Can you condemn Clinton for 'allowing' 9/11 without similarly criticizing Bush?

Great Debates
21

I definately think that the only reasonable range of discussion is to place blame on both administrations, if any blame is placed.

Mainly I’m frustrated by the blind partisanship of criticism. For instance, Clinton is criticized for pulling out of Somalia and thus emboldening terrorists… but Reagan’s botched Libya/Lebanon adventures had much the same effect, and indeed it was DIRECTLY CITED by Osama Bin Laden as evidence that the U.S. was weak and had little will to sustain efforts abroad. So I don’t trust people who are willing to condemn Clinton for Somalia (especially when they act with extreme hindsight as if the little heard rantings of a then obscure nutcase out of many many many others at the time was THE key issue in Somalia, or our national bluster was the ONLY issue worth any weight when considering whether or not to withdraw) but not even MENTION Reagan in Libya/Lebbanon, even if only to explain why Reagan’s choices were more excusable (which, perhaps is a case one could make).

Actually, if we’ve learned anything from Iraq, it’s exactly the opposite, if by military action you mean anything LESS than a full scale ground invasion. Our bombing failed to our kill intended targets so many times precisely because our intelligence was so poor. Our hit rate was abysmal for targeted decapitation stikes, and mostly ended up killing civilians. So what we learned was that good bombing requires good intelligence. To target leaders, you have to know where you are. And the methods we used: getting telemetry on satelite phones and so on, was FAR FAR beneath the level of accuracy that it needed to be both in terms of time from intel to detonation (at least 45 minutes in some cases) and range (sat phones can only be targeted within 100meters, but sure-kill missle blast radiuses are in most cases only around 10 to 20 meters.

Bascally, though, I’m just regurgitating this column:
http://slate.msn.com/id/2092759/

Actually, politics is a lot more complicated than that. To get anything done, with Congress in the picture, you have metaphorically spend political capital: i.e. call in your limited reserve of favors and strain your alliances. This is true even for lame duck Presidents. And Clinton’s political capital was at an all time low during his impeachment and after.

When it comes to military actions below the level of war, however, it’s not entirely clear that there is good evidence that the reason he wasn’t more aggressive can be excused by his political troubles at home. Many of these choices seemed to be dictated by a general view of military policy, not domestic politics. And of course, it would be wrong to say that it was all Clinton’s view either: he was listening to and acting on the advice of his commanders, just as Bush was (and, indeed, many of the same people).

From what I’ve read, very little. The man offeirng the deal was not in the least trustworthy, and it wasn’t even clear that he had any authority or control over Bin Laden. The deal was looked into, but concluded to be a false alarm. Yet another case of lots of early fanfare, with a little mentioned deflationary coda.

22

Here’s a couple of books:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0895260743/ref=pd_sim_books_3/102-5600585-1440901?v=glance&s=books

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0895261405/qid=1072045223//ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i0_xgl14/102-5600585-1440901?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

More are on the way:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0785260749/qid=1072045122//ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i13_xgl14/102-5600585-1440901?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

And here’s a book about 9/11 that I’m currently reading which doesn’t even mention Clinton OR Bush anywhere in its promotional material, and seems much more focused on actually finding an answer to the question, and in the book criticizes every President from Reagan to GW Bush, though Clinton gets the hardest knocks (as maybe he deserves to for all I know):
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0375508791/ref=pd_sim_books_2/102-5600585-1440901?v=glance&s=books

But still: alarming silence on: 1) Republicans who are knowingly wagging their finger at Clinton now, but criticized his efforts to combat terrorism before (some even calling his moves for greater security after the Oklahoma bombing “hysteria”) 2) why Bush isn’t just as, if not more culpable.

Again, the 8 years vs. 9 months excuse is not credible to me. If a threat was indeed pressing and growing, and was indeed obvious enough that Clinton is to blame for not seeing the danger of his policy, then the severity and immediacy of this problem did not dissappear the second Bush took office so that he could have a chance to work up to it. The fact that Bush seemed largely unconcerned about terrorism (indeed, complaining when someone wanted to shift a bit of funding from Star Wars over to fighting terrorists) speaks to either a) his own gross incompetance or b) that the threat really WASN’T so obvious and easy to discern through all the noise as the hindsighters would have us believe, and Clinton then really isn’t anywhere near as culpable either.

Is this really anywhere near a fair comparison? Bush got down to business only after nearly 3000 people and three national landmarks were destroyed in one day in dramatic and shocking fashion. The attacks Clinton faced were bad, but in the normal course of history, not particularly incredible or unusual. Plenty of terrorist attacks have killed Americans abroad throughout this century, with no subsequent invasions on either party’s watch.

It’s also a little misleading to cite the first WTC attack as being another obvious Al Qaeda case. While we have inklings of a connection between the two groups involved, even these didn’t shake out till two years after the event, and even then we didn’t know that Al Qaeda was as distinctly different from the many other militant groups we had to worry about as we do now (and even the many other groups which had connections to the blind dude). Only in hindsight does that connection seem to be THE important one.

23

Really? How come they’re still around, then?

Actually, he did a lot. After the first WTC attack, the perpetrators went to prison, and are still there today. He didn’t start bombing countries that had nothing to do with the attack, but I find such a strategy a little silly.

He also thwarted attempts to kill the Pope, blow up 12 U.S airliners; attack the UN Headquarters, the FBI bulding, the Israeli emabassy in Washington, the LA and Boston airports, the Lincoln and Holland tunnels, and the G. Washington bridge. Personally, I think preventing terror attacks is better than letting them happen and then bombing random countries in retaliation. He also passed anti-terrorism legislation and issued a directive to assasinate Bin Laden. And all that with the Republicans bitterly fighting him every step of the way.

I’m trying to figure out exactly what it is you wanted him to do that he didn’t do?

24

The body counts for the al Qaeda attacks during the Clinton administration and 9/11 are so staggering one wonders why they’re considered even remotely comparable. Take a guess how many American civilians were killed by al Qaeda terrorist attacks on Clinton’s watch. Go on, guess.

Grand total: 18.

You can check my math here.

25

The only people blaming Clinton for not doing enough about terrorism are the same folks who get their news reports from NewsMax and the conservative spin machine. Clinton did far more to combat terrorism than any President before him; just because his activities weren’t as flashy as a full-blown war doesn’t mean they weren’t effective.

26

Four times Clinton wanted to declare war on al-Qaeda. Four times he was rejected by the Republican congress.

Stop this finger waving once and for all.

27

Well, FWIW, Al Franken’s new book addresses this issue. He basically claims that Mansoor Ijaz is a self-serving liar with ulterior motives, and that the Clinton Administration tried to follow up with Sudan, and found that there was no such offer. Take that as you will, though I’m sure there are sources out there to support this (whether true or not).

28

In hindsight, it’s easy to blame Clinton, but you have to remember that had he invaded Afghanistan thus setting back the Al-Qaeda network, and preventing the 9/11 tragedy from happening, we’d never actually know that the tragedy[ b]had been prevented. Perhaps we’d be debated what waste it was for US forces to be bogged down in Afghanistan.
**

Depends. A President can marshall public opinion if he has to. If Clinton had sold the Afghan war as a response to the attacks on our embassies, which were internationally recognized as an act of war, he could have gotten more than enough support. But yes, we are seeing that in Iraq now. We will never know what we prevented, if anything, by going into Iraq.

**Mainly I’m frustrated by the blind partisanship of criticism. For instance, Clinton is criticized for pulling out of Somalia and thus emboldening terrorists… but Reagan’s botched Libya/Lebanon adventures had much the same effect, and indeed it was DIRECTLY CITED by Osama Bin Laden as evidence that the U.S. was weak and had little will to sustain efforts abroad. **

Outstanding point that bears repeating. It also demonstrates that even if fighting itself doesn’t win the war on terror, it is essential that we be seen to fight back, and not cut and run. Strength matters in the Arab world.

**Actually, if we’ve learned anything from Iraq, it’s exactly the opposite, if by military action you mean anything LESS than a full scale ground invasion. Our bombing failed to our kill intended targets so many times precisely because our intelligence was so poor. **

In Afghanistan it worked because a bunch of Al Qaeda fighters obliged us by hiding in one area where there were no civilians and we could just bomb the crap out of them to our hearts content. And that situation was created only because of military pressure.

**Really? How come they’re still around, then?
**

Because we are still fighting. What, you think we can just snap our fingers? This takes work.

Actually, he did a lot. After the first WTC attack, the perpetrators went to prison, and are still there today.

Why do I keep hearing this from so many people? Clinton got all but the leader. And guess where he ended up, with a monthly salary to boot?

**He also thwarted attempts to kill the Pope, blow up 12 U.S airliners; attack the UN Headquarters, the FBI bulding, the Israeli emabassy in Washington, the LA and Boston airports, the Lincoln and Holland tunnels, and the G. Washington bridge. Personally, I think preventing terror attacks is better than letting them happen and then bombing random countries in retaliation. **

It’s not retaliation so much as eliminating the threat. You can’t win playing defense. By all accounts, Clinton did an adequate job of playing defense. Of course, if bin Laden can just take unlimited shots, eventually he would hit us.

He also passed anti-terrorism legislation and issued a directive to assasinate Bin Laden. And all that with the Republicans bitterly fighting him every step of the way.

Some Republicans, especially partisan ones. Most Republicans supported him on foreign affairs, although Republicans did disagree with him on his little Patriot Act, and I did too. The worst possible anti-terrorism policy is one that gets tough with Americans but not foreign enemies. And boy, was Clinton tough on American citizens. More marijuana arrests than under any other President, Waco, Elian… Wish he’d shown that much resolve against Kim, Hussein, and bin Laden.

Minty Green, although you are technically correct, you phrased your statement in a rather disingenous manner. Counting only civilian personnel? And only counting attacks directly linked to Al Qaeda, and not groups connected with them?

29

It can be argued that these sorts of extremist woudl exist no mwtter what. What the various historical grievances provide is a platform that allows for the recruitment of new nefarious individuals. In addition to various socio-political conditions that are often found in terrorist plagued area, there must also be a way to sell participation in the enterprise.

30

Congressional Reports: Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities before and after the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001

(.pdf )

31

Ha, ha. Oh, I see - you criticize Clinton for not eradicating Al Qaeda, but when Bush fails, it’s “different”, huh? You know what kills me? Clinton-bashers love to point out that he had 8 years to get rid of Al Qaeda, while Bush has only had 3+ years. But the same people always cite examples of terrorism that happened gradually throughout Clinton’s term, including the USS Cole attack, which happened in the LAST YEAR of Clinton’s presidency. I’m pretty sure he didn’t have a time machine, so how exactly did he have 8 years to respond to that? Yet Bush came into office with the full knowledge of everything that had happened up to that point, and still dropped the ball.

Uh, 'cuz it’s true?

cite?

How was Clinton’s order to assasinate bin Laden “defense”? And what is better about Bush’s policy? So far he has waged full-out war on 2 countries, yet Osama is still alive, and terrorism continues. Clinton’s plan (which Bush ignored when he took office) was to take out Al Qaeda. Iraq had very little to do with Al Qaeda. It’s just barking up the wrong tree.

Not what I heard…

Well if that’s true I’ll agree with you. It’s silly to waste time on that, although I don’t see what it has to do with the subject at hand.

32

You’re kidding yourself. He barely held his head above water over Bosnia before his political career as President went down the tubes, and that was preventing ONGOING GENOCIDE. Hsi missle strike in Sudan was a disaster: bad intelligence meant a worthless strike, and he took so much heat for it that he was wary of taking the two shots he had to kill Osama (though we certainly don’t know whether or not killing Osama would have prevented 9/11: for all we know, it could have made things worse as even more zealots decided to have a big revenge blowout sale), given that both promised to include up to hundreds of civilian deaths, and no certain promise that Osama would really be there or die.

By the time of the embassy bombings and Cole, he was the lamest lame duck President in decades, and he was widely attacked for even his minor strikes back: wagging the dog, wagging the dog. So they left it for the Bush administration, saying that they didn’t think they could start something so big if they wouldn’t be around to to finish it. Maybe that was just an excuse for lack of will. But the fact is, the new Bush administration did nothing. They didn’t retaliate for the Cole bombing, as exiting Clinton officials and Clarke urged them to do. Missle defense was their primary policy focus in regards to military operations. They cut funding for counterterrorism efforts, pulled back military forces, and disengaged from the Congressional and Clinton administration processes that had just recently completed and all concluded that we needed to strike back right away, quickly reorganize our intelligence forces. The Bush administration decided that it needed to start these processes all over again for itself. As of Sept. 9, their big plan after months and months of begging by people like Clarke to pay more attention to the problem, was to send money to the Northern Alliance. On Sept. 10, Cheny’s chief of staff told Senator Feinstein that it would be another six months until they were ready to act on recommendations to do more. She told them that she didn’t think we had that long. She was right.

And because Afghanistan is a radically different operational situation than Iraq. Which just goes to show that blanket statements like “military action works” are worse than useless.