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Administration Ignored Bin Laden Intel
gettin-bored noted a nice article running in very high priority on the Washington Post, right up there on page 17 of the print edition, where it's revealed that the CIA Director warned Rice about Bin Laden two months before 9/11. And strangely, the meeting was never mentioned during all the 9/11 commission reports making you really question what exactly they were actually hearing that was more important than the CIA director telling the National Security Advisor that Bin Laden was going to attack Americans.
The fundamental problem is that the current White house administration is not remotely curious or interested in looking beyond their narrowly defined agendas. So, any deviation from what they expect is by definition, unexpected or inconvenient. This is a recurring theme again and again with hurricane Katrina, Iraq, Afghanistan, Bin Laden, the economy, energy prices, the whole torture thing and recently with senator Foley, where higher ups *knew* what was going on but they either failed to act or simply did not care as long as they can maintain power. Power for powers sake seems to be the theme here as this administration is always behind the ball. They are constantly reacting to events rather than through analysis and action being proactive and it is costing the country financially and in lives lost as well as our international reputation.
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Uh, WTF does this have to do with "News for Nerds"?
Don't get me wrong, I'm a Green Party-voting liberal, but I don't see how this is even remotely in line with the supposed purpose of this site. I mean, do we really need another ten thousand Bush-bashing posts?
--saint
> Does anyone feel as though your life is being controlled by government officials who do not give a damn about you?
Don't worry; you'll matter when you become a billionaire.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
I was going to use my mod points to mod you up but I decided to add a comment instead.
Although I have my own feelings about Bush's administration, I have to say that your description about their "policies" is nothing new. Recently I read "Overthrow - America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq" which lists 14 countries where the USA was instrumental in ousting the legitimately elected government over the last 120 years. What I got from reading this book was not so much that the "OMG the USA is EVIL!!!!" but that sucessive goverments over that span of time all made pretty well the same arguments for doing something, but had no regards for the consequences. The book ended with Iraq, and you could just feel the approaching train wreck eerily predicted by every other previous forced regime change.
Bush & Co's screw ups may be bad, but the USA's continual making of the same mistakes is in my opinion far worse. And I think this goes all the way back to the 19th Century and the Monroe doctrine and the idea of manifest destiny.
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I'm sorry but to me, a blowjob will never, ever compare to the value of thousands of American lives, or 100s of thousands of foreign lives. If "slick" implies good at pulling the wool over people's eyes, I think Bush has succeeded Clinton in every way imaginable.
That's why so many government officials can truly say they don't recall seeing the "smoking gun" document since it never came across their desk.
It's just a lie. Don't rationalize the lies.
That's why they can just blame it a few levels lower. I didn't know they were torturing...
Well, yes I did try to get the torture bill passed, but I didn't think we'd actually USE it.
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Post anything remotely conservative, and be modded into troll oblivion.
Poor conservatives. If only you had the House.. Or the Senate.. Or the Judiciary... Or the Presidency...
Poor little conservatives, always beaten down by the brutal media.
*sniffle*
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It wouldn't have mattered if they saw it or not. It didn't say anything about what happened on 9/11.
At best, it says bin laden from 2 or more years ago wanted to strike the US inside it's borders, Some of his operatives are US citizens and have traveled in or though the US, there are 70 investigation going on by the FBI suggesting more information would become availible and they were monitoring it, It gives a few misleading potential targets, referes to a foiled attempted attack on LAX by the candian government, and suggest if a plane was hijacked, it would be to hold hostages for the release of two operatives and not to use as a missle and destroy several buildings.
Smoking gun? Only if you read into it what you know today. But if you objectivly look at it from what was known then, how would you read it? How would you have know that event on 9/11 was going to happen and how could you have stoped it. Remeber, don't answer with anything known after 9/11 to be honest. But if you ask the Question "did you get a report claiming 9/11 was going to happen 2 months before 9/11?" you could probably reply with hoestly and say "no". I'm not saying that more wasn't known but if what we know that was known is true, it didn't offer much of anything on the predictability of 9/11.
Now as this is related to the July 10th 2001 meeting between Tenet and Rice concerning a June 30th 2001 report that was a consolidation of "bits and pieces" of inteligence sent to the NSA for verification and analisis, that the article, though Tenet's own admisions, claims he and the document didn't say much of anything specific other then it is likley Al Qeada and Bin Ladin are up to something and he had a gut feeling it was going to be big and soon. Then Augast 6th 2001 the refernced document "Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in US," was submited to the presidential daily briefing.
What this shows to me is, that people were doing something about our security, they were analizing the facts and informing the people needing to make the decisions, but we didn't know how to act as Tenet would have liked on the information because it didn't tell us what was going to happen.
And the article did state a plan take out bin laden and Al Qeada leaders was in the works but stalled on technicle details and would take some time to work out. Curriously, I'm wondering why they couldn't use one of Clintons left over plans that should have already had the details worked out. I doubt just taking bin ladin and Al Qeada leaders out would have stoped or disrupted 9/11 though. The plan was too long in the making and too close to execution. I think this might be a political astro-turffing article designed to gain favor for republicans and motivate them to the polls this election cycle. It shows how dificult it was to determin what Al Qeada were upto and it shows that the government was actualy doing something, just not enough because the information wasn't there. I'm sure democrates will try to use the slant on this to make republicans look bad but repulican voters tend to look at all the information and see the entire picture so it is sure to infuriate them enough to show up.
Every administration, before they lose control of the executive branch, meets with the incoming administration. They also give the newcomers detailed information on their current policies and plans. The incoming administration usually tosses these in the trash and create their own policies. They can't create them all overnight, so they create them in priority. The Bush administration was not interested at all in "foreign entanglements" and, thus, everything to do with foreign policy took a back seat to domestic policies.
So, you see, both of those statements can, and are likely to be, correct.
This is real news, but not surprising news. The Bush administration had not interest in anything besides tax cuts and other domestic policies when they took office. They ignored foreign affairs, to the entire world's detriment.
Maybe if those poor conservatives had actually, y'know, posted a cogent argument instead of whining how liberal /. is, the comment would be a +5? Not to mention the point that if you have all 3 of the branches of government, who the fuck cares about how conservative /. may or may not be? Really, if it's too touchy-feely for you here, go to the Stormfront forums.
And one more thing: One of the main reasons conservatives get so much shit, especially here, is because they're using the same damn whiny arguments they've been using for decades. Unfortunately, times do change, and the cognitive dissonance is just ridiculous.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
Bush's mistake is still going and has taken thousands of American lives with no end in sight, countless numbers of Iraqi lives, and billions of dollars. What's the current cost, 1-2 billion a day? Is it really worth it? Didn't less people die in the unfortunate 9/11 incidents than have did in Iraq so far? Is this an appropriate response? Are we actually "winning" any war on terrorism by military destabilization, rather than education and assisting these people? I'd like to think that 300-400 billion dollars in aid every year could produce one hell of a better civilization for a 3rd world nation, rather than killing people and blowing things up, but that's just me.
When you're going to bomb a building, you should make sure you have the right intel. I'm not %100 sure but I think the building was bombed when there weren't many people inside (or a minimal amount) so the casualties weren't large. It's an appropriate response to a bad intel, which until the thing was actually bombed enough people thought it was a legitimate threat. (and honestly, there's no proof it wasn't making chemicals that could produce nerve agents, and there was still a very good chance it was supply the bin Laden group with money, which makes it a decent target anyway if you're actually fighting a "war on terror")
When you invade a country, depose their leader, destabilize the entire region, torture citizens and attempt to convert an entire nation to your form of government and social expectations in a small amount of time, I think you need to be absolutely sure of what you're doing and absolutely have your facts straight. It's a much larger idea. If Bush had decided to bomb all of the sites in Iraq that may or may not have had "WMD's", and just left things alone, I believe that the entire world would have supported his decision, even if a few of them were inaccurate. (they can probably dig up enough circumstantial evidence to attempt to prove that there was something sinister going on at a few sites, but perhaps not all). Instead, Bush went the extra mile of righteousness, and invaded the entire country under a very weak pretext. I don't care how Republican or Democrat you are, this should be a Very Bad Thing. Especially now that we know there was very little to no threat from Iraq in the near future.
This should not be about any ignorant partisan politics. People are currently dying, there's no end in sight, and people want to turn things into a "blowjobs vs. bombs" debate.
What a wonderful country. I've never felt more ashamed to be American.
Yes, but why are Right Wingers given fair time on NPR(talk of the nation features many prominent conservatives, plus Wait wait features PJ O'Rouke, then again, that's not so damning), CNN(Bob "loose lips" Novak still regularly shows up), MSNBC(Ex home of Michael Savage, current home of Tucker Carlson) and CBS(John Stossel hasn't been given the conservative boot)? The only remotely left wing thing in that list is MSNBC, and that's just because they have Keith Olbermann, who's not a leftwinger either, but he's been really tough on Bush.
Listen to Air America Radio. Read "The Nation." Maybe THEN you'll have an idea what left wing bias looks like.
Then again... In the famous words of Stephen Colbert... "Reality has a well-known liberal bias."
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
ObsessiveMathsFreak wrote:
I'll be the first to accuse the Bush administration of gross incompetence--but let's also not forget several stunning displays of true competence, including examples eerily similar to what would be required to pull off a Reichstag-esque plot.
I mean, we've got the lead-up to the Iraq War (Remember Colin Powell? Valerie Plame and the aluminum tubes? Condi's smoking gun in the form of a mushroom cloud?) for one very obvious example. And who could forget the Swift Boat Veterans, or the similar job done on McCain? Not to mention, of course, the whole Lewinsky affair....
And, before you dismiss the administration's conducting of the Iraq war as gross incompetence, ask yourself three questions: Is there anything that they've done that hasn't been the textbook example of how not to conduct this kind of a war? Is there any chance that Rumsfeld et al. have not studied the textbooks? And, finally, which is more beneficial to a cynical Orwellian regime: success in Iraq...or the spectacular failure (complete with the worst possible breeding ground for terrorists) we have there now?
Like I said in my original post: I'm not one for conspiracy theories. All I'm doing here is applying Occam's Razor, and feeling like we're experiencing the death of a thousand cuts.
The administration's actions in Iraq and elsewhere make absolutely no sense whatsoever not only if you grant them the benefit of the doubt, but even if you take their stated claims perfectly at face value: their actions are not only spectacularly counterproductive, but glaringly obviously so, and repeatedly, and often excessively.
They do, however, make perfect sense if you assume that Bush & co. is another Hitler & Nazis, and that they're doing all of this consciously, intentionally, and with malice aforethought.
Never forget that Hitler sincerely believed that all he did was not only in his country's best interests, but in God's and Christ's best interests, too. (Re-read Mein Kampf if you've forgotten.) Or that he had all sorts of seemingly-legitimate reasons and excuses for all his excesses. He really thought that Poland was a direct threat to German sovereignty, that a cabal of Jews controlled world finances and were committed to usurping German authority...and that Germany really was the best nation on Earth, the greatest hope for the human race and salvation, and that the power of the state and of the corporations was necessary to ensure the common security and welfare.
And he had lots of convincing evidence to back up all those beliefs! In the abstract, you're certainly more ``secure'' if you control not only your side of your borders, but the other side, as well--and Germany and Poland had long been rivals. There were disproportionate numbers of Jews in international finance, and a non-trivial number had Bolshevik and other ``left'' leanings antithetical to Hitler's (and many other German's) ideas of how to run an economy, which made for a natural enmity. Hitler could easily point to all sorts of great advancements in the arts, science, culture, and Christianity (think of the amazingly anti-Semitic Martin Luther, amongst others) to demonstrate just how formidable Germany had been historically. And lots of people to this day still believe that a strong central government with expansive policing powers is necessary for personal security, and that a strong corporate culture is necessary for economic security.
If you sta
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