Richard Clarke Owes President Bush An Apology

The Hartford Courant ^ | April 3, 2004 | Charles Krauthammer

[johnny7]

The New York Times swooned. Newsweek put it on its cover. Commentators everywhere expressed sorrowful dismay that Bush had not done it long ago. Indeed, one has to admire it - the most cynical and brilliantly delivered apology in recent memory: Richard Clarke using the nationally televised Sept. 11 commission hearings to address the families of the victims. "Your government failed you, those entrusted with protecting you failed you and I failed you."

[johnny7]

Krauthammer is right on this call. Anyone who knows anything about Pearl Harbor couldn't even place all the blame on Kimmel and Short. Too many were deserving of partial blame to count. Even if they did scramble aircraft after seeing the huge radar blip from the northeast the Japanese tally would have been extremely impressive.

Our 'government' failed us on 9-11-01. And since 'our' government is 'by-the-people', we all share a portion of the blame.

[Support Free Republic]

[DoughtyOne]

I've got my beefs with Bush, but 09/11 isn't one of them. The Clinton administration, our nation's democrat leadership and our national security agencies are a different story.

The Clinton administration could have had Laden three times and took a pass. In eight years they did little else but implement cosmetic fixes to the terrorist threat. Oh yes, and they blamed George Bush after the fact. Very effective. NOT! The Clinton administration and everything associated with it smells like rotten eggs.

As for our national security agencies, there are tens of thousands of agents, not a one of which could extrapolate a possible threat involving aircraft and tall buildings. Worse yet, they didn't even have a contingency plan for attack from the air in our major cities, no not even in the capital. Now there's a real think-tank for ya.

Then there's the nation's leading Democrats who spent the first eight months of the Bush Presidency stalling and denying Bush appointments, some of which were to the national security arena. When they blame Bush for not hitting the road running, they conveniently forget to metion that they were the precise reason he couldn't.

[DoughtyOne]

In addition, I should have mentioned that due to the democrat's stonewalling on Bush appointees, guess who was still in charge of the security agencies? Yep, Clinton's goons and his agenda were still in play for the most part.

Now, who do we blame? I wonder...

[kcvl]

Go here and click on: Phony Apology (washingtonpost.com)

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=Richard+Clarke+Owes+President+Bush+An+Apology



The most telling remark Clarke made in the entire hearing was one that did not make the cover of Newsweek.

Former senator Slade Gorton: "Assuming that the recommendations that you made on January 25th of 2001 . . . had all been adopted say on January 26th, year 2001, is there the remotest chance that it would have prevented 9/11?"

Clarke: "No."

Thus, doing everything demanded by the most hawkish, most prescient, most brilliant, most heroic, most swaggering anti-terrorism chief in American history -- i.e. Clarke, in his own mind -- would not have prevented Sept. 11. Why, then, should the administration apologize?

[kcvl]

Charles Krauthammer


by blaming the government for the deaths of their loved ones, Clarke deftly endorsed the grotesque moral inversion by which those who died on Sept. 11 are victims of . . . George Bush. This is about as morally obscene as the implication (made by, among others, the irrepressible Howard Dean) that those who died in the Madrid bombings were also victims of George Bush.

This is false. They were all victims of al Qaeda and al Qaeda alone.

[DoughtyOne]

I made it clear I don't assess blame to Bush, and your comments are accurate as far as they go. I still happen to believe that a legislature, judge, prison system and parole department who allow a pedifile back on the street, is none the less part of the cause of repeat offenders and continuing injury to the innocent.

Bill Clinton allowed Laden to remain on the street. Damn if I'll give him a free pass.

The pedifile is the perp, so he alone encacts the crime. He is however enabled by those who fail us every step of the way.

[DoughtyOne]

Nice comments.

[tkathy]

If somehow Bin Laden had been captured does anyone in their right mind think it would have changed anything? Radical Islam would have gone right ahead with something much worse. Besides, the second in command guy (can't spell his name), is acknowledged to be the mastermind behind 9/11. And, to my knowledge, no one knew about him.

9/11 remains the fault of the entire world of Islam.

[Diogenesis]

---

ONLY A PARTIAL LIST OF TERRORIST ACTIVITIES

1968 Robert Kennedy assassinated
1972 Munich Olympics Sep-5,1972 (Black September)
1976 Entebbe Hostage Crisis, June 27, 1976
1979 Iran Hostage Crisis, Nov. 4, 1979 444 days
1979 Grand Mosque Seizure, Nov 20,1979
1981 Assassination of Egyptian President, Oct 6,1981
1982 Assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister, Sept 14, 1982
1983 Bombing of US Embassy in Beirut6, April 18,1983
1983 Bombing of Maring Barricks, Beruit, Oct 23,1983
1984 Hizballah Restaurant Bombing, April 12,1984
1985 Egyptian Airliner Hijacking, Nov 23,1985
1985 Rome Airport murders
1985 TWA Flight 847 hijacked, U.S. Navy diver murdered
1985 Achille Lauro hijacking, Homacidal maniac lived in saddams Iraq
1986 Aircraft Bombing in Greece, March 30, 1986
1988 Pan Am 747 Flight 103 Bombing, Lockerbie, 100's murdered
1988 Berlin Discoteque Bombing, Dec 21,1988
1992 Bombing in Israeli Embassy in Argentina, March 17,1992
1993 Attempted Assassination of Pres. Bush Sr., April 14,1993
1993 First World Trade Center bombing, February 26th, 7 Killed, Hundreds injured, Billions
1994 Air France Hijacking, Dec 24,1994
1995 Attack on US Diplomats in Pakistan, Mar 8,1995
1995 Saudi Military Installation Attack, Nov 13, 1995
1995 Kashmiri Hostage taking, July 4,1995
1996 Khobar Towers attack
1996 Sudanese Missionarys Kidnapping, Aug 17,1996
1996 Paris Subway Explosion, Dec 3,1996
1997 Israeli Shopping Mall Bombing, Sept 4, 1997
1997 Yemeni Kidnappings, Oct 30,1997
1998 Somali Hostage taking crisis, April 15,1998
1998 U.S. Embassy Bombing in Peru, Jan 15, 1998
1998 U.S. Kenya Embassy blown up, 100's murdered
1998 U.S. Tanzania Embassy blown up, 100's murdered
1999 Plot to blow up Space Needle (thwarted)
2000 USS Cole attacked, many U.S. Navy sailors murdered
2000-2003 Intifada against Israel - 100's dead and injured
2000 Manila Bombing, Dec 30,2000
2001 4 Commercial airliners hijacked, 250+ murdered
2001 World Trade Center attacked, 2800+ murdered
2001 Flight 93 murders
2001 Pentagon attacked, 180+ murdered
2002 Reporter Daniel Pearl, kidnapped and murdered
2002 Philippines American missionary, Filipino nurse killed
2002 July 4, El Al attack Los Angeles LAX, several murdered
2002 Bali bombing - 200 dead, 300 injured
2002 Yemen, French Oil Tanker attacked
2002 Marines attacked / murdered in Kuwait
2002 Washington D.C. sniper
2002 Russian Theater attacked, 100+ dead
2002 Nigerian riots against Miss World Pageant, 200 dead, dozens injured
2002 Mombasa Hotel Attacked, 12 dead, dozens injured
2002 Israeli Boeing 757 attacked by missiles, fortunately no one injured
2002 August Hotel bombing in Jakarta, Indonesia. 12 dead, dozens injured.
2003 Rusian concert bombing
2003 Phillipines airport and market bombing
2003 Foiled SAM plot in the USA
2003 UN Baghdad HQ Bombing
on and on and on and on it goes .........

[I still care]

Exactly. Freepers excluded of course, this nation elected Clinton and did not hold him accountable for an effective response, even after the 93 WTC bombings, the embassies, etc. It just wasn't on the radar.

We all went on our merry way. I remember my mother saying to me after the Cole, "you know, one day the terrorists have are going to blow up something so big we will have to take them seriously. People have to suffer before they will do something. But its coming, and they are going to be totally surprised."

She was always convinced there was going to be some big bombing in Manhattan, especially after the first bombing.

[Mr. Buzzcut]

If somehow Bin Laden had been captured does anyone in their right mind think it would have changed anything?

Been trying to express this to my Angry Left cohorts. As if, with word of Bin Laden's capture, the Koranic call to jihad will evaporate!

[SkyPilot]

Clarke's "apology" reminded me of Clinton going to Africa to "apologize" for slavery and colonialism. In fact, Clinton went around "apologizing" for every sin under the sun--except his own.

[syriacus]

Thanks for alerting us to this column.

This great op-ed column also in Boulder News

Krauthammer: What a sorry apology

WASHINGTON — The New York Times swooned. Newsweek put it on its cover. Commentators everywhere expressed sorrowful dismay that Bush had not done it long ago.

Indeed, one has to admire it — the most cynical and brilliantly delivered apology in recent memory: Richard Clarke using the nationally televised Sept. 11 commission hearings to address the families of the victims. "Your government failed you, those entrusted with protecting you failed you and I failed you."

Many were moved. I was not. For two reasons. First, the climactic confession "I failed you" — the one that packed the emotional punch — was entirely disingenuous. Clarke did the mea culpa then spent the next 2 1/2 hours of testimony — as he did on every talk show known to man and in the 300 pages of his book — demonstrating how everyone else except Richard Clarke had failed. And they failed because the stubborn, ignorant, ideologically blinkered, poll-driven knaves and fools he had been heroically fighting against in government would not listen to him.

Message: They failed you.

Second, by blaming the government for the deaths of their loved ones, Clarke deftly endorsed the grotesque moral inversion by which those who died on Sept. 11 are victims of ... George Bush. This is about as morally obscene as the implication (made by, among others, the irrepressible Howard Dean) that those who died in the Madrid bombings were also victims of George Bush.

This is false. They were all victims of al-Qaida and al Qaida alone.

Clinton did not apologize for Oklahoma City. Reagan did not apologize for the Beirut bombing. FDR did not apologize for Pearl Harbor. George Bush owes no apology. If an apology is owed, it is owed to the entire country and not just the families, and it is owed by the murderers who planned and carried out Sept. 11.

The most telling remark Clarke made in the entire hearing was one that did not make the cover of Newsweek.

SEN. SLADE GORTON: "Assuming that the recommendations that you made on January 25th of 2001 ... had all been adopted say on January 26th, year 2001, is there the remotest chance that it would have prevented 9/11?"

CLARKE: "No."

Thus, doing everything demanded by the most hawkish, most prescient, most brilliant, most heroic, most swaggering antiterrorism chief in American history — i.e. Clarke, in his own mind — would not have prevented Sept. 11. Why then should the administration apologize?

What exactly was the failure? What was Bush supposed to do in order to prevent Sept. 11? Invade Afghanistan? Clarke has expressed outrage at Bush's pre-emptive invasion of Iraq. So: Bush deserves excoriation for pre-emptively invading Iraq based on massive, universally accepted intelligence of its weapons, to say nothing of its hostility and virulence; and simultaneously, Bush deserves excoriation for not pre-emptively attacking Afghanistan on the basis of ... what? Increased terrorist chatter in the summer of 2001?

At the hearing, Clarke was particularly brilliant in playing to the gallery, mainly to the families in the gallery. By some strange cultural transmutation, the families — or more accurately, a small number of politically active families — have claimed, and been ceded, special status in the war on terrorism.

Surely they deserve our sympathy and our care. And they have received an extraordinary, indeed unprecedented, outpouring of both from the public and from the government. But some families go much further, and claim the moral high ground in judging the war on terror and how it is to be waged.

On what grounds? Did the Pearl Harbor families enjoy special status in critiquing FDR's decisions in World War II? The Oklahoma City families were denied any special status at all — they never even got compensation of the sort the Sept. 11 families received.

Just this week the widow of Daniel Pearl was denied a claim for similar government compensation, on the grounds that, while Pearl was surely a victim of the war on terror — and, in fact, was engaged in it by pursuing the truth about those waging war against us — he happened to die on a date other than Sept. 11.

Clarke's clever pseudo-apology — we failed, meaning, they failed — played perfectly to the families in the gallery, who applauded and warmly embraced the very man who for 12 years was the U.S. government official most responsible for preventing a Sept. 11. A neat trick.

[Therapist]

Nero fiddled and Bubba diddled. History does repeat itself.

[EQAndyBuzz]

Notice how Clarke is now off the media radar. He served his purpose. Now Rice is testifying and Bush is releasing Clinton files.

The RATS as always have something up their sleeve. I love a chess match. Can't wait to see Condi's testimony. As we all know, she will skewer Clarke. But the story has already passed.

Guarantee it. Friday's front page will be a minor story about the testimony. Condi's testimony won't mean squat nor will it have any impact on the panels final report.

The files are a smoke screen designed to keepattention on Bush that they may be hiding something. There will be more delays and the report will not come out till sometime in October. SUPRISE!!!

[Eric in the Ozarks]

The lesson is obvious. A new administration should clean house on day one, even if it means empty desks for a few weeks. Hell, they're government employees. Who'd miss em ?

[b4its2late]

A new administration should clean house on day one, even if it means empty desks for a few weeks.

And in Clarkes case, the empty desk would've served the country as well as he did as terror czar.

[DoughtyOne]

Great list. One almost gets the impression we're at war, and have been all along. Finally someone has begun to act like it.

I cannot fathom the fact that Arafat is still alive. This animal is still networking with the world's worst.

Look at those hillbillies. I rest my case!

[syriacus]

The RATS as always have something up their sleeve.

You can count on that. I was wondering if the administration was delaying permission for Condi's testimony in order to slow down the Dems' unveiling some "brand new scandal" that would have to be dealt with.

It may seem like a bad idea to delay dealing with Democratic attacks, but I can see doing that once in a while, just to get a breather.