Clinton Assigns Blame
And, no, it's not his fault.
By Kevin M. Cherry, a writer living in Alexandria, Va..
November 8, 2001 11:30 a.m.
n a speech at Georgetown University, President Bill Clinton blamed, in part, the United States for the terrorist attacks of September 11. Speaking to a group of about 1,000 students, the former president said that our nation is "paying a price" for slavery and for its treatment of the "significant number of native Americans" who "were dispossessed and killed."
Osama bin Laden certainly has given no indication that he was concerned about the American sin of slavery — partially, perhaps, because Islam provides some justification for the abuse. While Clinton cites the Christian sins of the crusades as something for which "we are still paying," bin Laden prefers to focus on more recent events — the U.S. presence in Saudi Arabia, the sanctions on Iraq, the existence of Israel.
The first two of bin Laden's grievances, of course, are just over a decade old; the last... well, it's been an issue since May, 1948. Bin Laden has also cited the post-WWI breakup of the Ottoman Empire, but let's not dwell on that.
We don't need to turn to such (relatively) ancient history to understand some of the reasons why September 11 happened. Let's look at some of the policy failings of the Clinton administration that severely hampered American efforts to curtail terrorism.
In 1995, the CIA enacted a policy that forbids the recruitment of "dirty" agents — foreign agents that have less than spotless human-rights records. Despite the denials that any recruit was ever turned down, this policy undoubtedly had a chilling effect on who was recruited in the first place. One ex-CIA official told Franklin Foer of The New Republic that under Clinton appointee John Deutsch, the agency had "become very politically correct."
And just last year, the National Commission on Terrorism — chaired by former Reagan counterterrorism head Paul Bremer — issued a report with the eerily foreboding image of the Twin Towers on its cover. A bipartisan effort — led by Jon Kyl and Dianne Feinstein — was made to attach the recommendations of the panel to an intelligence authorization bill. But Sen. Patrick Leahy feared a threat to "civil liberties" and torpedoed the effort. After the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole, Kyl and Feinstein tried yet again. This time, Leahy was content with emaciating the proposals instead of defeating them outright. The weakened proposals died as the House realized "it wasn't worth taking up." President Clinton certainly could have encouraged Sen. Leahy to drop his opposition, but he didn't.
In 1996, President Clinton charged Al Gore with improving airline security. But the commission he led "focused on civil liberties" and "not effectiveness," according to the Boston Globe. The commission concluded that "no profile [of passengers] should contain or be based on... race, religion, or national origin." The FAA also decided, in 1999, to seal its passenger screening system from law-enforcement databases — thus preventing the FBI from notifying airlines that suspected terrorists were on board.
When bin Laden fled from the Sudan to Afghanistan in 1996, "some officials," according to the Washington Post, "raised the possibility of shooting down his aircraft." But the plan was never pursued, in part because "it was inconceivable" that President Clinton would approve of it.
What President Clinton did do, of course, is launch a series of cruise-missile attacks on Afghanistan and the Sudan around the time of his grand-jury testimony in August of 1998. Put aside any talk of "wagging the dog." This low-risk, low-damage effort helped bin Laden in the Muslim world. He looked strong, and we looked weak. We looked (and, of course, were) averse to casualties. It fit a pattern of tepid American responses to serious attacks on our interests — the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center (which the Clinton administration treated as a criminal matter and not an act of war), Khobar Towers, embassy bombings. The Muslim world senses weakness and feeds on it; they tremble only before resolution and strength. As one senior Defense Department official put it, "I wish we'd recognized [that we were at war] then and started the campaign then that we've started now."
Russian President Putin echoed the same sentiment when he told ABC News that he was disappointed by the level of cooperation by the Clinton administration in fighting terrorism: "We certainly were counting on a more active cooperation in combating international terrorism."
And they're not alone. Many former Clintonites read recent history, and their part in it, differently than does their ex-boss. Jamie Gorelick, former deputy attorney general, told the Boston Globe, "Clearly, not enough was done." And Nancy Soderberg of the National Security Council admitted, "In hindsight [the administration's effort] wasn't enough, and anyone involved in policy would have to admit that." And, most damning: Joe Klein quotes an unnamed senior Clinton official, who reported that "Clinton spent less concentrated attention on national defense than any other president in recent memory."
Bill Clinton, however is his same old self — content to pass the buck — blaming the Founders, the crusaders, and anyone else in sight for the attacks of September 11. He is entirely unwilling to accept any responsibility for what occurred on his watch. Before, he has pardoned the unpardonable; now he has justified the unjustifiable.
