Clinton's War on Terror (Massive Clinton Spin Control)

Wash Post Page A-1 ^ | December 19, 2001 | Barton Gellman

[andrew]

Two years ago, Director of Central Intelligence George J. Tenet phoned the White House. The agency had a lead, he said, on Osama bin Laden.

Reports linked the al Qaeda leader to a temporary encampment in southern Afghanistan. Overhead photographs showed a well-equipped caravan of the sort used by hunters, a commanding figure at its center, and an entourage of escorts bearing arms.

[mystery-ak]

Thanks for the ping

If what Sabertooth says is true(and I believe him) it makes this story(tale) pure BS.
Im sure parts of this article are true, Clinton and his cohorts went through the motions, but in the end didn't have the guts to follow through.
They must of ran a poll or they didn't want to upset their liberal base.
They chose instead to bide their time and hope nothing else happens on their watch that they would have to respond to more aggressively to

Being an Army wife, Shelton was a poor excuse for a member of the JCS...he was despised by the military as much as Clinton.

[MeekOneGOP]

Bump!

[maica]

Here is the article, AKA revisionist history, you were talking about

[max61]

Liars always lie.

---max

[maica]

From the Washington Post: Researcher Robert Thomason contributed to this report.

The bulk was provided by Clinton "sources close to the National Security Team."

The release of this level of detail of what surely is top secret material must be illegal. What do you think?

[Freee-dame]

Today on DC's WMAL radio, Chris Core discussed this article and the media bias shown by having it on the front page of the W Post. Since it was history, but not news, why was it the lead article? Ann Compton (ABC News) said that the "lead" article was in the top right corner, so this wasn't the "lead." Maybe not by journalism school rules, but a four column article with pictures sure is more prominent that a one column story in the right corner. Then Compton proved Bernard Goldberg's point when she said "I don't see any bias."

[maica]

Chris Matthews had former Secretary Cohen on his show tonight, discussing this article. Chris referred to Clinton as THE President. That really makes my blood pressure go up, everytime one of these sycophants does that. They mocked President Bush for his verbal gaffes, so we can only assume that Matthews knows exactly what he is saying at all times.

A Cohen comment from the same interview, speaking of the current administration's war against terror: "We have been bombing for several months. We have devastated what remains of Afghanistan."Another flat out lie! from the unbiased.
Matthews ended with "Mr Cohen, you are a great guy."

[maica]

UNBIAS:

PRINCETON 2001-2002
The Ferris Professors of Journalism

  Each year eminent journalists teach at Princeton, joining a roster that includes many of America's most distinguished writers.

 Barton Gellman '82, former Jerusalem bureau chief for the Washington Post, has also covered the Pentagon. Author of works about George Kennan, Bill Bradley and AIDS, Gellman will teach The Literature of Fact this spring.

[Calpublican]

He's still searching for a legacy. Hoping he can latch onto Dubya's coattails. HA!

[ArcLight]

So what's so terrible about learning that the Clintoids did try to do something about bin Laden? Even if you grant that some of this is spin, it suggests that there were some serious efforts made to nail the guy. I should think you'd be glad to learn that Bill isn't as inept and brainless on this subject as we previously thought.

[Rainbow Rising]

Which leads, yet again, to the obvious question:

Would the attacks of 9/11 have happened, had President Clinton been up to the job with which he was entrusted?

I can't imagine that they would have happened if Clinton had done the job. 9/11 was the culmination of a series of increasingly brazen attacks on our interests, going all the way back to the original WTC bombing. As each attack happened, we were being watched by our enemies. They listened to what we said, but they really paid attention to what we did. And they eventually drew the conclusion that we were too weak and too soft to hit them back.

It's painfully clear now that we didn't do nearly enough. Clinton didn't have the intestinal fortitude to do what Bush is doing now. Why? There are probably a lot of reasons: his 60's mentality and its accompanying disdain for the military; his addiction to polls; his preoccupation with crushing his enemies; his pursuit of personal pleasure; or his lack of interest in foreign policy. But I think the biggest reason of all is this: Bill Clinton, at his most basic level, is a weak, soft man, afraid to put his precious self at risk, more given to talk than to action. He was weak and soft at a time when he needed to be strong and resolute, and 9/11 was the result. He deserves nothing but contempt.

Gee, I guess character does matter, after all.

[FlyVet]

The Left is redolent with the peculiar stench of sinking-ship-jumping 'Rats

Oh, c'mon, stop pulling punches. Heee heeee...

[D-fendr]

It may be too much for the WP to expect Willie to show leadership to fight terrorists, but was it too much to expect of him not to pardon a bunch of them on his way out the door?

[FlyVet]

They mocked President Bush for his verbal gaffes, so we can only assume that Matthews knows exactly what he is saying at all times.

Naaaahhh, ya see, it just proves we need an incompetent pervert, who sounds and looks good on TV, for a "president"....someone like bill clinton. Cantcha see that???

[Looking4Truth]

I can't imagine that they would have happened if Clinton had done the job. 9/11 was the culmination of a series of increasingly brazen attacks on our interests, going all the way back to the original WTC bombing. As each attack happened, we were being watched by our enemies. They listened to what we said, but they really paid attention to what we did. And they eventually drew the conclusion that we were too weak and too soft to hit them back.

It's painfully clear now that we didn't do nearly enough. Clinton didn't have the intestinal fortitude to do what Bush is doing now. Why? There are probably a lot of reasons: his 60's mentality and its accompanying disdain for the military; his addiction to polls; his preoccupation with crushing his enemies; his pursuit of personal pleasure; or his lack of interest in foreign policy. But I think the biggest reason of all is this: Bill Clinton, at his most basic level, is a weak, soft man, afraid to put his precious self at risk, more given to talk than to action. He was weak and soft at a time when he needed to be strong and resolute, and 9/11 was the result. He deserves nothing but contempt.

Gee, I guess character does matter, after all.

53 posted on 12/19/01 10:23 PM Pacific by Rainbow Rising

Killer post! That's all I can say at this point, you have taken the words right out of my mouth. Good Job!!!

[Mia T]

From the article...

Three times after Aug. 20, 1998, when Clinton ordered the only missile strike of his presidency against bin Laden's organization, the CIA came close enough to pinpointing bin Laden that Clinton authorized final preparations to launch. In each case, doubts about the intelligence aborted the mission...

More than once, advisers recall, Clinton sounded out Gen. Henry H. Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, about the prospect of using Special Forces to surprise bin Laden's fighters on the ground. But Clinton declined to authorize the large-scale operation that Shelton said would be required, and he chose not to order a less ambitious option to which the general would have objected.

---

Amid all of the spin there are germs of truth...

I've been sitting on some info under the "loose lips" principle, but this article makes that no longer necessary. An Academy buddy of my cousin, himself a former Air Force pilot, is a Delta Force pilot. According to him, we had bin Laden "in our crosshairs" three times during the Clinton years, but couldn't get the kill order from higher up. His conclusion from the field was the reason for this failure was nothing more than a lack of the political will to get the job done.

Which leads, yet again, to the obvious question:

Would the attacks of 9/11 have happened, had President Clinton been up to the job with which he was entrusted?

7 posted on 12/18/01 10:12 PM Pacific by Sabertooth

---

I can't imagine that they would have happened if Clinton had done the job. 9/11 was the culmination of a series of increasingly brazen attacks on our interests, going all the way back to the original WTC bombing. As each attack happened, we were being watched by our enemies. They listened to what we said, but they really paid attention to what we did. And they eventually drew the conclusion that we were too weak and too soft to hit them back.

It's painfully clear now that we didn't do nearly enough. Clinton didn't have the intestinal fortitude to do what Bush is doing now. Why? There are probably a lot of reasons: his 60's mentality and its accompanying disdain for the military; his addiction to polls; his preoccupation with crushing his enemies; his pursuit of personal pleasure; or his lack of interest in foreign policy. But I think the biggest reason of all is this: Bill Clinton, at his most basic level, is a weak, soft man, afraid to put his precious self at risk, more given to talk than to action. He was weak and soft at a time when he needed to be strong and resolute, and 9/11 was the result. He deserves nothing but contempt.

Gee, I guess character does matter, after all.

53 posted on 12/19/01 10:23 PM Pacific by Rainbow Rising

Q ERTY3 BUMP! 

 

Delta Force pilot: [W]e had bin Laden "in our crosshairs" three times during the Clinton years, but couldn't get the kill order from higher up.--Sabertooth

 

Bill Clinton, at his most basic level, is a weak, soft man, afraid to put his precious self at risk--Rainbow Rising

COWARD

by Mia T

clinton is the quintessential coward. He is especially cowardly about acts physical, notwithstanding (or, more accurately, underscored by) an apparent facility in committing rapes, predations and willful, premeditated, opportunistic killings (e.g., the Sudan bombing, the Ricky Ray Rector execution). . .

clinton cowardice knows no geographic bounds. We saw clinton cowardice in the Balkans...

 

We saw clinton cowardice in Africa...

 

It was caught on videotape there. Remember? Remember the fear, the abject hatred on clinton's Mr.-Hyde-transmogrified face? (His real face!) Remember the angry screams directed to the (in fact pro-clinton) black crowd as they came too close to his podium?

I suspect clinton cowardice accounted for the cancellation of his trip to Greece with its streets teeming with anti-clinton demonstrators. Greeks were trying clinton in effigy for his wag-the-dog, desperately-seeking-a-legacy mass murders in the Balkans.

The world has clinton figured out: He is small, a greasy character, a degenerate, a delusional if opportunistic narcissist, a predatory adolescent, a backwoods buffoon, but most of all, a coward. If he won't go to Greece, with all the protections of the presidency, where will he go when we are finally rid of him? (Will we ever be finally rid of him?)

(That the backwoods, backroom duo thought they could spin the world as they did Arkansas is a measure of their stupidity. They are too arrogant and dim-witted to understand that the demagogic process in this fiber-optic age isn't about counting spun heads; it's about not discounting circumambient brains.)

Poetic justice in the end: clinton--both clintons, in fact--will be prisoners, both Cartesian and Freudian, of their own depravity, imprisioned in the hermetic confines of an evil, narcissistic life. Their world will finally and fittingly become as small as they, themselves, are.

[Shenandoah]

THE CULPABILITY OF WILLIAM JEFFERSON CLINTON

[mewzilla]

I still think Bubba's reasons for not getting OBL had more to do with blackmail than with anything else...