Posted on 09/23/2006 8:37:08 PM PDT by STARWISE
Former president Bill Clinton angrily defended his administration's counterterrorism record during a Fox News interview to be aired today, while accusing "President Bush's neocons" and other Republicans of ignoring Osama bin Laden until the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Clinton had planned to discuss his climate change initiative during his appearance on "Fox News Sunday," but he turned combative after host Chris Wallace asked why he hadn't "put bin Laden and al-Qaeda out of business." Clinton shot back that "all the conservative Republicans" who now criticize him for inattention to bin Laden used to criticize him for over-attention to bin Laden.Clinton said he authorized the CIA to kill bin Laden, and even "contracted with people to kill him." He also said he had a plan to attack Afghanistan, overthrow the Taliban and hunt for bin Laden after the attack on the USS Cole, but the CIA and FBI refused to certify that bin Laden was responsible, and Uzbekistan refused to allow the United States to set up a base.
By contrast, Clinton said the Bush administration's neoconservatives "had no meetings on bin Laden for nine months," believing he had been "too obsessed with bin Laden."
(snip)
Clinton : There is not a living soul in the world who thought Osama bin Laden had anything to do with Black Hawk down or was paying any attention to it, or even knew al-Qaeda was a going concern in October '93.
Wallace : I understand.
Clinton : No, no, wait. Don't tell me that -- you asked why didn't I do more to bin Laden, there was not a living soul, all the people who now criticize me wanted to leave the next day. You brought this up, so you get an answer. But you -- secondly
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
I have been here for years and you can check all my other posts. I am not a supporter of Clinton but I am not an automatic Republican good, Democrat bad type either.
"I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky."
"I tried to get bin-Laden."
Once a lying sack of $h!t, always a lying sack of $h!t.
Thank you that is what I am saying. Bush largely followed many of Clinton's policies prior to 9/11 and concentrated on tax cuts. In all fairness to both Bush and Clinton nobody saw 9/11 coming.
That wasn't the question Chris asked .. Chris didn't say bin Laden had anything to do with Black Hawk down
Wallace quoted bin Laden as saying BHD showed America's weakness
Sleuth .. Clinton reframed the question Wallace asked and then answered it
Master of lies .. paranoid and defensive to the MAXX!
Go back to 1993....THAT HIT WAS OUR MAINLAND!!
Read his 2000 State of the Union. This is close: Maybe in 10 or 20 years, terrorists will be a danger to us..
It appears it's leading to a major emotional breakdown. He thought he had the power to stop it (he couldn't) now he feels compelled to come out and defend his record (he can't). What he should have done was ignore the movie and keep a low profile.
Phil1750 is of course 100% right: LOTS of people saw it coming, the more prophetic among them saw it coming much earlier than the ones who started getting nervous in early/mid-2001. It is as though the names Al-Qeada and Osama binLaden were first brought to our attention courtesy of 9-11, whereas the fact is they were both being discussed for MANY months prior. The events of that day, 9-11, seemed to wipe out our memories of previous days, or at least render concrete what had merely been theoretical.
I really felt , coming into the new Bush Administration , that if Bush & Co. did not clean house THOROUGHLY, and discredit the disassembled and broken machinery of governance that 8 years of Clinton had left lying in pieces, that they could face BIG problems very soon, and that's just what happened. And the Islamic Jihadists weren't even in the forefront of my consciousness then---it took the very hard lesson of 9-11 to finally make us all aware of the history we were suddenly standing right there in the middle of, with physical and human catastrophe raining down on us ON OUR OWN GROUND. There were so many OTHER things that they could have illuminated about Clinton & Co. that they chose to abandon, all in the name of the new C-in-C being a "uniter not a divider".( I suspected that "uniter-not-divider" would prove to be a classic keeping-your-fingers-crossed cop-out) It has done NO good for nearly 6 years of this Administration to accomodate the Left---it just gives them something more to hate you for when it starts to look like it might be becoming a little successful.
I noticed that too---Clinton shown once again as schizophrenically arguing with himself by way of avoiding or even HEARING the questions that were asked, or being too stupid or unsubtle to even understand the questions.
I can only look forward to seeing the increasingly older looking Clinton get more and more frantically over the top, in your face when he is faced with these kinds of face-to-faces, until he finally explodes, or croaks.
"I wonder if there is a name for that kind of thing?"
----interestingly, every other month in the ATLANTIC MONTHLY , one of America's best magazines, there is a backpage column called "Word Fugitives" which asks its readers for just such suggestions: " come up with a phenomemon that we all experience but for which no one yet has created a word to describe it". I have been participating in this contest ( I will be in the mag two issues from now) and I'll propose that phenom to them ---but all this takes several months to finally see print.
But I could start with an inversion of the usual psychological term, and call the ClintonSyndrome/Islamic Jihadist insecurity phenomenon as "aggressive-passive".
Can YOU honestly say you KNOW President Bush did NOTHING about terrorism?????????......hmmmmmm.
I'd call it narcissistic......
Actually I don't know. I would like him to answer Clinton and tell us what he did prior to 9-11. I would love it if he could show that significant things were done and stuff it down Clinton's throat. This also shows the futility of trying to be nice. He goes so far out of his way to show respect for Clinton's presidency but obviously there is no reciprocity.
Go back one step further to the murder of Meir Kahane by an Al Queada person who later was involved in the 1993 WTC bombing. The investigation of that murder was toned down because Kahane was unpopular. Perhaps if they cracked the network then the first bombing would not have taken place. Even my beloved Ronald Reagan was guilty of letting the terrorists get away with murdering Americans in Lebanon. Every President has been negligent in the events leading up to 9-11. Clinton was worse than most because he had an obvious path in terms of getting Bin Laden and because he appeased terrorists and dictators in general. However, Bush did not immediately change the course of Clinton's policies and deserves some blame for that.
The Democrats are tying themselves in knots defending Bill Clinton 51 days out from an election, six years after he left office. If they want to spend the next seven weeks talking about what a bang-up job Bill Clinton did on his unsuccessful attemts to bag bin Laden, that works for me!
But if that is what they put their effort into, the only thing they will achieve is salvaging Bill Clinton's legacy, and they will lose even more seats in the House and Senate.
Works for me! Build a 500-foot-tall statue of Clinton in the middle of the National Mall, for all I care, if it serves to increase the Republican majorities in Congress.
Is there a good book on the Kahane killing that clearly draws the al Queda connections? I know the assassin was tied to Rachman, but I don't have a good authoritative source.
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