Well, it's Limbaugh 101. As far as I can tell this is what he most wants from his listeners (and all Americans I suppose): 1. Hear about existence of information 2. Review party line, making sure it is still committed to memory. 3. Wait for talking head or columnist to comment on information. 4. If talking head's point of view disagrees with party line, return to step 3, finding a different talking head. 5. Once you've found a talking head that agrees with party line, parrot that talking head's most vitriolic and hateful soundbite or paragraph. 6. In the incredibly rare instance that no talking head or columnist ever allows you to pass step #4, flush the topic from your memory and never speak of it. It is absolutely crucial that you never review primary information yourself.
ok, on the "credibility" scale then, would you rate the sudanese offer to hand over OBL as less credible than saddam's purported offer to give CIA and FBI agents the run of the country before the invasion?
Sadly the two can't be compared. The offer for OBL was at least investigated. The offer of the thousands of intel agents wasn't even considered. Had it been investigated and too many loopholes in place, or there was no accountability, then I would discredit that story too. But it wasn't even given a second thought.
Sorry, I don't have an actual name of the person who made the offer. You'll have to ask Slick Willy that one. Clinton: "'Mr. bin Laden used to live in Sudan. He was expelled from Saudi Arabia in 1991, then he went to Sudan. And we'd been hearing that the Sudanese wanted America to start meeting with them again. "'They released him. At the time, 1996, he had committed no crime against America, so I did not bring him here, because we had no basis on which to hold him, though we knew he wanted to commit crimes against America. "'So I pleaded with the Saudis to take take him, 'cause they could have. But they thought it was a hot potato.'"
Isn't it refreshing when people in power voluntarily give testimony, go on record, and make their statements available to the public?
No, you don't. You don't have any information on it whatsoever. I guess by your silence you were unable to answer any of the other questions either. So you can give us nothing to rebut the arguments that the "offers" were not credible, nor can you interpret who was offering what, in particular, for what. I'll take the National Security Council's opinion over yours every day.
Holy Crap! Did you guys hear there's a Styx forumn up? Hot damn. I just hope we never get a Journey Forumn.
can you give us any proof that the offers were not credible, other than "it's in clark's book?" and no, i haven't read the book, nor do i intend to. my problems with clark are related to his testimony before the commission and contradictions thereof in other public statements. as far as his book, and your blind faith in it, i submit it's predicated soley on the degree to which it's critical of bush. if clark were are bush lover (pun intended) you, al franken, and air america (are they still on the air?) would be tearing it to shreds looking for contradictions.
yes, 'tis sad indeed, that a genocidal tyrant with millions of deaths on his hands should be given the benefit of the doubt after 12 years of flaunting international laws and resolutions, all while propping his murderous regime with cash suckled from kofi anan's tit.
Basso it's been posted in several other threads, but if you are patient I will post it again in this thread before the end of the weekend, possibly sooner.
See, I just have a problem when people pile on Nixon like this. I think he deserves all the respect that Reagan is getting.
Please show me where I suggested he should be given the benefit of the doubt? In fact I pointed out the deal would have to include accountability.
Sure, I'll give you the page cites when I get a chance. I told you I don't have it with me now, but later when I do I will. The great thing about Clarke's book is that much of it, both the factual and analytical portions, have been corroborated or endorsed by many, many sources. I will give you a partial list: Bob Woodard *indirectly this goes up to Bush himself Colin Powell Rand Beers Wayne Downing Anthony Zinni Kenneth Pollack Paul O'Neill Robert Baer Milt Bearden Vincent Cannistrano Richard Perle The Army War College Report The Cato Institute Sandy Berger etc. Additionally, You and I both know that the following statement is demonstrably untrue: If this is true, then why did you start pushing your Clarke-Viacom conspiracy theory (what did happen with that? The question remains unanswered) several days before his testimony. Anyway, I haven't heard of any perjury charges having been leveled at him yet. Anything popping up on Drudge?
not really a drudge reader, but the posting you keep referring to was based on what clark said on 60 minutes and related liberal commentary. as to the assertion in the drudge report, and by extension my post, that viacom (owner of CBS, presenter of 60 minutes) had a financial interest in the company that published clark's book, i'm not aware that's been refuted. further, it certainly calls into question 60 minutes' impartiality, no?
What were the questionable aspects of the way CBS covered Clarke's interview? Name one for me please. Anyway, you asked for it, so you got it: Richard A. Clarke Against All Enemies (2004), pp. 141-143: (i found this on the internet so I didn't have to type all this, thank god) THROUGHOUT BIN LADEN'S YEARS in Sudan, that country served as a base for arms and fighters going not just to Bosnia but also to terrorists in Egypt, Ethiopia, Uganda, and even Qadhafi's Libya. Sudan's intelligence service and military supported the terrorists. Then in June 1995, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak flew to Ethiopia for a meeting in Addis Ababa of the Organization of African Unity. Aware that Sudanese-based Egyptian terrorists were plotting to kill Mubarak as they had assassinated his predecessor, Anwar Sadat, Mubarak's intelligence advisor insisted on an armored limousine and rooftop snipers along the routes from the airport. Without them, Mubarak would have been dead. Islamic Jihad terrorists attempted to block the road, fire on the limousine, and bomb the motorcade. They narrowly failed. Evidence tied the attack to terrorists in Sudan, and all of that evidence indicated support from the Sudanese government. Following that event, Egypt and we (joined by other countries in the region) sought and obtained the United Nations Security Council's sanction on Sudan. Only Libya had previously been subject to sanctions because of terrorist sponsorship. In the Counterterrorism Security Group we considered the sanctions a rare diplomatic success. The CSG also considered direct action, examining options for attacks on Bin Laden's and/or Turabi's facilities in and around Khartoum. The White House requested the Pentagon to develop plans for a U.S. Special Forces operation against al Qaeda-related facilities in Sudan. Weeks later a Pentagon team briefed National Security Advisor Tony Lake and other Principals in Lake's West Wing office. There were options to raid a terrorist facility that the Pentagon briefing labeled "Veteran's Housing for Afghan War Fighters," a plan to blow up a bank in downtown Khartoum that was thought to house bin Laden's money, and a few other options. While the Joint Staff dutifully briefed on the plan, they recommended strongly against it. "I can see why," Lake replied after seeing the details. "This isn't stealth. There is nothing quiet or covert about this. It's going to war with Sudan." The military briefer nodded: "That's what we do, sir. If you want covert, there's the CIA." The CIA, however, had no capability to stage significant operations against al Qaeda in Sudan, covert or otherwise. The Saudis, or perhaps the Egyptians may have been thinking along similar lines about the need for some covert operation against bin Laden in Sudan. Reports reached us from Sudan of two incidents in which someone attempted to kill bin Laden in Khartoum. We also knew that Mubarak wa sending word to Khartoum to rein in the terrorists or else. Egypt had moved troops and aircraft to the Sudan border once before and had even used its air force to bomb an anti-Egyptian radio station in Khartoum in the early 1980s. Now, Mubarak was threatening another military buildup. The weak Sudanese military could beat up Christian tribes in the south, but it was no match for the Egyptian military. It was getting a little too hot there for the al Qaeda leader. Afghanistan was looking better to bin Laden in 1996. The puppet government the Soviets left behind in Kabul had fallen, and after ten years of factional infighting, Pakistan had intervened to stabilize the situation. Hoping to see the return of millions of Afghan refugees in Pakistan, the Pakistan military intelligence service (ISID) had armed and trained the Taliban religious movement to gain control of much of Afghanistan. The leader of the Taliban was much like Sudan's Turabi, a religious zealot seeking to create theocracy at the point of a gun. Like Turabi, Mullah Omar was known to bin Laden and was eager to have his men and money back. Turabi and bin Laden departed as friends, and pledged to continue the struggle and to use Khartoum as a safe haven. In recent years, the Sudanese intelligence officials and Americans friendly to the Sudan regime have invented a fable about bin Laden's final days in Khartoum. In the fable the Sudanese government offers to arrest bin Laden and hand him in chains to FBI agents, but Washington rejects the offer because the Clinton administration does not see bin Laden as important or does and cannot find anywhere to put him on trial. The only slivers of truth in this fable are that a) the Sudanese government was denying its support to terrorism in the wake of the U.N. sanctions and b) the CSG had initiated informal inquiries with several nations about incarcerating bin Laden, or putting him on trial. There were no takers. Nonetheless, had we been able to put our hands on him then we would have gladly done so. U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White in Manhattan could, as the saying goes "indict a ham sandwich." She certainly could have obtained an indictment for bin Laden in 1996 had we needed it. In the spring of 1998 she did so. The facts about the supposed Sudanese offer to give us bin Laden are that Turabi was not about to turn over his partner in terror to us and no real attempt to do so ever occurred. Had they wanted to, the National Islamic Front government could have arrested bin Laden just as they had arrested the legendary terrorist Ilyich Sanchez ("Carlos the Jackal") when he was uncovered in Khartoum by CIA and then by French intelligence in 1994. Carlos, however, was a lone wolf doing nothing for the NIF. Usama bin Laden was an ideological blood brother, family friend, and benefactor of the NIF leaders. He also had many well-armed followers. Turabi and bin Laden decided to relocate al Qaeda's leadership to Afghanistan to reduce international pressure on the NIF and to help the Taliban finish putting another nation into the Caliphate. Sudan, they thought, was already well on the path. (Turabi was later jailed by the Sudanese military in 2002 and the NIF largely thrown out of government positions.) The CSG did not, however, stop considering U.S. military or CIA raids into Khartoum. Following bin Laden's departure in 1996, a series of intelligence reports established that a bin Laden associate named Abu Hafs al-Muratani was in Khartoum engaged in supporting terrorist cells elsewhere. The reports became so specific that we knew his hotel and the room in the hotel he was using. I referred the reports to National Security Advisor Sandy Berger with a recommendation that we snatch the terrorist. My CSG colleagues from every agency concurred. Snatches, or more properly "extraordinary renditions" were operations to apprehend terrorists abroad, usually without the knowledge of and almost always without public acknowledgment of the host government. One terrorist snatch had been conducted by the Reagan administration. Fawaz Yunis, who had participated in a hijacking of a Jordanian aircraft in 1985 in which three Americans were killed, was lured to a boat off the Lebanese shore and then grabbed by FBI agents and Navy SEALs. By the mid-1990s these snatches were becoming routine CSG activity. Sometimes FBI arrest teams, sometimes CIA personnel, had been regularly dragging terrorists back to stand trial in the United States or flying them to incarceration in other countries. All but one of the World Trade Center attackers had been found and brought to New York. Nonetheless, the proposed snatch in Khartoum went nowhere. Several meetings were held in the White House West Wing with Berger demanding the snatch. The Joint Staff had an answer that they used whenever asked to do something that they did not want to do: * it would take a very large force; * the operation was risky and might fail, with U.S. forces caught and killed, embarrassing the President; * their "professional military opinion" was not to do it; * but of course, they would do it if the received orders to do so in writing from the President of the United States; * and by the way, military lawyers said it would be a violation of international law. Fletcher School professor Richard Shultz came to similar conclusions about how the U.S. military would refuse to fight terrorism prior to September 11. His study is summarized in the article "Show Stoppers" in the January 21, 2004 Weekly Standard. The first time I had proposed such a snatch, in 1993, the White House Counsel, Lloyd Cutler, demanded a meeting with the President to explain how it violated international law. Clinton had seemed to be siding with Cutler until Al Gore belatedly joined the meeting, having just flown overnight from South Africa. Clinton recapped the arguments on both sides for Gore: Lloyd says this. Dick says that. Gore laughed and said, "That's a no-brainer. Of course it's a violation of international law, that's why it's a covert action. The guy is a terrorist. Go grab his ass." We tried, but failed. We learned that often things change by the time you can get a snatch team in place. Sometimes intelligence is wrong. Some governments cooperate with the terrorists. It was worth trying, however, because often enough we succeeded. But in the 1996 discussion of Sudan, Berger turned to George Tenet, asking if CIA could snatch the man in the Khartoum hotel room. Tenet responded that they had no capability to do that in that hostile environment, nor could they find a friendly intelligence service that could (or would) do it. Mike Sheehan, the Army Special Forces colonel who had worked with me on terrorism, Somalia, and Haiti, offered to go to Khartoum and do the snatch himself. He was only half joking. "This guy doesn't even have bodyguards. Hit him over the head and throw him in a Chevy Suburban." To the complete frustration of Berger, Albright, and me, the CIA finally admitted it could do nothing to effect a snatch in Khartoum. DOD was only able to generate options, once again, that looked like going to war with Sudan. Two years later, Sheehan was visiting the headquarters of the Joint Special Operations Command (which includes Delta Force) at Fort Bragg. He struck up a conversation with two fellow Green Berets. They told each other stories about operations they had done and about "the ones that got away," missions planned but not carried out. The two told Sheehan about the plan they had to snatch an al Qaeda leader in a Khartoum hotel. "Woulda been so sweet. Six guys. Two cars. In and out. Easy egress across the border and fly out, low risk." "Really?" Sheehan asked, pretending not to know about the proposed snatch. "What happened? Why didn't you get to do it?" "F@$#in' White House," the Green Beret said in disgust. "Clinton said no." "How do you know that?" Mike innocently inquired. "Pentagon told us all about it." Whether it was catching war criminals in Yugoslavia or terrorists in Africa and the Middle East, it was the same story. The White House wanted action. The senior military did not and made it almost impossible for the President to overcome their objections. When in 1993 the White House had leande on the military to snatch Aideed in Somalia, they had bobbled the operation and blamed the White House in off-the-record conversations with reporters and Congressman. What White House advisor would want a repeat of that? Often, though, we learned, senior military officers let the word spread down the ranks that the politicians in the White House were the ones reluctant to act. The fact is, President Clinton approved every snatch that he was asked to review. Every snatch CIA, Justice, or Defense proposed during my tenure as CSG chairman, from 1992 to 2001 was approved.
So Clinton dropped the ball on Osama Bin Ladin. Certainly in the realm of probability. OTOH what did GW Bush do about him in his first 8 months of office?
This is from 'Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them' by Al Franken. The book has been very well researched. I'm typing this by hand. Forgive me if I make some typos. Here is something from Joe Conason. I believe all of this has been posted before. Anyway all of it points to the offer of Bin Laden being investigated and it was found to be not credible. So Clinton saying there was talk about Sudan handing over Bin Laden was true. Too bad it was just talk and not a legitimate offer. http://democrats.com/view.cfm?id=5555 Add to this Clarke's own writing on this, which Sam has already posted, and maybe we can finally put the myth to rest once and for all.
Roll eyes all you want, but the fact remains that the book is full of well researched info, that is actually factual. I'll grant you it's presented in a slanted manner, but the info is still solid. Thus you see the last line being a humorous jibe at Fox, thus the presentation is slanted. The info, however, is still rock solid as is the rest of the info in the book.
