Yep... Sadly in many cases we are that dumb. If you believe the government is that powerful consider this is the same government that screws up peoples taxes and makes it almost impossible to get a passport. Maybe people can't see the connection between the ineptitude of the DMV and the workings of the NSA but bureacracy is a constant that runs through government.
to believe that all these people who ran multi-billion dollar corporations very successfully could be so incompetent in government is the biggest conspiracy theory of all. you dont become ceo of halliburton by being a stupid man you dont become ceo, president, and then chairman of searle pharmaceuticals by being a stupid man. you dont get a seat on the board of directors of the carlyle group by being a stupid man. these people know exactly what they are doing.
it took one month to begin the bombing campaign in afghanistan. we didnt get special forces in there in any real capacity until november. sishir, please check this out and let us know afterwards if you still think they didnt let him get away. search your soul luke, you know the truth! come over to the darkside! http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/...ld=afghanistan&timeline=complete_911_timeline Late October-Early November 2001: Al-Qaeda Fighters, Bin Laden Said to Move into Jalalabad without Hindrance "In late October, US intelligence reports began noting that al-Qaeda fighters and leaders were moving into and around the Afghan city of Jalalabad. By early November, bin Laden is said to be there. [Knight Ridder, 10/20/2002] Counterterrorism “tsar” Richard Clarke will later recall, “We knew from day one the likely places that bin Laden would flee to. There had been lots of work done before 9/11 on where did he hang out, statistical analysis even. We knew Tora Bora was the place where he would be likely to go. People in CIA knew that; people in the counterterrorism community knew about it. We knew that what you should have done was to insert special forces—Rangers, that sort of thing—up into that area as soon as possible.” [PBS Frontline, 6/20/2006] Knight Ridder Newspapers later reports that “American intelligence analysts concluded that bin Laden and his retreating fighters were preparing to flee across the border. However, the US Central Command, which was running the war, made no move to block their escape. ‘It was obvious from at least early November that this area was to be the base for an exodus into Pakistan,’ said one intelligence official, who spoke only on condition of anonymity. ‘All of this was known, and frankly we were amazed that nothing was done to prepare for it.’” [Knight Ridder, 10/20/2002] The vast majority of al-Qaeda’s leaders and fighters will eventually escape into Pakistan." Late October-Early December 2001: Franks Ignores CIA Request to Deploy Unused US Troops to Get bin Laden Veteran CIA agent Gary Bernsten leads a CIA undercover team, codenamed Jawbreaker, to capture or kill bin Laden in Afghanistan. In a 2005 book, also called Jawbreaker, Bernsten will describe how his team monitored multiple intelligence reports tracking bin Laden on a path through Jalalabad to Tora Bora (see November 13, 2001). He will claim that at the start of December 2001, one of his Arabic-speaking CIA agents finds a radio on a dead al-Qaeda fighter during a battle in the Tora Bora region. This agent hears bin Laden repeatedly attempt to rally his troops. On the same radio, that agent and another CIA agent who speaks Arabic hear bin Laden apologizing to his troops for getting them trapped and killed by US aerial bombing. Based on this information, Bernsten makes a formal request for 800 US troops to be deployed along the Pakistani border to prevent bin Laden’s escape. The request is not granted. Bernsten’s lawyer later claims, “Gary coordinated most of the boots on the ground. We knew where bin Laden was within a very circumscribed area. It was full of caves and tunnels but we could have bombed them or searched them one by one. The Pentagon failed to deploy sufficient troops to seal them off.” Although the area is heavily bombed, bin Laden is able to escape (see Mid-December 2001). [Berntsen and Pezzullo, 2005; London Times, 8/14/2005; MSNBC, 12/29/2005; Financial Times, 1/3/2006] A Knight Ridder investigative report will later conclude, “While more than 1,200 US Marines [sit] at an abandoned air base in the desert 80 miles away, Franks and other commanders [rely] on three Afghan warlords and a small number of American, British, and Australian special forces to stop al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters from escaping across the mountains into Pakistan.” Military and intelligence officials warn Franks that the two main Afghan commanders cannot be trusted. This turns out to be correct, as the warlords accept bribes from al-Qaeda leaders to let them escape. [Knight Ridder, 10/30/2004] In 2005, Bernsten will call himself a supporter of Bush and will say he approves of how CIA Director Porter Goss is running the CIA, but he will nonetheless sue the CIA for what he claims is excessive censorship of his book. [London Times, 8/14/2005; MSNBC, 12/29/2005] November 2001: Pakistan Promises to Seal Off Tora Bora Region in Exchange for US Aid According to author Ron Suskind, some time in November the US makes a deal with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf. Pakistan will seal off the passages to Pakistan from the Tora Bora region in Afghanistan where Taliban and al-Qaeda forces are expected to gather. In return, the US will give Pakistan nearly a billion dollars in new economic aid. Pakistan will fail to effectively seal the border in the next month (see December 10, 2001) and almost the entire force in Tora Bora will escape into Pakistan. [Suskind, 2006, pp. 58] November 3, 2001: US Is Said to Be Relying on ISI for Intelligence in Afghan War The US, lacking local agents and intelligence in Afghanistan, is said to be heavily reliant on the ISI for information about the Taliban. The US is said to be confident in the ISI, even though the ISI was the main supporter of the Taliban up until 9/11. Knight Ridder Newspapers comments, “Anti-Taliban Afghans, foreign diplomats, and Pakistani government security officials say that pro-Taliban officers remain deeply embedded within ISI and might still be helping America’s enemies inside Afghanistan.” A leader of the resistance to the Taliban says, “There are lots of (ISI) officers who are fully committed to the way of the Taliban and Osama bin Laden.” Former ISI Director Hamid Gul says, “It is a foolish commander who depends on someone else’s intelligence, especially when that someone doesn’t like him and was once friendly with the enemy.” [Knight Ridder, 11/3/2001] Later in the month another article notes that the CIA continues to rely on the ISI for covert actions against the Taliban. One CIA agent says, “The same Pakistani case officers who built up the Taliban are doing the translating for the CIA. Our biggest mistake is allowing the ISI to be our eyes and ears.” [Toronto Star, 11/5/2001] November 16, 2001: Tora Bora Battle Begins Heavy US bombing of Tora Bora, the Taliban and al-Qaeda mountainous stronghold near the Pakistani border, begins. A large convoy containing bin Laden and other al-Qaeda leaders arrived in Tora Bora about three day earlier. The son of a tribal elder later recalls, “At first, we thought that the US military was trying to frighten the Arabs out, since they were only bombing from one side.” Rather than send in US ground forces in large numbers, the US chooses to supply two local warlords and have their fighters do most of the fighting while heavy bombing continues. Within days, a small number of US special forces are brought in to assist the local warlords. One of the warlords chosen, Haji Zaman Ghamsharik, was actually living in exile in France and has to be flown to Afghanistan. He is “known to many as a ruthless player in the regional smuggling business.” Between 1,500 to 2,000 of bin Laden’s fighters are in Tora Bora when the battle begins. [Christian Science Monitor, 3/4/2002; Knight Ridder, 10/20/2002] There are two main mountain passes out of Tora Bora and into Pakistan. From the beginning on this day, eyewitnesses report that the US bombs only one pass. [Newsweek, 8/11/2002] The fighting and bombing will continue through early December (see December 5-17, 2001) while bin Laden and most of his forces escape via the other pass (see November 28-30, 2001). Mid-September 2001-October 7, 2001: US Fails to Strike at Bin Laden Despite Good Intelligence According to author James Risen, at some point after 9/11 but before the start of bombing in Afghanistan, “US intelligence located Osama bin Laden, but the US military was not prepared to strike him. [US] intelligence officials say that at the time, the US military was developing a plan for an air campaign over Afghanistan that was not flexible enough to take advantage of the sudden windfall of intelligence concerning bin Laden. This little-known opportunity to kill bin Laden came before the terrorist leader fled into the mountains of southeastern Afghanistan, where he became much more difficult to track.” [Risen, 2006, pp. 185] Early October-Mid-November, 2001: Air Force Is Repeatedly Denied Permission to Bomb Top al-Qaeda and Taliban Leaders In mid-November 2001, the Washington Post will report that senior Air Force officials are upset they have missed opportunities to hit top al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders since the start of the bombing of Afghanistan. According to these officials, the Air Force believes it has the leaders in its crosshairs as many as ten times, but they are unable to receive a timely clearance to fire. Cumbersome approval procedures, a concern not to kill civilians, and a power play between the Defense Department and the CIA contribute to the delays. One anonymous Air Force official later says, “We knew we had some of the big boys. The process is so slow that by the time we got the clearances, and everybody had put in their 2 cents, we called it off.” The main problem is that commanders in the region have to ask for permission from General Tommy Franks, based in Central Command headquarters in Tampa, Florida, or even Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and other higher-ups. Air Force generals complain to Franks about the delay problem, but never receive a response. For example, at one point in October, a Taliban military convoy is moving north to reinforce front line positions. Targeters consider it an easy mark of clear military value. But permission from Central Command is denied on the suspicion that the target is so obvious that “it might be a trick.” In another example, a target is positively identified by real-time imagery from a Predator drone, but Central Command overrides the decision to strike, saying they want a second source of data. An anonymous official calls this request for independent verification of Predator imagery “kind of ridiculous.” [Washington Post, 11/18/2001] The London Times paraphrase officials who claim that, “Attempts to limit collateral damage [serve] merely to prolong the war, and force the Pentagon to insert commandos on the ground to hunt down the same targets.” [London Times, 11/19/2001] By the end of the war, only one top al-Qaeda leader, Mohammed Atef, is killed in a bombing raid (see November 15, 2001), and no top Taliban leaders are killed. October 19, 2001: US Special Forces Arrive in Afghanistan US Special Forces ground forces arrive in Afghanistan. [MSNBC, 11/2001] However, during the Afghanistan war, special forces soldiers are mainly employed in small numbers as observers, liaisons, and spotters for air power to assist the Northern Alliance—not as direct combatants. [Christian Science Monitor, 3/4/2002] The first significant special forces operation on October 20 will be a near disaster, leaving military commanders increasingly reluctant to use US troops directly in battle (see October 20, 2001). [Christian Science Monitor, 3/4/2002] Counterterrorism “tsar” Richard Clarke will suggest in 2004 that the Bush administration did not commit more ground forces to Afghanistan because it wanted to have enough troops available to stage a large offensive against Iraq. “I can’t prove this, but I believe they didn’t want to put in a lot of regular infantry because they wanted to hold it in reserve,” Richard Clarke explains. “And the issue is the infantry. A rational military planner who was told to stabilize Afghanistan after the Taliban was gone, and who was not told that we might soon be doing Iraq, would probably have put in three times the number of infantry, plus all the logistics support ‘tail.’ He would have put in more civil-affairs units, too. Based on everything I heard at the time, I believe I can make a good guess that the plan for Afghanistan was affected by a predisposition to go into Iraq. The result of that is that they didn’t have enough people to go in and stabilize the country, nor enough people to make sure these guys didn’t get out.” The first regular US combat troops will be deployed in late November and play a more limited role. [Atlantic Monthly, 10/2004] Late November 2001: CIA Advises Bush and Cheney That Allies Won’t Help Trap Bin Laden, but No Action Is Taken According to author Ron Suskind, CIA Deputy Counter Terrorism Center Director Hank Crumpton briefs President Bush and Vice President Cheney about the looming battle in the Tora Bora region of Afghanistan, where about 1,000 al-Qaeda and Taliban are settling in. He points out the region is very mountainous, with many tunnels and escape routes. Bush asks about the passages to Pakistan that the Pakistani government has agreed to block (see November 2001). Using a map, Crumpton shows “the area on the Pakistani side of the line [is] a lawless, tribal region that [Pakistan has] little control over. In any event, satellite images showed that [Pakistan’s] promised troops hadn’t arrived, and seemed unlikely to appear soon.” Crumpton adds that the Afghan forces in the region allied to the US are “tired and cold and, many of them are far from home.” They were battered from fighting in the south against Taliban forces, and “they’re just not invested in getting bin Laden.” He tells Bush that “we’re going to lose our prey if we’re not careful” and strongly recommends the US marines being sent to Kandahar (see November 26, 2001) get immediately redirected to Tora Bora instead. Cheney says nothing. Bush presses Crumpton for more information. “How bad off are these Afghani forces, really? Are they up to the job?” Crumpton replies, “Definitely not, Mr. President. Definitely not.” However, the Pentagon is not voicing the same concerns to Bush. The marines are not redirected to seal off the passes. [Suskind, 2006, pp. 58-59]
Except that huge corporations make stupid mistakes and are riddled with bureaurcacy and inefficiency, just look at GM. For that matter Cheney isn't immune to making stupid mistake or political missteps. Consider his claim that the VP wasn't part of the Executive branch or him shooting his lawyer. Now multiply that bureaucracy with the machinerey of government including the pork barrel projects and electoral politics and there's bound to be a lot of incompetence. For that matter this current Admin. has proven to allow politics get in the way of competence quite often. To accept that this Admin. somehow is deliberately planning missteps like failing to capture Osama Bin Laden largely defies reason when you consider how many contradictions are needed to justify it. The most logical explanation is incompetence and this current Admin. has proven that they are very capable of being that incompetent. I read through it and almost all of it points to incompetance, confusion and miscommunication on the part of the commanders on the ground rather than conspiracy. The problem with claiming a conspiracy is that everything could be justified as proof of conspiracy, when things go seemingly well that is what they want you to think and when things go bad well obviously they want that to happen. Sometimes though things are what they are and the most likely explanation is incompetence.
al-Qaida Has Rebuilt Strength, US Says WASHINGTON (AP) - U.S. intelligence analysts have concluded al-Qaida has rebuilt its operating capability to a level not seen since just before the 2001 terrorist attacks, The Associated Press has learned. The conclusion suggests that the group that launched the most devastating terror attack on the United States has been able to rebuild despite nearly six years of bombings, war and other tactics aimed at crippling it. Still, numerous government officials say they know of no specific, credible threat of a new attack. A counterterrorism official familiar with a five-page summary of the new government threat assessment called it a stark appraisal that will be discussed at the White House on Thursday as part of a broader meeting on an upcoming National Intelligence Estimate. The official and others spoke on condition of anonymity because the secret report remains classified. Counterterrorism analysts produced the document, titled "Al-Qaida better positioned to strike the West." The document pays special heed to the terror group's safe haven in Pakistan and makes a range of observations about the threat posed to the United States and its allies, officials said. Al-Qaida is "considerably operationally stronger than a year ago" and has "regrouped to an extent not seen since 2001," the official said, paraphrasing the report's conclusions. "They are showing greater and greater ability to plan attacks in Europe and the United States."
I personally know some absolutely brilliant people, far more intelligent than your resident replicant, who have made one stupid decision after another. They may be brilliant in business, they may have Harvard MBA's and high 6 figure incomes, with stock options worth 7 figures, but they still retain the capacity to be stupid. D&D. Stupid Is as Stupid Does.
The goals of government and business aren't the same so it's very easy to believe a successful businesman could be incompetent in government.
something is wrong with the world we live in, I can no longer detect the bad guys from the good guys .
what seems to be incompetence to the american people is actually success for their friends in the business community - this administration has made billions of dollars for their friends, former companies and their friends companies. it is bad in iraq for everyone except big business, who are cleaning up like never before. they keep telling you they are screwing up, but just look at the results - it is going great for halliburton, carlyle group, ect. believing that it is simply incompetence on their part is dangerous, imo. these criminals know exactly what they are doing. bush aside, these arent stupid people.
Not exactly so. Many of this Admin's policies have harmed businesses such as the stem cell restriction has hurt US biotech businesses, some of the free trade policies have hurt many US manufacturing businesses and the airport security responses haven't helped airlines at all. While Halliburton KBR has made big short term profits even they have complained that the security situation in Iraq has made it difficult for them to carry out reconstruction projects. More problematic for Halliburton KBR is that their ties to this Admin. might jeopardize future contracts and some leaders in the US military have been calling for a reconsideration of using them as a primary contractor. So again to believe that everything is a conspiracy requires reconciling a lot of contradictions.
Sishir haven't you seen The Shooter, or Enemy of the State or Conspiracy Theory????? I am an avid reader of what you would call conspiracy theory. I enjoy it, because I started my political life in the 60's voting for McGovern and being 'anti-establishment' - so that rebel in me likes to read the Orwellian side of the story. But I have read and studied enough to realize that either the NGO's , the powerful trusts, the bankers and industrialists who own the Fed, the Tri-Lateral group, the Carlyle Group, the UN, the G8, Bildebergers, the Council of Foreign Relations, and about a dozen other powerful policy groups and financial groups are so interconnected and influential in govt. that it is either the biggest accident that has ever occurred to the point of idiocy, or it is a common association amongst the most powerful, wealthy, and influential groups in the world. Instead of a conspiracy which suggests a diabolical plan in place. Why not see that there is a philosophy of interconnection and common association that allows certain powerful wealthy elite groups to operate above governments for their own agenda, without regard to democracy or the interest of the governed people. However it all shakes out in eternity, I do believe we are in dangerous times and the lynch pin for me was 9-11, I for one believe that the Popular Mechanics treatment, the Keane Commission have been seriously compromised and debunked and I believe that the attacks were carried out with the most sophisticated govt. complicity we have seen in history. I just have the dumb opinion that Cheney, Bush, Gulliano and all their minions are as corrupt a group as you will find. If their is no 'conspiracy' it couldn't be happening any better for these NGO's and power politicians. And if there is cooperation, to me it is like there are 'crime families' who control govts. and hide behind politics, dialectic conflict, media manipulation and money power. I don't think if there is a cooperation conspiracy it can be exposed and I don't try to. I am a preacher not a crusader for causes, even good ones. I just hate being lied to by my government. And if they aren't lying then they are just plain pathetically stupid men. Carrol Quigley (professor of history at the foreign service School of Georgetown Univ.) who was Pres. Clinton's mentor wrote an excellent book on the control of world government by a few wealthy elite power brokers entitled Tragedy and Hope... History of the World. It is a tedious and long read, but he himself was an insider elite who said too much in this book. I obviously don't really know anything (and really don't bother with it in real life), but I love to read about it. I am interested in Prescott Bush, William Harrison and Frietz Theissen.
sure, some of their policies have harmed certian segments in business, but aint it a neat coincidence that compaines they have been involved with seem to be doing really well due to the very wars that they started? the oil industry and the weapons industry are kicking ass and many in the current administration were, are or will be deeply involved in many of these type of compaines. these people are globalists pushing a north american union - they dont give a crap about us manufacturing or the american worker. big business is moving out of this country at a very frightening pace. look at cheney's former company haliburton - they moved to dubai - how american of them!
