In the wake of 9/11 many people were quick to throw blame (myself included) on
President Clinton for his actions and lack there of, during his two tragic terms in
the Oval Office.

This wouldn't be much of a story on a typical day but it does seem that more and more
evidence is coming out that the terrorists looked at the Clinton years and felt that
America was decadant and weak. It also seems that Post (major) Combat Iraq is not
going as well as hoped because the Saddam Loyalists and international mujahadeem
feel that if they keep attacking America, we'll eventually turn tail and run.

Where did they get these ideas?

According to bin Laden himself and other terrorists, they say that from the early to late
1990's they witnessed The United States back down, not respond to and or cower out
of several situations that any country with real power would have responded to. Some
of these incidents have been named:

1. No response to the 1993 WTC bombing.
2. No response to several bombings all over the world but most predominantly in N. Afrika
3. Pulling out of Mogadishu, Somalia after experiencing minor difficulties in an attempted
rescue after only using a dozen men and a helicopter.
4. Pulling out of Kosovo after experiencing difficulties from a rebel force that wasn't
armed one quarter as well as our military.

These are only a few exaples the terrorists site, but it's enough to make people in Iraq
and some from outside believe that if they are menacing enough to cause enough
casualties we'll eventually pick up and leave.

After thinking about President Clinton and his inaction do you believe that he is
at least partly to blame for 9/11 and the Post (major) Combat Iraq?

Do you believe that we need to stick it out in Iraq for as long as necessary to avoid the
preception that we're weak?

JohnLocke, I can't comment on your first question. I simply don't know enough the domestic American policy to make any point at all.

About your second question, here's my piece :



Ultimately, the US will be seen as a weak state if things don't improve in Iraq. It will be clear that your army can invade and win a battle, but what about reconstruction? If America fails to show its democratic ambitions, its moral values will loose ground everywhere else in the world.

My definition of what you call 'necessary' would be the rise and success of the new Iraq, with an Iraqi government, approved by the international community. You have to succeed. No less.

But don't forget that you're not alone.

Horyok,
Welcome! Refering to your comments on the second part of the question, I am
certain that as long as America sticks it out in Iraq, we will come through on our
word of making it a better place.

You forgot the USS Cole, nothing was done about that either, and yes i do believe clinton is responsible, the Un inspectors were forced out under his watch, the same people responsible for the 93 WTC attack are also responsible for the 9-11-01 attack, the constant firing on our military from iraqi's went unnoticed and silent

JL,

It must be nice having a mythical Clinton to blame for everything wrong in the world. I long for the days when our problems entailed a President getting serviced by a 19 year old.

That is a much better way to deal with the arrogance and abundance of power that comes with that office than making the entire world uncertain about the United States.

Clinton's foreign policy is by no means the total failure you cite. This is an oft cited snopes piece about Clinton's foreign policy.

The Clinton administration failed to track down the perpetrators of several terrorist attacks against Americans.

The truth is that 9-11 was a watershed event that made america reevaluate its stance toward terror. Before we watched and kept tabs on terrorists instead of using energy to hunt them down.

Last night during the speech was one of the first times I had ever heard a Republican say that Somalia was something that we should have stuck out. It was used often by Republicans as an example of bad democratic humanitarian based foreign policy and placing our troops unnecessarily in harm's way.

Now apparently we just didn't stay the course. (Clinton should have listened to the military (like Bush in Iraq) when they said heavy equipment needed to be put in Somalia) Should we really have stayed the course in Somalia? To what end?

Did we really leave Kosovo? Funny I thought we bombed Belgrade and forced the ouster of Milosevic for his attempts at ethnic cleansing.

The weakness will come as we have to back peddle from our rhetoric and ask for assistance in a deteriorating situation in Iraq. We already look weak for not being able to turn on the water and electricity in IRaq.

The problems we face today in foreign policy are those of the Bush administration, not the Clinton administration.

This quote is taken from the chapter, "The Blame-America's-Ex-President-First Crowd", in the book noted above. And I would agree that it is hardly surprising that Bill Clinton is being made a scapegoat for this - much as he is for Bush's burgeoning budget deficit, the crimes of corrupt CEOs, the California energy crisis, the earthquake in Bingol province, the collapse of the Old Man of the Mountain, and difficult-to-open cookie packages. But is there anything of substance to support this knee-jerk reaction in relation to the September 11 attack?

Well, actually, no. Why don't we look at some history?

On April 18, 1983, the American Embassy in Beirut was bombed, killing sixty-three, including seventeen Americans. On October 23 that same year, Islamic Jihad bombed American and French compounds in the same city, killing two-hundred-and forty-two Americans and fifty-eight French. By way of retaliation, President Reagan made a speech and bravely withdrew our troops from Lebanon.

On December 12, 1983, the US Embassy in Kuwait was bombed. President Reagan valiantly did nothing.

On March 16, 1984, CIA Station Chief William Buckley was kidnapped. By 1987, there were twenty-three hostages taken in Lebanon, nine of them American. President Reagan, with typical fortitude, battled terrorism by paying ransom in the form of illegal arms sales, the profits of which were used to illegally fund more terrorists in Nicaragua. The kidnappings continued for another five years.

And: on September 20, 1984, the US Embassy annex northeast of Beirut bombed, on December 3, 1984, Kuwait Airways Flight 221 was hijacked, on June 14, 1985, TWA Flight 847 was hijacked, between October 1985 and January 1986, the cruise ship Achille Lauro was hijacked and the Rome and Vienna airports were bombed, and, on April 5, 1986, the La Belle Discotheque was bombed. Reagan did nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, and, uh - that's right - nothing.

On December 21, 1988, Pan Am flight 103 exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing all two-hundred-and-fifty-nine passengers and eleven people on the ground. Reagan continued his fight against terrorism by - you guessed it - doing nothing.

Under Reagan, more Americans were killed by Islamic fundamentalist terrorists than under the presidencies of Bush the Elder and Clinton combined. How did Reagan combat all this terror? He invaded Grenada. Oh, yeah - he also started funding the Afghan mujahedin, which would eventually give rise to the Taliban. Thanks, Ron.

Apparently, though, appeasing - nay, financing - Islamic extremists seemed to do the trick for a time. There was relatively little terrorist activity during the first Bush administration. Of course, George H.W. Bush continued directly funding militant Islamic extremists in Afghanistan until the Soviet Union withdrew from the country in 1989, whereupon he pursued a policy of cutting them off and ignoring them, allowing Afghanistan to become a breeding ground for anti-American terrorist training camps.

And, sure, enough, thirty-eight days after President Bush left office, on February 26, 1993, the World Trade Center was bombed for the first time by the people Bush had sponsored then abandoned. Oh - but that was Clinton's fault.

Okay, this happened five weeks into Clinton's watch, so let's assume, for whatever reason, that it was somehow his fault. Did he follow in the Reagan/Bush footsteps by arming and financing those responsible? No - thank God. He kinda captured, tried, convicted, and imprisoned them. Ramzi Yousef, Abdul Hakim Murad, and Walli Kham Amin Shah are still behind bars.

Did he stop there? Well, no. At last, one of our presidents took a bit of responsible action. He tripled the counter-terrorism budget for the FBI and doubled the counter-terrorism budget overall. According to articles by Barton Gellman in the Washington Post (December 19 and 20, 2001), Clinton was responsible for thwarting plots to kill the Pope and to blow up twelve US passenger planes simultaneously. He also thwarted planned attacks against the United Nations Headquarters, the FBI building and Israeli Embassy in Washington, DC, the LA and Boston airports, the Lincoln and Holland tunnels, and the George Washington Bridge. His first and second crime bills contained strict antiterrorism legislation (much of which I disagreed with at the time); he sponsored federal, state, and local efforts to simulate coordinated responses to terrorist attacks; through a concerted international effort, he helped break up al-Qaeda cells in twenty countries; he created a national stockpile of vaccines against biological weapons (including forty million doses of small pox vaccine and all that Cipro that was being chomped down in the White House immediately before the 2001 anthrax attacks on leading Democrats); and he created a top level national security post to coordinate counter-terrorist activity among various federal departments.

Did he then take a thirty-five day vacation? Uh-uh. Following the attacks against our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, he struck targets in Afghanistan and the Sudan and issued a presidential directive authorizing the assassination of Osama bin Laden. According to even Newt Gingrich at the time, "The President did exactly the right thing. By doing this, we're sending the signal there are no sanctuaries for terrorists."

According to Gellman:
Part of that effort was the commissioning of a bipartisan study on counter-terrorism, resulting in the Hart-Rudman Report. This Report warned that "mass-casualty terrorism directed against the US homeland was of serious and growing concern" and urged the creation of "a National Homeland Security Agency with responsibility for planning coordinating, and integrating various US government activities involved in homeland security." The report concluded that securing the homeland against the threat of terrorist attacks "should be the primary national security mission of the US government." (This proposal even reached the bill stage early in 2001 - but the White House lobbied against it and, with Republican opposition in Congress, it died.)

Was that it? Nope. Following the attack on the USS Cole, Clinton went further. He put his national Anti-terrorism Coordinator, Richard Clarke, in charge of coming up with a comprehensive plan to take out al-Qaeda. Clarke put together a strategy paper by December of 2000 which, according to a cover story in Time magazine (August 12, 2002) included breaking up al-Qaeda cells and arresting their members, attacking financial support for its activities, freezing its assets, giving aid to Uzbekistan, the philippines, and Yemen, to assist their combatting of al-Qaeda, and to increase covert activities in Afghanistan to eliminate training camps and rout out Osama bin Laden. He proposed increasing support for the Northern Alliance and putting Special Forces on the ground.

A month before Clinton left office, Robert Oakley, the counter-terrorism expert in Reagan's State Department told the Washington Post, "Overall, I give [the Clinton admin] very high marks. The only major criticism I have is the obsession with Osama, which has made him stronger." Paul Bremer, who held the same post under Reagan and was later asked to chair the Congressional Commission on Terrorism, disagreed slightly, telling the Post he believed that the Clinton administration had "correctly focused on bin Laden."

And did his efforts end with his presidency? No, they did not. To prevent the counter-terrorist work which had begun during his administration from being disrupted or abandoned, Clinton had his National Security Advisor, Sandy Berger, organize ten briefings for Condoleeza Rice and her deputy, Stephen Hadley. In a meeting with Rice on terrorism, Berger himself said, "You're going to spend more time during your four years on terrorism generally, and al-Qaeda specifically, than any other issue." Richard Clarke then presented his strategy and Rice was impressed enough to keep him on as the counter-terrorism czar. Clarke shared thesame strategy with Dick Cheney during his first days in office. Unfortunately, the Bush administration had higher priorities than combatting terror - like the missile defense shield. And, despite Clarke's subsequent efforts, his plan was ignored (until after the September 11 attack, when they finally got around to implementing Clinton's strategy, and Clarke was demoted to make way for the eminently qualified Tom Ridge).

So, to answer the first part of the first question posed here - After thinking about President Clinton and his inaction do you believe that he is at least partly to blame for 9/11? - I would have to say that certainly doesn't look like Clinton can be accused of inaction at all - at least compared to those who came before and after him. In terms of laying blame, since that seems to be the game here, I would say that, yes, he made one major mistake: Having spent as much time and energy as he could fighting terrorism (especially given a distracted, counter-productive, and antagonistic Congress that was obsessed with national security issues like stains on dresses), Clinton made the fatal error of believing that his successor would be as concerned about protecting the American homeland and US citizens as he was.

As history has proved, Bill Clinton was dead wrong. May eternal shame rest on his head for having trusted George W Bush - it was the worst judgement call of his career.


While I couldn't find online sources for all of the above, there is ample documentation of both the Reagan/Bush failures and the Clinton successes in the Time magazine cover story of August 12, 2002, as well as both the new Franken book (which had a fourteen-member research team) and Joe Conason's Big Lies - both which have fairly comprehensive bibliographies. Additional material can be found in Everything You know Is Wrong by the disinformation® group.

:::::::::::::::::::::::::

EDITED TO ADD:

Oh, yeah, johnlocke, please provide your source for this:

And this:
As those claims are the basis for this thread, I'm sure your foundation is unimpeachable. What is it?

I don't think any one individual or administration is to blame for 9/11. Building an image of weakness, such as we had, takes a long time and spans a number of presidencies. It began with Vietnam and went downhill from there.

The one thing that has consistently been brought into question is our staying power. We've been quick to take initial actions, but loathe to see them through when the going gets tough. It is this weakness that we're burdened with overcoming today in Iraq. The calls for pulling out and leaving another job undone are serving to enbolden our terrorist enemies. They believe that America does not have the stomach for fighting a prolonged battle.

We must see this battle through or else 5 years from now we'll be asking ourselves if the next attack was Bush's fault.

Clinton's two tragic terms in office?

Let's see:
Longest economic expansion in American history
A record 115 months of economic expansion. The economy grew at an average of 4 percent per year from 1993 to 2000.

More than 22 million jobs were created in less than eight years -- the most ever under a single administration, and more than were created in the previous twelve years.

Highest homeownership in American history
The homeownership rate increased from 64.2 percent in 1992 to 67.7 percent, the highest rate ever.

Lowest unemployment in 30 years
Unemployment dropped from more than 7 percent in 1993 to just 4.0 percent in November 2000. Unemployment for African Americans and Hispanics fell to the lowest rates on record, and the rate for women was the lowest in more than 40 years.

Lowest government spending in three decades
Under President Clinton federal government spending as a share of the economy decreased from 22.2 percent in 1992 to 18.5 percent in 2000, the lowest since 1966.

If you consider this tragic, what do you consider where we are now?

Wertz and Eeyore pretty much laid waste to the "myth" that the clinton administration "did nothing" about terrorism, since so far, they have been the only ones to actually bring terrorists in this country to actual justice (and they did it without the Patriot Act).

About the only thing I do agree with you on, is that, now that we are there, we need to see the reconstruction through, or we will simply be looking at an even bigger terrorist problem in years to come.

What I don't agree with is why. If we quit now, we won't be seen as "weak" militarily. But, we will be seen as having trashed their country, and then abandoned them to poverty, injustice, and the next dictator to assume power.

It's not our ability to keep soldiers on the ground there that will win hearts and minds. It's building their economy, improving their quality of life, and showing them that we mean what we say about justice for all that will make the biggest drop in the next generation of terrorists.

We are to blame for 9/11. The American people like to point fingers at presidential administrations, but the politicians were not alone in taking terrorism too lightly. Where was the outcry when the USS Cole was bombed? Where was the demand for action after the first WTC bombing? We never demanded action from our politicians. We, as a people, continued undisturbed with our lives and were content with a few token cruise missiles and a handful of arrests in Pakistan. The politicians are guilty of not taking Al Qaeda seriously enough, but so are we. Many Americans didn't even know who Osama bin Laden was prior to 9/11. Had any politician called for a war in Sudan or Afghanistan against Al Qaeda prior to 9/11, I'd bet he wouldn't have had the support of most of the American people.

I wouldn't second any of Johnlocke's specific points against Clinton, or suggest that he ‘did nothing’, but I have a few points of my own.

First, although it’s true that Clinton passed many antiterrorist bills and created 'task forces', very little of that money has gone towards intelligence. Actually, he dramatically cut intelligence funding during his reduction in force (RIF) implementation. Such cutbacks in human intel take years to overcome, because obviously an American operative can’t be placed in some subversive country and infiltrate radical extremist organizations overnight.
example of intelligence cutbacks

Dim intelligence (good article)

My second complaint about Clinton is along the lines of the first. He decreased security measures. reclassification of security
On the surface, declassification sounds like a good idea for certain historical documents. ‘Lift the veil of government secrecy’ I believe was the phrase Clinton used in his speech further down that link. It certainly saves money. Unfortunately, it also led to declassification of military documents which should’ve remained secret (such as the ballistic missile technology Loral handed over to the Chinese in 1996- this ‘faux pas’ was corrected by reclassification of the technology following the sale) and reset long-standing policies regarding technology transfers. Top secret clearances, too, were easier to obtain, and soldiers with such clearances were permitted to travel to rival countries which they never would have been allowed to visit before.

Finally, my personal biggest concern with the Clinton administration and its ‘accountability’ in my mind was the continuous patrolling of the no fly zones in Iraq. I saw no reason to maintain them at tremendous expense to the taxpayers, international goodwill, and troop morale.

Overall, I'd say that Bush was handed a poo poo platter. He certainly could've done better with the poo, though....Right now I think we have exponentially more poo.

I'm surprised that no one made mention of one particular incident that could have possibly prevented 9/11. I've read and heard it from many sources. I'm not pointing the finger and saying Bill Clinton is solely to blame for 9/11. I'm just pointing out that you don't really hear much about this in the media and giving you some food for thought.

The Sudanese government offered to hand over Bin Laden at one point (actually, a couple different times). Bill Clinton refused. This was after the first WTC and embassy bombings.

Here is one article that talks about this. Take it for what it's worth. I'd like to hear people's thoughts on this.

Clinton Let Bin Laden Slip Away and Metastasize

Peace out:

The real reason no one brought it up is because it is a propagandic statement. I was watching "Saddam and Osama" on the history channel, and it was not "Clinton" that let him go, he was never consulted directly, and in fact, the intelligence community really didn't have a handle on what he was or what he was up to. They were still in the midst of a "paradigm shift" that was dealing with a "stateless terrorist" vs "State sponsored terrorism"- and would have suggested that Clinton let him go had Clinton even been personally briefed! They still hadn't made the switch to him being a total enemy of the US, because alot of thier dossier on OBL still had him as an occasional ally, him being trained by the US and helped to fight against the Russians.

So far I haven't seen any evidence linking the CIA to bin Laden or the other Arab volunteers who later would make up Al Qaeda. As far as I'm aware, the U.S. aided the Afghan fighters who later became the Northern Alliance and the Taliban, but had no dealings with the Arab volunteers. The Arab volunteers were trained and aided by the Saudis and Pakistani ISI.

I'm willing to give partial blame to Clinton if Republicans take partial blame as well. Where was the hue and cry from Congress to aggressively pursue bin Laden or anybody? Where were the right-wing think tanks? And why did Congress strike down bills that would have bolstered airline security after other hijackings?

No, I don't think we need to stick it out in Iraq to avoid the *perception* that the US is weak. We've proven just how much power our military has, and I don't think that anyone doubted that to begin with. But we have also demonstrated that even the largest non-nuclear bomb every built didn't work to get bin Laden, and our smart bombs didn't get Saddam.

Not that this makes an iota of difference in the terrorist mind, brainwashed to believe in martyrdom. It probably does have some propaganda worth though, for new recruits.

The most advanced military this world has ever seen can't get the bad guy targets. But it can get the sons of one bad guy. And they get their places in heaven, eh?

If we as a country do agree that invading and occupying Iraq was and is in our best interests by voting Bush another term, then we'd better also insist that the rebuilding of Iraq take an entirely different approach. Enough of this grand standing and control grasping. Enough of unilateral thought. Enough Texan cowboy mentality.

Rebuilding a country is a task too large for one country to do, or one powerful country with a couple of lesser allies. It takes a world working together to do, but I'm afraid our present leadership is quite incapable of imagining this and has demonstrated this lack of vision.

So, due to lack of competence in foreign affairs and due to blatantly using a national tragedy in an attempt to force will upon the world, the rest of us are stuck with an expensive situation that very well could extend past a second Bush administration. Should we continue along these lines or change routes?

Is pulling out the only alternative? I think we have seen the folly of Bush's ways and need some creative, visionary thinkers to figure out a solution. I've come to the conclusion that pulling out is not the only alternative and do agree that pulling out *the military* without putting in *smart, visionary leadership and support* would be yet another mistake.

September 11th and Iraq have nothing to do with Bill Clinton.

If Big Daddy George HW Bush was man enough to have sent troops into Iraq duing Desert Storm, we would have never had this problem.

Clinton contained Saddam Hussein, destroyed his weapons, and did not let him build a military. All excellent efforts.

As for Osama, yes, Clinton had the chance to take him out, AS DID GEORGE W., but didn't and couldn't.

Look how many troops have died to capture Osama now and can not.

Blame Clinton, Blame Bush... Blame Whoever.

The fact is that Bush started an unjust and illegal war by attacking Iraq, a soverign country. Just like Hussein did and Hitler before him.

Nice blame game. It's senior's fault, he should've done something different.
Clinton was handed a bad deal. He didn't know what to do with it, so he proceeded to stall for the next eight years. That was our opportunity to retreat, knowing we could project power if the bankrupt Iraqis ever decided to invade another country. Why did we stay, doing absolutely nothing but enraging the Middle East? Blaming Bush senior doesn't answer that question. The excellent effort comment shows your head is completely in the sand.

I don't blame Clinton for not capturing Osama when he had the chance, for a number of reasons. Primarily there was no crystal ball, and he had been our ally once, which explains the confusion. Secondly, the 'deal' whether fictitious or genuine required that we ease sanctions on Sudan, the birthplace of Al Qaeda and lots of state sponsored terrorism. We have eased sanctions in return for info recently because it appears more urgent and they ousted and arrested Turabi (the worst guy of all).

BTW...Welcome to the forum, Washington I guess I should warn you I can be snippy

When did Bush have a chance to take out Bin Laden before the Afghan war? Can you cite articles or sources? It's easy to be defensive and say Bush had the same opportunity and missed it, but without some evidence, it's a little hard to swallow. If you don't have any sources to cite, can you at least elaborate more? To be honest, this is the first time I've heard someone make that claim, so I'd like to explore it more.

This is just my point. Perhaps if our leader had been doing something a little more constructive in the Oval Office, we wouldn't be in the position we're in today. Everything I listed previously, plus the bombing of the USS Cole are all incidents that demanded attention. Attention was never given to these matters and now we are paying the price for having a leader that was soft on Terror and soft on dealing with threats in general to the US. It seems the only thing Clinton wasn't soft on, was Ms. Lewinsky.

I feel terrible for Wertz, who made a huge posts with tons of great examples only to get it completely ignored.


There were many other thinks during the Reagan administration that demanded attention, and they were all left behind; ignored. Bill Clinton (at least I think) took a pretty firm stance against terrorism considering that most of America at that time was more concerned with him and Monica than Islam fundamentalist. Lets face it, who cared about Islamic Fundamentalist before 9/11? It wasn't really a hot-topic for anyone, was it?

Bush was obviously feelin pretty cozy. Lets say, hypothetically, that Bush realized and was concerned about the threat of terrorism. What steps did he take, before 9/11, to make sure that terrorist wouldn't get us?

Johnlocke, there have been three posts here, mine included that refute just about everything you have asserted here, with backup. How about reading the posts, and answering them, instead of just ignoring them?

While we're at it, let's go back to you're original post, shall we?



Please provide sources for the interviews of these terrorists that say they thought we were not responding to, or cowering out of these situations. Since the 1993 WTC bombing suspects were hunted down, prosecuted, and jailed for 240 years each, for example, how is that soft on terror? Again, please cite your sources.


Edited to add bolding to johnlocke's quoted post for emphasis

I haven't responded to most of those other posts because I didn't find real validity in any of them. No one lays to rest any of the claims I asserted and I felt that most other people were doing alright at keeping the debate going. Why am I being accosted?

Here is bin Ladens Letter that supposes that we were attacked for several reasons...one of them our lack of morality as a country. One of those examples...
allowing our leader to have sexual relations out of marriage without punishment in accordance with the office he held.

http://www.lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/l...ber/013082.html

As for other examples...Shall I site the most recent tapes in which bin Laden declares that just as Americans fled battle in Somalia and in Kosovo, we shall also flee Iraq as long as they continue to bury American soldiers.

What else do you want? Don't get me wrong...I believe that primarily our war with radical Islamists is one of politics and economics and more often than not one of Geography.....not typically morality. But President Clinton made a lot of militaristic mistakes that led people to believe that America's military prominence was a false preception and that if they kept attacking us, we'd eventually go away. Bush, with the war on terror has decisivly disproven that theory.

Edited to add: there was a problem with the original bin Laden Letter so I posted a new link on this post.

Edited to also add:

MrsP,
Ten years ago George Bush Sr took consideration of the UN's opinions and decided not to finish off Saddam. This time around we decided to do it. Why? because we're better than listening to others when we see a problem concerning America and our safety. People say...George Bush should've finished off Saddam ten years ago and then they say we should listen to the UN now in order to not ostricize ourselves now. Well which is it? Do we listen, or do we protect ourselves?

Since this wasn't a debate about Bush senior, I didn't want to delve into that area. I think we were correct to stop when we did and not invade Iraq. We had an Arab coalition backing from virtually every country in the Middle East and would've enraged them and the UN if we defied them all and took Iraq. We also had massive amounts of troops stationed those countries and needed permission to use their airspace, which we would've probably never received on those terms.

Furthermore, there's nothing to indicate that the situation wouldn't have been even worse than it is now. We've had a decade to formulate some sort of plan for Iraq, and look at it now (I know my opinion doesn't mirror yours on that one). Bush senior made other blunders, though, which I won't go into because they're (even more) off topic.... Clinton did inherit a bad deal and was inequipt with the experience to handle it.

I see where you are going, regarding Clinton's soft military response. I have similar thoughts, but not exactly. I think Clinton was easy to war but didn't see anything through. He was afraid of appearing too aggressive in Kosovo, so did not allow ground troops during that conflict. Much of the time during peacekeeping operations, our soldiers weren't allowed to have bullets in their guns.
In Somalia, Clinton didn't allow tanks because he decided that this would appear too aggressive, so we had to wait for tanks from other countries while our soldiers died. He certainly never did a Reagan and drop a surprise bomb on the house of a terrorist leader (remember Quadafi? he has been silent quite a while). My opinion is, we should've never gotten militarily involved in either from the beginning.

I don't believe those prior military faux pas had much to do with 9-11, though. Nor do I believe Clinton's personal life did. It has been a slow process brewing from pre-Clinton days for which no recent administration is unaccountable or completely clean.

We are telling you why we believe the Clinton administration is not to blame for 9/11 by showing you how other presidents did the exact same thing as Clinton. I find that to be a pretty valid argument.

And as I said before:
"Bush was obviously feelin pretty cozy. Lets say, hypothetically, that Bush realized and was concerned about the threat of terrorism. What steps did he take, before 9/11, to make sure that terrorist wouldn't get us?"

You have given me no evidence that Bush would have done anything different from the Clinton administration to prevent terrorism. I don't see what steps Bush took to defend our country against terrorist before 9/11. All I wanted to see were STEPS, I didn't even want for you to prove to me that he had a finished procedure.

But I might as well just yell at a wall. At least the sonic waves might displace the atoms after awhile.

*Edited to remove insult

You are being "accosted", as you put it, because debate is supossed to rely on facts. None of your original assertions had anything whatsoever to back them up. Now, that you have had all of those assertions refuted by fact, you say they are invalid? Just because you don't like the facts that were presented, does not make them any less valid. But hey, never let facts stand in the way when your mind's made up.....



Nothing in his letter says that America was attacked because they thought we were weak militarily. Not a single thing.

As for the lack of morality by Clinton, I can't argue that. But he was punished for it. He was impeached, and censured by Congress. That may not have been what the Islamists (or you) were looking for, but then Clinton wasn't the only one in the 1990's with a moral lapse:

Henry Hyde ® Illinois, Chief Prosecutor of Clinton, kept a mistress for 5 years while married to another woman.

J. C. Watts ® Oklahoma, fathers two children out of wedlock.

Ken Calvert ® California, caught partially clothed with a prostitute in his car.

Newt Gingrich ® georgia, admits to an affair while married.

Dan Burton ® Indiana, a womanizer of such epic proportions, he made Clinton look like a rank amateur.

Funny how you never once mention any of them.

On to Mogadishu:
George Bush Sr. originally put troops in there, at the request of the UN, to help ensure relief supplies got to the people. He had promised to have them all out by Christmas. That obviously didn't happen. Clinton maintained troops there, at UN request, but was in the process of drawing down the number, when the "Black Hawk Down" incident happened. Clinton actually increased troops after that until we could get the UN to supply additional troops. And a month after we had all of our troops out (March 1995), the UN pulled all of theirs too. Looks like we weren't the only ones to abandon a lost cause.

On Kosovo:
We didn't pull troops out of Kosovo, during the Clinton administration. In fact, he added troops to the NATO forces. It was Bush who promised to withdraw all US troops in the area during his campaign, and then did an about face, after criticism:
Cite: CNN News Story

I am still waiting for citation of your arguments with something other than a single letter from Bin Laden, which had nothing whatsoever to do with your initial assertions.

[quote=NiteGuy,Sep 10 2003, 11:17 PM] [/QUOTE]
Clinton's two tragic terms in office?

Let's see:
Longest economic expansion in American history
A record 115 months of economic expansion. The economy grew at an average of 4 percent per year from 1993 to 2000.

More than 22 million jobs were created in less than eight years -- the most ever under a single administration, and more than were created in the previous twelve years.
[/quote]
That's a pretty big list of accomplishments. I'm sorry to note that you didn't give the Republican Congress any credit. Sad...

Gee, john, several of us have found no "real validity" in anything you've contributed to the this thread - especially the posting which opened it - and we've gone to great pains to lay to rest just about everything you've asserted. Is this what is known as "denial"?


Hmmn... could it be that when the statements of other people here are thoroughly refuted, they either respond to them, concede that they were wrong, or withdraw from the debate rather than simply ignoring them and pretending they don't exist? Need I remind you that it was one johnlocke who started this thread and that - as has been amply demonstrated - he did so using entirely false assertions?

There is nothing to indicate that Ronald Reagan or Bush the Elder were any more responsive to terrorism than Clinton was (though there is evidence that they contributed to the problem). There is plenty of evidence to demonstrate that Clinton was the most active president in our history in terms of combatting terrorism. There is also much to indicate that George W Bush - until September 11, 2001 - was far worse than Bill Clinton when it came to addressing terrorism. If you doubt any of these facts, try re-reading the thread you initiated.

I was not a big fan of Clinton's in many respects, but your attempt to re-write history is just wrong.

[QUOTE=johnlocke,Sep 13 2003, 07:27 PM][QUOTE=NiteGuy,Sep 10 2003, 11:17 PM] [/QUOTE]
Clinton's two tragic terms in office?

Let's see:
Longest economic expansion in American history
A record 115 months of economic expansion. The economy grew at an average of 4 percent per year from 1993 to 2000.

More than 22 million jobs were created in less than eight years -- the most ever under a single administration, and more than were created in the previous twelve years.
[/QUOTE]
That's a pretty big list of accomplishments. I'm sorry to note that you didn't give the Republican Congress any credit. Sad... [/QUOTE]

That's because I don't find any validity to that argument. (turnabout is fair play ). Once again, you evade the evidence presented by myself and others, and then go off on another tangent, as if that proves everything.

You have been asked time and again to supply the sources for your assertion that we did nothing with regards to terrorists prior to 9/11. I've seen plenty of postings here that show that simply wasn't the case. We are still waiting for your evidence. Not your beliefs, not your assertions, your evidence.

[QUOTE=AuthorMusician Posted: Sep 11 2003, 07:13 AM][/QUOTE]I'm willing to give partial blame to Clinton if Republicans take partial blame as well. Where was the hue and cry from Congress to aggressively pursue bin Laden or anybody? Where were the right-wing think tanks? And why did Congress strike down bills that would have bolstered airline security after other hijackings?[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=Paladin Posted Sep 11, 2003, 12:10AM][/QUOTE]We are to blame for 9/11. The American people like to point fingers at presidential administrations, but the politicians were not alone in taking terrorism too lightly. Where was the outcry when the USS Cole was bombed? Where was the demand for action after the first WTC bombing? We never demanded action from our politicians. We, as a people, continued undisturbed with our lives and were content with a few token cruise missiles and a handful of arrests in Pakistan. The politicians are guilty of not taking Al Qaeda seriously enough, but so are we. Many Americans didn't even know who Osama bin Laden was prior to 9/11. Had any politician called for a war in Sudan or Afghanistan against Al Qaeda prior to 9/11, I'd bet he wouldn't have had the support of most of the American people. [/QUOTE]

I actually agree with both of these sentiments more than any others posted here. Maybe Clinton could have done more, without actually invading another country. But everyone else in this country did nothing more than sit on their hands either.

As long as it looked like things were being taken care of (original WTC bombers arrested and prosecuted), we were happy to hear about it watching Dan Rather, while waiting for our sit-coms to come on.

And as noted earlier, congress didn't have the stomach to even inconvenience any of their constituents with tougher airline screening laws at the time.

Hopefully, we'll we'll remember the lessons taught, all the way around.

You've been taking in too much Sean Hannity! Well, maybe not, but this is one of the Eleven Things That Sean Hannity Knows - and which much of his audience seems to accept without questioning.

My take on this comes from Al Franken's LIES and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them - which, coincidentally, I happened to be reading when this thread was started. Franken was dubious about this story so he went directly to Sandy Berger (former National Security Advisor) and Daniel Benjamin (past director for counter-terrorism on the NSC) and asked for the facts.

This whole tale comes from one Mansoor Ijaz, a Pakistani-American who claims to have transmitted the offer as a middle-man between the US and Sudan. As Ijaz was an investment banker with a large stake in Sudanese oil - and part of his offer involved the lifting of sanctions against Sudan - Berger suspected that he was pursuing his own financial interests. According to Benjamin, who initially thought there might be something to Ijaz' offer, he thought "Either he allowed himself to be manipulated or he's in bed with a bunch of genocidal terrorists."

Anyway, according to Berger (via Franken):
As Franken concludes, "The story does have a happy ending. Ijaz now has a job as foreign affairs analyst for the Fox News Channel."

:::::::::::::::::::::::::

There is an answer to your second question - When did Bush have a chance to take out Bin Laden before the Afghan war? - in my first posting here, yanni (whether its what washingtontalk had in mind, I don't know). Before he left office, Clinton's counter-terrorism czar, Richard Clarke, had completed a strategy to take out Osama bin Laden. Condi Rice was so taken with it that she kept him on in the same position in the Bush II administration. Had Bush acted on that strategy, bin Laden could have been apprehended before the summer was out. He didn't. It was the strategy which was eventually implemented in Afghanistan - after the September 11 attack.

Even then, Bush might have captured bin Laden if Senator Orrin Hatch hadn't opened his treasonous mouth. It was he, you might recall, who disclosed classified information which the Bush administration was using to link bin Laden to the attack. Donald Rumsfeld later said that it was the kind of leak which "compromises our sources and methods and inhibits our ability to find and deal with the terrorists who commit this kind of act". So, if the traitor Hatch hadn't breached security, bin Laden may not have known we were after him until we got him. Had Sen. Hatch been a Democrat, he would no doubt have faced a firing squad by now. For some reason, though, this member of the Select Committee on Intelligence and sponsor of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty act has not even been arrested for this crime yet...

I have to say something about the Congress' rejection of the proposal which would increase airline security, since this has been mentioned twice so far. It wouldn't have prevented 9-11, but it would have cost over a billion dollars for which there was no explanation as to where the money would come from.

Before 9-11, people were permitted to board an airplane with box cutters and small-bladed scissors. The bill proposed after TWA 800 crashed was in response to that particular situation. At the time, the reason for the crash was speculated to have been a terrorist attack. Clinton wanted to beef up measures to check for explosives specifically. After it was discovered to have been a fuel tank problem, measures were put in place to prevent that type of catastrophe from happening again. As Eeyore mentioned, 9-11 changed our paradigm.

Wertz,

I've always suspected the assertion that Clinton had a chance at nabbing bin Laden. Clinton, for all his faults, is an opportunistic politician. He'd have jumped at a real chance of getting the bad guy. Makes for great press.

This week's Newsweek has a blurb about Clinton wanting to drop a bunch of ninjas among the terrorist training camps to scare the crap out of bin Laden. So to hint that he was too busy getting serviced by Lewinski to pay attention to terrorism doesn't make any sense.

In fact, it is logical to say that Congress and its focus on impeachment was as much to blame for 9/11 as Clinton's affair.

All this attempt at laying blame at Clinton's feet has only one purpose: to let GWB off the hook so he can be reelected.

But that's not what is going to defeat him next year. It will be his actual track record. Can't blame Clinton for missing bin Laden in Afghanistan; can't blame him for the battle of Iraq; can't blame him for a poorly planned post-battle effort; can't blame him for alienating needed allies; can't blame him for a single-sighted economic policy, nor for an energy policy that tears up the West. And can't blame him for the very words that come out of GWB's mouth.

[QUOTE=NiteGuy,Sep 13 2003, 06:56 PM] [QUOTE=johnlocke,Sep 13 2003, 07:27 PM][QUOTE=NiteGuy,Sep 10 2003, 11:17 PM] [/QUOTE]
Clinton's two tragic terms in office?

Let's see:
Longest economic expansion in American history
A record 115 months of economic expansion. The economy grew at an average of 4 percent per year from 1993 to 2000.

More than 22 million jobs were created in less than eight years -- the most ever under a single administration, and more than were created in the previous twelve years.
[/QUOTE]
__________________________________________________________________

Can some of the people such as Niteguy, who wish to credit Clinton with the good economy of the '90's please explain WHAT he did and HOW he it is that he is the recipient of such praise.

I'll pose one question regarding the economy in any Presidency. What or who creates jobs?


As to the failure on the Clinton administration to "do something" about terror. Firstly, American Inspectors were basically ousted/removed from Iraq in '98 never to be put back in again until Bush took office and push for 1441. why? Where was the push for a new UN resolution? There wasn't.

Secondly, in 8 years of various terror attacks by the same thugs (al Qaeda and binLaden), nothing was done. We knew about al qaeda and we knew where they were. An to the poster who said 911 was our fault for not speaking up...well you're only half right. We PAY our elected officals to PROTECT us. Were they? no.

President Clinton was given Osama binladen on a silver platter and simply declined action. The defence decisions of that administration were anything but pro-active. Terrorists respect strength. We showed none - they kept attacking. And why not?

clinton + OBL http://www.sudan.net/news/press/postedr/58.shtml

Easily done - but not in a thread about blaming Clinton for the September 11 attack.


Pose away - but it's still off topic.



First, they were UN inspectors, not American inspectors. Second, they weren't ousted, they were withdrawn by the UN. Why? To get them out of harm's way for Desert Fox.


This was soundly refuted - earlier in this thread - here and here.


This was soundly refuted - earlier in this thread - here and here.

Perhaps you should try reading the rest of the thread - it might spare you the embarrassment of repeating stories which have already been discredited.

wertz, excuse me, but are you suggesting that I read passages from Al Franken's book to find truth? The rabidly anti-bush fanatic? That's like me insisting you read Ann Coulter's Treason and Scandal to give you a history lesson on the Clinton Admin.

And WHO should be embarrassed?

Now wait a minute!!!!

It's not that we have a "Mythical Clinton to blame!" It is simply that a few wrong choices may have opened the door to Osama and his gang.

Clinton cut drastically into the CIA and the armed forces. We had nowhere near as many intelligence as we needed in order to send up a red flag from Al Qaida(sp?). We keep forgetting that Osama spent YEARS planning this attack and if we had had people just sitting around waiting for that sort of thing to flare up, we may have been able to prevent it. That is not a fact, merely an opinion.

Also, for every 20 men and women that retired from the military, only 1 or 2 newbies joined up. That is uncontrollable, except that Clinton never seemed to make any action on increasing ranks. I thought the purpose of being president was to do everything in your power to protect the American people. It seems to me that he was more interested in the monetary benefits of cutbacks rather than the safety of millions of men, women and children.

That's not Clinton's job. That's why each branch of the armed forces have recruitment arms, and advertising budgets. To recruit new people.

And considering that 9/11 happened so soon after George Bush took office, and we have been chasing terrorists from six months past that, who's military do you think we were using? Most of the career men and materiel came from the "Clinton" military, so you can't really blame him for that. These guys were ready to go as soon as called up, and they have performed very well indeed.

As for being interested in monetary cutbacks more than the safety of the country, do you have any proof that 50,000 more soldiers at bases across the country or overseas would have done anything to stop 9/11 from happening?

True, I have no more proof that an extra 50,000 soldiers would have prevented the attacks, however there is also no proof of the opposite.

If there would have been more intelligence sitting around and checking for warning signs though, something MAY have come up sooner.

True, the armed forces at the time were from the "Clinton" time period and ready to go, and yes they are doing a wonderful job. But it was Bush, not Clinton who decided what actions needed to be taken after 9/11. Clinton created the armed forces that were available and Bush made a decision on how to use them.

Mostly my point was about the CIA cutbacks. What was the monetary issue back then? Was it that more highways being built or something else was more important than intelligence? I certainly don't think so. I hold no grudge against Clinton or anything, but we all make stupid mistakes at one point in our lives and that just happened to be one of his.

[QUOTE]But it was Bush, not Clinton who decided what actions needed to be taken after 9/11.


But the Clinton Administration had lots of warnings that AQ was escalating their attacks on the US. WTCI and The Towers to name just two.


Here are a few of the warnings that I feel were missed or not responded to. Congress bears a large part of the blame as well. They received the “terrorist studies” and proceeded in the 90s to cut the FBI and CIA field people even more than Bush I did.

1993: Bin Laden buys a jet from the US military in Arizona (the Pentagon approved the transaction). This aircraft is later used to transport missiles from Pakistan that kill American special forces in Somalia. He also has some of his followers begin training as pilots in US flight schools. These initial flight trainings come to nothing when details are later revealed in a court case about Operation Bojinka (see January 6, 1995). [Sunday Herald, 9/16/01]

1993: An expert panel commissioned by the Pentagon postulates that an airplane could be used as a missile to bomb national landmarks. But the panel decides not to publish this idea in their report, Terror 2000, partly in fear of inspiring terrorists. However, in 1994 one of the panel's experts will write in Futurist magazine:"Targets such as the World Trade Center not only provide the requisite casualties but, because of their symbolic nature, provide more bang for the buck. In order to maximize their odds for success, terrorist groups will likely consider mounting multiple, simultaneous operations with the aim of overtaxing a government's ability to respond, as well as demonstrating their professionalism and reach." [Washington Post, 10/2/01]

February 26, 1993: An attempt to blow up the WTC fails. Six people are killed in the misfired blast. Analysts later determine that had the terrorists not made a minor error in the placement of the bomb, both towers could have fallen and up to 50,000 people could have been killed. The attempt is organized by Ramzi Yousef, who has close ties to bin Laden. [Congressional Hearings, 2/24/98] The New York Times later reports on Emad Salem, an undercover agent who ends up being the key government witness in the trial against the bomber. Salem testifies that the FBI knew about the attack beforehand and told him they would thwart it by substituting a harmless powder for the explosives. However, this plan was called off by an FBI supervisor, and the bombing was not stopped. [New York Times, 10/28/93] Why did the FBI seemingly let the terrorists go ahead with the bombing? Several of the bombers were trained by the CIA to fight in the Afghan war, and the CIA later concludes in internal documents that it was "partly culpable" for this bombing attempt. [Independent, 11/1/98] Ahmad Ajaj, an associate of Yousef, may have been a mole for the Israeli Mossad and Mossad may have had advanced knowledge of the bombing (see September 1, 1992). US officials later state that the overall mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, is a close relative of Ramzi Yousef, [Independent, 6/6/02] probably his uncle. [Los Angeles Times, 9/1/02] One of the attackers even left a message found by investigators stating, "Next time, it will be very precise." 9/11 can be seen as a completion of this failed attack. [AP, 9/30/01]

1994 (: Coincidentally, three separate attacks this year involve hijacking airplanes to crash them into buildings. A disgruntled Federal Express worker tries to crash a DC-10 into a company building in Memphis but is overpowered by the crew. A lone pilot crashes a small plane onto the White House grounds, just missing the President's bedroom. An Air France flight is hijacked by a terrorist group linked to al-Qaeda, with the aim of crashing it into the Eiffel Tower, but French Special Forces storm the plane before it takes off. [New York Times, 10/3/01]

December 12, 1994: Terrorist Ramzi Yousef attempts a trial run of Operation Bojinka (see January 6, 1995), planting a small bomb on a Philippine Airlines flight to Tokyo (he gets off on a stopover before the bomb is detonated). It explodes, killing one man, and would have caused the plane to crash if not for what were described as heroic efforts by the pilot. [Los Angeles Times, 9/1/02, Senate Intelligence Committee, 9/18/02]

January 6, 1995: While investigating a possible assassination plan against the Pope, Philippine police uncover plans for Operation Bojinka, an al-Qaeda operation led by 1993 WTC bomber Ramzi Yousef (see February 26, 1993) and 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (see Early 1994-January 1995). [Independent, 6/6/02, Los Angeles Times, 6/24/02, Los Angeles Times, 9/1/02] The plan is to explode 11 or 12 passenger planes over the Pacific Ocean simultaneously. [Agence France Presse, 12/8/01] If successful, up to 4,000 people would have been killed in planes flying to Los Angeles, San Francisco, Honolulu and New York. [Insight, 5/27/02] Operation Bojinka was scheduled to go forward just two weeks later on January 21. Apparently a plan was also found for a second phase of attacks. [The Cell, John Miller, Michael Stone and Chris Mitchell, 8/02, p. 124, Insight, 5/27/02] In this phase, planes would be hijacked and flown into civilian targets. The WTC, CIA headquarters, Pentagon and the Sears Tower are mentioned as specific targets. [Agence France Presse, 12/8/01] One pilot, Abdul Hakim Murad, who learned to fly in US flight schools, confesses that his role was to crash a plane into the CIA headquarters as part of this phase of attacks. [Washington Post, 9/23/01] An interrogation report from 1995 states: "[Murad] will hijack said aircraft, control its cockpit and dive it at the CIA headquarters. There will be no bomb or any explosive that he will use in its execution. It is simply a suicidal mission that he is very much willing to execute." [Insight, 5/27/02] A Philippine investigator said on the day of 9/11: "It's Bojinka." He later says: "We told the Americans everything about Bojinka. Why didn't they pay attention?" [Washington Post, 9/23/01] Philippines Chief Police Superintendent Avelino Razon says there is "too much coincidence" between 9/11 and Bojinka. [Insight, 5/27/02] FTW

February 7, 1995: Terrorist Ramzi Yousef is arrested in Pakistan (see February 26, 1993 and January 6, 1995). The next day, as Yousef is flying over New York City on his way to a prison cell, an FBI agent says to Yousef, "You see the Trade Centers down there, they're still standing, aren't they?" Yousef responds, "They wouldn't be if I had enough money and enough explosives." [MSNBC, 9/23/01, The Cell, John Miller, Michael Stone and Chris Mitchell, 8/14/02, p. 135]

No way it was Clintons fault. We need to get a grip here and realize that the people at fault are...this is a tough one...the guys that did the attack? It's like saying a shop owner because he had a cheap lock on his store is at fault because a thief broke in and stole his wares. Lets start putting blame where blame lies and quit bashing ourselves to death. Could more have been done..hell ya could it have been stopped..probably hell no.

cusbilla

I believe Wertz has based his argument on some good hard facts. Granted he use Al Frankens book for a few examples. But on looking at his former posts on this debate he had a generous supply of facts from other reliable sources.

You can't just reject and call his argument baseless just because you focused on a few facts he used from Al Franken book. This is just a diversion to draw attention from his other reliable facts. Are you rejecting all the other sources because of that

Put me in the same corner as Clinton anytime. The more people try to smear his name, the better he looks.

I believe Clinton did a decent job and was not the blame for 9/11.

[quote=washingtontalk,Sep 11 2003, 01:27 PM] The fact is that Bush started an unjust and illegal war by attacking Iraq, a soverign country. Just like Hussein did and Hitler before him. [/quote]
[/QUOTE]


I disagree. As I have posted above the later 90s were full of warnings that AQ was planning something big and Bill missed most of it.

As far as Iraq goes I still feel Bush did the right thing. How would we ever get compliance with the UN Resolutions? The UN showed no signs of EVER forcing Iraq to do anything after 12 years and leaving this nutcase with WMD amidst more than ½ the worlds oil would not have been smart.

The idea that we could “contain” Iraq and stop Saddam from passing WMD to terrorists was ludicrous. His borders were wide open and millions in illegal oil shipments left Iraq every day.

He needed to be dealt with and Bush did it.