Telling article excerpted from Richard Miniter's book," Losing bin Laden: How Bill Clinton's Failures Unleashed Global Terror." It's a long article, worth reading in its entirety; there's an excerpt below": http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110004081 -- Why was Mr. Clinton so anxious to discount the idea that the Twin Towers had been bombed? A bomb suggested a terrorist act. A terrorist act of this magnitude required a strong response. And strong action was politically dangerous if it misfired. So, from the day of the World Trade Center bombing until the last day of the Clinton administration, the president demanded absolute proof before acting against terrorists. Ambiguity suited his purposes. To preserve that ambiguity, either Mr. Clinton ignored the overwhelming evidence that the towers were bombed or the White House staff failed to keep him fully informed. Perhaps the president had not yet been told that the FBI's top bomb expert believed that the World Trade Center was bombed or that the New York FBI investigation was proceeding on that basis. Or perhaps the president had not been told that the bomb was planted by terrorists, although the FBI had made that determination within hours. The president knew that he would have to add something about the World Trade Center explosion to his Saturday radio address. But what? His staff had spent much of Friday working on the speech. Now, on Saturday morning, Mr. Clinton was doing some reworking of his own. Strangely, despite the mounting evidence, Mr. Clinton still wasn't willing to say that New York's tallest towers had been bombed. While he worked on his speech, the president was told that FBI Director William Sessions was on the line. The president didn't relish this call either. Sessions, a Bush appointee, was plagued by petty scandals, and Mr. Clinton planned to replace him. Mr. Clinton picked up the receiver. The director told the president that the FBI's New York office now felt confident that a bomb had caused the blast at the World Trade Center. The president probably wasn't listening very closely; he had come to see Mr. Sessions as a political time bomb, not a source of information about an actual bomb. After a few minutes, Mr. Clinton hung up and went back to scribbling. He kept crossing out words and writing new ones--but "bomb" was not one of them. Mr. Clinton's radio address reflected his beliefs about the World Trade Center attack. He treated it like a disaster, a humanitarian crisis, like a twister in Arkansas, but not as an attack. Indeed, the bombing was a sideshow, a distraction from what the president really wanted to discuss--his economic agenda.
I know this will sound like nit-picking, but can you see the fundamental problem with the author's stance and the immense tonage of irony here? absolute proof <===> ambiguity See the connection? Uh, me neither. These terms are opposites. I'm glad Clinton wanted absolute proof before dramatic international action. Now, fastforward about ten years. ... Let's revisit the terms "absolute proof" (WMD, Iraq-AlQaeda, uranium?), and "ambiguity" (same topics). Has ambiguity suited the mission of the current administration? This is so fundamental to the piece that's it difficult for me to get past that. Clinton is gone, let's move forward. What should we do now?
The author's point was that if the proof remained ambiguous, Mr. Bill wouldn't have to act decisively. Contrast that with the current administration's actions...in other words, if clinton had not demanded definitive proof, and had acted on available evidence, we might have been spared 9/11.
Aww c'mon B-Bob. If the right wingers could no longer bash Clinton three years after he has left office, they would be forced to take a strong look at the current administration. They obviously do not want to, more than likely because they are afraid of what they might find.
no, just that if bush's efforts to fight the war on terrorism are worth scrutiny on this board, surely the inaction of his predecessor is worthy of comment as well...
Ya know, I could be incredibly gracious and say "okay, yeah, maybe." But then, where do we stop? That game is infinite, at best. If we hadn't funded and trained Osama versus the Soviets. If we had taken a stronger stand against the fermenting extremist nastiness bubbling underneath Saudi oppression. If Bush hadn't entirely scrapped Clinton's intelligence regarding probably terrorist strategies against us. I don't know how to choose one "if" over the others, and again, I just don't see the point. It's fine to speculate, and I support your posting this piece. But what I don't understand is the thread title. Unless you're saying "see, Bush is much better than Clinton when it comes to handling terrorism." If that's your point, I honestly have to say we won't know that for many, many years. I truly hope you're correct! But there's still a very horrifying and real possibility that our unilateral actions will bring suicide bombing that much closer to our streets and our children. I'm crossing my fingers and hoping this is absolutely not the case.
Hey basso, maybe OBL decided that to attack the uS when he did since he thought GWB was an incompetent, draft dodging President who would not have the stomach or the smarts for a War on Terrorism.
Is this an indirect pledge for no more groaning about former Texas Governer George Bush?! The past always leaks into the present.
I'm tired of this bull crap about Clinton being inactive when it came to fighting terrorism. He did more to fight terror than any previous president. The only reason Bush is fighting terror is because of 9/11. If it never happened, we would not be on the hunt for terrorist like we are now. I have a question, if 9/11 happened after Bush's term, would you guys blame him? Would you blame whoever is the Prez at that time? No, you'd still blame Clinton. Let me drop some knowledge on you guys. Robert Oakley and Paul Bremer were counterterrorism officials during the Reagen's AKA God's administration. Right before Clinton left office, Oakley said about Clinton and terrorism "Overall, I give them very high marks," and "The only major criticism I have is the obsession with Osama, which made him stronger." That's from the Washington Post. Then, the guy who follwed Oakley as God's, er Reagen's ambassador for counterterrorism, Paul Bremer, said in the Wash. Post that Clinton's admin had "correctly focused on Bin Laden." What did Reagen do to fight terror? He bombed Libya. He also gave money, weapons, and training to the very people we are dealing with now. There were no major terror attacks during Bush I, but the WTC bombing happened in February of 93', when Clinton had been in office for only 38 days. How come none of you then blame Bush I for the WTC bombing? What happened aftet the WTC bombing? Yousef, Murad, and Amin Shah, they guys who did it, were caught. If they hadn't been caught, who knows what might have happened, they had plans to assisinate the Pope and blow up 12 us jetliners simutaneously. What other attacks didn't happen while Clinton was in the driver's seat? There were thwarted attacks set against the UN HQ, the FBI building, the Israeli embassy in DC, LAX and Logan airports, the Lincoln and Holland tunnels, and the George Washington Bridge. Clinton also tripled the counterterror budget of the FBI, doubled counterterror budget overall, they ran simulations to see how the first response people at all levels would do incase of a major terror attack, he created a national stockpile of drugs and vaccines for things like smallpox. He also rolled up Al Queda cells in 20 countries. Ok, now I'll bet you guys are thinking that it wasn't Clinton, but the Republicans that was responsible for all of that. WRONG!!! When Clinton asked for more antiterror funding in 96, Orrin Hatch said "The administration would be wise to utilize the resources Congress has already provided before it requests additional funding." After 9/11, Gingrich was all over the place saying things like firing tomahawks and dropping bombs as Clinton did in 98 was "inadequate" and that his policy failed. But back in 98, he said that Clinoton did "exactly the right thing" and "by doing this, we're sending the signal there are no sanctuaries for terrorists." Talk about flip flopping. After the embassy bombings, did you guys know that Clinton authorized the execution of Bin Laden? After the Cole bombing, Clinton had Richard Clarke put together a comprehensive plan to fight terror. It was completed in December of 2000. This plan will sound awfully familier: break up Al Queda cells and arrest their personnel, stop their funding by freezing assets, stop the fake charities, give aid to countries who are having trouble with Al Queda, and to launch covert speciel forces operations into Afghanistan to eliminate the camps and find Bin Laden. The plan even called for enlisting the help of the Northern Allience. Quite the ambitious plan, too bad Clinton couldn't have had a 3rd term to actually implement the plan. sources: Washington Post Dec. 19, 2001 and Dec 20, 2001. Aug 12 2002 issue of Time.
