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| Why this registered Democrat admires Ronald Reagan | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Apr 13 2004, 09:08 AM (731 Views) | |
| Adrian | Apr 15 2004, 03:06 PM Post #46 |
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Lieutenant Commander
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Woa, there admiral. Clinton got hit with the World Trade Center thity eight days after entering office. It was the first major terrorist incident on US soil. After that, he actually had a policy on terror, the first by any president. Under his watch: The capture and convictioon of Ramzi Yousef, Abdul Hakim Murad, and Wali Khan Amin Shah (those responsible for the bombing). The foiling of plots to kill the Pope and blow up twelve US jetliners simutaneously (the afrementioned were planning those). But also attacks were planned against the UN Headquarters, the FBI Hoover building (FBI headquarters), the Israeli embassy in Washington, the LA and Boston airports, the Lincoln and Holland tunnels, and the Washington bridge. Internationally, a terrorist truck bomb attack against the US embassy in Tirana, Albania was thwarted. Tripling of the Counterterrorism budget for the FBI. Doubled the counterterrorism budget overall. Rolled up Al Quieda cells in more than twenty countries. Created a top level national security post to coordinate all federal counterterrism activity (remember Richard Clark? this was his post) His first and second crime bill included antiterrorism provisions. His administration sposored a series of simulations to see how local, state and federal officials should respond to a terrorist attack (okay, they flunked the first test, but they got better the second). He created a national stockpile of drugs and vaccines (including 40 million doses of smallpox vaccine)."By any measure available, Clinton left office having given greater priority to terrorismthan any president before him" Barton Gellman, Washington Post Bush took over in the middle of the "War on Terror", not the begining. Clinton's administration was at the begining; he did not stand idly by (infact, critics often catagorized them as "terrorist obsessed"). Sure, we have to remember 9/11 was caused by Bin Laden. But we have to remember not to drop our guard. Sorry to take so long. |
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| Intrepid2002 | Apr 15 2004, 05:21 PM Post #47 |
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UNGH!
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okay.... now correlate the two ideas here. what does one have to do with the other? What's wrong with stepping up to the plate (not that he hasn't already) and stopping the finger pointing? Besides, I don't think anyone in the Bush Administration would be considered grossly negligent. Just a feeling. The discussion is getting circular. Time to get off at the next exit. |
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| Dwayne | Apr 15 2004, 05:31 PM Post #48 |
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Profanity deleted by Hoss
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Maybe you ought to clarify what you mean. |
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| Admiralbill_gomec | Apr 15 2004, 10:59 PM Post #49 |
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UberAdmiral
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Sources please. I haven't heard of any of this aside from the first one. Also, tripling a nearly non-existing budget isn't much help, especially considering the Jamie Gorelick procedures that instructed the FBI and U.S. Attorneys around the country to ensure they had "walled off" overseas intelligence information from domestic crime-fighters. The separation between overseas intelligence gathering and domestic criminal prosecution has been widely criticized by both Democrats and Republicans on the committee for having helped make the 9/11 attacks possible. Rolling up al Quida cells in 20 countries? How about in Afghanistan, where they were headquartered? By the way, he was offered Osama bin Laden THREE times by Sudan. Why didn't he pick him up? Richard Clarke also held anti-terrorism posts in the Bush 41 and Reagan administrations, did he not? Did he really coordinate anything? Seriously. This is a huge stretch. I understand he made great PowerPoints. One thing you have to remember... al Quida was at war with us, we were not at war with them. |
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| Adrian | Apr 16 2004, 02:16 AM Post #50 |
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Lieutenant Commander
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Okay some sources: "Planned Jan. 2000 Attacks Failed or Were Thwarted," in the Christmas Eve 2000 Washington Post "Broad Effort Launched After '98 Attacks," on December 19, 2001 Washington Post "Struggles Inside the Government Defined Campaign," December 20, 2001 Washington Post The last two were part of a series by Barton Gellman. Actually, for a large part of the Clinton administration, Bin Laden was actually headquartered in Sudan were he owns a large "farm" (read: fortress). But in both cases the governments were deeply in Bin Laden's pocket (ideologically and financially), so diplomatic efforts were no good. In Clark's book he sites of at least two snatch operations that were approved by Clinton, but were called off because of high risk to the teams (storming his "farm") or low quality of intelligence (very few intel assets in Afghanistan). Although he did authorize the assasination of Osama. Actually, Richard Clark developed the plan against Al Queida the Bush administration would eventually use. He also chaired the crisis control center on 9/11 (he was one of a handfull of staffers that stayed at the White House that day). It was his staff that found Al Quieda (before that, CIA papers kept noting "terrorist finacier Osama Bin Laden" but never realized he was the head of an organization). That's why charges from him are so damaging: he's a capable, smart, and accomplished non-partisan. The Sudan reports are fairy tales. But you'll love where it came from. The story started with Mansoor Ijaz, a Pakistani-American who claims to claims to have acted as a middleman between the USA and Sudan (remember Osama's "farm"). At the time Ijaz was an investment banker with a huge stake in Sudanese oil. He claimed to represent the Sudanese gov't and they wanted to offer up Osama. Sandy Berger (former National Security Advisor) met with Ijaz and determined he was an unreliable freelancer looking out for his own interests. Ijaz urged Berger to lift the sanctions against Sudan (because of Clinton's policy against terrorism, slavery, genocide, and just being bad people in general). Daniel Benjamin (past director for counterterrorismon the National Security Council and now senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies) said of Ijaz "Either he allowed himself to be manipulated, or he's in bed with a bunch of genocidal terrorists." Whe the US talked to what passes as Sudanese government, there was no such offer.The US persued leads and tried to negotiate, but to no avail. Ijaz was full of hot air. Here's the punchline: Ijaz can now be seen as foreign affairs analyst for the Fox News Channel. Just ask and I'll give you the sources for this story as well. |
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| anon_persona | Apr 16 2004, 07:16 AM Post #51 |
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Lieutenant Junior Grade
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Adrian, I checked your sources at washingtonpost.com. None of the articles you cited existed on the search engine: http://search1.washingtonpost.com/?wp=on&_..._v.7=92&_u.14=1 http://search1.washingtonpost.com/?wp=on&_..._v.7=92&_u.14=1 http://search1.washingtonpost.com/?wp=on&_..._v.7=92&_u.14=1 Could you provide links maybe? I do however have several links that confirmed Clinton was offered bin Laden on a platter (note they all say the same thing; just the first few links from a Google search): http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/wo...3955dec02.story http://observer.guardian.co.uk/Distributio...-560624,00.html http://www.libertypost.org/cgi-bin/readart...Disp=8&Trace=on http://www.fuckfrance.com/read.html?postid=618676&replies=1 http://www.newsmax.com/showinside.shtml?a=2001/10/3/83859 http://www.warriorsfortruth.com/clintons-terrorists.html http://www.sudan.net/news/press/postedr/125.shtml http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article....RTICLE_ID=34773 I have heard of your story about Ijaz, although never from any legitimate news source. Can you provide the cite you offered? |
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| Adrian | Apr 17 2004, 03:14 AM Post #52 |
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Lieutenant Commander
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Sure, "US Was Foiled Multiple Times in Efforts to Capture bin Laden of Have Him Killed", Oct 3, 2001 Washington Post Link Mentions CIA trying to persuade Saudis to get him from Sudan "Skeptical About Sudan" by Sandy Berger (an op-ed piece) July 13, 2002 Washington Post His own telling of the story. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find a link to this one. Here is a related article that decribes how Clinton tred to get the Saudis to take Osama from Sudan (hoping they would decapitiate him the second he got off the plane, I imagine).Related Article I just found Ijaz's point of view. Notice the glowing terms he uses when referring to one of the bloodiest fundementalsit regimes in the world. Ijaz's Story I'm also told that Daniel Benjamin and Steve Simon's "The Age of Sacred Terror" also has some more of Mansoor Ijaz's highjinks (I haven't got around to reading it yet). Here are the links (you really had me sweating there, I read the hard copies of the articles and didn't know if there were any web links!): Planned Jan. 2000 Attacks Failed or Were Thwarted Broad Effort Launched After '98 Attacks Struggles Inside Government Defined Campaign I hope they work! |
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| anon_persona | Apr 17 2004, 04:08 AM Post #53 |
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Lieutenant Junior Grade
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"'US Was Foiled Multiple Times in Efforts to Capture bin Laden of Have Him Killed', Oct 3, 2001" Written by Woodward, so there's an obvious bias from the start (he's the one writing all the anti-Bush books lately), and then it mentions the missile attacks on Afghanistani and Pakistani villages that occured in the middle of the Monica media blitz and killed only civilians. After this failure the Clinton Administration claims they "narrowly missed" him. Mmm hmm. The third article you mentioned only bolstered the idea Clinton could have gotten bin Laden if he had only tried. I don't want to read Ijaz's story, as it might bias me towards his point/position (as you know I probably agree with him, although I want to remain unbiased if possible, and that may not be possible if I read the article of a liar, as you claim him to be). Of the articles we were having trouble with, the first one comments on the three "prevented" terrorist attacks in '99 and early Y2K, although these are from captured Al Qaeda individuals - even those that haven't been captured always have some great plan, although the majority of them never get carried out. We get threats all the time but most of them don't bear out either. I wouldn't rely on a couple people's reports they were going to do something when they have such a bad track record. The second of the hard-to-find articles again covers the missile launches that failed, and given their time period that's hardly convincing evidence of Clinton's hardline anti-terrorism status. The third of the hard-to-find articles just gives blanket statements of how hard Clinton tried, again failing to support their argument with facts or evidence. Here are some articles with numbers and memos stating administrative initiatives concerning counterrorism, and they tend to support the caim Clinton let things corrode in this area, while the Bush administration either had trouble getting the funds they needed (it was so close after the election, and Bush was having trouble getting his nominees approved) or actually did improve this area of government, although it was only a start after nearly a decade of negligence. http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsPackageArticl...65§ion=news http://www.freedomofthought.com/archives/000922.html http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp...w/80051/1/.html http://www.newsmax.com/showinside.shtml?a=2002/7/17/103241 http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/s...esponse/1056573 http://www.cse.org/informed/issues_template.php?issue_id=92 Etc. etc. etc. I don't really care about what Clinton did regarding terrorism, as we didn't have much info, nor do I care about Bush's alleged pre-9/11 agenda since none of that stuff would have gone into affect until after 9/11. I just don't like all this misrepresentation and statements presented as fact when they are debatable at best. |
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| Admiralbill_gomec | Apr 17 2004, 09:28 AM Post #54 |
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UberAdmiral
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One thing the left (and I include certain members who post here) doesn't seem to realize: The world changed forever on September 11th. There is no going back. Stop trying to play "gotcha" because it will backfire. (latest case in point, Jamie Gorelick) Either you support the defense of the United States or you don't (and that means squashing terrorism and terrorists). |
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| Adrian | Apr 18 2004, 02:25 AM Post #55 |
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Lieutenant Commander
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The point was that Clinton had a terrorism policy (the first of the last three president to do so). Admiral Bill claimed he didn't. While, yes, we can debate its effectiveness (I argueing it was more effective that you state) it was in place. I'm not playing "gotcha"; I'm just debating a point. I have a feeling I probably should know who Jamie Gorelick is, but I'm too tired and it's not relevant. Lastly, and most importantly, I am firmly against terrorism of any kind. However, I do feel that the "war on terror" has left the USA more vunerable than less vunerable. I could list how if you wish. |
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| Dandandat | Apr 18 2004, 02:32 AM Post #56 |
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Time to put something here
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That’s fine, I agree we are more vulnerable since the war on terror has started. What does that prove or mean? When you try to remove a bees nest from your kids play ground you run a higher risk of getting stung then if you just left it there. But you know one day your kid is going to get stung - so you run the risk and remove it. What is the alternative? |
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| Adrian | Apr 18 2004, 02:52 AM Post #57 |
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Lieutenant Commander
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How about strengthening the Homeland Security department by defining its mission better and supporting it more. Right now cities are ignoring color changes because they can't afford to constantly power up their emergency services for undefined threats. And remember the duct tape fiasco? Okay, how about forming a joint CIA and FBI organization that focuses only on fighting domestic terrorism? Right now, we still have these two organizations fighting over turf on this issue. There's more, but what I'm really saying here is that we need to lessen the vunerablities we have here at home. |
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| Dandandat | Apr 18 2004, 03:39 AM Post #58 |
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Time to put something here
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Shouldn’t you do both? You can send your kid out to play in a suit of armor but don’t you still need to take care of the bees nest? You don’t want to have her play in the armor forever, she will get tired and wont be able to do some of the things she wants to do. And no suit of armor is infallible the bee may still sneak in and stinger her.How would you fix this. Having the department of homeland security be more selective in their warnings? Then what? another tower falls, and we have another comity try to blame some one for letting a warning slip by. It seems to me you want to eat and have your cake in the same space time continuum. yes and? People where scared, can you blame them? Some times its better to sooth fear of the boggy man with a teddy bear, or a lullaby. Putting your head between your legs and not looking into the light doesn’t save you from a nuck explosion. But if you believe it will, it will keep you calm, and if you are calm you have a better chance then if you where running around hysterically. If nothing else it will let you go in peace. Again we should, but why does that mean we shouldn’t try to fix the middle east at the same time? I agree, and hopefully we will. But that does not mean we should not try to fix the problem at its source does it? This is not the type of thing where we can wait until we are all set here before we go there, it maybe many years before we are all set here. |
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| Adrian | Apr 18 2004, 11:12 AM Post #59 |
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Lieutenant Commander
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I agree with you completely that this "war on terror" is a two front war: here at home and in the countries where the terrorist base themselves. On the homefront, what does the Homeland Security department do? Integrate and coordinate counterterrorism resources? Fine, but they still aren't doing that and the administration has been running ruff shod over department heads letting the pre 9/11 status quo go on; little integration of resources, changing of organizational structure, or policy change has taken place. If it's distibution of information, wouldn't more specific details be better to prepare for? Wouldn't an upgrade of information systems be called for? How about sharing some databases between CIA and FBI? How about one for the press? If it's preparing for the next attack, Richard Clarke did a study while still counter-terrorism head estimating that local depertments needed more money to prepare (I'll get the exact figue if you wish, I seem to remember it was around $850 mill). The claim was made at the time that they wanted to give gold plated telephones to fire departments (the advocates shot back with: they wanted more phones so that they could have pulled firefighters out of the Towers before the building caollapsed). See what I mean about lack of focus and no clear mission? No wonder bearocrats resign from this agency like crazy. |
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The capture and convictioon of Ramzi Yousef, Abdul Hakim Murad, and Wali Khan Amin Shah (those responsible for the bombing).

2:13 PM Jul 11