Politics: J'accuse!

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Not Me
So if I mention Yassir Arafat and know he is a Palestinian terrorist and know all about his history of supporting and conducting terrorism but you cannot find a record of me ever mentioning the acronym "PLO" then that is proof I never had any understanding Arafat was the leader of the PLO?

Come on, Ty. What did she think OBL was then? Some random terrorist acting alone? Just a bored rich kid with nothing better to do?

Maybe she knew who OBL was, and didn't know enough about AQ to know its name.

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop
Maybe she knew who OBL was, and didn't know enough about AQ to know its name.

So are you saying then she knew OBL was the leader of some radical islamic terrorist group but just didn't know the name of the group?

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Not Me
So are you saying then she knew OBL was the leader of some radical islamic terrorist group but just didn't know the name of the group?

I think he's just trying to bait me into posting an offensive descriptor.

[Gattigap]

Originally posted by Not Me
So are you saying then she knew OBL was the leader of some radical islamic terrorist group but just didn't know the name of the group?

This is an odd hook on which you choose to hang your hat.

I don't know exactly when Al-Quaeda was created, but let's remember that OBL's been stirring up trouble for decades, including in Afghanistan during the '80s. Being the Kremlinologist that she is, it doesn't seem wacky to propose that she could've heard of OBL in connection with funding the Afghan opposition to the Soviets, without hearing about the now famous-and-franchised Al-Quaeda Retail Bomb Kit Factory.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Gattigap
This is an odd hook on which you choose to hang your hat.

I don't know exactly when Al-Quaeda was created, but let's remember that OBL's been stirring up trouble for decades, including in Afghanistan during the '80s. Being the Kremlinologist that she is, it doesn't seem wacky to propose that she could've heard of OBL in connection with funding the Afghan opposition to the Soviets, without hearing about the now famous-and-franchised Al-Quaeda Retail Bomb Kit Factory.

this was my point, but I was being sarcastic- "A. Hitler? You mean the minor Austrian painter, right?"

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop
If you read his book, you'll see that he describes at great length what the Clinton Administration did in response to those things. It wasn't nothing.

On Clinton, see above. They were on the ball.

NO MORE REVISIONIST HISTORY! PLEASE. I have taken a non partisan stance on this above and said I do not blame the Clintons. Please do not make me change this.

Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop On Iraq, the book is pretty comprehensive on this. Take a look. It might change your mind. It's both a question of resources to pursue AQ, and a question of whether invading Iraq strengthens AQ.

Dude, this is self serving. When the independent book comes out 5 years from now I'll be interested. But this guy has too many vested interests.

[Hank Chinaski]

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop
If you read his book, you'll see that he describes at great length what the Clinton Administration did in response to those things. It wasn't nothing.

On Clinton, see above. They were on the ball.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Originally posted by sgtclub
NO MORE REVISIONIST HISTORY! PLEASE. I have taken a non partisan stance on this above and said I do not blame the Clintons. Please do not make me change this.

I have a question. If Clinton did so much, and Bush dropped the ball, how come when Bush took over there were a dozen people already in this country legally, some who had ties to terrorism, taking pilot training? Was checking out people here on the Feb. 2001 agenda for Gore?

[Sidd Finch]

So the WH says that Sadr is linked with terrorist organizations. Hardly a surprise, and certainly true, given that he's publicly announced his intent to work with Hamas and Hezbollah.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...usa_shiites_dc

Let's think about this for a moment. The US takes down Saddam Hussein, based in part on the (false) notion that he supported Islamic terror (and on WMD, of course). Saddam, of course, had brutally surpressed Shiites, including no doubt Sadr and his supporters.

To thank us, Sadr announces that Iraq will now be open to terrorist organizations that could not have operated in Iraq under Saddam's regime. That, plus he kills a bunch of US soldiers.

For this, 600 Americans died? And we spent $100 billion?


(Oh, and about those Trailers of Mass Destruction....)

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by sgtclub
What I find both particularly disturbing and curious is that he says the Clinton Adminstration "got it" while at the same time did nothing when the world trade center was bombed, 2 embassies were bombed. the Cole was bombed, and the LA airport was attempted to be blown up.

Didn't the Clinton Admin stop the attempt blow up LAX? That would qualify as "doing something," wouldn't it?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
I have a question. If Clinton did so much, and Bush dropped the ball, how come when Bush took over there were a dozen people already in this country legally, some who had ties to terrorism, taking pilot training? Was checking out people here on the Feb. 2001 agenda for Gore?

I think we all know that even if you do all the right things, you can't prevent terrorist attacks entirely -- you can only reduce risk.

Originally posted by club
NO MORE REVISIONIST HISTORY! PLEASE. I have taken a non partisan stance on this above and said I do not blame the Clintons.

The book doesn't absolve them, either. It suggests that Clinton decided not to retaliate against Afghan camps for the Cole bombing at least in part because he did not want to kill the chances for a peace deal between the Israelis and Palestinians. That now looks like the wrong choice. But the idea that the Clinton Administration was just sitting on its ass is wrong. If you want to know more, you have to read a book like Clarke's, or The Age Of Sacred Terror.

Originally posted by club
Dude, this is self serving. When the independent book comes out 5 years from now I'll be interested. But this guy has too many vested interests.

What vested interests does he have? Don't say selling books -- it's true of any author.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Sidd Finch
Didn't the Clinton Admin stop the attempt blow up LAX? That would qualify as "doing something," wouldn't it?

Administration?

Look, that attack couldn't have been blamed on anyone but Canada, if it had happened. there is a PBS documentary on it that is quite scary.

However, the plot was busted by luck. A custom agent on a ferry boat between US and Canada thought the guy was sweating, and checked his trunk. I don't know his name, but I don't think he was a political appointment.

[Hank Chinaski]

when I post on Fashion and no one posts for a long time, I become sheepish, thinking my post was poor and somehow stopped all others. On politics, same "breaking the board" feel to me like a post of such brillance it stopped you all in your tracks.

25-3

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
when I post on Fashion and no one posts for a long time, I become sheepish, thinking my post was poor and somehow stopped all others. On politics, same "breaking the board" feel to me like a post of such brillance it stopped you all in your tracks.

25-3

Good yuntif.

[Not Me]

Iraqi Militia Chief Al-Sadr Targeted for Arrest

• April 5 (Bloomberg) -- Moqtada al-Sadr, an Iraqi Shiite cleric who incited widespread protests and attacks against U.S. and allied forces yesterday, is the subject of an arrest warrant, U.S. spokesman Dan Senor said in a Baghdad briefing.
  
  The warrant, which has yet to be served, is for the death by stabbing and shooting of cleric Abdul Majid al-Khoei last April at a mosque in the holy city of Najaf, Senor said. An Iraqi investigative judge issued the warrant ``in the last several months'' and Senor said it would now be enforced.
  
  Senor and U.S. Army Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt, the deputy operations chief in Iraq, wouldn't answer reporters' questions concerning when al-Sadr would be arrested, or his whereabouts. ``There will be no advance warning,'' Senor said in the televised briefing.
  
  ``The desire of those who don't want a free Iraq is to test our will,'' President George W. Bush said today. ``We've got to stay the course, and we will stay the course.''
  
  As preparations wrapped up for the trial of 13 suspects already in custody in connection with the cleric's murder, the Iraqi judge ``thought he would take another shot at trying to gather up other individuals,'' Senor said when asked why the warrant wasn't used earlier. Al-Sadr's situation ``sort of bubbled up,'' he told reporters.
  
  Followers of al-Sadr, 31, rioted yesterday in Baghdad and Najaf, killing more than 40 Iraqi civilians and at least eight U.S. soldiers. Today, a mob occupied the governor's office in the southern city of Basra.

[sgtclub]

To bolster his claim after 9/11 that he had vigorously pursued the possibility of Iraq's involvement in the first attack on the Trade Center, Clarke wrote a memo stating that "[W]hen the bombing happened," he "focused on Iraq as the possible culprit because of Iraqi involvement in the attempted assassination of President Bush in Kuwait in the same month." But as Wolfowitz noted during the 9/11 Commission hearings, Iraq's attempted assassination of Bush was two months after the Trade Center bombing.

[I fucked this post up by editing it accidentally instead of quoting it -- the buttons are next to each other, and I've done this before, but always to my own posts. Sorry, club. If you'll edit to insert the rest of the quote and the url, that would be great (I no longer have the url, obviously). Leave in what follows, and I'll copy it and post it myself. -- T.S.]


Not sure about the rest of her article, but I know for a fact that I have seem this attack on Clarke debunked elsewhere. It misquotes his book in a misleading way, when what he says is OK. If I had the book in front of me I would illustrate.

This sort of crap, and her own tight involvement with Wolfowitz et al., and the fact that the book ridicules her claims, and the rest of what I have posted about Mylroie, makes me inclined not to bother with the rest of her piece.