Did the U.S. government drop the ball prior to 9/11?

[XT]

Lets address blowero’s regurgatation (for the umpteenth time) of the same ole tired tripe:

@blowero from Time article

1. (Clinton’s National Security Adviser Sandy Berger) attended only one of the briefings-the session that dealt with the threat posed to the U.S. by international terrorism, and especially by al-Qaeda. “I’m coming to this briefing,” he says he told Rice, “to underscore how important I think this subject is.” Later, alone in his office with Rice, Berger says he told her, “I believe that the Bush Administration will spend more time on terrorism generally, and on al-Qaeda specifically, than any other subject.”

What does this mean to you, blowero? To me, it means little or nothing, and certainly doesn’t indicate WHY Bush should either listen raptly OR why he shouldn’t re-evaluate the situation himself and formulate his own plans.

Lets break it down (again)…maybe this time you will actually address my arguements instead of simply regurgatating this stuff again. As an aside, and no insult intended…do you ever have an original thought? All my stuff, whether its stupid tripe as you obviously think it is, is mine…my thoughts and my logic. Where is blowero? All I’ve seen are attacks and posting the same shit over and over from one source. Anyway…

So, Sandy Berger is going to the meeting to underscore how important terrorism is. And later, that the Bush administration would spend more time on terrorism, and AQ specifically. And this means exactly…nothing. Sandy Berger thinks terrorism is important, and that Bush et al will spend a lot of time on it. Why exactly should this stunning revelation make Bush et al stand up and say “I see the light!! Yes, we SHOULD just following Clintons plans and policies, and even escalate them!!”? Unless of course that, because its Sandy Berger, and anything that falls from the mouth of Sandy Berger must be gosspel according to the lord, of course.

@blowero from Time article

2. Since the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole in Yemen on Oct. 12, 2000-an attack that left 17 Americans dead – he [Clinton] had been working on an aggressive plan to take the fight to al-Qaeda. The result was a strategy paper that he had presented to Berger and the other national security “principals” on Dec. 20.

Ok…obviously there was concern about terrorism in Clintons camp. Another huge revalation here. And Clinton had forumlated plans HE thought should be used to ‘take the fight to AQ’. Wow. Again this means…nothing. CLINTON thought it was a good idea…but Clinton wasn’t president anymore. In addition, in spite of what Clinton was doing, the Cole was obviously attacked (not blaming Clinton here btw…just needed to say that, as you seem to have trouble following along sometimes). So…exactly WHY did Bush HAVE to follow Clintons plan exactly? Why was it unreasonable for Bush to want to do his OWN evaluation of the terrorist situation, and make his own plans, policies and proceedures? Want to take a shot at actually addressing this, or will you simply cite the Time article again? How about something from blowero instead?

@blowero from Time article

3. [Berger] set up a series of 10 briefings by his team for his successor, Condoleezza Rice, and her deputy, Stephen Hadley.

Yes yes…and Rice only went to 2 of them. What exactly does this MEAN to you, blowero? To me, its ambiguous. Maybe, having attended the first two, Rice felt that all Berger was discussing was policy and strategy, and she knew that Bush and his team planned on re-evaluating the situation themselves and forming their own opinion of the situation and what should be done? I have no idea…and more importantly, neither do you. You are simply giving the best possible spin/motives to Berger, and the worst to Rice, where the data isn’t clear one way or the other.

@blowero from Time article

4. Berger: “I’m coming to this briefing,” he says he told Rice, “to underscore how important I think this subject is.”

You even regurgatated this TWICE in this one post. Sigh. It must REALLY mean something to you. Want to take a shot at why you think this piece of ‘evidence’ is vital?? To me, it merely says Berger thought it was important enough to bring his precious self to the meeting. That doesn’t mean it WAS important, just that HE thought it was. Why don’t YOU, blowero, actually post YOUR thoughts on why YOU think this is so vital, hmm?

@blowero from Time article

5. Clarke’s proposals:

-“breakup” of al-Qaeda cells and the arrest of their personnel.

• the financial support for its terrorist activities would be systematically attacked, its assets frozen, its funding from fake charities stopped.

-nations where al-Qaeda was causing trouble-Uzbekistan, the Philippines, Yemen-would be given aid to fight the terrorists.

• dramatic increase in covert action in Afghanistan to “eliminate the sanctuary” where al-Qaeda had its terrorist training camps and bin Laden was being protected by the radical Islamic Taliban regime.

This is all strategic stuff blowero. This is what Clarke and Clinton’s adminstration thinks Bush should DO. You still haven’t explained WHY Bush should do these things and not evaluate the situation himself and decide what HE thinks HE should do man. After all, HE is the president now. Again (not that I’m holding out hope here it will get through this time either), unless there is evidence that there is an iminent threat, why SHOULDN’T Bush review the whole terrorist question, and form his OWN policies and such?? Why is that unreasonable? Want to take a shot at answering this question instead of regurgatating this same thing? Want to give me YOUR thoughts for a change on why my position here is so ‘stupid, dense, conservative/republican’ blah blah blah?

@blowero from Time article

6. Clinton made bin Laden a high priority, but wasn’t able to get him: "By early 2000, Clinton was becoming infuriated by the lack of intelligence on bin Laden’s movements. ‘We’ve got to do better than this,’ he scribbled on one memo. ‘This is unsatisfactory.’ (Does that sound like someone who “wasn’t giving it much thought”?)

Ok, so Clinton thought ObL was a high priority. Reasonable. How does this factor in the equation for you? He obviously didn’t know exactly HOW much of a threat ObL was…or if he did, nothing you’ve shown so far conveys this. It also doesn’t, again, say why it was so stupid of Bush to want to do his own analysis of the terrorist situation, make his own determination about ObL, form his own policies, etc. NOTHING would either…except knowing that there was an iminent threat to the US homeland…which neither man (nor administration) knew. Ok, thats my take. Whats yours? What does blowero think? Why not actually address this instead of simply dumping the same ole shit in your next post?

@blowero

But of course this and more has already been covered ad infinitum. What’s really cracking me up is that you continue to act completely obtuse to the hard evidence that rjung is posting, then when he points these things out over and over, and you are obtuse over and over, you accuse him of being “obsessed”.

Hard evidence. What a laugh. Like the above? Instead of calling me ‘obtuse’, why not try something radical? Why not actually attempt to address what I’m saying? Not cite someone else’s thoughts. Not simply regurgatating from the one source you’ve used so far for this. Why don’t YOU, blowero, actually address the actual problems you have with what I wrote. Take the 6 points above and explain to me why I’m being so ‘obtuse’ to think what I’m thinking. Take some of the other points I’ve made above and actually address them…instead of attacking me. Instead of trying to be witty and snide (you don’t do it well anyway), why not be calm and actually address the ISSUES I’m bringing up…calmly without personal attack or sneering language? Why not…just this once…give it a shot?

@blowero

Another weak argument. You’re saying that because Clinton didn’t “scream to the press”, that proves he wasn’t concerned with terrorism. I’m almost speechless; that’s such an absurd argument, I can scarcely believe you would seriously post such a thing. I could write a whole page on this, but just briefly, a former president would not “scream to the press” because his successor did not implement his policies; that is, unless he’s a total idiot. And I don’t think Clinton’s a total idiot. You don’t fight terrorism by screaming to the press.

Hey hey! This seems to be a blowero original!! Excellent! I’m saying that, if Clinton KNEW that there was a direct and iminent attack coming (he was president after all…he would have known if the US knew), they why DIDN’T he go to the press? How is this weak? You do good attacking me here, but you don’t address the WHY. By all means WRITE a whole page explaining it to me…in your own thoughts and words (for a change).

My premise here (that I’ve said at least 4 other times), to give you something to actually address, is that Clinton didn’t go to the press because he did NOT, in fact, have any knowledge of an iminent attack againt the US homeland. He had concerns about terrorism, no doubt about it (and they turned out to be right too, no doubt about that)…but nothing tangable for why Bush shouldn’t re-evaluate the terrorist situation on his own and form his own plans. Periodic attacks against the US interests abroad wouldn’t be good enough to prevent a new president from wanting to do his own thing about terrorism.

Also, Clinton wouldn’t be human if he wasn’t hurt a bit because Bush chose to go this route. But if Clinton KNEW that there was an iminent attack, and he KNEW Bush was making a critical mistake that would cost the US big time, then ya…I think he WOULD have gone to the press. If he wouldn’t, then he doesn’t deserve ANY respect at all.

Actually have to break this into three parts. sigh.

-XT

[XT]

Appearently you have better things to do, rjung, than to actually attempt to address what I’m saying too. Well, if this long ass, three part post by me doesn’t kill the thread, I don’t know what will.

@blowero

Here’s the problem: The Bush admin didn’t do it themselves. What they did was basically Jack shit. They sat on their butts for 8 months.

Here’s the problem…you’ve done basically jack shit in proving this. Its your assertion so…cite? Your own article says they in fact WERE doing things about terrorism (at the same time they were doing a whole bunch of other things). So, if you don’t want to go with that, please cite some information showing that the ‘sat on their butts for 8 months’ doing absolutely nothing the whole time about terrorism. That they didn’t do an evaluation of the terrorist situation. That they didn’t begin formulating plans to deal with terrorism generally, and AQ specifically. I’ll paraphrase a response you gave me in another thread, blowero: “Back up your assertion or stfu”. Remember that? Well, back it up bro.

@blowero

Uh, you have that exactly backwards. BUSH “fiddled while Rome burned”. Your desire to blame Clinton apparently knows no bounds. What would you have Clinton do? Stage a coup and take over the government from Bush?

This is a serious question here, blowero…do you have reading comprehension problems? Try reading what I SAID, not what you want to hear. I was saying that IF Clinton, in fact did know about an iminent threat and did NOT say anything, THEN he’d be seen as ‘fiddling while Rome burned’. Since I do NOT think Clinton DID have prior solid knowledge of an iminent threat, I, in fact, do NOT think he WAS to blame. Now, unless YOU are saying that in fact Clinton DID have prior and solid knowledge of a direct threat to the US homeland, but chose not to go to the press (where do you get the coup thing from anyway? Are you stable?? Again, serious question here, as the most logical thing would be for him to simply go to the press, no??)…in THAT case, then ya…I would think pretty bad of ole Clinton. Is that your assertion??

I’ve never TRIED to blame Clinton blowero. If you think I have…cite? You keep wanting to pigeon hole me into a rabid Clinton hater (as well as numerous and offensive OTHER pigeon holes as well)…but I voted for the man the second time around my friend (I voted Perot the first time if you care). In fact, I do NOT blame him (saying this for the umpteenth time in this thread…maybe THIS time it will sink in? Naw…) for 9/11, nor the Cole, nor the various embassy bombings, nor WTC in '93. Get it?

@blowero

What the fuck are you talking about? Clinton isn’t screaming now. He was never screaming. Let’s just imagine for a second that Clinton did “scream to the press”, whatever the hell that means. Bush supporters would have bitched about it to high heaven, and you know it. Republicans would have gotten their collective panties so wadded up, it would have taken the Jaws-of-Life to cut 'em out. You’re just grasping at straws. You don’t have any evidence to refute what we’re saying, so you’re just making up completely absurd scenarios. How sad.

My bad then…I assumed this came from something like the former administration (when I say ‘Clinton’ or ‘Bush’ it means more than the man btw, unless I specify JUST the man…it means them and their advisors/administration). If I’m wrong about this and in fact they have NOT come out blaming the administration…well, doesn’t that say something about your arguement blowero? Reguardless, I retract the statement, as it was an assumption on my part.

As to no ‘evidence’…pot, meet kettle blowero.

@blowero

Oh, sure - Bush, Mr. Unilateral, was waiting for a mandate. That’s rich.

Another sound bite reply I see. To address this with a bit more, as I usually do, Bush didn’t HAVE much of a mandate…until AFTER 9/11. He was a VERY weak president, having barely squeeked by the election. Prior to 9/11 I would have bet anything he’d be a one term non-entity as a president. There is no way in hell he could or would have done MOST of the things he’s done since 9/11 had the event never occured. And if you didn’t hate the man so much, if you had the ability to step back and be objective, you would never have even said this sound bite. Now, want to take an actual shot at addressing what I was saying here? Here, I’ll be a pal and reprint it for you…maybe you could, you know, actually say something here. Give it a shot.

@blowero

2. That it was reasonable for a new president to want to take a step back and review things himself, make his own policy and strategy decisions and evaluate the situation before committing himself and the country to a drastic course of action. Further, the highly unusual nature of Bush’s election and the VERY narrow margin by which he won didn’t exactly give him a mandate from the people to do anything radical either. This action is in no way unsual for a new president, and only become grave in light of later events on 9/11.

@blowero

excuses, excuses…
This is what the Time article says:
“The proposals Clarke developed in the winter of 2000-01 were not given another hearing by top decision makers until late April, and then spent another four months making their laborious way through the bureaucracy before they were readied for approval by President Bush.”
It wasn’t “4 months before Bush and co had finished their own evaluation”, as you claim, it was 4 months before they even STARTED looking at it.

Reason reason. Wow, Clarke’s proposal wasn’t given another hearing until April which was…all of 4 months after Bush took over. Then it took ANOTHER whole 4 months to move through the bureaucracy. Ya, you are right. Moved at a snails pace, that. This is Washington we are talking about here blowero. Excuses? Try a reality break, mano.

And thats EXACTLY what I claimed…that it was 4 months why they evaluated terrorism and began formulating plans, but that the plans still weren’t in place by September…and we all know what happened then. And you find this unreasonable for Washington and a project that there was really no sense of urgency (at the time) on?? I find it amazing that them moved that quickly on it to be honest. At a guess, they probably weren’t planning on even beginning to implement the thing until the following year…maybe even year 2 of the presidency, after Bush had more of a handle on things (and so folks would remember what Bush did against terrorism, with lots of flags and banners for the re-election campaign). Thats how things WORK blowero, in Washington. Hell, from your own Time article, a preditor drone sat unused for nearly a year WHILE Clinton was in office, because of bureaucratic bullshit…its the way it IS, when the US is at peace man!! Its not Bush, its not Clinton…its AMERICA!!

@blowero

I disagree.

lol…want to elaborate some? WHY do you disagree? Let me bring up what you were disagreeing with.

@xtisme

I don’t see how this constitutes ‘doing nothing’ as has been asserted constantly. This seems a reasonable course of action to me, based on what they knew at the time, afaik

Ok, so WHY is this NOT a reasonable course of action, blowero? Please elaborate.

@blowero

Well the word of administration insiders who say that it was not a high priority for Bush kind of puts the lie to that assertion. And like I said, I’m pretty sure you wildly misinterpreted what rjung was saying. And I know people frown on spelling corrections, but please, it’s spelled SUPER. I just can’t bear to see you spell it wrong so many times. So go ahead and flame to your heart’s content; it’s worth it if you’ll stop writing “sooper”.

You are too funny. I spelled it ‘sooper secret’ because thats how YOU guys in the anti-war crowd spelled it (and rjung spelled it JUSt like that in a tread…sweet irony) in the various Iraq war threads whenever the pro-war guys would try and say “Well, we don’t know everything thats going on as far as WMD goes because the information is secret”. THATS why I laughed so hard when rjung resorted to it…irony, you get it? Ya, my spelling sucks in english (and I always forget to spell check) but I DO know how to spell super my friend.

As to ‘putting a lie’, what lie? Did I say the Bush administration did NOT, in fact, lower the priority of terrorism? I’m pretty sure I did…several times. What I said was, that they must not have lowered it TOO much if they had the evaluation done in 4 months of Bush taking office, and (possibly?) ready to begin implementation 4 months after that. I know, I know…YOU think this is incredibly slow. To me, this is light speed in Washington.

@blowero

No, they didn’t say that. They said it might not have done anything. At any rate, such conjecture truly is an example of the “20/20 hindsight” thing you keep parroting.

You are saying that ‘Bush dropped the ball’ blowero. How do you judge that, then? Bush dropped the ball because he didn’t go with Clinton’s plan? He dropped the ball because he chose to do his own thing and pretty much disreguard Clintons stuff? Why is that dropping the ball? Because of 9/11 I assume is your thinking. The implication is that IF Bush had of simply gone along with Clintons plans, policies, proceedures and future actions, he would NOT have dropped the ball…because 9/11 wouldn’t have happened. If not, then what difference did it make?? If Bush had of done exactly what Clinton advocated and 9/11 STILL happened, then would he STILL have dropped the ball as far as you are concerned? Why? Why not? Well, tell it in your own words then. Bush dropped the ball because…

@blowero

Yes, we all saw that part. But you’re just obfuscating now. We need to get back to the point. You hijacked my thread with your false assertion that Clinton did nothing to combat terrorism. But in fact, Clinton did a lot. You keep trying to misdirect away from what Clinton did vs. what Bush did with your “what ifs” and your “but x,y,z happened on Clinton’s watch”. I will keep saying this until it sinks in: We’re not discussing what terrorist events happened per se; we’re discussing what Clinton did to combat terrorism vs. what Bush did. That was your hijack, and I’m not gonna let you weasel out of it now that the facts are turning against you.

When did I ever say ‘Clinton did nothing’?? Cite? What I SAID was, Clinton was ineffective and Bush was ineffective. Those are two different things. My main point was, Clinton didn’t have a clue that AQ was operating in the US, nor that there was a plot for a direct attack IN the US. Clintons plans of escalation were to go after terrorists money and escalate the conflict in Afghanistan with what I presume were to be military strikes of some kind and aid to the Northern Alliance.

Its YOU who are obfuscating here blowero. btw, it wasn’t MY hijack, bro. Look back grasshopper, and if you see somewhere where I tried to say it was all Clintons fault, etc, cite it for me to refresh my memory. Going back and looking, maybe you will actually read what I wrote…a forlorn hope, I’m sure, but maybe.

Try addressing what I’m saying. Its part of my logic train. If Clinton DIDN’T know about AQ and an iminent attack, there was no way to pass that along to Bush, reguardless of how many meetings they had or didn’t have. If Bush DIDN’T know that there was a threat of an iminent attack, then it WASN’T unreasonable for him to take a step back and do his own thing as far as evaluating terrorism and deciding what to do about it and when to do it. There WAS no sense of urgency. Want to take a stab at what I’m actually saying in all this, i.e. WHY, this is incorrect? Want to take a stab at WHY Bush HAD to go along with Clinton’s plans if he did NOT know there was an iminent attack? Want to take a shot at WHY Bush SHOULD have felt a sense of urgency, based on what we know (i.e. that there had been periodic but sporatic attacks against US FORIEGN interests, however there hadn’t been an attack on the US homeland since '93, and there was no evidence presented that there WAS an iminent attack against America)?

@blowero

I’m not sure how that could have prevented 9/11, since those are things that occurred after 9/11, but if I understand you correctly, I think we’re in agreement. Iraq was a foolish sidetrack that did nothing to deal with the real problem.

It wasn’t a ‘foolish sidetrack’…it was a major fuckup IMO, and completely stupid. What I’m saying is, that IF Bush had of gone along with Clintons plans, and IF he had of chosen to escalate things against AQ and Afghanistan early in his presidency (something brought up in the Time article), then it MIGHT have worked. ONe of the reasons it MIGHT have worked is we wouldn’t have been distracted by Iraq and could have concentrated on ObL and AQ completely. However, I don’t see this as a viable ‘what if’ scenerio because of all the reasons I gave. There WAS no direct attack on the US to rile the people. There WAS no solid evidence of an iminent threat to the US that Bush could have taken to the people to initiate what would have been basically a shooting war with Afghanistan.

Without those things, I don’t see any way Bush would have gotten approval for doing such a thing…even if he wanted to take the political risks to attempt it, which I seriously doubt (he didn’t exactly have a mandate from the people, blowero, as you very well know after the fiasco that was the election). To the people at the time, ‘terrorists’ and ‘AQ’ were sort of nebulous threats out there in the wilderness…intangable worries, not exactly off the US radar scope (I’m talking the people here btw), but not exactly at the top of the list. We were in a resession at the time, the dot com bubble had burst and folks were losing their jobs left and right…we had other things on our minds then, and I seriously doubt a shooting war or even an escalation of the conflict against terrorism would have gone over big. That all changed when AQ directly attacked us on 9/11. THATS what riled folks up and pushed them to Bush and ALLOWED him to do the various things he’s done since.

Reguards,
XT

[blowero]

xtisme:

Long ass post here blowero…all in response to your last few posts. Seems its just you and me, least when I started this post it was. Last post for me if you don’t actually attempt to address my points, instead of trying to be witty and sarcastic and snotty, and simply attack me. Mind you, I don’t MIND witty, sarcastic and snotty (I do it myself) IF you actually address my points, and write something of substance.

Correction. It’s just you. If, after all this, you’re going to accuse me of not addressing your points, after the EXCRUCIATING detail I went to, and after all the things I had to repeat over and over because you acted oblivious to them, then I’m not going to bother anymore. It obviously doesn’t matter what I say, you will continue to spout the same nonsense as if nothing happened. It doesn’t matter how much evidence we present, you will ignore it all. No matter how diligent your opponent is in providing cites and valid reasoning, you unvaryingly spout your mantra - “prove it”. It’s obvious that we could prove things an infinite number of times, and you would still say “prove it.” I guess the capper was when you insisted that because Clinton didn’t “scream to the media” after he left office, it proves he didn’t think there was a threat. That’s about the silliest thing I’ve ever heard. Such tortured reasoning is what passes for evidence in your mind, yet you ignore real evidence. I may have more patience than rjung, but I have my limits, too. You are the alpha and omega of obtuseness.