MAY 1998 : (OSAMA BIN LADEN IS INTERVIEWED BY ABC REPORTER JOHN MILLER; COMMENTS UPON HOW AMERICAN WEAKNESS ENCOURAGED HIS MEN IN SOMALIA & REMARKS ON IRAQ, CLINTON) In the first part of this interview which occurred in May 1998, a little over two months before the U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, Osama bin Laden answers questions posed to him by some of his followers at his mountaintop camp in southern Afghanistan. In the latter part of the interview, ABC reporter John Miller is asking the questions.
Miller : "Describe the situation when your men took down the American forces in Somalia. "- (Source: via Mia T of FreeRepublic, thanks)Osama bin Laden : "After our victory in Afghanistan and the defeat of the oppressors who had killed millions of Muslims, the legend about the invincibility of the superpowers vanished. Our boys no longer viewed America as a superpower. So, when they left Afghanistan, they went to Somalia and prepared themselves carefully for a long war. They had thought that the Americans were like the Russians, so they trained and prepared. They were stunned when they discovered how low was the morale of the American soldier. America had entered with 30,000 soldiers in addition to thousands of soldiers from different countries in the world. As I said, our boys were shocked by the low morale of the American soldier and they realized that the American soldier was just a paper tiger. He was unable to endure the strikes that were dealt to his army, so he fled, and America had to stop all its bragging and all that noise it was making in the press after the Gulf War in which it destroyed the infrastructure and the milk and dairy industry that was vital for the infants and the children and the civilians and blew up dams which were necessary for the crops people grew to feed their families.
Proud of this destruction, America assumed the titles of world leader and master of the new world order.
After a few blows, it forgot all about those titles and rushed out of Somalia in shame and disgrace, dragging the bodies of its soldiers. America stopped calling itself world leader and master of the new world order, and its politicians realized that those titles were too big for them and that they were unworthy of them.
Miller : "The American people, by and large, do not know the name bin Laden, but they soon likely will. Do you have a message for the American people?"Osama bin Laden : "I say to them that they have put themselves at the mercy of a disloyal government, and this is most evident in Clinton's administration...."
Lopez: What exactly was U.S. reaction to the attack on the USS Cole? Miniter: In October 2000, al Qaeda bombed the USS Cole in Aden, Yemen. Seventeen sailors were killed in the blast. The USS Cole was almost sunk. In any ordinary administration, this would have been considered an act of war. After all, America entered the Spanish-American war and World War I when our ships were attacked. At a meeting with Secretary of Defense William Cohen, Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, Attorney General Janet Reno, and other staffers, Clarke was the only one in favor of retaliation against bin Laden. Reno thought retaliation might violate international law and was therefore against it. Tenet wanted to more definitive proof that bin Laden was behind the attack, although he personally thought he was. Albright was concerned about the reaction of world opinion to a retaliation against Muslims, and the impact it would have in the final days of the Clinton Middle East peace process. Cohen, according to Clarke, did not consider the Cole attack "sufficient provocation" for a military retaliation. Michael Sheehan was particularly surprised that the Pentagon did not want to act. He told Clarke: "What's it going to take to get them to hit al Qaeda in Afghanistan? Does al Qaeda have to attack the Pentagon?" Instead of destroying bin Laden's terrorist infrastructure and capabilities, President Clinton phoned twice phoned the president of Yemen demanding better cooperation between the FBI and the Yemeni security services. If Clarke's plan had been implemented, al Qaeda's infrastructure would have been demolished and bin Laden might well have been killed. Sept. 11, 2001 might have been just another sunny day. Clinton's Loss? |
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COMMENT:
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(viewing movie requires Flash Player 6, available HERE) |
Clinton's failure to grasp the opportunity to unravel increasingly organized extremists, coupled with Berger's assessments of their potential to directly threaten the U.S., represents one of the most serious foreign policy failures in American history. Clinton Let Bin Laden Slip Away and Metastasize
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A Fish Rots from the Head Investor's Business Daily
Ijaz, an admitted Clinton supporter who helped negotiate these opportunities to nab bin Laden, said, "The silence of the Clinton administration in responding to these offers was deafening." Ijaz says that three months before bin Laden's men blew up the USS Cole in Yemen, he "brought the White House another plausible offer to deal with bin Laden, by then known to be involved in the embassy bombings (in Tanzania and Kenya)... But senior Clinton officials sabotaged the offer." Clinton's apparent boredom with vital information extended beyond Sudanese intelligence officers to his own intelligence officers. His first CIA director, James Woolsey, couldn't get a meeting with Clinton in the two years he served. Woolsey left the Clinton administration disgusted with its slovenly approach to national security. ... To hear Clinton now say "We must do more to reduce the pool of potential terrorists" is thus beyond farce. He had numerous opportunities to reduce that pool, and he blew it. The pool, in fact, grew larger on Clinton's watch, as he spent his final days giving pardons to drug dealers, Puerto Rican terrorists and Marc Rich, a fugitive who topped America's most-wanted list.
In this light, Clinton's order to the CIA that it not use "unsavory characters" to collect information pushes irony to its outer limits. |
The Easy Part (viewing movie requires Flash Player 6, available HERE) |
INTERVIEW Osama bin Laden (may 1998)
Describe the situation when your men took down the American forces in Somalia.
The American people, by and large, do not know the name bin Laden, but they soon likely will. Do you have a message for the American people?
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Lopez: In sum, how many times did Bill Clinton lose bin Laden? Miniter: Here's a rundown. The Clinton administration: 1. Did not follow-up on the attempted bombing of Aden marines in Yemen. hillary talks:ON TERROR (viewing movie requires Flash Player 6, available HERE) |
Lib Author Regrets Voting (TWICE!) for clinton
"Sickened" by clinton's Failure to Protect America from TerrorismMUST-READ BOOK FOR DEMOCRATS:
How clintons' Failures Unleashed Global Terror
(Who in his right mind would ever want the clintons back in the Oval Office?)The Man Who Warned America
(Why a Rapist is Not a Fit President)UDAY: "The end is near this time I think the Americans are serious, Bush is not like Clinton."