QUAGMIRE ALERT!
Posted on 06/24/2003 7:41:47 PM PDT by chichipow
It was, after all, them Hebrews who FAILED to kill ALL the evil people presently living in the 'Promised Land' when Joshua, under GOD's command, led them into it.
But we have free education for illegal aliens, and lower-priced instate tuition when they go to college in California.
EVERYONE of these things were voted for by the citizens of that great state: either directly by referendum or through their lawfully elected representatives.
If it is 'costing' too much, then either quit whining and cough up the dough, or else undo what the 'laws' have done and get rid of the expensive drain on limited resources.
QUIT BLAMING DAVIS!!!
Oh please. Plenty of folks predicted an attack on our soil long before 9/11. For over 30 years this country had a head-in-the-sand mentality against terrorist threats, and unfortunately it took 9/11 to wake us out of it. Sure Clinton did all he could do to set us up for 9/11, but those before him - Reagan, Bush, Carter, were just as culpable. Ask yourself what retaliation was taken after the attacks on our people in Beirut, or after Lockerbie, or after numerous other attacks over the last thirty years. I proudly applaud the actions our President has taken since 9/11, but that doesn't excuse him, and all who came before him, for their mistakes prior to that fateful day.
Sorry, I don't buy your premise. But I would argue that Browne wouldn't have our military fighting in places like Columbia and the Philipenes where we have no business being.
Is that close enough to issue a "Quagmire alert?"
QUAGMIRE ALERT!
Maybe so but...
Had the drones been weaponized a year earlier, the September 11 terrorist onslaught on the United States may never have happened. The Wall Street Journal reports that the drones had bin Laden under surveillance on more than one occasion. "CIA drones spotted Bin Laden in camps but couldn't shoot," the paper said.
More info:
When they began to look into the issue in late 2000, CIA officials say they were surprised to discover that the Air Force was already trying to solve the same problem. Gen. John Jumper, formerly head of the Air Force's Air Combat Command, had been working for months to figure out how his growing fleet of reconnaissance planes could be armed to attack tanks on the ground. Unclear was whether the Hellfire missile, which is normally fired from helicopters, would work from the much lighter and more fragile Predator. The first success came in late February, when a Predator-fired missile flying at low altitude destroyed a tank at a test site in Nevada.
By early spring this year [2001], the CIA had brought the Predators back to the United States and was actively pushing the Air Force to equip them with Hellfire missiles for a possible redeployment in Afghanistan. Tests in Nevada dragged on through the summer as technicians tried to refine the plane's ability to fire accurately at targets from high altitudes. By August [2001], officials say, the kinks had been worked out and the planes were ready to go.
But even then, the Bush administration was riddled with doubts about whether it wanted to go forward with a new, more forceful mission over Afghanistan. The risks, officials say, were huge. Top Bush Cabinet officials convened several times in late summer to discuss the pros and cons of going forward.
The White House and the State Department, still raw after the downing of a United States spy plane over China, feared the international repercussions if one of the armed drones crashed or was otherwise discovered. The CIA and the Pentagon had resolved the money dispute — neither side will say how — but were now tussling over who would have the authority to pull the trigger and who would take the flak if the mission failed.
CIA officials, feeling that their agency had little room for error, were particularly on edge. One senior CIA official complained that up to early September, the administration still had no clear concept of the "consequences of failure." He said that "there was some saber rattling, but at the end of the day, the policy didn't evolve to the point where we were going to do something about it."
Another administration official says the CIA was prepared to take the international heat if it successfully struck at Mr. bin Laden. But still reeling from a decade of mishaps topped by the mistaken bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade during the Kosovo war, it deeply feared another botched mission. "They most dreaded being seen as the gang that couldn't shoot straight," the official said.
The debate wound on unresolved until the morning of Sept. 11, when nearly all concerns of a failed mission disappeared. The armed CIA Predators were still on American soil, awaiting transport back to Afghanistan, when the hijacked jets hit the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
So in other words, the testing for armed drones was not even complete until August 2001. If you will notice the following lines:
"One senior CIA official complained that up to early September, the administration still had no clear concept of the "consequences of failure." He said that "there was some saber rattling, but at the end of the day, the policy didn't evolve to the point where we were going to do something about it."
...so in other words, after the testing, the administration was ready to play "drone cowboy", but the CIA was holding things up because of their own fear of failure in view of past screwups.
Take the lead...
"When President Bush took office in January 2001, the White House was told that Predator drones had recently spotted Osama bin Laden as many as three times and officials were urged to arm the unmanned planes with missiles to kill the al-Qaida leader."
A more accurate variation of this story has been on Free Republic for over a year and a half. However, bin Laden wasn't sighted by unarmed drones while Clinton was in office; we had the capacity to take him out at the time, and the Clinton Administration chose not to do so.
I can only speculate that the article at the top of this thread is some sort of pre-emptive spin for the purpose of shielding the Clintons from responsibility for their negligence, which led directly to 9/11. There is probably a worse bombshell waiting to drop.
Go here and here for a better understanding.
Notice that in all accounts, we had bin Laden "three times."
It's very important the damning information that Clinton could have taken bin Laden out on three occasions is disseminated to as many people as possible, so please pass it along.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.