Streisand: "The Myth of Bush as Hero"

Finally ... finally we can talk about what's really going on. Rather than accept the myth that 9/11 turned President Bush into a "hero" ... former counterterrorism expert Richard Clarke has bravely spoken out to tell us the real story - that Bush did not treat terrorism as an urgent issue. And that going to war in Iraq, in addition to tragically costing us so many lives, has diverted money and resources away from where they should have been focused - on dismantling al Qaeda and strengthening our homeland security.

We now know that the Bush White House never made counterterrorism a priority leading up to September 11th. In fact, on April 30, 2001, the new administration released the government's annual report on terrorism, with a noted change: extensive mention of bin Laden, which previous terrorism reports contained, had been left out. A Bush State Department Official reportedly told CNN at that time that the U.S. government under Clinton had made a mistake in focusing so much energy on bin Laden.

In fact, Bush never even held a cabinet level meeting devoted to terrorism until the week before the attack. While FBI agents were fielding concerns about non-citizens in flight school uninterested in learning how to land planes, and the CIA was aware that potential terrorists had entered the United States, because terrorism was not a priority in the high levels of the federal government these discussions were never elevated to a place where the information could be shared across departments, where the appropriate people would have an opportunity to connect the dots...

Here is a brief timeline (much of the information is from the Center for American Progress) of some of the more egregious warnings of looming terrorism that Bush overlooked as he spent the first eight months in office planning tax cuts for the wealthy, devising a way to invade Iraq, and taking long vacations out at his ranch in Crawford, Texas:

1) A 1999 report prepared by the Library of Congress for the National Intelligence Council specifically theorized that al Qaeda could fly airplanes into buildings - so we know that the scope of the attack was not entirely beyond anyone's imagination.

2) In early 2001, a surge of al Qaeda activity and plans for attacks against American "interests" were noted, including by Israeli intelligence agencies.

3) Also in early 2001, the Bush administration departed from Clinton's policy of tracking money to terrorist organizations. (Was Bush trying to protect the Saudi royal family?)

4) In July 2001, U.S. and Italian officials were warned that al Qaeda may use planes as missiles at a Genoa summit of industrialized nations.

5) On August 6, 2001, while on vacation in Crawford, the president received a one and a half page briefing advising him that al Qaeda was capable of a major strike against the U.S., and that the plot could include the hijacking of American airplanes. And then what did the president do with this important information? He went fishing - bringing new meaning to the phrase, "Gone Fishin'"!

6) In July, 2001, Attorney General John Ashcroft stopped flying on commercial airlines because of a "threat assessment."

7) Newsweek has reported that on September 10th, 2001, a number of Pentagon officials canceled travel plans for the next morning due to security concerns, and "that as many as 10 to 12 warnings" were issued before 9/11 - "more than two of the warnings specifically mentioned the possibility of hijackings."

8) Also on September 10th (as I posted in a statement on November 21, 2002), Attorney General John Ashcroft rejected the FBI's request for a $58 million increase for their counterterrorism budget to pay for 149 new counterterrorism field agents, 200 intelligence analysts and 54 additional translators. He did that despite the fact, discovered later by a Congressional investigation, that the FBI had only one analyst monitoring al Qaeda and a severe shortage of Arabic translators.

Soon after September 11th, Condoleezza Rice said, "I don't think anyone could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center." And now Bush says, "Had I known that the enemy was going to use airplanes to strike America, to attack us, I would have used every resource, every asset, every power of this government to protect the American people." Did he really say this? I heard it on the radio but I couldn't believe my own ears. Indeed, the scope of the horror of 9/11 is beyond the realm of what even the most savvy threat assessors may have thought possible.

However ... as the brief timeline above shows, THE PRESIDENT WAS REPEATEDLY WARNED that al Qaeda was planning some sort of attack, and that the attack may involve airplanes. So these are my questions:

-WHY DIDN'T OUR GOVERNMENT DO MORE TO BEEF UP SECURITY AT AIRPORTS AND ON AIRPLANES?

-ISN'T LEADERSHIP ABOUT ACCEPTING RESPONSIBILITY, ANTICIPATING THE UNFATHOMABLE, HEEDING WARNINGS AND FIRMLY ACTING UPON THEM?

-WHEN THE PRESIDENT RECEIVED A MEMO THAT HIJACKINGS OF AMERICAN PLANES MIGHT OCCUR, SHOULDN'T HE HAVE IMMEDIATELY TAKEN ACTION?

I DO BELIEVE THAT EVERY AMERICAN CITIZEN THAT TRULY CARES ABOUT THIS COUNTRY, AND LEARNS THE FACTS, WOULD HAVE TO SERIOUSLY ASK THESE QUESTIONS ... AND DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT IN NOVEMBER!

This was reposted on FR earlier today. Appears that Babbling Babs needs to get a mind-refresher email.

How Gore aborted air safety: How Gore aborted airline security
worldnetdaily ^ | Sept. 24, 2001 | Joseph Farah

MONDAY SEPTEMBER 24 2001

How Gore aborted air safety

© 2001 WorldNetDaily.com

The country is united politically right now, so I'm sure I'll be accused of divisiveness, partisan sniping, maybe even being unpatriotic by raising this issue.

But, heck, I've been accused of worse. Last week the Wall Street Journal called me a "purveyor of obscenity." I'll let you be the judge of whether that description suits me.

I never let those criticisms bother me – especially not from uptight, corporate media establishment mouthpieces and spoiled, little, ivory-tower reactionaries.

So, today I'm going to tell you how Al Gore may have contributed, in his own politically ambitious, selfish way, to the deaths of some of the victims of the terrorist attacks Sept. 11.

Following the downing of TWA Flight 800 in 1996, Gore was entrusted by President Clinton to investigate airline safety. He was named chairman of the White House Commission on Aviation Safety.

The Gore commission produced what most observers considered to be a tough preliminary report unveiled Sept. 9 of that year – one that included tough counter-terrorism procedures.

But within days, according to an insider on the commission, the airline industry jumped all over Gore. As a result, 10 days later, Gore sent a letter to airline lobbyist Carol Hallett promising that the commission's findings would not result in any loss of revenue.

In what can only be seen as a pure political payoff, the Democratic National Committee received $40,000 from TWA the next day. Within two weeks, Northwest, United and American Airlines ponied up another $55,000 for the 1996 campaign.

But the money trail didn't stop there. In the next two months leading up to the November elections, American Airlines donated $250,000 to the Democrats. United donated $100,000 to the DNC. Northwestern put $53,000 more into the kitty.

Following the election, in January, Gore floated a draft final report that eliminated all security measures from the commission's findings, according to the insider. Two commission members balked, as did CIA Director John Deutch.

Fearing more political heat, Gore pulled back the draft report. A month later, the final report was issued – one that included requirements that would cost the airlines some money, but, perhaps, save some lives in the future.

The report's requirements included:

high-tech bomb detectors; more training for airport security; criminal background checks for security personnel; increased canine patrols. Only one thing was lacking from the report, said the whistleblower – there was no deadline by which those requirements would have to be met. It was open-ended. In other words, it wasn't worth the paper on which it was written.

In a meeting with other commission members Feb. 12, 1997, Gore said he would leave room for a dissent by those who opposed the report. But within minutes, Gore was announcing to the president and the public that the report was the work of a unanimous commission. In other words, he lied – again.

In Washington, that might have been the end of the story. Scandals like this often go unnoticed. But one courageous lady, the dissenting member of the commission, Victoria Cummock, filed suit to gain access to files she was denied and for the right to file her dissent.

Who is Mrs. Cummock? She was appointed to the commission by Clinton because her husband was killed in the terrorist downing of Pan Am Flight 103 in Lockerbie, Scotland. She's the insider. She's the whistleblower. She's the heroine of this story.

All this was chronicled in a Tony Blankley column a year ago – a year and five days before the latest terrorist attack that killed all passengers and all the crew on four airliners as well as thousands on the ground at the World Trade Center and Pentagon Sept. 11.

Would any of that death and destruction have been prevented had Gore not crawled into bed with the airline industry thinking only in the short term about potential financial losses, not realizing it might be saving itself from much bigger losses in the future?

I guess we'll never know for sure. But remember this story the next time Al Gore rears his opportunistic political head on the national scene.

Ironic that the Party that blocked all security initiatives, and continues to do so, should be complaining about this.

Very ironic indeed. BEFORE 9/11 NO ONE connected the dots and those claiming they could have in hindsight are hind ends.

On the other hand, when you consider actions AFTER 9/11, it is plain that one side clearly had a plan to prevent further attacks and the other side couldn't yet be bothered...

- Blocking the Patriot Act which sought to overcome the very intelligence-sharing failures they love to selectively cite.
- Opposing racial profiling of airline passengers even though there is a very narrow demographic of historical attackers.
- Opposing arming of pilots which would have surely given the pilots an edge over their box cutter-wielding attackers.
- Blocking judicial nominees while the country is in a "judicial crisis" as recognized by both political parties.
- Obstructing the work of the President and the executive branch while we are at war.
- Opposing funding ongoing operations in Iraq.
- AND GIVING AID AND COMFORT TO OUR ENEMIES AT EVERY OPPORTUNITY.

I believe there are responses other than name-calling, so if anyone has the facts, please weigh in.

It would take too long. It's too full of BS (the non-singing kind).

HOWEVER, for all of the democrats and their enablers, they have only to look at actions AFTER 9/11 to see who took the WOT seriously. Whether or not Bush and Co. took it seriously before is plain to any who will look at the evidence. Even if you doubt their commitment before the war, the democrats' commitment since is laid bare.

Could anyone connect the dots BEFORE 9/11? No one seems to have. However, there is a political party and a media that can't even connect the dots NOW.

Back to your question... why should be take these morons seriously?

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