Offering constructive criticism to the social cripples in our midst since early 2005.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Richard Clarke was the nation's senior counterterrorism official under both Clinton and Bush, so if you want to ignore his account of what happened, you'd better have some serious authority. Clinton was personally involved with Clarke's job in a way that Bush was not. Because of the bureaucratic design of our government, Clarke often ran into obstacles presented by other parts of the government doing their own thing. Clarke's relationship with Clinton and other senior officials helped him get around these, sometimes. When Bush came in, Clarke was demoted, reducing his effectiveness. This was done because Bush had other priorities, like missile defense. This is why nothing happened with Clarke's recommendation between when Bush took office and 9/11.

oh Dim- Clinton should have had body counts by then (their not ours) not recommendations. They blew up the WTC and 2 embass9ies for God's sakes.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
there were at least 4 major attacks while he was President. They were planned from the safety of the Soveirgn state of Afghanistan. Even accepting your dogma, Clinton's "plan" was to tell Bush to take out Afghanistan.

Ain't no dogma here, Hank, just historical facts, one of which is that we did not know all along that the Taliban and Al Qaeda were so tightly related.

The american people will decide who can be trusted over the next 20 years. Wanna make the same bet in 2008?

Were they all as ignorant as you about what happened before 9/11? If so, I'd rather not bet money.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Ain't no dogma here, Hank, just historical facts, one of which is that we did not know all along that the Taliban and Al Qaeda were so tightly related.

Sure sure, but Clinton's plan, you know "doing everything he could." It boiled down to telling Bush to take out Afghanistan, right? I'm mean he spent his term getting to recommendations for the next guy.

Those who can, do; those who can't, teach?

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by Shape Shifter
Woodward relied extensively on interviews with the administration. Did they lie to him too?

Can you pronounce "non sequitar"?

[Gattigap]

Originally posted by sgtclub
Can you pronounce "non sequitar"?

You misspelled this on purpose, didn't you?

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
Sure sure, but Clinton's plan, you know "doing everything he could." It boiled down to telling Bush to take out Afghanistan, right? I'm mean he spent his term getting to recommendations for the next guy.

Those who can, do; those who can't, teach?

I can picture OBL very steve martin like response to Clinton's anti-terrorism plan:

The aspirin! He hates the aspirin! Everybody get away from the aspirin!

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Richard Clarke was the nation's senior counterterrorism official under both Clinton and Bush, so if you want to ignore his account of what happened, you'd better have some serious authority. Clinton was personally involved with Clarke's job in a way that Bush was not. Because of the bureaucratic design of our government, Clarke often ran into obstacles presented by other parts of the government doing their own thing. Clarke's relationship with Clinton and other senior officials helped him get around these, sometimes. When Bush came in, Clarke was demoted, reducing his effectiveness. This was done because Bush had other priorities, like missile defense. This is why nothing happened with Clarke's recommendation between when Bush took office and 9/11.

Clinton was the fucking president. Who in the government was obstructing his high priority plan to fight terrorism? Certainly not the GOP led Congress, parts of which were screaming for action throughout the 1990s. Did Clinton go to Congress and ask for a declaration of war? Did he do anything of note by Executive Order? This excuse just doesn't ring true, notwithstanding Clarke's accusations in the book.

My take is that the Clinton administration was passifying him, but did not intend to raise it to the level that Clarke thought appropriate, and Bush failed to do even that. Turns out that Clarke was right and both Administrations screwed the pooch.

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by Gattigap
You misspelled this on purpose, didn't you?

Spelling is hard.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
Sure sure, but Clinton's plan, you know "doing everything he could." It boiled down to telling Bush to take out Afghanistan, right?

Did you get that from the same blog that Penske got his SCUD line? 'Cuz it's about as accurate.

[SlaveNoMore]

I just took a peek over at the wackjobs over on Democratic Underground to see how upset they all were that the London attacks weren't more successful.

Anyway, while there, I noticed that these are their "Rules for Posting":

• Content: Do not post messages that are inflammatory, extreme, divisive, incoherent, or otherwise inappropriate. Do not engage in anti-social, disruptive, or trolling behavior. Do not post broad-brush, bigoted statements.

My question is this - is there a single friggin post on that site that isnt inflammatory, extreme, divisive, incoherent or inappropriate?

Har de har har

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by sgtclub
Clinton was the fucking president. Who in the government was obstructing his high priority plan to fight terrorism? Certainly not the GOP led Congress, parts of which were screaming for action throughout the 1990s. Did Clinton go to Congress and ask for a declaration of war? Did he do anything of note by Executive Order? This excuse just doesn't ring true, notwithstanding Clarke's accusations in the book.

I didn't say that anyone was "obstructing his plan." The government is trying to do a lot of things at once, and people sometimes (e.g.) compete for scarce resources. And your hindsight about Congress "screaming for action" is completely fictive. When Clinton ordered the cruise missiles launched in an effort to take out OBL, he knew he'd take heat from the Republican Congress, which was outraged that he'd do something to distract from Monica Lewinsky.

Clarke says in his book that they could have done more.

My take is that the Clinton administration was passifying him, but did not intend to raise it to the level that Clarke thought appropriate, and Bush failed to do even that. Turns out that Clarke was right and both Administrations screwed the pooch.

To some extent, you are correct. In hindsight, it's easy to say that more should have been done. The fact remains that Clinton took the problem more seriously than Bush.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
I just took a peek over at the wackjobs over on Democratic Underground to see how upset they all were that the London attacks weren't more successful....

My question is this - is there a single friggin post on that site that isnt inflammatory, extreme, divisive, incoherent or inappropriate?

Since you and bilmore are the only people here who read that site, and he seems to be busy working on Minneapolis's bid for the 2014 Winter Olympics, you tell us.

[Pin the Tale on the Donkey]

"Amid all the optimism surrounding Blair, Bono & Geldolf doing Live 8 and G 8, and the award of that most wonderful and pacific of international institutions and global brotherhood -- the Olympics -- what a grim thing to have happened.

Violence rarely gets us anywhere; the PLO, the IRA, the SLA, among others have achieved so little with their terrorism. If the London bombings are the work of an Al Qaeda offshoot, then you have to fairly say, in the same way we condemn other's terror, this is in part the result of Bush's War on Iraq."

-- Jann Wenner, July 7, 2005

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
I didn't say that anyone was "obstructing his plan." The government is trying to do a lot of things at once, and people sometimes (e.g.) compete for scarce resources. And your hindsight about Congress "screaming for action" is completely fictive. When Clinton ordered the cruise missiles launched in an effort to take out OBL, he knew he'd take heat from the Republican Congress, which was outraged that he'd do something to distract from Monica Lewinsky.

Clarke says in his book that they could have done more.

Compete yes. But the President sets the agenda, and if it was such a high priority, Clarke should have been able to compete more successfully. The problem is that it was not the highest priority to say the least.

Fictive? Go back and look at the WSJ editorial page in the mid-1990s (pre-Lewinsky). I'm not saying that the entire GOP congress was pushing, but there was a loud group that was. Incidentally, the timing of the bombing was very coincidental, wasn't it?

To some extent, you are correct. In hindsight, it's easy to say that more should have been done. The fact remains that Clinton took the problem more seriously than Bush.

Clinton may have taken it more seriously than Bush, but not by a lot or at least his actions didn't reflect it. You also have to remember that Bush was only in office for 9 months when 9/11 occured, so to the same extent it's not fair to judge by hindsight, it's also not fair to judge a guy who was on the job 8 years with one on the job for 9 months. And yes, I know, Burger et all met with Bush and stressed terrorism, but frankly, if I was Bush, I'm not sure it would have meant all that much to me.

[SlaveNoMore]

Tyrone Slothrop
Since you and bilmore are the only people here who read that site, and he seems to be busy working on Minneapolis's bid for the 2014 Winter Olympics, you tell us.

Okay, just a few, for fun:

----

"No, I'm not engaging in hyperbole. Departing Chief Justice Rehnquist was a racist, who did his best to make sure that dark skinned Americans knew their place in the "land of the free.""

Sandpiper

---
"The true purpose of the "War on Terror" is to set one segment of the masses against another and destablilze governments. They don't want to END terror, they want to ensure that's there plenty of it so that people and their governments are more easily controlled.

I pity ALL the citizens of the world, our common enemy is those who value nothing but their will to power. It is on the hands of these elite where the blood ultimately lies. "

Scarlet Woman

** Followed by several posts entitled "Amen"
---