the George C. Marshall Research Center.

Some additional evidence that it was a military decision comes from journalist Robert G. Nixon, who appears to have often covered Truman's presidency:

This was a military decision and not a political decision. You have to know the full facts of what was going on. Here were two great powerful armies approaching each other from opposite fronts with the remains of the German army caught in between them. We had to prevent an accidental clash between our own army and our ally's army. --Oral History Interview with Robert G. Nixon at the Truman Library.

I like this comment:

Thus, mistakes are made in history, but hindsight is a wonderful thing. Especially if you're the opposition political party, having had none of the responsibility for making these decisions. The people with no responsibility are the ones who are the greatest critics of those who had to make the decision.

[Fledermaus]

FDR was dead by then? Shows you how much I know. I thought by the time Yalta rolled around it was all over but the fat lady singing.

Geez, I'm getting old and need Google more and more! lol

[risk]

No no, you made a good point: FDR probably wussed out. They probably decided some of this beforehand, i.e. Potsdam. But it was important to the Allies under American leadership not to start up WWIII before WWII was done. Guess who would have had to fight the invincible Russian army? It would have been our grand fathers. In some ways, it would have been an equal injustice to that which Stalin was perpertrating on his own people.

The moral of the story is: buy and maintain a battle rifle for each able-bodied male you have in your household. Keep plenty of ammunition. And make sure you know how to use it. Why? Nobody will come to rescue us if one of our leaders goes berzerk and tries to become a dictator. The best insurance against an American Stalin (or the American equivalent of the politburo) is the second amendment.

Like the Swiss, the best way to be free is to be prepared for the worst.

[Fledermaus]

Like the Swiss, the best way to be free is to be prepared for the worst.

I thought they were neutral and their philosophy was "kill them with chocolate and the annoying tick-tock of clocks!". ;-)

[risk]

That and everyone and his uncle likes to shoot! Neutrality isn't always the right choice, but our arms will protect the Republic if we can keep them.

[Fledermaus]

Soviet KGB officials told us that they never considered invading the U.S. for the simple fact that "everyone is armed".

[risk]

Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, said that Americans have "no right to have access to the weapons of war in the streets of America." He criticized President Bush for not doing enough to promote an extension of the ban. ---Senator Kerry

[swarthyguy]

Perhaps I missed your point, whatever that was.

However, your putrid sentiment sickens me.

As does your "justification" for your feelings.

My orginal post stands; yoour view is asinine, parochial, selfcentered. Jihadis love your viewpoint.

As long as cities you don't approve of get hit, you're cool with it.

Find your conscience, man, and some sense of compassion and common sense.

Not only that, but your powers of analysis and thinking leave much to be desired.

You must be a very convential and superficial thinker; a few protesters on the streets and you judge an entire regions, areas and cities by what you are fed on TV.

Plus, get over your own damn self importance; despite your delusional desires, NO ONE is coming or going to come running to you if a terror attack happens.

OK, you can sit there and stew about the protesters and wish for a terror attack on these cities. despite your feeble protestations.

I suppose the people in Madrid deserved it too,

I mean the Spanish were 90% against their govt support for the Iraq war. According to your "logic", they deserved it.

[Fledermaus]

You can resort to name-calling all you want (first sign of a lack of intelligence), but I don't want those people to govern me again.

If they had their way we'd all be dead soon.

[swarthyguy]

That seems to be your style; when challenged on your statements, you resort to that old chestnut of lamenting my lack of intelligence.

Real smart on your part.

Yet you don't respond to any of my points.

If we had your way, they may be dead but you'd dance on their graves.

When the WTC came down, were you thrilled that a "liberal" city got hit.

Don't answer, I already know.

No wonder jihadis laugh at us. You help their agenda.
As if they care about our political divides or partisanships or liberal views.

[Tailgunner Joe]

We should have helped the warlord Chiang Kai Shek more at the proper time to keep Mao out of power at the end of WW2

Chiang Kai-Shek was democratically elected. He was a Christian and a patriot and a loyal ally to the United States. He has suffered the same character assassination at the hands of the leftist media as the other Pro-American enemies of the Communists (Batista, Somoza, etc.) whom Democrats helped to topple.

Truman said that proof of communist infiltration of the government was a "fairy story."

Thus, mistakes are made in history, but hindsight is a wonderful thing. Especially if you're the opposition political party, having had none of the responsibility for making these decisions.

The opposition had a plan at the time. It was called "rollback." Thank the Lord we have a Republican President today and did't listen to the Democrats' defeatist "containment" nonsense with regards to Iraq.

General George S. Patton - Liberty’s Steamroller

"It is not an exaggeration to state that Patton fought two wars in the ETO: one against the enemy and one against higher authorities for the opportunity to fight the enemy," notes Colonel Allen. After Germany surrendered on May 7, 1945, Patton realized that our Soviet "allies" — who had begun the war as co-aggressors with National Socialist Germany — were in fact our enemy, and he urged his superiors to evict the Soviets from central and eastern Europe.

In a conversation with then-Undersecretary of War Robert P. Patterson that took place in Austria shortly after the Nazi surrender, Patton complained that the "point system" being used to de-mobilize Third Army troops was destroying the Third Army, and creating a vacuum that the Soviets would exploit. "Mr. Secretary, for God’s sake, when you go home, stop this point system; stop breaking up these armies," pleaded the general. "Let’s keep our boots polished, bayonets sharpened, and present a picture of force and strength to these people [the Soviets]. This is the only language they understand." Asked by Patterson — who would become Secretary of War a few months later — what he would do, Patton replied: "I would have you tell the [Red Army] where their border is, and give them a limited time to get back across. Warn them that if they fail to do so, we will push them back across it."

Patton knew that the Red Army was weak, under-supplied, and vulnerable, and that if Europe were to be freed from totalitarian despotism, the West would have to act before the Soviets consolidated their position. "Oh George," came the condescending reply from Patterson, "you … have lost sight of the big picture."

That "big picture," as leftist historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. explained in the July/August 1995 issue of Foreign Affairs, "was to commit the United States to postwar international structures before [victory] … could return the nation to its old habits." In order to keep our nation entangled in the growing network of international bodies, a credible foreign menace was needed, and the Soviets were perfectly cast in the part. "It is to Joseph Stalin that Americans owe the 40-year suppression of the isolationist impulse," wrote Schlesinger with approval.

Had Patton been permitted to drive the Soviets from Europe, millions of people would have been spared decades of abject oppression, and the criminal elite that continues to dominate most of eastern and central Europe might never have come to power. Patton understood, and warned his superiors, that if the Soviets were allowed to consolidate their grip, "we have failed the liberation of Europe; we have lost the war!" Patton, an honorable and patriotic man, was apparently unable to accept the fact that while he and his soldiers fought to liberate their fellow men from tyranny, those above him in policy-making positions were seeking to control the world, not to emancipate it. Thus Patton was traduced in the servile press as a covert "Nazi sympathizer" and stripped of his command shortly before his fatal automobile accident on December 9, 1945.

[Fledermaus]

Nice try. You sound like John Kerry talking out of both sides of his mouth. Did I say YOU lacked intelligence? No, I said it's a sign of a lack of intelligence when someone who can't debate resorts to name-calling.

If the shoe fits, that's your problem, not mine.

And you didn't read my post at all. You just picked out the pieces that caught your attention. You ignored all my disclaimers and that I clearly stated I was making the comment out of my frustration seeing these idiots in their "peace marches". I made it clear that I hated making the point because of the kind of knee-jerk repsonses I get from posters like yourself.

People like you make it impossible in this country to have meaningful debate because you are too busy looking for something to give you a "gotcha" moment. Do you work as pundit on TV?

I'm not going to justify myself to the likes of you, but I was HORRIFIED on 9/11 and went to NY to visit as soon as I could to support their economy even if it was just for a long weekend.

This hangs in my home for all to see!

[risk]

Thank the Lord we have a Republican President today and did't listen to the Democrats' defeatist "containment" nonsense with regards to Iraq.

I think the defeatists of all stripes are still having a strong impact on our foreign policy.

"It is to Joseph Stalin that Americans owe the 40-year suppression of the isolationist impulse," wrote Schlesinger with approval.

Fascinating!

Patton, an honorable and patriotic man, was apparently unable to accept the fact that while he and his soldiers fought to liberate their fellow men from tyranny, those above him in policy-making positions were seeking to control the world, not to emancipate it.

That's a bold statement.

Thus Patton was traduced in the servile press as a covert "Nazi sympathizer" and stripped of his command shortly before his fatal automobile accident on December 9, 1945.

Here's what got Patton in trouble:

After the war Patton was made governor of Bavaria. He was severely criticized for allowing Nazis to remain in office and at a press conference on 22nd September 1945, Patton created outrage when he said: "This Nazi thing. It's just like a Democratic-Republican election fight."

That sounds familiar!