Posted on 02/10/2005 9:12:05 PM PST by trumandogz
Federal Aviation Administration received repeated warnings in the months prior to September 11, 2001, about al Qaeda and its desire to attack airlines, according to a previously undisclosed report by the commission that investigated the terror attacks. The report by the 9/11 commission detailed 52 such warnings given to FAA leaders from April to September 10, 2001, about the radical Islamic terrorist group and its leader, Osama bin Laden. The commission report, written last August, said five security warnings mentioned al Qaeda's training for hijackings and two reports concerned suicide operations not connected to aviation. However, none of the warnings pinpointed what would happen on September 11.
(Excerpt) Read more at edition.cnn.com ...
Exactly what steps should he have taken?
Following the Cole attack there was a brief but visible increase in security at the airports. Yes, the public may have been ticked if the security measures continued but it may have prevented 9/11.
Of which none of the measures would have prevented 9/11. Boxcutters were approved to carry aboard at the time, along with pocket knives, silverware, and Swiss Army knives.
Why are you defending the Democratic Sec. of Transportation?
Where in my statement did I even remotely defend the Sec of Transportation? Suggest you read it again.
Many of the 9/11 hijackers got into the country on phony visas. The INS should not have allowed that.
The cover story in National Review's October 28th issue (out Friday) details how at least 15 of the 19 September 11 hijackers should have been denied visas — an assessment based on expert analyses of 15 of the terrorists' visa-application forms, obtained exclusively by NR.Source: National Review Online
hmmm.... Who cares?
September 11: Bill Clinton’s Ultimate Legacy
by Doug Schmitz
12 September 2003
Clinton was too busy playing golf, chasing skirts and prepping for photo ops to be bothered with defending our nation.
What haunted me more than anything else was that [President Clinton] refused to make a decision. Human lives were at stake – the lives of American service members and the lives of our allies who opposed Saddam at our behest and were now under attack. At a time when America’s honor and grander principles were being challenged and the world was watching our every move… the president was watching golf.
...I approached the president and said, “Sir, our aircraft are ready, bombs loaded, and waiting for your command…His reply destroyed my faith in him as commander-in-chief and convinced me that the greatest security risk to the United States was none other than…the president himself.
— Lt. Col. Robert “Buzz” Patterson, USAF (Ret.), author of “Dereliction of Duty: The Eyewitness Account of How Bill Clinton Compromised America’s National Security,” recalling his three different attempts to pull Clinton away from watching the Presidents’ Cup long enough to give the go-ahead to bomb Iraq on Sept. 13, 1996. With lives hanging in the balance, Clinton, all three times, replied that he would deal with it later.
Even as the second anniversary of September 11 arrives, the Left is still tirelessly re-scripting this ultimate legacy of the Clinton-Gore Administration: The gross negligence and complete dereliction of duty of Bill Clinton in preventing the worst terrorist attacks ever perpetrated on American soil. For this reason, Clinton’s role on September 11, and why he must be held accountable for his blood-guiltiness, can never be overemphasized.
Undoubtedly, our nation has paid a heavy price for Clinton’s backing down in response to murderous despots during his own criminal reign. In other words, during his calamitous tenure as president of the greatest country in the world, Clinton had shown that national security was never his top priority.
In fact, more terrorist attacks occurred on Clinton’s watch, both inside and outside of U.S. borders, than during any other presidential administration in U.S. history:
The 1993 World Trade Center bombing that killed 6 and injured 1,000
The 1993 Mogadishu firefight that killed 18 U.S. soldiers
The 1995 Oklahoma City terrorist attack on the federal building by American extremists that killed 168, wounding several hundred others
The 1995 Saudi Arabia car bomb that killed 5 U.S. military personnel
The 1996 Khobal Towers bombing that killed 19 U.S. soldiers, wounding 515
The 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa that killed 231 citizens, 12 Americans and injured 5,000
The 2000 USS Cole attack in Yemen that killed 17 U.S. sailors, wounding 39
With each terrorist attack, Clinton went before the American people and promised that “those responsible would be hunted down and punished.” However, we now know that nothing came of Clinton’s empty promises but spineless, politically driven, Wag-the-Dog diversions.
In all – including Clinton’s culpability in opening the door to Sept. 11, 2001 when he turned down three offers to have Usama bin Laden arrested as well as several other deliberate national security bungles – global terrorists murdered over 3,000 of our own citizens (which includes the Sept. 11 atrocities) during the Clinton-Gore years.
According to a Wall Street Journal’s September 9 Opinionjournal.com editorial, the 3,000+ people killed to date as a result of Clinton’s recklessness is nearly eight times the number of those who have died fighting back in Iraq.
In reality, during the September 11 attacks, Clinton gave 19 barbaric hijackers over two years to plan these atrocities, when they illegally slipped into the U.S. under Clinton and Gore’s much-relaxed airport security and immigration policies. Because when it came to fighting terrorism and keeping his vows to protect us, Clinton was too busy playing golf, chasing skirts and prepping for photo ops to be bothered.
Ultimately, Clinton, who probably thought he, too, could get 72 virgins by appeasing bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, failed miserably in his phony wars against terrorism.
From allowing the slaughter of nearly one million people in Rwanda and over 2,000 in Kosovo, to permitting 150 bin Laden supporters to board planes en route to Quatar, the fact remains that September 11, 2001 will always be what collectively defines the legacy of Bill Clinton, whose treacherous policies allowed Hussein and bin Laden to rise to power.
While the leftists in the media continue to show endless joy in tallying the daily deaths of our troops in Iraq under the Bush Administration, they have willfully whitewashed the many intelligence and security breaches that Clinton wrought on our nation.
In fact, for the past 10 years, while Clinton’s blatant treason has been thoroughly documented and accurately catalogued by some of the most respected national security experts and former Clinton officials, the leftist media to this day still refuse to hold Clinton personally responsible for the murders of our own countrymen two years ago.
What’s more, while the Bush Administration has taken a strong stance against global terrorism and has systematically thwarted over 100 known Al-Qaeda-plotted attacks from reaching American soil, Bill Clinton still enjoys the free ride the leftist media have given him for eight years of national defense negligence.
Although Clinton even partially admitted his guilt, saying, “It was the worst mistake of my presidency” in letting bin Laden go, the leftist media still look the other way.
To further illustrate Clinton’s culpability for the September 11 terrorist attacks, United Press International reported on September 17, 2001 that Clinton hushed up a 1994 Federal Report warning of hijack attacks.
In an exclusive story written just six days after the Sept. 11 attacks, the 1994 federal report (called “Terror 2000”) warned of possible terrorist strikes, including how hijackers could use airliners to hit landmarks such as the Pentagon or White House.
UPI reporter Pam Hess reported that the Clinton administration never released “Terror 2000” to the public, “purportedly because of concerns in the State Department it would cause panic.”
In fact, Hess wrote that the report not only “outlined the changing face of terrorism but also seemed to predict the scope and timing of the attacks carried out against the World Trade Center and Pentagon." “Targets such as the World Trade Center not only provide the requisite casualties but because of their symbolic nature provide more bang for the buck,” Hess wrote. “In order to maximize their odds for success, terrorist groups will likely consider mounting multiple, simultaneous operations with the aim of overtaxing a government’s ability to respond, as well as to demonstrate their professionalism and reach."
In a related matter involving Clinton’s complete willingness to appease terrorists rather than confront them, according to WorldNetDaily.com reporter Paul Sperry, Clinton exported NSA-ducking phone, high-tech encryption devices to Syria, which has been a hotbed for international terrorist networks.
Sperry reported that the 19 Islamic terrorists who plotted to strike at America’s nerve centers in New York and Washington “spent months, if not years, researching, planning and coordinating the surprise attacks,” all on Clinton’s watch.
In fact, Peter M. Leitner, a senior strategic trade adviser at the Defense Department, who reviews commercial license applications for exports of some of the most sophisticated military-related technology, told Sperry the day after the terrorist attacks: “The technology that would allow these terrorists to mask their communications was given away, hand over fist, by the Clinton administration.”
Still another example of Clinton’s compromise with our nation’s security infrastructure occurred in October 1997 when the Clinton administration falsely certified the People’s Republic of China as a nuclear nonproliferator, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. “Clinton officials went so far, sources say,” wrote Insight magazine’s Scott Wheeler on Aug. 25, “as threatening to fire a senior defense analyst unless he changed his analysis, which was based on the overwhelming preponderance of all available intelligence sources that Beijing was proliferating nuclear technology and materials to rogue nations.”
In fact, these recent revelations concerning the Clinton “false certification” come on the heels of the incessant Democrat attacks on President Bush for allegedly manipulating intelligence to support the war in Iraq (and what Clinton deliberately did in 1998).
But, Wheeler wrote, a senior Department of Defense analyst, speaking on condition of anonymity, said, “Since the Clinton administration ignored intelligence warnings and issued the 'false certification' of China as a nonproliferating nation, “there has been undeniable evidence of transfers of nuclear technology from the People’s Republic of China to North Korea and Iran.” "Both North Korea and Iran are considered by the Bush administration to be rogue nations already in possession of nuclear weapons or on the brink of having them.”
According to a 1999 Newsweek report, CIA sources said “terrorists received money and passports from Iran and that Iranian agents were casing American facilities in 1995.”
In addition, Newsweek also reported that despite the evidence, lawmakers were concerned that Iran will go unpunished. “My big fear,” said Kansas Senator Sam Brownback, “is we won’t pursue it because of some rapprochement with Iran.”
Obviously, Clinton knew about the NSA intercept and never said a word.
“Here it was the Saudis and [President] Clinton who protected Iran from the fury of American citizens,” Newsweek reported.
Indeed, Clinton left the door wide open to global terrorism because he was too cowardly and self-absorbed to care about protecting this country.
Despite criticism from arrogant, anti-American Democrats who have proven to be extremely soft on national defense, Bush is to be commended. But undeniably, at the same time Bush restored our U.S. military strength, Bush also inherited Clinton’s messes.
God forbid we should ever have another Bill Clinton – a spineless sycophant who easily cowers to global terrorists, at the expense of the safety and security of Americans.
That’s the difference between George W. Bush and Clinton: Bush will not back down nor relent to our enemies like Clinton and his worthless propagators in the liberal media have done.
As the Left manipulates the truth about September 11 as a deliberate attempt to make Americans forget Clinton’s culpability, this Thursday should be a reminder to those who are guilty of unleashing global despotism – the Clinton Administration.
To this day, the Left collectively refuses to criticize Clinton’s bogus, Wag-the-Dog bombings that went on without question from the liberal media hacks, as well as Clinton’s top military officials. For example, fellow traitor Gen. Clark, who proved to be a willing pawn in Clinton’s political PR games in order to further his own military career.
One of the many blaring examples of how the liberal media shielded Clinton from criticism in his spurious wars came during his address to the nation on Dec. 16, 1998, where CNN’s lack of fault-finding with Clinton’s military plan was always evident:
The president said Iraq’s refusal to cooperate with U.N. weapons inspectors presented a threat to the entire world.
“Saddam (Hussein) must not be allowed to threaten his neighbors or the world with nuclear arms, poison gas or biological weapons,” Clinton said.
Operation Desert Fox, a strong, sustained series of attacks, will be carried out over several days by U.S. and British forces, Clinton said.
“Earlier today I ordered America’s armed forces to strike military and security targets in Iraq. They are joined by British forces,” Clinton said.
“Their mission is to attack Iraq’s nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs and its military capacity to threaten its neighbors,” said Clinton.
Clinton also stated that, while other countries also had weapons of mass destruction, Hussein is in a different category because he has used such weapons against his own people and against his neighbors.
'Without delay, diplomacy or warning' (subhead)
The Iraqi leader was given a final warning six weeks ago, Clinton said, when Baghdad promised to cooperate with U.N. inspectors at the last minute just as U.S. warplanes were headed its way…
Now, compare that to CNN’s transparent hostility towards Bush’s dealings with Iraq in the following headlines (especially concerning the uranium controversy): CNN’s July 9, 2003 headline: “Storm over U.S. Iraq admission.”
The first three paragraphs read:
A political firestorm is erupting in the U.S. over President Bush’s assertion that Iraq sought to buy nuclear material from Africa.
The White House has admitted that assertion – made by Bush during the annual State of the Union address last January – was based on faulty information.
The chairman of the opposition Democratic Party is accusing the Bush administration of a cover up and senior Senate democrats are calling for a full investigation.
CNN not only refers to Clinton, in a citation, as “President Clinton,” the caption under Bush’s picture said that Bush “made the allegation about Iraq…” Also, no Democrat ever called for a full investigation of Clinton going to war on false intelligence.
• CNN’s July 10, 2003 headline: “Bush defends decision on Iraqi war.”
Subheading: Democrats want discredited uranium claim probed
• CNN’s July 12, 2003 headline: “Bush stands by CIA after Iraq mistake.”
Subheading: Tenet admits error in agency’s approval of president’s speech
In the above CNN stories, not only did they discredit Bush, they also highlighted Saddam’s calls for revenge and the acid attacks leveled by imbecilic Democrats. To Clinton propagandists like CNN, Clinton’s wars were justified; Bush’s wars were not.
Despite Bush using the exact same arguments Clinton used to bomb Iraq in 1998, Bush has been attacked relentlessly just because Bush, a conservative Republican president, was willing to finish the job that Clinton should have seen through to the end. Only Clinton didn’t want the political fallout that the Left is trying to heap on Bush.
As a result, the disgraced, impeached, disbarred, accused rapist-felon, has never endured the fury from his fellow leftist pals in the media and down the political aisle. Instead, Clinton opted to let someone else take the fall – namely George W. Bush.
That being said, Clinton’s political and personal ambitions eventually trumped any and all concerns for our nation’s safety and security, which ultimately came at a terrible price. Unlike Clinton, Bush has the resolve to annihilate our enemies and keep them at bay.
Unlike Clinton, Bush has taken seriously the same presidential oath Clinton swore by in Article II, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution. Clearly, Clinton broke this sacred oath to “preserve, protect and defend” us when he allowed our enemies total access to our borders, infrastructure and monetary system.
Bush, on the other hand, has kept that promise, despite the acerbic attacks from anti-American war protesters and the equally treasonous Democratic Party, who brazenly hates this country and the Judeo-Christian values that have established it.
In the end, Clinton proved to be a paper tiger who practiced tough talk with no action. Instead of being proactive like Bush, Clinton was reactive and it eventually cost innocent lives. When he did launch his phony wars, Clinton, Gen. Wesley Clark and other administration officials ran with their tail between their legs; all without one peep of criticism from such leftist media enablers as CNN.
In fact, media leftists like CNN loved Clinton’s appeasement of our enemies. CNN should know: Their top news executive admitted in April to covering up 12 years of Iraqi atrocities in order to maintain a Baghdad bureau, while their own correspondents were being subjected to torture (which also went unreported). This should have sent up red flags as to what Clinton knew about the cover-up, since he’s a close friend of Ted Turner.
Now, Clinton, who was brought up last year on war crimes by the International Criminal Court – along with Gen. Wesley Clark (who actually had tanks pointed directly at our own unsuspecting U.S. troops), Madelyn Albright and 19 others, must answer for compromising our national security that could have prevented in the Sept. 11 atrocities.
With the willing assistance of the leftist media, Clinton and his willing derelicts have the innocent blood of over 3,000 of our citizens on their hands.
It’s time they be held accountable for the real reason we had to win a just war – and why we had to fight the enemies Clinton refused to conquer.
Shortly after the devastation of Sept. 11, 2001, in his typical defiant mode, Clinton blamed America for the Sept. 11 attacks. Clinton claimed that Sept. 11 happened because America mistreated Native Americans and slaves “when we looked the other way,” and “are still paying a price.”
No, the price we are still paying is eight years of Clinton holding this nation hostage because he chose to look the other way by not stopping terrorism, which could have prevented the Sept. 11 atrocities from ever happening.
In the end, Clinton had the opportunity to stave off the bloodshed of September 11 but didn’t, which will always and forever be his ultimate legacy.
What about Bill and 9-11?
Brent Bozell (archive)
September 17, 2003 | Print | Send
On the second anniversary of September 11, there wasn't half as much solemnity and national unity on network TV coverage as last year. Bush administration officials were hammered by the TV interviewers for somehow straying from the war on al Qaeda into Iraq. Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton was being served cups of homage along with the coffee. CBS's Hannah Storm cooed: "You've fought so much for the heroes of 9/11 ... Has enough been done for the heroes, the people who fought so bravely on that day?"
In other words, we're back to normal. The imbalance was not only stunning for Team Bush, it was unfair to the viewing public. Several authors are now reviewing the Clinton legacy on terrorism, and it's a sorry one. Their new books should have caused CBS and the others to ask Sen. Clinton: Why didn't your husband seize Osama bin Laden when he had the chance?
It takes the passage of time for a true historical verdict to be reached, but the Clinton legacy on terrorism is one virtually no one wants to discuss. When they do touch on it, the authors seem very sensitive to appearing to be too anti-Clinton.
On Sept. 3, author Gerald Posner came on NBC's "Today" show to discuss his new book, "Why America Slept." Katie Couric bluntly asked if he blamed Clinton for failing to prevent the attacks. Posner tiptoed and mumbled into a yes, "unfortunately." But he added: "If the Republicans had been in power, it would've been the same situation, Katie. I'd be talking to you today about nobody paying attention. It just happened to fall on Bill Clinton's watch, unfortunately." After changing the subject to the Saudi connection to al Qaeda, Katie underlined that Posner's book should be read with a jaundiced eye: "a member of the National Security Council and a senior intelligence official in this country says the whole thing is fantasy."'
Posner was back on TV the next day on the hot morning show "Fox & Friends," and the change in the author's tone was dramatic. Co-host Steve Doocy asked how many times Posner voted for Clinton (both times), and then asked if he would so again in hindsight. Posner not only said there was zero chance of that, he rebutted himself from the day before: "I thought anyone who was in office (would have failed), we weren't paying attention as a country ... But Clinton was particularly bad."
Why? Clinton missed an opportunity to get Osama from the Sudan in 1996. "Worse than that," Posner told Fox, Osama landed in a jumbo jet with 150 family members and aides on the ground of our ally, Qatar: "They call up and say, 'What should we do with this guy?' And the White House says, 'Send him on.'" Posner even charged that Clinton did little because he was always doing polling to figure out if he should go after bin Laden, as opposed to leading the public against the building terror threat.
Conservative analysts from Rush Limbaugh on down have focused their minds and energies on the things Bill Clinton could have done to prevent the September 11 attacks. But our "objective" press corps can't even imagine blaming Clinton for anything. Posner's Clinton "bashing" was left out of the "Today" show Web site excerpt. The Sept. 8 Time magazine carried an "explosive" book review, but it was another interesting Posner story about the confession of top al-Qaeda leader Abu Zubaydah -- nothing on Clinton.
Even if it's negative, at least Posner's book is getting major media attention. Former Wall Street Journal writer Richard Miniter's book, "Losing Bin Laden," goes into detail on Clinton's failures, but he hasn't been invited on ABC, CBS or NBC. In an interview with National Review Online on September 11, Miniter listed 16 moments of opportunity when Team Clinton screwed up the chance to get Osama.
Miniter is most intrigued by the response to the 2000 bombing of the U.S.S. Cole, which took the lives of 17 U.S. soldiers. Except for counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke, the entire Clinton team wanted to take no military action in response. Janet Reno thought it was against "international law." Madeleine Albright thought it would hurt America in "world opinion." Even Defense Secretary Bill Cohen was a no. One friend 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?"
Albright is the next major author who will make the TV rounds promoting a book. That's a good opportunity for the network stars to ask the tough questions about Clinton administration mistakes. But that's about as likely as Clinton doing the right thing about terrorism.
Bill Clinton's legacy: Today's terrifying world of terror
By Murray Soupcoff
web posted February 17, 2003
Charles Krauthammer is exceptional man. A psychiatrist by training, he has left his original profession to become a celebrated pundit, applying his unique insights into the world of the demented to the word of the truly demented -- international politics. In a recent syndicated column Bracing for the Apocalypse, Dr. Krauthammer provides us with his chilling diagnosis of humankind's current chances for longevity and pronounces the situation terminal -- unless forceful action is taken immediately. Even more interesting (and just as chilling), he posits a hypothesis regarding the origins of our current terminal condition, tracing the terror and apocalyptic threat to the world today to the irresponsible and self-serving actions of none other than America's most undistinguished presidential procrastinator and First Felon, William Jefferson Clinton.
In other words, with great authority, someone in the mainstream media has finally detailed the real legacy of Bill Clinton, notwithstanding the excuses and rationalizations all of the Great Prevaricator's friends and spin doctors in the hallowed halls of American journalism.
As Charles Krauthammer saliently notes:
You don't get to a place like this overnight. It takes at least, oh, a decade. We are now paying the wages of the 1990s, our holiday from history. During that decade, every major challenge to America was deferred. The chief aim of the Clinton administration was to make sure that nothing terrible happened on its watch. Accordingly, every can was kicked down the road."
And which inconvenient cans is Charles Krauthammer exactly referring to? Well, in his own words, here's how he catalogues them:
--Iraq: Saddam continued defying the world and building his arsenal, even as the United States acquiesced to the progressive weakening of U.N. sanctions and then to the expulsion of all weapons inspectors.
--North Korea: When it threatened to go nuclear in 1993, Clinton managed to put off the reckoning with an agreement to freeze Pyongyang's program. The agreement--surprise!--was a fraud. All the time, the North Koreans were clandestinely enriching uranium. They are now in full nuclear breakout.
--Terrorism: The first World Trade Center attack occurred in 1993, followed by the blowing up of two embassies in Africa and the attack on the USS Cole. Treating terrorism as a problem of law enforcement, Clinton dispatched the FBI--and the odd cruise missile to ostentatiously kick up some desert sand. Osama was offered up by Sudan in 1996. We turned him away for lack of legal justification.
As Charles Krauthammer sardonically notes regarding the preceding negligent or self-deluding actions of the Clinton administration:
That is how one acts on holiday: Mortal enemies are dealt with not as combatants, but as defendants. Clinton flattered himself as looking beyond such mundane problems to a grander transnational vision (global warming, migration and the like), while dispatching American military might to quell 'teacup wars'' in places like Bosnia. On June 19, 2000, the Clinton administration solved the rogue-state problem by abolishing the term and replacing it with 'states of concern.' Unconcerned, the rogues prospered, arming and girding themselves for big wars.
And what do you know? The consequences of all that procrastinating, prattling and putting off the inevitable have arrived. The Clinton administration's delayed detritus has finally hit the fan. As Charles Krauthammer puts it: "On Sept. 11, the cozy illusions and stupid pretensions died. We now recognize the central problem of the 21st century: the conjunction of terrorism, rogue states and weapons of mass destruction."
Of course, according to the fashionable Clintonist spin, everything that could be done to stop terrorist actions was done after the Word Trade Center and 1998 embassy bombings. For example, according to Madeleine Albright, "We consumed all the intelligence we had. It's so easy to finger-point. [But] we tried everything we could."
Yet General Henry Shelton, retired chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, was also quoted as saying after 9/11: "Absolutely nothing prevented us from running the kind of [anti-terrorist] operation we're running now, if there had been a commitment to do that."
In fact, on several occasions, Bill Clinton refused to consider any military action against the al Qaeda terrorist network. Of course, according to the Great Prevaricator, that was because of all the bad advice he got from his national security team, who believed that a few verbal darts from the President would be enough to do the trick.
On the other hand, when the delicate matter of that stained blue dress threatened to get splashed all over the front pages of even the most friendly American newspapers, Mr. Clinton wasn't adverse to lobbing a few missiles at some abandoned tents in the middle of the Afghanistan desert, or bombing Sudan's only pharmaceutical factory (mistakenly identified as a chemical weapons factory by more of those unnamed "others" who have conspired to mislead the Clintons throughout their long history of "unintended" misdeeds).
Finally, as the piece de resistance of our little trip down Clinton memory lane, it's necessary to again bring up that pivotal time in 1996, as originally reported in the Los Angeles Times, when Sudan offered to extradite Osama Bin Laden to the United States and the Clinton administration politely declined the offer. Oops! On whom do we blame this mammoth miscue, Bill?
Well, as it happens we are told, once again the all-knowing William Jefferson Clinton was tripped up by the advice of yet another bumbling lackey, this time National Security Advisor Sandy Berger who evidently felt that the United States did not have enough evidence to convict Mr. Bin Laden in a U.S. court of law. Many thanks, Sandy, for your legal acumen, from all the occupants of the World Trade Centre on September 11th.
Of course, Bill Clinton did not have to take that advice. But based on the record of America's most self-involved president, it seems most likely that President William Jefferson "High IQ" Clinton willingly chose that path, and all the wrong policy paths cited by Charles Krauthammer (with their many disastrous consequences), because they appeared to be in Bill Clinton's self interest: they were ways of ensuring more soaring poll numbers and digging his way out of what were, in his mind, the real national crises -- Whitewater, Travelgate, Bimbogate, The Starr Report and impeachment.
Aren't you glad George W. Bush is the president today? Despite all the carping by the New York Times and the "useful idiots" fifth column of Noam, Peter, Dan, Babs, Susan and company, the moral clarity and resolute determination of Dubya may be the one last hope for America and Western civilization.
So perhaps instead of Apocalypse Now, we can still have Apocalypse Not -- thanks to the decisive actions of George W. Bush and his courageous administration.
Bush's 'Mess,' Clinton's Free Pass
Brent Bozell (archive)
October 29, 2003 | Print | Send
The cover of Newsweek screams from the mailbox and the magazine rack: "BUSH'S $87 BILLION MESS." In case that rhetorical punch isn't strong enough, it adds the promise of uncovering "Waste, Chaos and Cronyism." Today's task for deniers of liberal media bias is set. Please find a Newsweek from the Clinton era with the words "mess" or "cronyism" next to a picture of that president.
Since the Clinton foreign policy team rarely risked top-of-the-news foreign policy initiatives (and certainly never wanted to risk an American casualty), the typical foreign-policy cover story of the second Clinton term read: "Mad About Madeleine: Washington Loves Her. Will the Rest of the World?" Team Clinton's infamous diplomacy-for-donors schedule of foreign trips and its shameless milking of foreign donors for campaign soft money, including cocaine kings and Beijing-connected "businessmen," were never newsworthy enough to be considered cover-story material, apparently, and never mind a "mess."
"Clinton" and "mess" didn't even merge on the Newsweek cover when he made a hash of his presidency with the Monica Lewinsky mess. Instead, the "news" magazine employed headlines like "The Secret Sex Wars." Or, after the April 1998 dismissal of the Paula Jones case, the cover announced: "Clinton Wins a Big One. Now It's Starr's Turn to PUT UP OR SHUT UP." In case you weren't sure how Newsweek felt about Clinton and his opponents, the first edition after the Republicans flopped in the 1998 midterms carried a photo of Newt Gingrich and just these words, bold and taunting: "THE LOSER."
President Clinton could have faced tough questions and embarrassment in October of 2000, after two terrorists in a tiny boat blew up the U.S.S. Cole in Yemen, killing 17 sailors. But Newsweek's cover read simply "Target America." Inside, Jonathan Alter had no tough words about a Clinton "mess," that a great power could be so humiliated by a small band of thugs, the way reporters now view the Fedayeen insurgency. He made excuses: "Clinton was no doubt making contingency plans for retaliation" -- which did not materialize. In another story, the magazine sympathetically recounted how Clinton noted the irony to aides that Americans would now have to experience "the same anger, frustration and powerlessness felt by those in the Middle East." There's a campaign slogan for you: Vote for The New Powerlessness.
Now, President Bush has risked his entire political career and dared to endure American casualties overthrowing Saddam Hussein, one of the world's most savage dictators, a tyrant who mocked the entire international community and its half-hearted statements on behalf of peace and non-proliferation, and what does he get? Reporters blowing horns about a "mess" they hope will turn him out of office.
Newsweek's Howard Fineman began the political spin by suggesting that flinty New Hampshire Republican types were shrinking at the irresponsible $87 billion price tag as violating their sense of "Yankee thrift." Hillary Cleveland, who was New Hampshire finance director for George Bush Sr. in 1980, is now leaving the Republican Party so she can vote for Howard Dean. Newsweek is hereby challenged to explain how the words "Yankee thrift" and "Howard Dean" go together in any mathematical way.
Fineman's spin is encapsulated in his quotation of polltaker John Zogby: "The president has handed Democrats a huge issue called '87 billion' ... That much money crystallizes everyone's concerns about the war." He also desperately inflated how Sen. John McCain is now making comparisons between the Iraq War and the Vietnam War, even as the senator attempted not to sound as crazy as media liberals by insisting "I'm not saying the situation in Iraq now is as bad as Vietnam."
In short, Fineman's article reads as if he was given the following instructions from editors: "Please be the wind beneath Howard Dean's wings."
Newsweek is not alone. Time magazine has also carried sassy covers since the war ended. One July cover with a picture of President Bush at January's State of the Union screamed: "UNtruth and Consequences." And how's this for bizarre: In August of 1998, after President Clinton admitted to Kenneth Starr's team that he had lied about his affair with Monica Lewinsky, the Time cover carried a black and white picture of Clinton with the words "Truth and Consequences."
The snide campaign continued when the Oct. 6 edition echoed that failing-Bush theme with "Mission NOT Accomplished." For the Oct. 13 issue, Time touted "The War Over the Leak," putting Bush-hater Joe Wilson at the center of the cover and its cover story.
Reporters are succeeding in their lobbying campaign to blacken Bush's foreign-policy performance. No one should accept that these magazines are just passive players who respond with added toughness to any president when he appears vulnerable to charges of policy mismanagement. They felt Clinton's pain. Now they administer pain to Bush.
13 posted on 02/10/2005 7:55:47 AM PST by conservativecorner
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Bush's Rush To War Was Several Years In The Making(Good Chronology of UN Resolutions on Iraq)
San Antonio Express-News | March 12, 2003 | By Jonathan Gurwitz
Insanity, goes a popular saying, is doing the same thing over and over yet expecting a different result.
By that nonclinical definition, the U.N. Security Council — and anyone who believes it can, in its current form, offer a meaningful solution to the Iraqi crisis — is certifiably nuts.
The Security Council has passed 17 resolutions related to Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, to which President Bush now feels compelled to add an 18th "final opportunity" for Iraq to comply fully with its international obligations.
Here, then, is an abbreviated version of President Bush's "rush to war," which has, in fact, spanned 12 years, three U.S. presidents and a series of unanimous Security Council votes.
Resolution 687, April 3, 1991: "Iraq shall unconditionally accept the destruction, removal or rendering harmless, under international supervision, of all chemical and biological weapons and all stocks of agents and all related subsystems and components and all research, development, support and manufacturing facilities ... (and) all ballistic missiles with a range greater than 150 kilometers."
Resolution 707, Aug. 15, 1991: "Condemns Iraq's serious violation of a number of its obligations ... which constitutes a material breach of the relevant provisions. ... Demands that Iraq provide full, final and complete disclosure.
Resolution 949, Oct. 15, 1994: "Underlining that it will consider Iraq fully responsible for the serious consequences of any failure to fulfill the demands in the present resolution ... demands that Iraq cooperate fully."
Resolution 1060, Oct. 12, 1996: "Deplores the refusal of the Iraqi authorities to allow access to sites ... which constitutes a clear violation of the provisions of Security Council resolutions. Demands that Iraq cooperate fully ... and that the government of Iraq allow ... inspection teams immediate, unconditional and unrestricted access to any and all areas, facilities, equipment, records and means of transportation which they wish to inspect."
Resolution 1115, June 21, 1997: "Condemns the repeated refusal of the Iraqi authorities to allow access. ... Demands that Iraq cooperate fully."
Resolution 1134, Oct. 23, 1997: "Condemns the repeated refusal of the Iraqi authorities ... to allow access. ... Decides that such refusals to cooperate constitute a flagrant violation. ... Demands that Iraq cooperate fully."
Resolution 1154, March 2, 1998: "Stresses that compliance by the government of Iraq with its obligations ... is necessary for the implementation of Resolution 687, but that any violation would have severest consequences for Iraq."
Resolution 1194, Sept. 9, 1998: "Determined to ensure full compliance by Iraq ... condemns the decision by Iraq to suspend cooperation ... which constitutes a totally unacceptable contravention of its obligations. ... Demands that Iraq ... cooperate fully."
Resolution 1205, Nov. 5, 1998: "Demands that Iraq ... provide immediate, complete and unconditional cooperation."
Resolution 1441, Nov. 8, 2002: "Decides that Iraq has been and remains in material breach of its obligations under relevant resolutions. ... Decides ... to afford Iraq ... a final opportunity to comply with its disarmament obligations ... with the aim of bringing to full and verified completion the disarmament process established by resolution 687."
From the perspective of international law, the international community remains in a state of war with the regime of Saddam Hussein. The 1991 cease-fire was premised on Iraq's acceptance of all provisions of Resolution 687, most notably the obligation to unconditionally disarm.
Iraq's manifest failure to do so renders operative its diplomatic antecedent — Resolution 678, which authorizes member states "to use all necessary means to uphold and implement ... all subsequent relevant resolutions and to restore international peace and security in the area."
With or without an 18th resolution, the United States and its coalition of the willing are fully justified in using force against the regime of Saddam.
That Russia, China and France, whose troops are today operating in Chechnya, Tibet and the Ivory Coast respectively in promotion of narrow, national interests — and often brutally so — without any U.N. sanction, might veto the legitimate use of force against Iraq is the proverbial nail in the coffin for a United Nations that has consigned itself to irrelevancy.
The first casualty of a war with Iraq may be, mercifully, the U.N. legacy of impotence and hypocrisy. May it, if nothing else, rest in peace.
Why Bush Is Innocent and the Democrats Are Guilty
By David Horowitz
FrontPageMagazine.com | May 20, 2002
IT FIGURES. The guilty ones are the first to point the finger. Now the same Democrats who for eight years slashed the military, crippled the CIA, blamed America for the enemies it made, opposed the projection of American power (missiles and smart bombs excepted) into terrorist regions like Afghanistan and Iraq, dismissed acts of war as individual misdeeds, rejected airport security on "racial profiling" grounds, defended a commander-in-chief who put his libido above the security of his citizens, and still oppose essential defense measures like holding suspects and imposing immigration controls – these same obstructers and appeasers are now in full war cry against the President and are hoping to pin him with responsibility for the September 11 attack.
Not every Democrat is as kooky or anti-American as Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-GA) who sits with Democratic connivance on the International Relations Committee and spent the week before 9-11 joining hands in South Africa with Iranians and other Islamo-fascists to condemn the United States, then came home to accuse Bush of plotting 9-11 so that his friends in the Carlyle Group could make war profits on defense contracts. But more mainstream Democrats -- the Leahys and the Boxers and other equally left and determined antagonists of American power -- are far more significant players in the debacle of 9/11. And no one is more singularly responsible for America’s vulnerability on that fateful day than the Democratic president, Bill Clinton, and his White House staff.
It is appropriate therefore that the crowning irony of the present Democrat attack is that it is the Clinton Administration not George Bush who knew of the plot to use airliners as bombs to blow up American buildings, that they knew it in 1995, that they did nothing about it, and that they kept this information from the Bush security team.
But first the background.
The first World Trade Center bombing was on February 26, 1993, one month into the Clinton Administration. The terrorists – Egyptians and Palestinians -- blew a hole six stories deep beneath the North Tower intending to topple it onto the South Tower and kill 250,000 people. It was – in the words of the definitive account – "the most ambitious terrorist attack ever attempted, anywhere, ever." Clinton did nothing. He did not even visit the site. Worse, he allowed the attack to be categorized as a criminal act by individuals, even though its mastermind – as the administration soon discovered -- was an Iraqi intelligence agent named Ramzi Youssef.
The second attack took place 10 months later in Mogadishu, Somalia. It was an attack on American military forces who were in country to bring food to the starving Somalis. In the battle, which has been memorialized in Black Hawk Down, eighteen American soldiers were killed and the body of one was dragged through the streets in a gesture designed to formally humiliate the world’s greatest super power. Clinton’s response? He turned tail and ran.
In 1995, Ramzi Youssef was captured in the Philippines with plans to use commercial airliners to blow up CIA headquarters among other targets. This al-Qaeda plot was termed "Operation Bojinka," which means "the big bang." After the discovery of "Operation Bojinka," Al Gore was appointed to head a task force to tighten airport security. Its key recommendations, which would have prevented 9/11, were rejected by the White House on the grounds that they might be construed as "racial profiling."
In 1996 the Khobar Towers – a barracks housing U.S. soldiers was blown up in Saudia Arabia by Iranian and Palestinian terrorists acting on behalf of al-Qaeda. Nineteen U.S. servicemen were killed but the Saudis refused to cooperate in tracking down the killers. The Clinton Administration did nothing.
In 1998, the year of Lewinsky, al-Qaeda blew up the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania– under any circumstances an act of war. Two-hundred-and-forty-five people were killed and 6,000 injured, mainly Africans. Clinton’s response? The infamous strike on a medicine factory in the Sudan and a spray of missiles into an emptied terrorist camp in Khost.
In October 2000, al-Qaeda attacked the U.S.S Cole, an American warship, killing 17 servicemen. Another act of war. The Clinton response? Nothing.
Every year that these terrorist attacks were taking place, Democrat congressional leaders supported bills to cut U.S. intelligence funding and/or hamstring CIA operations, and/or prevent the tightening of immigration controls – all of which would have strengthened American defenses against an al-Qaeda attack.
Meanwhile, the principle ally of Saddam Hussein, the architect of suicide bombing, the creator of the first terrorist training camps, and the apostle of terror as a redemptive social cause -- Yasser Arafat -- was a "partner in peace" and the most frequent guest at the Clinton White House among foreign heads of state.
Despite the fact that Republicans had fought Democrats for eight years over the military and intelligence budgets, over immigration and security issues, despite the alliances that leftwing Democrats had made with America’s enemies in the UN, despite the obstructionism of Senate Judiciary chairman Patrick Leahy in opposing domestic security measures and efforts by the Justice Department to bring al-Qaeda to heel, Republicans refused to point a partisan finger on issues of war and peace. Now their self-restraint has come back to haunt them as the Democrats seek to shift the blame they have done so much to earn to the shoulders of their political opponents.
The Democratic attack on George Bush is based on an intelligence analysis he received a month before 9/11, which indicated that al-Qaeda terrorists were planning to hijack planes. The described threats in this analysis came under the category "general" meaning they did not specify time, place or method, and they were uncorroborated. The reports the President received in the months prior to 9/11 described targets that were mainly overseas – in the Arabian Peninsula, Israel, Italy, Paris, Rome and Turkey. On the slim reed of the existence of a possible hijacking threat in the United States – included with all these others -- the Democrats have built their treacherous case.
Yet hijackings occur and have occurred for forty years. On most occasions they are stopped. Nine of the 9/11 hijackers were hauled out of airport security lines as they were boarding the fatal flights that September. But because airport security had not been tightened – and could not be tightened without a battle royal with Democrats over "racial profiling" the al-Qaeda hijackers were allowed to continue and carry out their sinister design. Shutting down the U.S. airline industry or sounding a national alarm that would produce the same effect in August 2001 on the basis of a vague report that a hijacking was possible is something no administration has ever done in 40 years of hijacking incidents. Yet this is the logic behind the Democrats’ present "investigation."
If, on the other hand, Bush had known what the Clinton Administration knew – that al-Qaeda had plans to use commercial airliners as bombs and fly them into buildings – specifically the CIA -- this would be a serious charge. But they did not know it, because the Clinton team never told them.
Although the Clinton security team knew that Operation Bojinka included blowing up the CIA building in Langley, Virginia, it kept this information from the rest of the government. When Dale Watson, chief of the FBI’s International Terrorism Operations Section testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee in February 1998, he withheld this vital information. He identified Operation Bojinka only as a plot to blow up U.S. air carriers, and assured the senators that the FBI had the situation under control.
It is possible that Clinton never received the information about Operation Bojinka, since his lack of interest in national security matters throughout the course of his administration has been noted by many – including his chief political advisor Dick Morris, and his chief "biographer" Joe Klein. February 1998 – the date of the FBI testimony -- is also the month after Monica Lewinsky became a national celebrity.
The fact that Bush didn’t know about plans to hijack planes and run them into tall buildings was confirmed by Condoleeza Rice at her recent press conference:
Dr. Rice: Hijacking before 9/11 and hijacking after 9/11 do mean two very, very different things. And so focusing on it before 9/11 – perhaps it’s clear that after 9/11 you would have looked at this differently, but certainly not before 9/11.
Q: And no discussion in this briefing, or any others, about the possibility of al-Qaeda hijacking, and the fact that there have been active investigations into the possibility of a CIA building plot, or an Eiffel Tower plot. Never came up?
Dr. Rice: It did not come up.
On September 10, 2001 a document landed on the President’s desk that he had commissioned months before. It was a plan to dismantle and destroy al-Qaeda and had taken months to prepare. It was necessary because the Clinton administration had drawn up no such plan in the eight years before.
The charge now being led by the Democrats against the nation’s commander-in-chief as he attempts to protect its citizens against the next certain terrorist attack is worse than unconscionable. It is one more Democratic stake driven into the heart of the nation’s security. Limiting the damage, defending his authority, in order to protect Americans from further harm is now the daunting task before the President and his team.
Inside Report: Losing Bin Laden
By Robert D. Novak
CNSNews.com Commentary
September 01, 2003
On Oct. 12, 2000, the day of the devastating terrorist attack on the USS Cole, President Clinton's highest-level national security team met to determine what to do. Counter-terrorism chief Richard Clarke wanted to hit Afghanistan, aiming at Osama bin Laden's complex and the terrorist leader himself. But Clarke was all alone. There was no support for a retaliatory strike that, if successful, might have prevented the 9/11 carnage.
This startling story is told for the first time in a book by Brussels-based investigative reporter Richard Miniter to be published this week. "Losing bin Laden" relates that Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, Secretary of Defense William Cohen, Atty. Gen. Janet Reno and CIA Director George Tenet all said no to the attack. I have contacted enough people attending the meeting to confirm what Miniter reports. Indeed, his account is based on direct, on-the-record quotes from participants.
Miniter, who was part of the Sunday Times of London investigation of Clinton vs. bin Laden, has written a bitter indictment of the American president (its subtitle: "How Bill Clinton's Failures Unleashed Global Terror"). But by the time of the Cole disaster with only weeks left in his presidency, Clinton had focused on the terrorist threat. The problem of the Oct. 12 meeting was the caution common to all councils of war. Arguments by participants sound valid, but collectively they built a future catastrophe.
Al Qaeda's bombing of the billion-dollar U.S. destroyer fulfilled Dick Clarke's prediction of the terrorists seeking U.S. military targets. Hours after the attack, Clarke presided over a meeting of four terrorism experts in the White House Situation Room. He and the State Department's Michael Sheehan agreed this almost certainly was bin Laden's doing, but the FBI and CIA representatives wanted more investigation.
That deadlock preceded a meeting of Cabinet-level officials that same day. Clarke proposed already targeted retaliation against bin Laden''s camps and Taliban buildings in Kabul and Kandahar. At least, they would destroy the terrorist infrastructure. A quick strike might also get Osama bin Laden. "Around the table," Miniter writes, "Clarke heard only objections." As related by Clarke, the meeting exemplified ministerial caution.
Atty. Gen. Reno, told by the FBI that the terrorists were still unidentified, argued that retaliation violated international law. Reno and the CIA's Tenet wanted more investigation. Secretary of State Albright is quoted as saying that with renewed Israeli-Palestinian fighting, "bombing Muslims wouldn't be helpful at this time." (Albright later told Miniter she would have taken a different position if she had "definitive" proof of bin Laden''s involvement.)
Defense Secretary Cohen's position at the meeting is most surprising. The only Republican in the Clinton Cabinet was architect of missile attacks on Afghanistan and Sudan after the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Africa. Clarke remembers Cohen saying the attack on the Cole "was not sufficiently provocative" and that heavy bombing of Afghanistan might cause upheaval in neighboring Pakistan. When I contacted him, Cohen said he did not recall this meeting but that "certainly I regarded the Cole as a major provocation."
The State Department's Sheehan, formerly with Special Forces and now with the New York City Police Department, did not blame Bill Cohen. "It was the entire Pentagon," he told Miniter, adding he was "stunned" and "taken aback" by the lack of Defense Department desire to retaliate. After the meeting, Sheehan told Clarke, prophetically: "What's it going to take to get them to hit al Qaeda in Afghanistan? Does al Qaeda have to attack the Pentagon?"
At the Cabinet-level meeting, only Dick Clarke wanted retaliation. Indeed, he was viewed as a hothead, always demanding bombs away. So much pain has been inflicted, and so much blood has been spilled since then, that the meeting has faded from the memory of its participants-until stirred up by Clarke in Miniter's book.
Less than a month after the Cole disaster, CIA analysts had concluded bin Laden was behind it (though the FBI was still clueless). Osama bin Laden had virtually claimed credit for the most successful attack on a U.S. naval vessel since World War II. He and his gang had escaped to plan greater misery for America.
Someone needs to ask all these asshole "critics" if they would have kept their stupid mouths shut had the FAA/Bush Administration begun taking pre-emptive security measures before 9-11.
You know the same "critics" would have been whining about the unjustified and over-reactive "inconveniences" to their precious lives.
Screw these professional critics!
Clinton literally had Osama in his sights
Pentagon 'had images of his face,' yet ex-president refused to pull trigger
Posted: October 5, 2003
9:30 p.m. Eastern
The following is excerpted from Paul Sperry's hard-hitting new book, "Crude Politics," which was released in August by Thomas Nelson Publishers imprint WND Books, and is now in its third printing.
By Paul Sperry
"We need to finish the job," former President Clinton last year advised President Bush concerning Osama bin Laden, who is still at large.
Of course, he's one to talk.
The only time Clinton got tough on bin Laden was in 1998, in the midst of the Lewinsky scandal, when he needed a big media distraction.
Twice in 2000, including one time after the USS Cole bombing, Clinton had bin Laden in his sights and failed to pull the trigger, according to a senior Pentagon official familiar with covert counterterrorism operations in Afghanistan at the time.
He said the CIA had equipped pro-U.S. factions on the ground in Afghanistan with high-tech surveillance gear from the Defense Department to track bin Laden.
They were armed with sniper rifles and shoulder-fired rocket launchers, the official explained, and had the OK to assassinate bin Laden on orders from U.S. intelligence back in Washington.
"There were surveillance systems brought in-country, and they were doing observations and watching some of the likely places bin Laden frequented, such as Tora Bora, and guest-houses in the area," said the official, who requested anonymity. "And we were viewing" the satellite images relayed from Afghanistan.
"Some of it was collaborative – some DOD, some CIA – but we were looking," he said. "And Clinton had opportunities to take him out and didn't take them."
"One was more a command-and-control issue – when they should have made a decision to shoot, but it never got out of country, because the bureaucracy of carrying [the order] back [to Afghanistan] through channels was too much, and the opportunity just disappeared," he said. "And then another one when Clinton said 'No.'"
The Pentagon official explained that Clinton feared the paid CIA recruits might hit innocent Afghans.
"There was actionable intelligence provided by that gear, by the optics," he said. "But once it went up the chain of command, it got into stuff like, 'How sure are you guys about that 6-5 guy in the middle of that group? It kind of looks like him, but how sure are you?'"
"Clinton didn't want to have an accidental shot kill innocent civilians," he added. "But everyone was pretty certain it was Osama bin Laden. We had images of his face."
Clinton certainly deserves his share of blame for failing to take out bin Laden when he had the chance.
However, that was before Sept. 11. Bin Laden did not attack and kill thousands of American civilians on American soil when Clinton was commander in chief. That happened on Bush's watch, and he essentially blew a prime opportunity to take out bin Laden when U.S. intelligence had a fix on him in his Tora Bora rats' nest. He blew it because he and his oil cronies were preoccupied with another opportunity – taking out the Caspian energy export pipeline-blocking Taliban in Kabul and Kandahar.
Sept. 11 should have been the last straw. Everyone counted on Bush to decapitate the al-Qaida leadership once and for all. He had a clear national mandate.
U.S. Central Command officers have told me that they had hoped for a narrowly defined and concentrated search-and-destroy mission against al-Qaida in Afghanistan – go in, get bin Laden, and get out. What they got instead was a broadly defined, long, complicated mission that has included Afghan proxy forces, humanitarian airlifts, regime change, nation building, economic development, and occupation – all the things that Bush's pal and special envoy in Kabul and now in Baghdad, "Unocal Zal" Khalilzad, had on his wish list for his native country, a list that became the White House's operating manual in Afghanistan. The plan was so comprehensive and complex that it virtually guaranteed finding bin Laden would slip down the priority list.
To be sure, presidents throughout history have been accused of putting business interests first, even ahead of national security. In the most recent example, Clinton was accused of being in the pocket of U.S. aerospace-defense contractors, such as Loral and Hughes, that were hungry for deals in Communist China, which has nuclear-tipped missiles aimed at American cities. He even had his own Caspian pipeline scandal. Millionaire Lebanese oil man Roger Tamraz gave the 1996 Clinton-Gore reelection effort some $300,000 in exchange for White House access.
Tamraz was trying to get U.S. backing for the development of an alternate pipeline route from Azerbaijan to a Mediterranean port in Turkey – this one through Armenia, Azerbaijan's enemy. Despite warnings from a conscientious NSC aide, the White House hosted him at several events. The shady Tamraz got his access, if not his pipeline.
Sleazy as it was, the funds-for-access deal was not tied to an American war. And this is by no means just any war. This is an epic battle to protect your family and mine, where we live, from al-Qaida, the most dangerous and effective network of terrorists in the history of terrorism.
So do I. The idea that nothing can be done without specific information is ridiculous.
I think its bad too because it assumes things that may or may not be true, like a potential hijacker can be identified by race. Historically hijackers have come from a variety of ethnic backgrounds and highjacking has occurred for a variety of reasons.
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