You mean the 9-11 he failed to prevent even after Clinton warning him about it, and his own people warning him about it? Yeah, sorry, no sympathy for the devil…
It would be unfair if they had taken the threat of terrorism seriously from the beginning, and had still been unable to prevent the attack.
But they didn’t. The Clinton team told them that terrorism would be the biggest threat they’d have to worry about, and it wasn’t like the Bush team hadn’t heard about the bombings of our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, and the USS Cole bombing in late 2000.
But they decided that whatever Clinton did, they wanted to do something different, so they didn’t bother thinking about terrorism, ignoring the infamous August 6, 2001 PDB (“Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.”) - as Bush apparently said to the guy who delivered the PDB, “OK, you’ve covered your ass.”
I think it was quite preventable. The main obstacles were information that was either (a) stovepiped, or (b) being blocked from flowing upward to decision-makers. The sort of approach that Clinton and Gore applied to the threat of the Millennium bombings had an excellent chance of overcoming both problems.
Note that I said “excellent chance,” not “certainty.” Even if Gore had won the election, the attack still might well have worked. We’ll never know whether a Gore Administration would have been able to prevent it, because Gore lost the election. And we’ll never know whether a Bush Administration that took the pretty obvious upswing of terrorist capabilities seriously would have been able to prevent it, because they didn’t try.
And the reason I continue to hold them accountable is that they didn’t try. Even when warned in general but strong terms by both the Clinton Administration on the way out the door, and warned in very clear terms on August 6, 2001.
So yeah, I hold them culpable. They deserve it.
Yes it was.
Facts are facts, dude. Ideology shouldn’t play a role.
How many jobs were created? How much did middle class incomes go up? How much poverty was removed? How many people had access to health care? How many public works projects were done? How much did the deficit go up needlessly?
We were talking about when Bush entered office, not when he left it. You may have wanted to link here, but it sounds like this period wasn’t technically a recession.
Twisting the Geneva Accords to allow the kidnap & trial without detention of suspects around the world, that’s pretty bad. Of course, Obama’s still doing that. But we can hold W responsible for the precedent.
Wait, are you saying that Bill Clinton knew it would happen on 9-11? Why didn’t he go onto national television and tell people about it? He would certainly have had a venue, I’m sure.
How did Clinton get his intelligence that it would be on 9-11, and that it would be by those airlines? Couldn’t those intelligence sources have told W?
Or, was it just some mystical ramblings about something going to happen somewhere and it would be big???
hh
W. Bush did in fact receive warnings from intelligence sources that terrorists might be planning on using airplanes. He also was warned by the outgoing administration that Al Qaeda was a very serious and probably imminent threat.
I make only 10% more than I did in 2000. Great prosperity there.
On edit: why don’t you back up this whole post Curtis and give us cites for all of it…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_2000s_recession#United_States
It is considered a recession.
Then why didn’t Clinton actually send in a commando team rather than just lob missiles? Its not as if Gore would have been elected he’d have slayed Bin Laden.
If Gore had been elected he almost certainly wouldn’t have left the guys at Tora Bora hanging so he could focus on the nonsense war in Iraq.
As for Clinton lobbing missiles, he used them where he thought they could do good. Putting soldiers in the field is a big deal, I certainly trust his judgement on the issue more than yours.
How would the deadlock against Iraq over WMDs have turned out then? There are those who think that Gore would have invaded Iraq just later after gaining international support.
He had no problem putting troops in Bosnia, Somalia, and Kosovo although none of them posed a danger to America unlike OBL>
Oh, from the Coalition of the Willing, I guess I did forget Poland. Bull and Shit. We never would have gotten the UK on board if it weren’t for W’s winning smile.
Yes, and being part of an international coalition fighting war crimes is different than sending soldiers in to bust up a training camp.
The world isn’t as simple as conservatives like to think it is. Unilateral invasions cause problems.
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Except that Milosevic did not pose a threat to American soil and citizens while Bin Laden did.
Well Obama certainly doesn’t mind it too much.
And Iraq had as much to do with bin Laden as it did with Milosevic.
Bush didn’t invade Iraq to go after Osama bin Laden. He invaded Iraq instead of going after Osama bin Laden.
Obama was the one who got us back on the trail of the guy who attacked the United States.
What?! You still think Iraq had WMDs?!
Pretty successfully. Iraq didn’t have WMDs. We wouldn’t have invaded Iraq. All those American soldiers wouldn’t have died. All those Iraqis wouldn’t have died. The resources we wasted in Iraq might have been used against Osama bin Laden and he might have been killed years ago.
Just give up. Curtis is a true believer, and will never have his mind changed, and will give no consideration to contrary evidence nor acknowledge any facts that don’t fit into his jingoistic conservative world view, no matter how often they’re repeated, no matter how many cites are provided.
With regard to WMD in Iraq, conservatives need to continue to assert it. Do you think they like being reminded that we invaded (and destroyed) a sovereign nation under completely false pretense? They’re afraid that one day, someone with a backbone will be willing to pursue prosecution of those who committed this wholly unjustifiable and illegal act, further, and perhaps irreparably, damaging the conservative brand.
Besides, if you never admit you’ve made any mistakes, you don’t have to learn anything from them.
No I did not mean that. I meant the crisis with Iraq over the alledged existence of WMDs.