Boy, are we in the midst of an anti-Semitic backlash thingy or what?
By Richard Miniter
Part one of an exclusive four-part series of excerpts. Clinton administration counter-terrorism czar Richard Clarke attended a meeting with Secretary of Defense William Cohen, Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, Attorney General Janet Reno, and others. Several others were in the room, including Leon Fuerth, Gore's national security advisor; Jim Steinberg, the deputy National Security Advisor; and Michael Sheehan, the State Department's coordinator for counterterrorism. An American warship had been attacked without warning in a "friendly" harbor — and, at the time, no one knew if the ship's pumps could keep it afloat for the night. Now they had to decide what to do about it.
Mr. Clarke had no doubts about whom to punish. The Joint Chiefs of Staff had compiled thick binders of bin Laden and Taliban targets in Afghanistan, complete with satellite photographs and GPS bomb coordinates — the Pentagon's "target decks." The detailed plan was "to level" every bin Laden training camp and compound in Afghanistan as well as key Taliban buildings in Kabul and Kandahar. "Let's blow them up," Clarke said. . . . Around the table, Clarke heard only objections — not a mandate for action.
This is how Clarke remembers the meeting, which has never before been described in the press. . . . Attorney General Janet Reno insisted that they had no clear idea who had actually carried out the attack. The "Justice [Department] also noted, as always, that any use of force had to be consistent with international law, i.e. not retaliation but self protection from future attack," Clarke told the author. Reno could not be reached for comment.
Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet joined Reno in insisting on an investigation before launching a retaliatory strike. Tenet "did not want a months-long investigation," CIA spokesman Bill Harlow said. "He simply believed that before the United States attacked, it ought to know for sure who was behind the Cole bombing." While Tenet noted that the CIA had not reached a conclusion about what terror group was behind the surprise attack on the USS Cole, "he said personally he thought that it would turn out to be al Qaeda," Clarke recalls.
"We're desperately trying to halt the fighting that has broken out between Israel and the Palestinians," Albright said. Clarke recalls her saying, "Bombing Muslims wouldn't be helpful at this time." Some two weeks earlier, Ariel Sharon had visited the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, which touched off a wave of violence known as the "second Intifada" and threatened to completely destroy the Clinton Administration's hopes for Middle East peace settlement.
Mr. Clarke remembers other objections from the State Department. "State noted that we had been bombing Iraq and Serbia and were getting the reputation internationally as a mad bomber nation that could only address its problems that way." "It would be irresponsible," a spokeswoman for Albright told the author, for the Secretary of State, as America's chief diplomat, not to consider the diplomatic impact of a missile strike that might try but would quite likely fail to kill bin Laden.
Albright urged continued diplomatic efforts to persuade the Taliban to turn over bin Laden. Those efforts had been going on for more than two years and had gone nowhere. It was unlikely that the Taliban would ever voluntarily turn over its strongest internal ally. . . .
Secretary of Defense Cohen also did not favor a retaliatory strike, according to Mr. Clarke. The attack "was not sufficient provocation," Clarke remembers Cohen saying, or words to that effect. Cohen thought that any military strike needed a "clear and compelling justification," Clarke recalls. (Cohen, despite repeated phone calls over more than one week, failed to respond to interview requests.) Cohen also noted that General Anthony Zinni, then head of CENTCOM, was concerned that a major bombing campaign would cause domestic unrest in Pakistan (where bin Laden enjoyed strong support among extremists) and hurt the U.S. military's relationship with that nation.
Mr. Cohen's views were perfectly in accord with those of the top uniformed officers and Clinton's political appointees at the Pentagon, Sheehan told the author. "It was the entire Pentagon," he added. The chief lesson that the Defense Department seemed to draw from the assault on the USS Cole was the need for better security for its ships, what was invariably called "force protection." Listening to Cohen and later talking to top military officers, Sheehan, a former member of Special Forces before joining the State Department, told the author that he was "stunned" and "taken aback" by their views. "This phenomenon I cannot explain," he said. Why didn't they want to go hit back at those who had just murdered American servicemen without warning or provocation?
The issue was hotly debated. Some of the principals were concerned that bin Laden might somehow survive the cruise-missile attack and appear in another triumphant press conference. Clarke countered by saying that they could say that they were only targeting terrorist infrastructure. If they got bin Laden, they could take that as a bonus. Others worried about target information. At the time, Clarke said that he had very reliable and specific information about bin Laden's location. And so on. Each objection was countered and answered with a yet another objection.
In the end, for a variety of reasons, the principals were against Mr. Clarke's retaliation plan by a margin of seven to one against. Mr. Clarke was the sole one in favor. Bin Laden would get away — again.
___________
"Cohen also noted that General Anthony Zinni, then head of CENTCOM, was concerned that a major bombing campaign would cause domestic unrest in Pakistan (where bin Laden enjoyed strong support among extremists) and hurt the U.S. military's relationship with that nation."
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright was also against a counterstrike — but for diplomatic reasons.
The very same Zinni who didn't want to strike at the attackers of the USS Cole...the ship that had been a sitting target because of his policies.
"It be dem durned wascally Jews, ah tells yuh! Da JOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOS -- !"
Zinni seems to have forgotten that they didn't like us long before Iraq. They disliked us enough to hijack planes and crash into tall office buildings murdering thousands, and then to cheer such activities. And if people misjudge and irrationally misrepresent our motives, that is more their fault than ours. And in any event, democratization of Iraq and hopefully of the Middle East was a long term proposition, not a short term fix, and was never advertised as the latter. It is addressing the "root causes", something that liberals usually call for, but when Republicans do it, decry.
The State Department Arabists curry combed Zinni's tail feathers under Clinton, then they got cut off under Bush- for good reason.
Waaaah. Why do they hate us?
This is apparently how Zinni "views" us too.
The rest of the world had better start worrying about what we think of them.
"I think the American people were conned into this," he says. Referring to the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident, in which the Johnson administration claimed that U.S. Navy ships had been subjected to an unprovoked attack by North Vietnam, he says, "The Gulf of Tonkin and the case for WMD and terrorism is synonymous in my mind."Likewise, he says, the goal of transforming the Middle East by imposing democracy by force reminds him of the "domino theory" in the 1960s that the United States had to win in Vietnam to prevent the rest of Southeast Asia from falling into communist hands.
And that brings him back to Wolfowitz and his neoconservative allies as the root of the problem. "I don't know where the neocons came from -- that wasn't the platform they ran on," he says. "Somehow, the neocons captured the president. They captured the vice president." - SOURCE FR thread
Based on the events of the past few days, I have come to the following conclusions:
1: The Dhimmicrats have decided to go after the Arab vote by attacking Jews.
2: Zinni isplanning to enter politics as a Dhimmicrat.
Scum.
Zinni is a poor liar. He has chosen to be an enemy of the United States government while we are at war because of his Arabist affections.
And now we know where Zinni really stands...what a maroon
This is the schmuck whom Bush appointed as his envoy to deal with the problem with the so-called palis and Israel, right?
I hate to admit it (Ex Marine) but I suppose that zinni IS a clinton plant as directed by Gramsci:
...C. Gradual revolution through infiltration & subversion by revolutionaries
......1. Infiltrate the State: elective & appointed office; judgeships
......2. Infiltrate the military: enlist & subvert from within
......3. Infiltrate justice: undermine and discredit state constitutions
......4. Infiltrate education: professors & administrators
......5. Infiltrate & discredit religion: scoundrels as clergymen
......6. Register, then license, then confiscate all privately held weapons
Confess, don't be boring.
Say yes, don't be dull.
A fact you're ignoring:
It's better to lose your skull cap than your skull (or your govalt!)
The Inquisition (what a show)
The Inquistion (here we go)
We know you're wishin' that we'd go away.
But the Inquisition's here and it's here to stay!
If you will recall, he is not the only general who had reservations about Iraq. Are Schwarzkopf and Shinsheki anti-semites as well? I'll take the generals over the policy wonks anyday.
As for the accusations of him being a "clintonian perfume prince", it is my understanding that the Marine Corps was the *only* service branch that has successfully fought the feminization and lower standards that have been imposed on the other branches in the last 15 years.
Do a google search on what the generals were saying 2 years ago, and compare that to what the politicans were saying, and look who turned out to be right.
You're kind of dumb to be a general, aren't you?