Posted on 06/23/2006 5:43:30 PM PDT by nuconvert
Khobar Towers
June 23, 2006
The Wall Street Journal
Louis J. Freeh
Ten years ago this Sunday, acting under direct orders from senior Iranian government leaders, the Saudi Hezbollah detonated a 25,000-pound TNT bomb that killed 19 U.S. airmen in their dormitory at Khobar Towers in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. The blast wave destroyed Building 131 and grievously wounded hundreds of additional Air Force personnel. It also killed an unknown number of Saudi civilians in a nearby park.
The 19 Americans murdered were members of the 4404th Wing, who were risking their lives to enforce the no-fly zone over southern Iraq. This was a U.N.-mandated mission after the 1991 Gulf War to stop Saddam Hussein from killing his Shiite people. The Khobar victims, along with the courageous families and friends who will mourn them this weekend in Washington, deserve our respect and honor. More importantly, they must be remembered, because American justice has still been denied.
Although a federal grand jury handed down indictments in June 2001 -- days before I left as FBI director and a week before some of the charges against 14 of the terrorists would have lapsed because of the statute of limitations -- two of the primary leaders of the attack, Ahmed Ibrahim al-Mughassil and Abdel Hussein Mohamed al-Nasser, are living comfortably in Iran with about as much to fear from America as Osama bin Laden had prior to Sept. 11 (to wit, U.S. marshals showing up to serve warrants for their arrests).
Solemn and Personal
The aftermath of the Khobar bombing is just one example of how successive U.S. governments have mishandled Iran. On June 25, 1996, President Clinton declared that "no stone would be left unturned" to find the bombers and bring them to "justice." Within hours, teams of FBI agents, and forensic
(Excerpt) Read more at users2.wsj.com ...
New tagline!
1. 1993 Twin Tower bombing. Ques.: What do we do?
Ans.: Investigate it solely in the direction which will coincide with what we want to tell the people and shut it down. Is that okay with everyone?, said Bubba as he passed out the cigars and rose colored glasses.
2. OKC. Same as Ans. above.
3. Kobar Towers: Same as Ans. above.
4. USS Cole: Same as Ans. above.
Bubba definitely had a pattern throughout his years.
Exactly! Should have added that to mine above;)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1654696/posts?page=38#38
Except for this one that they added the bit where they blame the Bush administration for not retaliating.
There is absolutely no evidence that the Clinton administration would have behaved any differently in the Cole matter from the WTC1/Khobar template, but they insist that the Bush administration's "failure" to retaliate was unforgivable.
Exactly.
Those were my feelings after I read this, too.
I'll go back and find it (if it hasn't been scrubbed).
From the excerpt:
The Khobar victims, along with the courageous families and friends who will mourn them this weekend in Washington, deserve our respect and honor. More importantly, they must be remembered, because American justice has still been denied.Helpful FReeper Tip #42 - You will find that it is less embarrassing to actually read the article (and not just the headline) before you post your comments.
Good for you! What a powerful and apt comparison (I think of snakes whenever the Clintons are mentioned)! Thank you so much for pinging me to the comment and the thread!
bttt
bttt
YOU may find it boring and "old news", but not everyone has a 5 second attention span. Why don't you just skip by it instead of trying to shout it down and disrupt it? What the matter, afraid this story will remind Conservatives why Democrats absolutely cannot be trusted with any measure of any political power at any level?
So for 30 months, I wrote and rewrote the same set of simple talking points for the president, Mr. Berger, and others to press the FBI's request to go inside a Saudi prison and interview the Khobar bombers. And for 30 months nothing happened. The Saudis reported back to us that the president and Mr. Berger would either fail to raise the matter with the crown prince or raise it without making any request. On one such occasion, our commander in chief instead hit up Prince Abdullah for a contribution to his library.
"...if every warning were considered to be old news *after* the initial warning, we would have needed only the ONE warning given to us by G*d in the Garden of Eden; you know, the warning that went something along the lines of "watch for snakes".
The apostle Paul gave another reminder later to "beware of dogs, and evil workers". Watch 'em, mark 'em, and spread the word about 'em for our own protection!
Knowing what we know, I'd say Bubba "Gorelicked" the investigation for his term (at the least).
There is one statement "The only possible link to Bin Laden on the Cole Case is a suspect now thought to be on Afghanistan.
http://www.merip.org/mero/mero090601.html
I myself am not up to the task, but it could not be too difficult.
The takeover of our embassy in Iran, numerous hijackings or bombings of airliners, the Marine barracks in Lebanon, the 1993 WTC bombing, the Cole, the Khobar towers, 9/11. Have I missed anything?
Someone with serious intellectual wherewithal ought to make the case that we are at war with islamic radicals and have been for some time. The strategies that we are pursuing now are us finally fighting back and the Libs are screaming bloody murder despite the fact that they have only let things fester when they have been in charge.
Someone needs to make the case so that most Americans can understand it.
WoW! I had not heard this whole story. Don't know how the Clintons and their minions sleep at night. Thanks for posting.
I am not up to the task but there are plenty of gifted writers and thinkers out there who are. We need to show that Libya, Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia and lots of others have been attacking us for a long time now. I am sad to think that most Americans are willing to ignore open acts of war against us. But ignoring the threat suits the purposes of the cowardly libs and their media lackeys are only too happy not to "connect the dots" for most Americans.
A book that lays out the case in simple terms is something that we can at least point to and say "read this" to those who will not see.
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