Please pdf it to me. :D

The Looming Tower
 

I could have told you this before reading page 1.


eta: actually i posted it multiple times under 49 socks over the last 6 years.

The Looming Tower
 

You're right. I didn't take into account that his lack of access to the CIA could manifest itself as "WTF was the CIA thinking?" in the book.

I also learned a lot about how al Queda was formed and was fascinated by the more personal stories about OBL and Zawahiri. I wish there was more info about the 9/11 hijackers. I feel like more insight into why so many upper/middle class Saudis choose jihad over a confortable lifestyle.

As a westerner, I have some difficulty keeping all the middle eastern names straight (every one seems to be named Abu Abudullah al-Whatever, NTTAWWT), especially since everyone has at least two aliases. Reading Bob Baer's books is a real chore in this regard. But I thought Wright did a nice job making it easy to identify the players, which is no easy feat.

The Looming Tower
 

Everyone remembers the cruise missiles, but I was stunned to discover that we did nothing after the Cole attack. Maybe I was aware of this and just blocked it out because it's too awful to contemplate that we did nothing in response.

The Looming Tower
 

Just to be clear, the lack of response was not because he was distracted by any of the fall out from the exercise of poor judgment in other areas of his work life.

The Looming Tower
 

So he says. But the bottom line is it's silly to deflect blame onto the Rs because they distracted him from his job by impeaching him. Clinton is the one who gave them the excuse to impeach.
Was he such a politial neophyte that he believed that if he lied under oath the Rs wouldn't want to crucify him for it? The blame rests with him.

I also saw something suggesting he didn't want to appear as if he was blatantly helping Gore by starting a military operation in the fall of 2000.

The Looming Tower
 

I was previously something of a fencesitting neutral on this issue, but I see your point, and I agree, the blame does lie with Clinton.

Well played, playa.

The Looming Tower
 

lol (really, I did). But just so you don't get the wrong idea, I'd take either Clinton in a second over Bush. It's better you know this up front so you don't get hurt later on.

The Looming Tower
 

Fair enough, although since W can't run again, its not really that big of a deal.

Feel free to email me that PDF, since its unlikely I'll be picking up a New Yorker anytime soon.

I'm a bit behind on the book - Chapter 4 - but I should have some time this weekend to read more

The Looming Tower
 

Just to be clear, since Penske is incorrectly implying that the fault for this is Clinton's, the 9/11 Commission found that we didn't have evidence that bin Laden was responsible for the Cole bombing until after Clinton left office. The Cole was bombed on October 12, 2000. We developed indications that Al Qaeda was involved within weeks, but they were judged insufficient to justify war with Afghanistan:

• [T]he Yemenis provided strong evidence connecting the Cole attack to al Qaeda during the second half of November, identifying individual operatives whom the United States knew were part of al Qaeda. During December the United States was able to corroborate this evidence. But the United States did not have evidence about Bin Ladin’s personal involvement in the attacks until Nashiri and Khallad were captured in 2002 and 2003. (193)

See pp 193-98 of the Report. It's available for free on-line.

Richard Clarke developed a plan to go after the Taliban short of outright war, and presented it to his new bosses after Bush was inaugurated in January. As we all know, Condi Rice tabled it.

So the fact that we didn't do shit is a reflection of the fact that the Bush crowd had other priorities, and that Clinton was no longer in office.

Not within the purview of the book, really, but there you go.

The Looming Tower
 

Res ipsa, we knew who did it, and we had enough on him to justify going after him. Clinton dropped the ball and Clarke is a partisan of the ideology of Clarke, highly enamoured of his own after the fact know it allism.

Ty, why can't you be fair and admit Clinton dropped the ball? It is this partisan intransigence in the face of what we know is the truth that is why Spanky won't classify you a moderate.

The Looming Tower
 

If Clinton dropped the ball, then Bush did too. The Cole was attacked only shortly before Bush was elected. Are you suggesting that Clinton should have declared war on Afghanistan? The 9/11 Commission Report explains that Clinton did not get the "res ipsa" evidence you -- in hindsight -- say he had and he thought he needed. But if he should have invaded Afghanistan in December, 2000, then why didn't Bush do it in January?

Query to the Better Read
 

Say if you were starting up a country, what guidelines and sanctions would you create for advance fee fraud, check/money order scamming and fake banks?


Did you mean for this post to be on this board? -- T.S.

The Looming Tower
 

it was the 6th or 7th major hit during his adminstration. Pattern?

On the Cole, at first I thought the argument that it would be wrong to start an action at the end of a term made sense, and maybe it does in theory, but doesn't that argument leave up open to attack at the end of every lame duck term?