It is clear that neither the Bush Administration nor most of the Democratic opposition and nor most newsreporters have any real comprehension of what is going one with the so-called war on terror. It is a fact that this kind of behavior on the part of radical elements is not new - it goes back at least to the bomb-throwing anarchists of the 1900s, and the Seige of Sidney Street in London. It is a fact that the Geneva conventions have articles and terms that apply to enemies such as these - they qualify as "spies and saboteurs", and are entitled to prompt trial by military tribunal, and execution by firing squad if found guilty. They are not "prisoners of war." It is a fact that the Constitution is binding, not only on American citizens in America, but on all the officers of the United States Government, under the American flag, everywhere in the world. Just because you are not here, does not mean that the Constitution does not apply to your actions as an American agent. It is also a fact that all suicide bombings are a response to occupations of terrirtory by the armed forces of Democratic governments. Who else would change government policy in response to a few apparently random attacks producing objectively small numbers of civilian casualties? The majority of such attacks, world wide, in the time since they began in recent histry, have been committed not even by Moslems, but by Hindus! The attacks by Moslems against America began in Lebanon, in 1984, not at the World Trade Center in 2001, but this Administration, and previous Administrations, failed to do what it takes to fight back - infiltrate, identify, and assassinate the leaders of these groups, while not killing any innocent civilians. There have been five distinct "acts of war" by Al Qaeda against the United States since 1993, justifying full scale search and destroy action against them, even before the 9/11 hijackings. Nonetheless, this Administration did nothing against Al Qaeda, despite being warned, until after 9/11/2001, and now has taken the "war" to the wrong country, defeated the wrong enemy, and played wholly into the real enemy's hands. Like the drunk who lost his keys in the dark, but searches for them under the street lights where he can see, this Administration has pursued enemies everywhere but where they actually are - in Waziristan. Almost nothing this Administration has done has been appropriate for combatting with this foe while still preserving and protecting the American way of life and its core values. Instead, the Constitution has been abrogated and attacked with dubious legal theories and specious reasoning, American air travel has been turned into a security joke, and random people picked up on questionable intelligence have been held without charge or counsel for five years. True, there are about ten real bad guys who were caught and are being held, but there are almost 400 being held - many for no good reason.
There is a way to fight these guys and win, without secret police, without data mining of American's phone calls, without holding people in preventive detention without charge or trial for years, without administering torture or near torture in lieu of real professional interrogation, without any of the tactics and strategies applied by these fools in the past five years.
In a world of 1.2 billion Muslims, there are 40 or 50,000 of these guys. They hang out in specifc mosques, they go to specific places in Afghanistan and Pakistan, they follow specific leaders, and they are not hidden amongst us in large numbers, with access to all the worst case scenario stuff that our paranoid fears can imagine. They do not have, nor can they easily get, biological wapons, military grade chemical weapons, nuclear materials, and the like. Why do you think they used box cutters and not guns? Why do you think they used oil and fertilizer truck bombs in 1993? Why do you think they proposed using impractical, volatile homemade hyperoxide explosives, when the third world is practically awash with C4 plastic, and any airplane servcice worker can get the stuff on board and hidden in the toilet? They are doing the best they can to create havoc, and they have not yet killed as many as one month's worth of national traffic fatalities!
They do not hate our way of life, though they do despise us. They do not intend to destroy he United States, because they use our currency, wear our sneakers, use our Internet, use our communication satellites, watch our movies andf TV shows and listen to our music. They do want us to withdrwa all our troops from all of Arabia (Iraq is part of Arabia, though not actually on the peninsula), by sowing fear, in us and in our allies, and getting our population so upset that it forces our Government to pull out its troops, they way we pulled out of Lebanon in 1984.
If, in fact, we had not pulled out of Lebanoin in 1984, but instead invaded with a large force and destryed the perpetrators of the bombing, there would have been no Al Qaeda attacks. If we had stationed our troops confronting Iraq anywhere but in Saudi Arabia, there would have been no Al Qaeda attacks. If the Clinton Administration had consitnued to shoot at Bin Laden unit they killed him, there would have been no 9/11 attacks, If the Bush Administration had ordered data sharing between CIA, NSA, DIA, FBI, and INS, we would have been abloe to prevent the 9/11 atttacks. If Richard Calrke and John P O'Neill had had infront of them, on one bulletin board, on September10, every fact known to the United States Government about Al Qaeda and the nineteen Arabs on that date, they could have anticpated the hijackings. A single FAA policy change - "do not open the cockpit doors, nor surrender the aircraft, no matter what" - would have prevented the 9/11 hijackings from beiung successful. If the Bush Administration had carpet bombed the Al Qaeda camp by B-52 in November of 2001, the war would have been over then.
I reiterate - they did not know what they were doing, they still do not know what they are talking about, and they have no idea how to fight and defeat this enemy!
I like your idea of using the B-52, I've watched them work and it sure gives you a warm fuzzy feeling. One point I need to check you on, the use of oil and fertilizer was the best explosive for the job in that instance, C-4 wouldn't of had the earth moving effect as ANFO. I say this because I've worked with explosives since '67.
Originally posted by vdpphd: It is clear that neither the Bush Administration nor most of the Democratic opposition and nor most newsreporters have any real comprehension of what is going one with the so-called war on terror...
You raise a whole lot of very interesting points. I encourage you to reiterate some or all of them in individual, shorter posts, perhaps in other threads as well--that way, other folks will be able to digest them and respond in a focused way.
Yes, good post, but I'm not into the B-52 thing. I don't agree with capital punishment, even for the likes of Bin Laden. I do however think society should gain something from them while they're in prison, like work of some sort. Whipping for motivation is acceptable and if that doesn't work, some sort of Matrix-style waste energy recovery/life support system will do.
I think they know all too well what they are doing....
They knew Bin laden was a threat in '93! They knew he had intentions to attack within the US borders.... (Although this is a glossy version making like Bush was inquisitive - I doubt it. At the time he was on vaction, and had been on vacation more than any president ever - only eight months in office.) http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/04/20040410-5.html
I think he wanted for bin laden to attack here, and waited for it only so he could get the Congress to give the authorization for war powers that he could go on a "Crusade" with.
I think he wanted for bin laden to attack here, and waited for it only so he could get the Congress to give the authorization for war powers that he could go on a "Crusade" with.
Hmmm...I'm no fan of President Bush, but it's hard for me to imagine him wanting terrorists to attack the U.S. Anything you see as evidence of that?
On the other hand, there is evidence that long before 9/11, he intended to attack Iraq. Here's a 1999 Boston Globe article that now seems eerily prescient:
[I] Perhaps it was just wishful thinking. Or maybe it was a son's desire to finish something his father had once begun. But in his debut debate of the 2000 presidential race, Governor George W. Bush of Texas sounded for a split second as if he was advocating the assassination of a world leader, an absolute no-no under both federal law and presidential executive order. In fact, Bush may well have meant it. During an interview with the BBC on Nov. 18, the Texas governor also seemed to suggest that Saddam Hussein, the president of Iraq, needed to be dealt with in a mortal fashion. ''No one had envisioned Saddam, at least at that point in history, no one envisioned him still standing,'' Bush said, during a conversation about the Persian Gulf War. ''It's time to finish the task.''[I/]
Hmmm...I'm no fan of President Bush, but it's hard for me to imagine him wanting terrorists to attack the U.S. Anything you see as evidence of that?
Hmmm... If you can't get what you want out of the current (then) climate in congress, why not change the climate? We're talking about the most 'Smarmy' white house administration ever. (with two people who weasled thier way into power in the Ford administaion pulling the strings of the meat puppet.) And it is not a new tactic. My memory serves me very well at this point in my life, and I remember the "federal travel advisory" leading up to 9-11-2001 only a month or so before on NPR, warning of treatened terrorist activity due to increased traffic of communication between groups being watched. We also have to remember the PDB that was handed to Bush while on vacation. "Bin Laden determined to attack inside the U.S."
quote:
The FBI is conducting approximately 70 full-field investigations throughout the U.S. that it considers bin Laden-related. CIA and the FBI are investigating a call to our embassy in the UAE in May saying that a group or bin Laden supporters was in the U.S. planning attacks with explosives.
Yet this was looked at as "an historical document", May of that year does not denote distant history to me....
There is also the lost Phoenix memo. Reported to warn of terroists in a flight training school using planes as missiles!
Also it must be noted that these peoplpe were originally to be sentanced on September 11, 2001. That hearing got postponed....
Well, to be the devil's advocate here--sorry, couldn't resist a Hugo Chavez reference--the evidence that you cite makes a good case that that Bush, Rice, et.al. disregarded some pretty compelling warnings of an impending attack. But none of it comes even close to proving that they deliberately disregarded the warnings because they wanted an attack to occur. I think a more plausible explanation is that Bush and his people just messed up. Remember, they pretty much ignored all the warnings about the dangers of going into Iraq, too.
As for the "no planers" and other 9-11 conspiracy theorists, well....look, the U.S. army found this video in Afghanistan of bin Laden doing a post-mortem analysis of WTC attack. Maybe I'm naive, but to me, that's pretty convincing evidence that he was involved.
Maybe I'm naive, but to me, that's pretty convincing evidence that he was involved
Pat.... Did you some how think that I was suggesting Bin laden wasn't involved? Are you some sort of distraction advocate, are you playing the same game? Have you been brainwashed? Geez.....
At this point it is really common knowledge that Bin laden planned the 9-11 attacks. He did it to show solidarity to former members of Al queda and other muslim radicals, (Specifically Ramzi Yousef) and unite them to a cause. The Cheney/bush administration knew, maybe not exactly what would happen, but that something would. "just messed up", I dont think so... Not sure if you have noticed Pat, but nothing happens in this country on a wide scale without a reason. And playing the 'we didn't know' act doesn't fly. They knew some things, ignored others. Did they have an agenda, sure they did.
quote:
Clarke says that as early as the day after the attacks, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was pushing for retaliatory strikes on Iraq, even though al Qaeda was based in Afghanistan. ~ "I find it outrageous that the President is running for re-election on the grounds that he's done such great things about terrorism. He ignored it." Richard Clarke
You said yourself that the Bush(Cheney administration) was looking for a fight in Iraq before 9-11... He knew they couldn't do it then (Before 9-11), even the GOP would have nothing to do with it. They needed a reason... Bin laden gave them one. 'Hey, Arabs!' Not too hard to distract and mis-lead the American people... A Xenophobic bunch... 'This Bin laden guy is up to no good, well the next time he rears his ugly head - BINGO - he's in Iraq, and we'll go get 'em'. They may have not known what would happen, but is clear they knew SOMETHING would! Personally, I think they were shocked....
As far as I am concerned, the evidence is clear! The White House knew something was about to happen (Soon), they knew Al queda would be involved, they knew of plans to attack within US borders (Soon), they knew they could manipulate it to thier advantage. They had plans to go to Iraq, and they did! Could they, and have they proven a connection to 9-11? NO! But by going there, they created organizations that they could link to, or even in thier own circles call the same thing. And they have taught the American people to believe it though a method of distortion and association.
quote:
Then, in declaring the end of major combat in Iraq on May 1, Bush linked Iraq and the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks: "The battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that began on September the 11, 2001 -- and still goes on. That terrible morning, 19 evil men -- the shock troops of a hateful ideology -- gave America and the civilized world a glimpse of their ambitions."
Moments later, Bush added: "The liberation of Iraq is a crucial advance in the campaign against terror. We've removed an ally of al Qaeda, and cut off a source of terrorist funding. And this much is certain: No terrorist network will gain weapons of mass destruction from the Iraqi regime, because the regime is no more. In these 19 months that changed the world, our actions have been focused and deliberate and proportionate to the offense. We have not forgotten the victims of September the 11th -- the last phone calls, the cold murder of children, the searches in the rubble. With those attacks, the terrorists and their supporters declared war on the United States. And war is what they got."
Yet years later, after time and time again it has been proven that Iraq had no connection, and even were at odds with Al queda, he still uses them in the same sentances to associated the two in the minds of the public. (Sheep as far as I am concerned! Led by a puppet...)
As far as the dangers of Iraq, they were laid out in 1990 when we started bombing them. I entered the USMC on Dec. 26 1990, I knew very well what I was getting into then, and it did not change much since. They knew then that any action in a Muslim nation would stir up the extremists - and it did! They knew then that any military presence in the area would do the same - and it did! The general opinion in edjucated circles was that it would end up in a Vietnam style quagmire - and look what we got!
Now the seek to do the same with Iran...
Back to the OP... They knew exactly what they are doing, have done, and will do. They say they are fighting extremism, but that is only Orwellian double-speak for they are the extreamists! They have a plan, and the world is suffering for it! Thier plan is transparent, it's in the news today - everyday, the world (as mentioned before are all sheep) is just not ready to accept that this type of craziness is really happening. They mermer to themselves, 'Yeah, they knew, no Iraq connection, crusades, wacky religious stuff, crusades, no check on administrative power, armagedon, single party government, fire and brimstone...' Then they go to work the next day and talk about Barry Bonds!
E57: Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you're saying here--my apologies if I did. Again, here's what I think:
1. There's pretty persuasive evidence that prior to 9/11/01, the Bush Administration didn't heed multiple warnings of an imminent Al Qaeda attack.
2. Why the Bush Administration didn't heed those warnings is not precisely clear, but from a deductive standpoint, there isn't any evidence that proves that it was willful negligence.
3. To the contrary, there is an entirely plausible alternative explanation for why the Bush Administration didn't heed those warnings. The warnings came largely from people who had served under the Clinton Administration. Bush and his people had a distain for the Clinton Administration and had a tendency to reject anything that seemed connected to it, such as the idea of making Al Qaeda a national security priority. Unfortunately for us all, the Bush Administration's own hubris came back to bite it, as it later would with the Iraq war.
4. There is evidence that in the wake of 9/11, Bush, Rumsfeld, et. al. quickly saw it as an opportunity to attack Iraq. In an interview with CBS news, Richard Clarke recounted the events this way:
After the president returned to the White House on Sept. 11, he and his top advisers, including Clarke, began holding meetings about how to respond and retaliate. As Clarke writes in his book, he expected the administration to focus its military response on Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. He says he was surprised that the talk quickly turned to Iraq.
"Rumsfeld was saying that we needed to bomb Iraq," Clarke said to Stahl. "And we all said ... no, no. Al-Qaeda is in Afghanistan. We need to bomb Afghanistan. And Rumsfeld said there aren't any good targets in Afghanistan. And there are lots of good targets in Iraq. I said, 'Well, there are lots of good targets in lots of places, but Iraq had nothing to do with it...I think they wanted to believe that there was a connection, but the CIA was sitting there, the FBI was sitting there, I was sitting there saying we've looked at this issue for years. For years we've looked and there's just no connection." Clarke says he and CIA Director George Tenet told that to Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell, and Attorney General John Ashcroft.
"The president dragged me into a room with a couple of other people, shut the door, and said, 'I want you to find whether Iraq did this.' Now he never said, 'Make it up.' But the entire conversation left me in absolutely no doubt that George Bush wanted me to come back with a report that said Iraq did this.
"I said, 'Mr. President. We've done this before. We have been looking at this. We looked at it with an open mind. There's no connection.'
"He came back at me and said, "Iraq! Saddam! Find out if there's a connection.' And in a very intimidating way. I mean that we should come back with that answer. We wrote a report."
There also is the notorious September 17, 2001 memo that instructed the U.S. military to begin preparations for an eventual invasion of Iraq as part of the larger "war on terror," as this Washington Post article details.
5. The administration's willingness to exploit the 9/11 attack after it happened, however, does not necessarily prove that they intentionally allowed the attack to happen so they could exploit it.
Maybe I should have done a PowerPoint presentation.
I'm not sure what to support here, because you guys are mostly agreeing with each other.
So, was "Enemy of the State" with ol' Hackman and Smith 100% Hollywood? I mean, 'cause those ruthless guys would have let something happen to invoke the American people to action. (like Roosevelt, right?)
I lean more to complacency and the avoidance of sounding fanatical.
But, this could all be part of GW's preparation for the second coming of the Christ! Rest assured, though, Bushes, Christ was killed again in WACO. ROTFLMAO! There's always the 3rd coming, but you'll have to wait until after the "Islam Bomb" retaliation effort you have envoked.
Let's go in for obvious motives, pretend ignorance, spend a whole lot of money to ourselves, and start a perpetual cycle. Propaganda, Playing dumb, I'm starting to lean toward conspiracy with some of these folks, espacially the top dogs.
My apologies Pat, but in the post before you wrote something that bewildered me, and thought you were slipping grip on reality...
quote:
As for the "no planers" and other 9-11 conspiracy theorists, well....look, the U.S. army found this video in Afghanistan of bin Laden doing a post-mortem analysis of WTC attack. Maybe I'm naive, but to me, that's pretty convincing evidence that he was involved.
Somehow implying that Bin laden was a hoax sort of threw me off the deep end.... As ignoring common knowledge would.... And if we were talking about some other proffession than polilitians, like say a Doctors leaving say for a Golf game during surgery, or even a mechanic not putting the lugs on your wheels at all because he thought they weren't needed - those types of things would be called criminal negligence. I am an Electrician, and without getting technical, if say I saw a bunch of sparks, smoke, and loud buzzing and then told a customer, "Oh, thats normal..." Then left for the day, the house burns down that night and kills a whole family of 4+. I would be criminally liable, because as a licensed proffessional it could be easily proven that I should have known better. However Bush was told by every intelligence agency that there was a threat - and yet he did NOTHING! That was nearly 3000 people dead. A day or two later he told America to 'go shopping'.... At the same time he misled (LIED TO) the American people into a war that has cost more than 9-11 in American lives so far, and countless thousands of Iraqis both innocent and not... People have be hung for treason for a lot less than that. In the very least some impeachment procedings are in order. Even Censure.... Nothing, single party government at work.... Remember it only took a slim majority to grind this country to a halt for a blue dress and a cigar. It took eight years of witch hunting to get there.....
Well, I'm sorry if I confused the issue here by rebutting the "no-planers" and etc., but I still hold to my basic point. I think there's plenty of evidence to support charges that the Bush Administration was negligent in not focusing on the threat of Al Qaeda prior to the September 11 attacks. Had they marshalled more resources to the effort, made domestic terrorism investigations a priority, compelled the CIA and the FBI to cooperate in earnest, and taken steps to beef up airline security, they might have been able to thwart the plot.
That said, I've never seen any evidence anywhere that the administration's apparent negligence was intentional--that they wantedthe U.S. to be attacked. That's a very, very serious charge to make against anyone, and I don't think it can be made fairly without some hard, incontrovertible proof.
Motive to go to Iraq pre-existed 9-11 this is a common knowledge item now. (Just needed a reason and they have been searching for one for a long time... they had no 'means') Opportunity was on the horizon in the form of imminant threats from Al queda. It has been proven that warning of attacks were all over the place, and disreguarded. And they knew that if there were an attack they could easily distract the American people to believe Iraq was involved - the did just that. Also, a common knowledge item now. Means came in form of four high-jacked aircraft on the day Al queda operatives were to be sentanced. They had disreguarded warnings, marginalized experts suggesting pre-emptive action and immediately shifted focus to the original goal of going to Iraq and organized the efforts to justify that effect.
An act of treason....
Pat, I'm sure you are aware that I am not going to convince you - After all I am just some wacko on the internet on the other side of a screen, but I am also a wacko on the internet 'Parroting' what former, and current high level members of our government, and many members of the media are saying.
They knew attacks were enimant, they did nothing, the attacks happened, they willfuly distracted and mis-led us into Iraq under false pretenses using those attacks as justifcation.
To me, that is proof of motive.... But the crime, is well known.
E57: You're hardly a wacko, and your argument is certainly well-reasoned. I just don't happen to agree with it.
Forgive me if I make what may seem like an odd analogy. Prior to the invasion of Iraq, Saddam Hussein had a motive for amassing WMDs (the ever-present threat of attack by the U.S.) He probably had the means (scientific expertise, raw materials, prior experience) and possibly the opportunity (four years without UN inspectors in the country). By the Bush Administration's reasoning, that was sufficient proof that Saddam actually had WMDs--you know, the Condi Rice "We don't want the smoking gun to come in the form of a mushroom cloud" reasoning. But it turned out that they were completely wrong, and Saddam didn't have any WMDs. That's the danger of assuming that means, motive and opportunity equal fact.
Besides, the argument can also be made that if the Bush Administration was caught off-guard by the 9-11 attacks because of negligence, they had just as much--perhaps even more--of a reason to use the attack to sell a war against Iraq. After all, it was a convenient way to change the subject, and turn a failure into an opportunity. And if that was the plan, it worked--for a while, it eventually became apparent to the public that the war in Iraq was going badly.
E57, thanks for the links. I think a timeline is the most effective history tool.
The military has a long history of successes and failures. Each war scenario has unique factors that are nearly impossible to predict. So, before you strike, get lots of opinions, study all the risks and possibilities, do not wage war on tips obtained from tortured civilians, and certainly when we get things wrong, let's make them right right away.
I am certainly an armchair general, though, as I do hope I never see war. Please do not draft me. I couldn't shoot dogs much less real people. I will only fight to protect my immediate family and, of course myself. This, I'm sure, makes me a coward to some, but I assure you that because I hold my own and don't cause trouble with no one I should only have to defend myself. I expect my military to do the same. So, in a world perspective, I think others would look down on us if we acted with showboating, arrogance, testing, bullying, offenses which are not done defensively, or strikes with "unavoidable" collateral damage and loss of life (any military action as a police action must be held to the same standards as police. I'm sorry, I don't care what my loyalties were, if you kill my kids in your argument, one or both of you might die). I feel most people will agree with me, which is likely why we have Geneva codes and whatnot. War has too many factors, too many interests in so many directions that it is so unavoidable. Playing fields for gameboards and real people for gamepieces. Craziness. Oh where did I hide my map to my hidingspot in the woods?
I'm sorry, that explosion of rambling came from reading those timelines.
