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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.
I think she had the spam filter set way too high again at pianobabe56@hotmail.com
Where were you when the voynix came?
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.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
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
Of course we knew to varying degrees that there was going to be some kind of attack, and one of many scenarios was previous described as using planes as missiles.
So what if we don't know where, when, or how the attack is to take place?
Perhaps we could explore doing things to proactively protect the United States, such as secretly monitoring and mining international calling records to try to eke out worrying patterns, or cooperating covertly with the EU to monitor bank accounts of suspected and/or known terrorist entities, or keeping the detention of high-value targets secret so that their collaborators might be kept in the dark for a period longer...
Oh, wait...
Oliver North testified during the Iran-Contra affair that Osama Bin Laden was the one person he was most scared about...that's why he had a new security system installed at his house. All of this stuff is such old news. Maybe that's why it's on page 17?
I think its much more that anytime this many high level washington polictical slime gather (the 9/11 comission), its much more verbaly kissing ass and jerking each other off than actual work. Like I don't know, hunting down facts and answers. But thats just my 2 cents.
"I believe the title was 'Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States.'"
Even if they took the report seriously I doubt they would have been able to prevent the attack. There was a lot of information and misinformation out there, and it would have taken a lot of luck for everything to line up properly in order to prevent it. I don't fault the administration for failing to prevent the attack, but obviously their actions following the attack speak for themselves. Do you honestly believe if Al Gore had won his administration would have done any better? Maybe (hopefully) they wouldn't have done so much dumb shit in the wake of the attack, but I am pretty sure they would fail to prevent it, too.
net neutrality had clogged her filters.
I bet it's because they used the word [b]Intel[/b] in the headline.
Nice text from a Democrats campaign advert there, buddy! Never mind that Clinton was so "uncurious" about Bin Laden after a couple of Bin Laden's attacks against Americans that he couldn't bother to take custody of him after being told where to easily pick him up. But hey, all's fair in mindless hypocritical Bush-bashing, right?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A586 15-2004Jul17.html
6 15-2004Jul17.html
Kinda makes Hillary a hypocrite based on what she said here, now doesn't it? - http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A58
Those looking to pin this ONLY on this current administration are showing they are simply interested in partisan politics. There is plenty of blame to go around.
Prof. Farnsworth - "Oh a lesson in not changing history from Mr I'm-My-Own-Grandpa!"
Am I part of the core demographic for Swedish Fish?
And this is just becoming news to you, CMRTACO? Jesus Christ, where have you been these last 5 years? The level in chatter prior to 9/11 was documented tons after the incident. Have you been in a cave? And to show how much of an idiot you are for thinking that the Bush admin should have known when and where 9/11 would take place, look at this statement right from you own article: "There was no conclusive, smoking-gun intelligence" You libs really need to get a life and accept no one could have predicted 9/11 down to the exact method, place, and time.
Woo hoo, neat, more fodder. But, um, this is Slashdot? Not some overzealous political blog. Maybe if it was a computer-based coverup or something, then that would be cool. Or if we found out Condolezza was actually a Russian Android, originally programmed for "freaky tribal sex" that Bush acquired long ago, that would be interesting too, IF the specs were there. But none of these is the case, so this isn't Slashdot news. Of course, more recently, nothing is.
I know with the Debian/Firefox thing from yesterday there's a lot of pointless political blah-blah-blah's going on but seriously, let's get over it. Most people have made up their mind on the issue one way or another, and this is slashdot.
news for ne^H^H tin-foil hats
I thought that Bush had started the recession in order to take our minds off terrorism.
Where were you when the voynix came?
Does this have anything to do with news for nerds. This site has gone way way downhill, to a bunch of game wannabes who think drilling plexiglass is "hardware hacking".
Can you make a beowulf of these?
Are gritz or Natalie involved?
No.
Nothing to see here, move on.
Welcome to Slashkoz. Next up: discussion about Howard Dean's iPod list, and how George Soros is getting out of politics so he can concentrate on politics.
Where were you when the voynix came?
He did not know when, where or how, but Tenet felt there was too much noise in the intelligence systems.
So much information, so little to actualy go on. And these days, when the government steps up security measures when they don't know "when, where or how" people cry bloody murder. The problem with security is you never know if it's working until it fails to work.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
No, that would be treating the symptom, not the problem.
If you are worried about airplanes being hijacked and used as missiles, you work on the access to the airplane angle.
#1. Lock the pilot's door and ensure that it cannot be breached during a hijacking.
#2. Well, there's really nothing more you need to do at that point, is there? The pilots cannot be reached and in the event of a hijacking, the pilots can radio in the situation and LAND the plane somewhere.
There, the problem is solved and our Rights are still protected.
If you let Bin Laden attack America, you can do ANYTHING YOU WANT after that! It's like a blank check! All you have to do is write "three thousand New Yorkers" on the second line, and "Pay To The Order Of Bin Laden / George Bush" up top. It's BULLETPROOF!
I like to place meaningful quotes in my sig, so people will know that I know what meaningful quotes are.
Yet another reason to support AMD over Intel.
It's an urban legend.
Snopes has proved it false
http://www.snopes.com/rumors/north.asp
"The title of the briefing is "Bin Ladin Deteremined to Strike in US."
I don't really know now. Maybe the spell check choked on it? What is more likely is that Bush saw the word "strike", mumbled something about the funny name of the new AFL-CIO chief, and passed the report onto the Secretary of Labor.
Where were you when the voynix came?
Most of the principals were in the country by the time Bush came to office, killing Bin Laden wouldn't have done much. Even now, Al Qaeda is not some monolith organization, and it is academically lazy to think of it as one. Bin Laden's capture would certainly have a demoralizing effect, but it would not cripple the organization, nor would killing him in early 2001 have done so. Hell, we really need to get Al-Zawahri, but have been failing at that.
9/11 CANNOT be blamed on one individual. True, Clinton did not do as much as he should have during his term, but Bush obviously didn't see the flaws being all that major as he didn't do anything about them in the first 9 months. Also recall that anything Clinton did in the Middle East(most hypocritically was bomb Iraq) was labeled as "Wag the Dog" by Republicans. Meanwhile, when they do similar things they are being "tough on terrorism".
The intelligence failures showed systemic flaws in the US intelligence gathering organization, flaws that go back decades(hell, Bush Sr. was head of the CIA for a few months). As George Tenet said, 9/11 was a "failure of imagination" on the part of the intelligence community. And so far in my opinion Bush has done almost nothing to fix those flaws. Well, he has allowed Army translators who are in short supply to be fired because they are gay, I guess there is always that. Also see the court cases of dismissed FBI agents who claimed they were ignored when they warned about attacks. The system is broken, and Clinton blaming Bush and Bush blaming Clinton surprisingly won't fix it. Killing Bin Laden won't fix it. Iraq certainly won't fix it. Nor will using homeland security money to pay off political backers and punish adversaries(Because we all know Indiana has the most potential terrorist targets). What needs to be done cannot be boiled down to a soundbite, but I do know that past administrations, this administration and in all likelihood future administrations don't have the will or desire to really fix it, but instead like to apply popular band-aids and use ad-hominem attacks on their critics.
Monstar L
This just in: Bin Laden is going to attack Americans. Big Deal. He already _had_ attacked Americans.
For months, Tenet had been pressing Rice to set a clear counterterrorism policy, including specific presidential orders called "findings" that would give the CIA stronger authority to conduct covert action against bin Laden.
Interesting, Bill Clinton said last Sunday night or whenever it was that He "left a comprehensive anti-terror strategy." I guess that turned out to be a lie if Rice was being pressured to set one herself.
There was no conclusive, smoking-gun intelligence, but there was such a huge volume of data that an intelligence officer's instinct strongly suggested that something was coming.
Sound to me something like, "we don't _really_ have any proof, but I have a hunch."
This is non-news. Why are the only political stories on Slashdot left-wing propaganda?
It seems like all the members of the left want to blame buch for 9/11 and all the members of the right insist that Clinton could have stopped it. It seems to me that there is no way that some high ranking government official (republican or democrat) could have prevented 9/11 by reading some broad document titled "Bin Laden determined to attack Americans". I'm sure they see a million documents about terrorist organizations that dont like the US. I mean what were they supposed to do? Use their spider sense when they saw the document to say "aha! that must mean they are going to fly planes into the twin towers on september 11th!"
Trying to pin this on Bush or Clinton is just silly. The only people who deserve to be blamed for 9/11 are the members of Al-Qaida.
If she were a male American of Japanese ancestry, she would have been fired on the spot.
Look carefully at the background of Rice. She is smart and has earned a Ph.D. in international relations, but she has no experience. How many people become the national security advisor without experience?
Of course, Rice is not the only problem. On the day after the infamous Clinton interview on Fox News, Charlie Rose (of PBS) interviewed Richard Clarke. He noted, "When David Kay told the current administration that, based on his survey on the ground, there were and are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, no one in the administration even batted an eye. According to Kay, Bush asked, 'What do you need from me?' Kay answered, 'I need patience to allow me to finish my work.' Bush answered, 'I have all the patience in the world.' Then, the conversation fell silent. Kay thought that someone would ask questions about his work, but no one asked any questions. Kay felt that he had never met any people who were more uninterested in the events in Iraq. According to Kay, no one in the administration lost more than 10 minutes of sleep over the war in Iraq."
Does anyone feel as though your life is being controlled by government officials who do not give a damn about you?
Condi Rice's best friend was in charge of the 9/11 commission. From what I have read he forbade certain lines of inquiry. This is why so many family members of 9/11 victims are so critical of the commission's report.
First, al-Qaeda was going to attack American interests, possibly in the United States itself. Black emphasized that this amounted to a strategic warning, meaning the problem was so serious that it required an overall plan and strategy. Second, this was a major foreign policy problem that needed to be addressed immediately. They needed to take action that moment -- covert, military, whatever -- to thwart bin Laden.
I have three responses to this postFUD.
1) non-specific information is almost worth than valueless. Let's say you are running a giant worldwide computer network, and I tell you that everything points to the strong conclusion that there "...is going to be a failure in your network. I can't tell you what, where, when, or how big it's going to be - but I'm nearly certain it IS going to happen." Then, months later, when there is a failure in your network, your boss calls you on the carpet to fire you, demanding why in hell you didn't prevent it "since you were warned months ahead of time". Think that's reasonable?
2) Part of this is playing into one of the oldest stock-cons in the book. Call 16 people, tell half that Stock X is going to go up, half that it's going to go down. The next week, call the half of them for whom you were right, and do the same thing (half up/half down). Repeat. After three weeks, you have 4 people that you can call and say "hey, I was 100% right 3 weeks in a row, invest with me!". Predicting something is one thing, but without knowing how many OTHER people were giving the same dire warnings about everything else, one has no reasonable idea of the 'static' surrounding the communication.
3) finally, let's assume that this was the only credible warning, and let's presuppose it was specific and certain. How would the bleeding-heart left have reacted if we'd sent an assassination team to kill Osama? Would a 'dire warning from the CIA director' been considered adequate? We invaded Iraq for a number of reasons, including (but not limited to) the consensus by a number of the world's intelligence services that Iraq had WMDs. We're still arguing about that, I believe.
One has to wonder if this Monday-morning quarterbacking will ever end.
-Styopa
Then you're either paranoid or a child.
"Plots" from whom?
Since you "don't know 'what we're worried about'", you don't know if it the "enemy" is a group of fundamentalist Muslims
Grow UP and realize that the people who founded this country PUBLICLY signed the Declaration of Independence knowing that it would be used to execute them if they lost.
You cannot live Free if you sell your Freedoms for "protection" from the "bad men" hurting you.
But that's no surprise, given the agenda you bleat.
Clinton left behind a comprehensive strategy, but it is up to the National Security Advisor to implement ("set") it as policy.
As for the second point, we pay these people to interpret the "non-smoking-gun intelligence." This guy was the head of the fucking CIA. If he is begging the administration to deal with a specific threat, they should deal with it, or at least face up to the consequences when their failure to deal with it costs us so dearly.
/. will shortly be asked to remove it as this will be classified, so there is no sense in posting this.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
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.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
Maybe the commission figured that Clinton's assassination contracts would make the problem go away before their report. Oh, assassination is illegal? But someone just admitted to trying to do it...
Information surfaced today showing that American officials were aware of terrorists' plans to hijack an airliner as early as 1996. The lengthy document suggests possible counterterrorist measures which were not implemented on Sept 11th. Both Democrats and Repbulicans were quick to pounce on this new evidence as proof that the opposing administration did not do enough to try and prevent a Sept 11th style attack. Said one official "All those lives could have been saved with one phone call to Steven Seagal ".
I came here for a good argument
Keith Olbermann has an incredibly poignant video response on this issue. This is probably what motivated some conservative nutjob to send him a letter full of soap powder. Sometimes I wonder about people.
Simply posting this information on Slashdot offers comfort to terrorists.
Is this a revelation? I mean, we already knew of general warnings about bin Laden's plans: remember when Rice testified to the commission about the August memo Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States. I believe there were also various more specific warnings, about airplane hijackings.
This latest piece of data provides evidence of warnings a month or so earlier. I don't know that it's the most pressing indictment against the Bush Administration we could be raising now. Maybe instead the whole arbitrary power to interpret the Geneva Conventions (parodied nicely here), or the indiscrimate warrantless wiretapping program.
Sorry if it is considered as a provocation but, in my opinion, it was deliberated. Good propaganda (the attack) to start writting anti-terrorism laws that will only serve for the government's purposes: special courts, control of personal data, cut of liberties to fight better against terrorism...
They take advantage of the people's fear to the terrorism. The 11-S was their great excuse to do whatever they want in the name of the fight against the terrorism.
For them it does not matter who died, only "for what purpose can be worth to us?".
Whenever I turn on the news, I always hear questions. I hear pointless speculation from anchors with no more credibility than anyone who is "able" to speak with enunciation and wear makeup, and worse, they are speaking about things that no one on earth can possibly know. Whether it's a school shooting, or a political scandal, or a celebrity arrest, the talking heads guess and guess about what the truth could be.
What happens? People make a decision based on their own biases, and then when the truth is actually known, it is written off or embraced on assumptions based on speculation based on nothing much at all.
Now, did the Bush Administration lie? Of course they did - just like all the administrations before it. Now, what did they lie about, and how important were the lies to the security and well-being of the American people? That is something we need to come to terms with as a country, but let's not speculate about it. We simply don't know. Conservatives should lay down their bias towards innocence, and liberals should lay down their bias towards guilt.
The only thing that concerns me is that the Bush Administration seems unwilling to submit to a full and thorough investigation, and no one, especially elected officials, are above criticism or criminal investigation. If the White House is unwilling to open all of their records, including all classiffied documents, to a special commission, many will simply assume guilt because they will not submit themselves to the same rules everyone else must follow.
Similarly, if America continues to display it's arrogance by flatly ignoring international law, I'm afraid we may reap what we sow when we are no longer the dominant superpower. We had moral credibility after WWII. We lost some in Vietnam, and in Grenada, then in the Iran Contra Affair, and more when we supported Hussein while he was gassing Kurds. So when the chips are down, and we are truly afraid, do we torture? Do we kill 20 civilians to kill one suspected terrorist? Do we withhold legal rights that were once so central to our belief that every man - suspected terrorist or not - is created equal, and has the right to be innocent until proven guilty?
I don't know. I can only speculate.
Don't you know why Slashdot is posting this kind of news?
It's necessary to read something about consumer focused marketing studies.
They are mapping and modelling the geek community in all kind of topics, to know how to sell new things to this interesting community.
See companies like: I-Behaviour
Cheers,
NKT
This is a dumb post.
e dge/Clinton_let_bin_laden.htm
/
First of all, Bin ladin (Al qaeda) had already attacked the USA several times by then. That he was going to continue attacks was obvious. That many attacks had already occurred during the Clinton administration is obvious.
I advise you to consult Wikipedia on this.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Quaeda#Activities
Attacks listed by year: (might be missing some)
1992
1993*, 1993
1995, 1995
1996 (Khobar)
1998,1998
1999
2000
*dubious, may or may not be al-qaeda
These facts aren't really so relevant as is the fact that Clinton had many chances to get Bin Ladin and he failed to capitalize on them. http://www.infowars.com/saved%20pages/Prior_Knowl
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4540958/
Both Presidents are at fault. Both presidents failed when they had good chances of snagging him, clinton on numerous occasions, and bush with Tora Bora. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8853000/site/newsweek
The administration didn't pay much heed to the warnings that Katrina could swamp New Orleans, either, and that approaching threat could be seen on radar and in satellite photos-- much more tangible evidence than some career intelligence officer's hunch based on the data he was interpreting.
Election day cannot get here fast enough-- if we're going to save this country we have simply got to sweep these Republican fucktards out of office before they're the death of us all.
On Friday (September 29), Charlie Rose interviewed three people: Bob Wright (Chairman & CEO, NBC Universal), Michael Isikoff, and David Corn (dual authors of _Hubris:_The_Inside_Story_of_Spin_,_Scandal,_and_t he_Selling_of_the_Iraq_War_). Isikoff and Corn made some insightful comments about the Iraq War.
According to the current administration, Iraq is related to 9/11. Both these interviews would justify anyone's cynicism about the politicians running our nation: the United States of America.
If anyone knows where to find the transcripts for both interviews, please share your information with the SlashDot audience.
Come on, everytime a firecracker went off in the late 90's, the media's reaction was to say that Bin Laden was the primary suspect.
He was the big honcho suspect in the truck-bombing of the WTC, his picture was on TV when the Oklahoma city bombing ocurred (before it turned out to be a white american christian veteran what did it).
I think Condi went "yeah, we know, Bin Laden bad, duh".
You can't take the sky from me...
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.
Well, the 9/11 commission was busy hearing that the CIA director told the President of the United States that " Bin Ladin [was] Determined To Strike in US" in the President's Daily Brief of August 6, 2001.
So, in a way, this is not a piece of breaking news; it's just corroboration of existing knowledge: that there was high level intelliegence about Bin Laden as a domestic threat in the months and years before 9/11, with little specific action in response, save for what was then described as "wag the dog" attacks against Sudan and Afghanistan targets by President Clinton.
It's over now. That, or it's go time. One of the two. acts of gord
If you have not yet seen this interview of Bill Clinton, do so:p art1_060924a_320x240.wmv
http://movies.crooksandliars.com/fox_fns_clinton_
GWB could never handle a hostile unscripted interview like this. Everything would have to be pre-approved and rehearsed. Clinton handles this with style. Too bad for neocons that the facts were not on their side...
You can skip from the start to the point where Chris Wallace tells about supposed "e-mails" he has received from viewers, that is where the lively part starts.
From the article "He did not know when, where or how, but Tenet felt there was too much noise in the intelligence systems."
This is well known to anyone who has been paying attention. To me this is nothing more than pre-election no holds barred mud.
The point is nobody knew when where or how. Do you want to go into panic attack nationwide? Inteligence didn't just switch off and ignore this. If there was any hint of when, where, or how, thing would have been rolling. I've known about this for years. This old news article was released at this time for political reasons only.
The truth shall set you free!
What does Bin Laden Intel have to do with anything since it was BushCo that took down the towers on 9-11 with controlled demolitions. Sheesh! Hasn't anyone seen "Loose Change?"
(It's a shame that I have to point out that this is sarcasm because there are so many serious posts just like all over the web)
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
Great. More 20/20 hindsight. So, is anyone predicting any upcoming terrorist attacks right now?
/. would be better off sticking with the tech/science reporting rather than running flame-baiting political articles, just smells like Ann Arbor.
Go ahead the flame me, I like it.
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to think "profiling is worse than the slaughter of innocent people..."
This has been getting screamed about for a couple years now.
Why, all of the sudden is this news?
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
It would appear that the republicans are going to get the gay prostitutes, extreme lobbyists, and pedophiles votes (NAMBLA).
This is a website about technology, not politics (except when directly relevant to technology, of course).
Second, can we quit with the childish "hindsight is 20-20" crap. Yes, Bush missed signs. Yes, Clinton missed signs. So did damned near everyone else. Picking out the needle in the haystack AFTER the fact is meaningless, however. Their is even a technical term for this psychological error many people make - hindsight bias. It is human nature to think "I woulda seen it coming if I were in your shoes" - when in fact, when tested, you would fail as often as anyone else.
As reluctant as I am to defend this loathesome administration, you need to get your facts straight.
Condi Rice served as National Security Council staff director for Soviet and East European affairs in Bush 41's administration. By all accounts she did a very good job--as judged by her superiors Brent Scowcroft, the National Security Advisor, and the first President Bush. I think it's safe to say that a number of significant events in Soviet and East European affairs took place at this point in history, which I'll leave as an exercise for you to research. Do you think that maybe Rice had a hand in crafting the US response to those events, given her position?
Yes, Rice is black and female. So. What. Neither fact speaks to her qualifications to be National Security Advisor. Or is that a position that can only be held by a white male?
I think your racism and sexism is showing. (And no, your "male American of Japanese ancestry" comment does not insulate you.)
Why isn't anyone asking why the previous administration didn't take out Bin Laden when they were given a number of opportunities?
This is about Woodwards' new book isn't it? That he's hawking during an election? Oh. Well that explains everything.
You can go back to blaming Bush for everything now. It's all part of the marketing plan.
Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins. It tries to show how the US (and others) reign in sovereign countries via economic power rather than brute force through use of things like the world bank. Chilling subject, but I think that Overthrow is better written and makes for a better read.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
First, watch the testimony where Candi-ass Rice says "I believe the title was Bin Laden determined to attack within the US." Watch her demeanor. It's the demeanor of a petulant child. It's as if she's saying, "duh, of course we knew this was coming, how dare you ask me such a thing." It's like a student late to class in junior high and when asked for a reason just answers "Cause I was sucking dick for money. Schmuck."
The 9/11 Commission possibilites are pretty much these
1)They were covering up
2)They were denied information
3)They lost heart when they realized they would be ignored.
As the consumers of the data it's difficult to know what happened during that investigation and the only reason it matters is that there might be MORE evidence to bring against Bush in an impeachment or war crimes trial.
Fact is, when Bush stole into office he took over from Clinton who, in the last days of his administration, did LOTS of work trying to establish peace between the Palestinians and the Israelis. He ran out of time and Bush, instead of picking up the thread, instituted a "hands off the middle east" policy (insert ironic laughter here).
And the final fact of the matter is that once we were embroiled in war in Iraq the people of this country STILL relected Bush by a narrow margin. That election SHOULD have been so clearly against Bush that no amount of vote stealing should have put him in office, and the corrupt results should have triggered a revolution against the corrupt decision. Instead we end up with elections so close that they are easy to steal with small amounts of fraud.
Why was the election so close? This is what we must ask. WTF is wrong with half the electorate that they think it's ok to kill for oil? Or get distracted by gay marriage? Why are the priorities of the American public so fucked up?
FTFA : Black laid out the case, consisting of communications intercepts and other top-secret intelligence showing the increasing likelihood that al-Qaeda would soon attack the United States.
There's one thing that disturbs me with that whole thing, it's who we mix together al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. The reason why I am saying this is that al-Qaeda is quite a huge, fuzzy, hardly hierarchised organisation, that Osama bin Laden denied having anything to do with the attacks (although his (forged?) videos claim the opposite), the the sentence I quoted talks about the likelihood of an al Qaeda attack, and that we hardly know who did the attacks anyways, if it weren't for the intact passports of still alive supposed terrorists (as we only found 1 out of 8 of the planes black boxes).
My point is that I don't see how bin Laden is linked to these pre-9/11 warnings, if I didn't misread the article it seems to me that bin Laden and al Qaeda are just being mixes together, as if anything so-called al Qaeda members did was decided by bin Laden.
You just got troll'd!
There will be more 9/11s, no doubt. Mainly because the U.S. has made no effort to understand our enemy very much disappointing the ghost of Sun Tzu.
For years we did everything we could to understand communism so we could undermine it and defeat it. It wasn't just the US that destroyed communism, but it was also an unworkable system (apologies to adherents of Saint Reagan).
We were not attacked because of "who we are". That is bat-shit stupid. We were attacked because of things like unquestionable support for Israel in EVERYTHING they do including the bad stuff, cozying up with dictators when it's convenient for our interests, and so on.
When you say things like "they hate us because of who we are" then obviously the only solution is to start bombing people, and it's even MORE non sensical when the place we are bombing has nothing to do with terrorism, such as pre war Iraq. This has already been proven by a bipartisan commission. If you plan on following up on this post I trust you'll keep that proven and non controversial fact in mind. Of course it's also non controversial that we just spent over 300 billion so far to now CREATE a terrorist petri dish out of Iraq.
Nope,...we understand nothing about the enemy and we understand even less about radical and fundamental Islam. This is why there will be more 9/11s to come. If you want to understand how little we really know, just look at the futility of bringing "democracy" to Iraq. You just can't invade and impose democracy. Assuming that we managed to kill three thousand Iraqis (an absurdly low figure by any estimate), and assuming that each of these three thousand have 3 other family members then you now have 9,000 who are thinking "Hmmm maybe bin Laden is right". 9,000 more recruits for jihad.
Fundamental Islam = Fundamental Christianity in terms of disgusting behavior. If you want to play the immature game of name calling then I suggest that you start referring to this administration as ChristianFascist.
While you're at it, start using "Stay and Die" when you say "Cut and Run".
I expect the neocon mod down in 3..2..1...
This administration is damned lucky that most people in the US are sheep. You look at other countries where there were election irregularities, and lies told to their people, and see hundreds of thoudands protesting until the right thing is done. I think this administration has more to worry about that Al Quada, sooner or later the ultimate juicy bit of TRUTH is going to come out, that will get people off the couch.
waiting for ad.doubleclick.net
running in very high priority on the Washington Post, right up there on page 17 of the print edition
I think their decision is defensible. While the article is newsworthy, it is very unsurprising in the light of all of the related news stories that have already been given front-page treatment.
We already know that Rice and Bush reviewed a Presidential Daily Brief entitled "Bin Laden Determined to Attack inside US" in early August, but were reluctant to mention this at the 9/11 Commission hearings. We already know that Richard Clarke says that the administration was unengaged despite repeated warnings on the threat. We already know that when a CIA operative tried to impress upon senior administration officials the severity of the threat, Bush responded with, "There, you've covered your ass," and dismissed him. At this point, reporting that Tenet was trying to warn the Bush Administration about the threat in July is interesting, but is hardly a revelation.
What I find much more curious is that the article was printed without a byline, and that there was an apologetic Editor's Note explaining why they felt they were justified in printing the story.
And the fact that this comes right after Clinton lost it on Fox News? Pure coincidence!
I for one will not support Bin Laden Intel even if the administration chooses to ignore them and their processors for evil. The incidious plot must be stopped. Buy AMD and help fight terrorism.
It's a "Slashdot got the news after everyone else has known about it for * (* = insert "days"/"weeks"/"months"/"years")" joke!
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Even if Bush isn't to blame for 9/11, he is to blame for using it for political purposes. Why do we always have to hear what bad people "liberals" are? Because we actually care about people other than CEOs and billionaires and ourselves?
The terrorists were already in place by then attacking us for Bill Clinton's policies during his term.
8 FB-4A1C-B21F-2
0 010920-8.html
Bin Laden claims he got his first revelation in 1982, because of US support for Israeli involvement in Lebanon:
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/79C6AF22-9
Please remind me, but I think it was the conservative hero Reagan running the show at that time. Bin Laden is also a bit upset about the first Iraqi war (which is kind of ironic considering he volunteered to help defend Saudi Arabia from Iraq in the same way he considers himself to have expelled the Soviets from Afghanistan), and none too happy about Israel.
You can say Clinton was ineffective at eliminating the terrorist threat, either by the Bush-style double strategy of war abroad and removing civil liberty at home, or by other means. But to say that the 9/11 terrorists attacked because of Clinton's policies is very, very close to being completely wrong.
At least you don't agree with Bush, who claims the attacks were because they hate our freedom:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/2
So, you are FINALLY, albeit not directly, admitting that you are a COWARD.
Thanks for the honesty.
Now let me be honest with you. You're a pathetic excuse for a patriot. You do not deserve the security you seek to gain.
This country was founded precisely so we could have rule of law by reasonable minds. To throw it all away in knee-jerk fear of terrorism is the greatest act of cowardice ever perpetrated in this country.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
I've seen this mentioned very, very many places - that someone in the government (including up to the President himself) were given specific warnings of Al Queda/Bin Laden/terrorist attacks prior to 9/11, but did not take action on those warnings, and as a consequence they have failed in their duty or are accomplices to the attacks or whatever.
This claim requires an unwarranted leap of logic. The postulate is that 'as they were given a warning (binary measurement - warned or not) - they should have taken action, and they did not'. The leap of logic is from 'were given warning' to 'should have taken action'.
Why is this unwarranted? Because the question you must FIRST ask, which the entire argument hinges on, is how many other things they receive warnings about. If you say that the warnings should have led to specific actions, then you must apply a GENERAL RULE about those types of warnings. What if the White House/CIA receives several dozen warnings a week? What if they are monitoring groups in pretty much every country in the entire world? What if - as I would be disappointed if they did not - someone in the administration receives general warnings about any of these every day?
You would have to postulate the rule 'IF they receive any warning with the level of severity the Bin Laden one had (retrospect not allowed), THEN they should take action, up to and including special forces deployment and halting plane flights between US and the rest of the world' or whatever. Can you really stand for that rule? Even if someone told you those kinds of reports come in regularly? Would you be satisfied if the US sent hundres of special forces to South America on a mission to kill based on a general report that people who had served with US police forces now had contact with extremist anti-US groups there?
Mod parent up please. This is all factually correct.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
The article talks about repeated attempts George Tenet made to get the administration to take action on a coming Bin Laden attack.
They did nothing.
He couldn't even get them to make a plan.
They did nothing.
The CIA screamed it's head off to get action, and they did nothing.
I wonder, how often do they get a "... ~ is gonna attack us!" warning (especially with the US popularity in the world...), how many of those do they really take on seriusly?
And... you're damned if you do and damned if you don't.
So, let's take today, even in our hypersensitive terrorist mode...
You get a warning in that someone (who you suspect may have terrorist ties) is 'doing something bad'. You check them out and you get a bunch of liberals crying foul for things like racial profiling, stepping on the Bill of Rights (violation of privacy, etc.)... damned if you do... You don't check on them and they blow something up and you get everyone complaining about "why did you ignore that warning!" damned if you don't by 20/20 hindsight.
Obviously, you have to sift through the information and get what you think is credible out and use that. Obviously OBL should have been at the top of the list for anything/everything to be checked out.
However, this was also in another country and, despite what some people think, you don't just send some special forces people into another country to kill someone without permission and the like. Yeah, yeah... the whole war thing... don't reply with various gab about the war, we all know about it and the various views on it and you'll just be wasting your time repeating yourselves... again... no matter which side of the argument you're on.
Anyway, those that see the information have to evaluate it based on credibility and how it stacks up against other known things. Those who have to make decisions have to do that and also weigh it against the advice given to them. You can't be 100% correct in evaluation of these things. You can't "mandate" that everyone be 100% correct, either, because that is simply impossible. The best you can do, if you really must punish someone, is hang them for negligence and prove that there was enough information available *at the time* to make a reasonable decision to do otherwise than they did, assuming that the person was truly trying to make the correct decision. If someone purposefully makes a decision against what is known to be true, then that may be grounds for more harsh charges, like treason/espionage and the like.
This is pure B.S. from a BDS-afflicted member of the Great Clinton Legacy Whitewash project! Shame on you for putting this garbage on Slashdot.
That article is obviously an attempt to take some of the sting away following "The Path to 9/11" - the movie Clinton and his party had edited, and finally tried to have blocked from airing.
Anyone remotely familiar with the intelligence failures, the immigration failures, the airport security failures etc. just cant accept this cartoon about a sleepless Tenet. SO this highlights what may have been the biggest failure of all - the media failure.
The story is about the CIA's George Tenet trying to get an action on this intelligence, any action, even an attempt to stop 911.
He couldn't get any action out of the administration, they did nothing.
So you're saying they could well have failed, and he's saying they wouldn't even try to stop 911.
Not having read the article, I'd like to say that "Administrator J. Doe was warned" doesn't necessarily mean anything. Sure, after the fact, it looks damning, but you have to remember that these guys get intel all the time, and most of it is wrong. For example, how many times could you have been overheard talking about ways that a person could bypass security, blow stuff up, do something criminal, etc, even though you have no intention of ever carrying it out? It's a fairly common topic for idle conversation. Do shady people only talk about terrorist activity when they're serious? Of course not.
There is a certain skill is being able to sift through all the noise in order to pick out important details, and the fact that somebody failed to do so 100% of the time just isn't surprising. I'm not saying that this is or isn't such a case, but it's something to keep in mind, in general.
http://outcampaign.org/
Well, we now can see the liberals have revealed themselves plainly on slashdot.
30 some days outside of an election and they are Bush bashing at full speed. Saying Bush ignored bin Laden yet glossing over Clinton.
What does this have to do with technology you might ask? Nothing really, its just the angry left trying so hard to encite rage against Bush. Just another day in liberal land.
Very good, you rad the first three words. Now look at the next three, "STUFF THAT MATTERS." See the connection?
OK, I'll spell it out. Our entire national government is under the control of a single party and has been over the last six years, during which time (among other things) they have:
Also, during this time:
...and on and on. Note that we don't even have to get into the "conspiracy theories" to build this list; these are just the things readily substantiated from the public record and well sourced news stories often based on the admissions (and even the bragging!) of the perpetrators.
So why do people put up with this? Why haven't "We, The People" risen up and told them to sit down, shut up, and let someone competent run the country? Apparently, for one reason and one reason only, because the party in power "keeps us safe from the terrorists."
So evidence indicating that they aren't in fact doing that is clearly "stuff that matters". In fact, it probably matters more than any other type of story this site runs.
Do we need more posts "bashing Bush"? No. Do we need to get it through the thick skulls of the few remaining supporters of his corrupt regime that their blind loyalty to these frauds is doing more damage to our country than any terrorist could ever hope for? Yes.
Do we need to break their strangle hold on the congress while there is still hope of it exercising some sort of oversight? Undoubtedly.
Is this "stuff that matters"? Obviously.
I hope that answers your questions.
--MarkusQ
Yes, Rice is black and female. So. What. Neither fact speaks to her qualifications to be National Security Advisor.
They don't, but tokenism makes people suspicious of multi-minority high-profile characters: If they got rid of her, their politically-correct minimum requirement of women and racial minorites could drop below acceptable levels.
For instance, Condi's name came up a lot during the whole "George Bush doesn't care about black people" hilarity.
That makes people think this is a big part of her job: Being conspicuously black, and female.
Politics is a show, after all.
You can't take the sky from me...
As I've addressed this before, I'm going to copy and (mostly) pasta:
He did? Is this about that guy from the Sudan who offered bin Laden to the US in 1996, which turned out not to be credible?
'Cause that 9/11 commission report states "[F]ormer Sudanese officials claim that Sudan offered to expel Bin Ladin to the United States." Which looks pretty definite. Except it continues, "Clinton administration officials deny ever receiving such an offer. We have not found any reliable evidence to support the Sudanese claim."
Which, of course, does't cut any ice with you, does it? How faith-based.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Turn off the politics section if it bothers you that much. Sheesh.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Edited? What edits? Any edits were made were not substantive, and the producers specifically stated that all edits were minor. It was aired intact as a big fat Clinton-bash, a $30 million RNC contribution just over a month before the election.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Then, the conversation fell silent. Kay thought that someone would ask questions about his work, but no one asked any questions.
Questions? Kind of like what you just stated that Clark said that Kay said had just happened... shown below? (Is that hear say?)
According to Kay, Bush asked, 'What do you need from me?' Kay answered, 'I need patience to allow me to finish my work.' Bush answered, 'I have all the patience in the world.'
Subordinate asks for time to do work..... and gets it. Wow.
Clark saying that Kay reported there were no WMDs in Iraq also leaves out a few facts, as you can see in Dr. Kay's testimoney before Congress in 2003. It is well worth reading. Just a sample:
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
With all due respect, what does this have to do with IT?
In general I agree with the most of the posts on here about freedom and privacy, but this has nothing to do with either IMHO. Pointing out mistakes and faults of politicians seem more like propaganda than informing the reading community on political issues related to IT.
Just wait'll he sits down on a barrel of oil. We'll nail his ass for sure then!
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Imagine the following worldview:
The President is Good. If the President does it, then it is Good. If the President opposes it, then it is Bad. If it is embarrassing to the President, then it is Bad. If it disagrees with the President, it is Bad. Conversely, if it is Good, then it's at the very least aligned with the President. America is Good, ergo the President is America, ergo if you think the President is not Good, then you think America is not Good.
I think it explains wingnut reactions pretty well. How is it unpatriotic to muckrake and expose corruption? It's unpatriotic because it embarrasses the President. How is it unpatriotic to oppose torture? It's unpatriotic because the President is for it, therefore it must be Good.
I remember criticism of Clinton from both sides of the aisle; he was too centrist, he failed to carry through on healthcare, he fucked over labor with NAFTA, and so forth. But for this guy? It's like he can do no wrong. I want to get someone on record describing something the President can't do, something they'd disagree with. It's like asking then to prove 2+2=5; it's contradictory to the basic foundations of their axiom schema. It just doesn't compute.
Depressing, isn't it?
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Slashdot really isn't the place for this. It's not what we're good at.
Pilot ep of the X-Files spinoff The Lone Gunmen, where some terrorists hijack a jetliner and try to fly it into the WTC?
I'm not kidding. Check it out.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Of course Condi ignored the warnings - she was totally expecting the attack. She was in on where, when, who, and how. She was specifically tasked with leading the team that installed the demolition charges in the WTC and prepped the Tomahawk that hit the Pentagon. Part of her responsibilites also included coordination with the alien forces that have been aiding the Bush Administration since 2000 (you can totally see a saucer in the background of one of the WTC films).
This is all out there - wake up people! Our country has been usurped by a neo-conservative fascist dictatorial Nazi cabal in league with aliens operating from abandoned Nazi moon bases.
Ask Kos - he's a bright cookie who's known this all along. He's one of the few who 'get it'.
This is a website about technology, not politics (except when directly relevant to technology, of course).
There's an entire section in Slashdot called "Politics" and as much as we might like to conveniently cordon off "other" politics from "geek" politics, that's not the way the world works. Geeks profess to be more interested in competence and truth than the rest of the sheep in this world. If that is true, then geeks should be open to exploring issues that affect not just them, but everyone else as well.
Articles about electronic balloting, wiretapping, "homeland security", the American public's feelings about the Theory of Evolution, legislative processes, extradition of hackers, use of technology to repair bodies damaged in war, asssisting Chinese citizens in routing around the Great Firewall of China, and so on have abounded in Slashdot for years. To my mind, part of what makes Slashdot so great is that this is a site that recognizes that geeks are multidimensional. We're not defined by our love of technology alone.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Clinton was warned of Bin Laden's intention to use hijacked aircraft as weapons against the US in December 1998 in a different more specific PDB. He took no action.
Why is it that a conservative black woman must be a token? Was Albright the token Jew for the Clinton administration?
I think I must have gotten the wrong tickets at the box office; is it too late for me to pick a different show?
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
George H. W. Bush promised King Fahd that the troops would be removed after the Gulf War. They were not. Removing the troops wouldn't have been "giving into Bin Ladin's demands", it would have been keeping his damn promise.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
I was glad for the good information you provided on Condi Rice's background refuting the grandparent post, but the above comment is disgusting mudslinging. If you really think that accusing the administration of appointing an underqualified black female National Security Advisor in a cynical bid to improve their image in those demographics is in itself racist or sexist, then you've failed to understand what racism or sexism really are. More likely you've picked up the habit from those that routinely use those words as epithets to discourage honest discourse.
Support NRA, America's oldest civil rights group.
Just for a moment, let's play a game of ``What if?''
What if the conspiracy nutjobs are right, and 9/11 was, in some way, a deliberate action by the Bush administration in exactly the same way that Hitler was behind the burning of the Reichstag? (Godwin, I know--so sue me.) After all, the conspiracy theorists have some compelling points--the collapse of WTC #7, that none of the released footage of the Pentagon attack shows what actually hit the building, the striking dissimilarity of the appearance between the two impacts on the WTC and the impact on the Pentagon, the complete and utter lack of response by NORAD or the Pentagon's own on-site defense systems....
What scares the shit out me is that this article is perfectly consistent with the theory that the Bush administration knew just what bin Laden was up to, and chose to ignore it: the CIA (whom Bush, Jr., has always publicly kept at arm's length or further) told the administration, repeatedly and emphatically...and the administration most pointedly ignored everything the CIA had to say.
Of course, this could also be after-the-fact CYA by the CIA...but, then again, WTC 7 could have been the first skyscraper in history to collapse for no good reason whatsoever, and there could have been a massive and completely hushed-up malfunction in the anti-aircraft defensive systems in the most heavily protected building on the planet, and there could have been....
Honestly, I'm about as anti-conspiracy as one can get. There's just so damn much about 9/11 that's so glaring, so obvious, so uncomplicated, that I'm left with two conclusions: massive unprecedented incompetence by a team headed by some of the most competent political operatives in America (Cheney, Rove, etc.)...or a conspiracy. A conspiracy that would perfectly fit with the actions of an administration with decided totalitarian fascist tendencies, such as one that would strip civil liberties in the name of protecting the homeland, which would endorse and actually use torture and commit other atrocities, which supports big business at every opportunity over all else domestically, which would invade sovereign nations on trumped-up pretenses, which is accompanied by unprecedented corporate corruption, which wears its Christianity on its sleeve....
Whether for good reason or not, frankly, I'm scared shitless.
Cheers,
b&
All but God can prove this sentence true.
There are no refunds.
You can't take the sky from me...
prevented. There was no policy that could have been adopted that would have prevented 9-11 that was possible politically on 9-10 - irregardless of which president advocated the policy changes.
You can't take the sky from me...
Yes there were lots of missed warnings. Hell, even an episode of the Family Guy warned about Bin Laden a year before 9/11. All that aside, I think the most interesting point of the article was that a direct warning by the CIA to Rice was not mentioned in the 9/11 commission report. If something this significant is missing, it makes me wonder what else was left out?
Today's vices may be tomorrow's virtues.
it is the fact that this article is irrelevant to the theme of slashdot. Virtually all slashdot politics articles deal with laws regarding things like the internet, videogames, copyright, online privacy, etc. This is why I come here. It is not nor should not be a general news site.
Look carefully at the background of Rice. She is smart and has earned a Ph.D. in international relations, but she has no experience or formal education in Africa or the Middle East. How many people become the national security advisor without experience in the area of the world that is going to be most relevant to their job?
She's smart, no doubting that, but one of the big criticisms when she first came onboard was that she had no serious experience in Middle Eastern affairs.
that she or the intel community didn't know about airplanes being used isn't even *close* to being true. Google operation bojinka. Look again for all the prior knowledge of impending attacks. Look at all the government insiders who started getting close to white guys in suits involvement and being told to sit down and shutup "or else". Stop and pause and wonder why they were running a "hijacked airplanes" exercise on 9-11., and why they stripped NORAD of intercept and shootdown orders just a few months previous and transferred it to the president or vice president. Google operation northwoods and see what these thugs are capable of, what they consider acceptable political actions. go back and review again they have finally admitted the gulf of tonkin attacks, that lead to a major expansion of the blood profits viet nam war were an outright lie for political purposes. Go back and see how they tried to stifle the real information concerning the USS Liberty attacks.
Want to get a good documentary of the big picture to get up to speed? Google vids, download and watch Terrorstorm, which is several orders of magnitude better, with more verifiable information, that connects a lot of dots, than micahel moore's stupid bit of statist establishment cinematic legerdemain, the movie designed to keep people faked out to support one of the gangs like there is some big diference talking about crooks. ONE Democratic senator saw through this crap and went public and they OFFED him for his troubles.
I know I was one of hundreds, maybe thousands of people who DID contact government, who DID make the effort, probably at personal risk now and got put on more enemies lists, and tell them to not use their old CIA asset and employee and bush crime family business partner bin laden to attack the US, starting on July 25 of 2001.
When they did, and used the cover of an "exercise" to help pull it off, just like they did in london on 7-7, I knew we had suffered a major armed murderous coup in this nation, another big turning point, that they were going for broke now, a continuation of one that started a long time ago when they conspired and managed to kill john f kennedy and get away with it and put a controlled politician in, in his place, that crook and serial liar LBJ. This was just more of the same from the shadow government murderous thugs and their progeny.
Remember, the skull and bones globalist murderer candidate won at the last election, that was your big choice with the two cooperating outright criminal gangs called the Democrat and Republican parties. Skull and bones millionaire globalist or skull and bones millionaire globalist. But, it appears to be enough to keep the plebes faked out.
People should be well beyond smelling a rat by now with this, the evidence is overwhelming what has happened and what continues to go down. Look what they passed just this past week in the legislature..
Huh?!! The GP was pointing out the leftist bent on slashdot and the mods abusive moderation powers.
You don't even deny that, and instead go off on a tangent about the government instead.
Where's the insight? This thread illustrates perfectly what the GP was talking about.
According to your snark, we've been in election season continuously since 1998.
No wonder the Republican government never does any of the governing the people send them to do. They're too busy campaigning around the clock, collecting bribes and spending on their cronies.
--
make install -not war
Intel inside? I like AMD Athlon.
It's not the color of her skin, it's the color of her nose, that makes for her job security.
I'd be more apt to look at their education first though. The preference for exclusivist universities (Ivies, Stanford, MIT, Berkeley, and the like) for major posts that dont get swapped out frequently stands out like a sore thumb. He's colorblind when it comes to his administration and picks for major appointments - he's not class blind at all. He's been nominating a lot from his own university, Ivies, and other obscenely exclusive universities if he cant find a special interest.
He's merit blind, but not special interests blind, such as the case with Elaine Chao who pulls off a hat trick for going to two exclusive universities, having conflicts of interest with China in matters of trade, and making one of the most middle-class hostile changes to overtime eligibility. If anyone should be sent packing, it would be in the interest to direct away from Rumsfeld and those involved in the war, and get this person to resign. The war is already a lost cause to get resignations, but calling for her removal and replacement with her polar opposite would do wonders.
To find anyone who's *not* from some very exclusivist school such as Stanford, or some other highly exclusivist connection in the administration is like finding a needle in a haystack - if not rare, they dont last very long or replace someone tarnished by the latest scandal.
If she was a unconnected Midwesterner and/or from a public university, she would have been fired on the spot.
Fixed that error for you. Bush wouldnt care what skin color the person was, he only would ask what connections you had.
As much as this whole administration has been with the war and the Jobless Recovery, it's gotten to the point where I'd not mind seeing a Nixon style(Ivy hostile, but this time, Asian trade hostile as well.) administration got installed in 2009 to wash down 8 years of Ivies. The only plausible alternative in ideology would be even more rare to find in a modern form given the hostility towards giving those types the required political connections.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
The Republicans have been successfully painting the democrats as soft on terror and wanting to cut and run in Iraq. Left leaning Bob Woodward publishes yet another book critical of the Bush administration. The Washington Post, NYT, LA Times pile on. All of this a week after Clinton's rather embarrassing performance on Fox News. The parties sliming each other before a midterm election is to be expected. How is this partisan story news for nerds?
an ill wind that blows no good
Everyone is Washington (and any organization) thinks that their problems are the most important, and runs around with "their head on fire" to use a Clark phrase. The question for our leaders is which one to listen to, and we need to be 100% accurate... The Islamists (or Islamo-facists to use the new term), or Terrorist, or whatever you call them, only need to succeed onces. The Arabs on the west bank of the Jordan launch 10 suicide attackers a day, and the IDF stops 99.9% of them, that still means that every three months the world press talks about suicide bombers and how hopeless it is to look for a military solution.
The White House needs to manage thousands of reports, decide what gets to the president, etc., and the enemy needs to sneak one past.
Sure the FBI counter-terrorism guys were screaming about the threat of terrorists.
The FBI organized crime unit was no doubt screaming about the mob.
The CIA south Asia guys were screaming about India and Pakistan.
The CIA China guys will scream about disputed Islands, as well as Taiwan.
Everyone that spends 40 hours a week focusing on one particular threat to US interests thinks that there is something major there. While the US has vast resources, they aren't unlimited, and maintaining a global hegemony requires deciding where to put the resources.
And guess what, if you make decisions based on probabilities, you are going to make a lot of 80% decisions.... and guess what, 1 in 5 of those will be wrong.
Alex
. . . more political trolling on /.
Klingon Software is not released, it escapes, inflicting terrible damage onto the enemy as it does
Video cameras in stores and petrol stations rarely record continous video in crisp high-definition. Watch a 'crimwatch' episode - you will see plenty of examples of surveillance camera videos. Unless you want to be scared that more people are lying, let's assume that all of those were not doctored.
These cameras would have to videofilm a plane going at 500MPH.
Have you tried to film something passing at 500MPH a very short distance from you using a very crappy camera?
If that is all it takes to scare you shitless.. you have my sympathy
http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=terrorstorm
We can argue all day about who's to fault for 911 but honestly there is so much blame to go around, CIA, FBI, Clinton, Bush, etc. There is no one person or event that directly caused 911. The best thing is move forward and put in place security measures that will prevent another 911 (which is not being done btw).
Second Iraq has the potential to be so much worse than 911. The causalities already outnumber 911, but the damage done to America's world image has been catastrophic. After 911 we had the majority of the world with us, as well as the American public. We really had an opportunity to put in place a new foreign policy coupled with domestic initiatives that could have transformed American politics for the better. Yet all this energy was misplaced towards Iraq. Who's responsible for that?
The best education consists in immunizing people against systematic attempts at education. - Paul Feyerabend
If you really think that accusing the administration of appointing an underqualified black female National Security Advisor in a cynical bid to improve their image in those demographics is in itself racist or sexist
Accusing the administration of appointing a black female to be a black female in a top job is unhelpful. Accusing the administration of appointing an underqualified person (for whatever reason) is completely valid. Insinuating that a black female is by nature underqualified is completely racist and sexist, and blinds you from acknowledging any qualified black female in that office.
How do you know that a white American Yalie descended from the signers of a Constitution would not have blundered equally? How do you know that a blunder is a sign of her being underqualified, and not just an honest blunder?
Looking at people's races and sexes blinds you to the more important questions.
She had experience in Cold War tactics against the Soviet Union. Exactly the wrong experience for either a Terror War or an Iraq War.
Though I guess running Bush's NSC staff is relevant experience in making your bones as part of the Iran/Contra operations. The players from whom moved from fringe criminals under Bush Sr to senior executives under Bush Jr.
It is hard to tell whether Rice would have been fired if she weren't Black/female. Because no one gets fired from BushCo, especially for incompetence. There's no standard of comparison.
--
make install -not war
It's not clear tie info was enough to be taken seriously? We're discussing an article describing how the CIA chief and his counterterrorism chief jumped in their car to immediately meet with Rice. A tactic designed to underscore the immediately urgent and direly serious nature of the intel. And which serves now to underscore just how unserious and incompetent, if not actually complicit, was Rice's resistance to dealing with that kind of intel in the normal course of affairs.
--
make install -not war
I have some social connections (unusual for slashdot?) I know people who are suffering as a result of misactions taken after 9/11.
I find it useful background news gets onto slashdot. This adds to the pile of evidence showing they didn't care (at minimum) and it does undermine their ability to exploit 9/11 to promote their anti-Nerd agenda. Terrorism and child porn are the popular excuses used in many of the "News for Nerds" posts.
We are smart enough to go deeper than just the resulting news:
"Net Neutrality helps terrorists and pedophiles" etc.
So lets have an article explaining the demographics of pedophiles; showing that they are mostly friends and family and not AOL IM users (contrary to popular opinion.)
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
Our CBC (Canada Broadcasting Corporation) produced what I thought
was a fascinating documentary on the subject.
"The Secret History of 9/11"
http://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/secrethistory/
I found it to be a good summary of events before, during and
after.
ThatGuyThere
The problem with that line of reasoning is that it is itself a form of elitism.
The assumption is that Condi couldn't have gotten the position through any other means than her race. Discount the fact that she's a long time friend of the family, and seems to be extremely close to W. Discount the fact that she's one of the most qualified people (for what it's worth) in the Bush Administration, discount the fact that she is a model conservative, a true believer, considered a genius in some circles, and has some influence of her own, no, her only value to Bush is in her race.
Don't get me wrong. Obviously once Rice was picked, the administration would be eager to take advantage of her race, but that's not at all the same as accusing her of being just another underqualified minority, end of story. Political reality means that you have to make ALL your major appointments with a constituency in mind. Northern candidates often pick Southern running mates, and presidential cabinets wind up demographically representing America to a much greater extent than the average board of directors. But folks should be very careful about assuming that all the women, disabled folks, and hyphenated Americans placed in positions of power are by their nature unqualified and fit only as tokens, while not similarly questioning the politics behind the selection of straight white males. That's just as sexist and racist coming from the left as it is from the right. Perhaps more so because at least some on the right will acknowledge, if only to themselves, their own bias, but those on the left almost never do.
There are two kinds of people: 1) those who start arrays with one and 1) those who start them with zero.
"And strangely, the meeting was never mentioned during all the 9/11 commission reports" The 9/11 Commission was a joke. Underfunded, it didn't even get underway until over a year after the attacks. The crime of the century happened, a crime which changed America and the world forever and the administration resisted every attempt to get to the bottom of it. WTF? And further, all that time I was growing up during the cold war are you telling me the Soviets could have just used a similar tactic and wiped us out? WTF? This time the kooky conspiracy nuts might just have it right. Research: http://tsoldrin.blogspot.com/2006/09/911-multimedi a-extravaganza.html
Of course, but re-read what I suppose is now the great-great-grandparent post. There is no such insinuation. The AC is very clear with his statements, and I fail to see how you are reading racism or sexism into them. Please illustrate with quotes from the AC's post if you reply again.
Support NRA, America's oldest civil rights group.
freerepublic.com for example.
i have proudly been banned from both conservative and liberal message boards though.
So many similarities.
Indiscriminate arrests
detention without trial
secret arrests
secret detention
secret execution
kangaroo courts
torture to illicit false confessions
torture to gather any information, real or fantasy doesn't matter
torture yielding insane intel that nevertheless sends cops on wild goose chases
neighbor turning in neighbor
even many of the tortures are the same (and why wouldn't they be? of course we've learned from the best).
Beatings that don't leave a mark,
stress positions
sleep deprivation
sexual humiliation
religious humiliation
force feeding
threating summary execution
threating family (husbands, wives, even children)
etc...
But hey, as long as we compare favorably to the worst tyrrany in history, we've no right to complain.
Play Command HQ online
Foxnews compared to NPR CNN MSNBC CBS
There is a lot more the administration kept secret from the public.
4 255077250&q=9%2F11+press+for+truth&hl=en
Everyone should watch this free video!!
9/11 Press for Truth
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=558909910
"WTC 9-11 security concerns of Scott Forbes, a seniordatabase administrator for Fiduciary Trust, Inc., with offices in the former WTC. His company wasnotified three weeks in advance that New York's Port Authority would take out power in the South Tower from the 48th floor up on the weekend prior to 9-11, ostensibly to implement a computer cabling upgrade. Forbes noted that Fiduciary Trust was one of the WTC's first occupants after it was erected,and that a --power-down" had never been initiated prior to this occasion. Forbes recalled the power wasout approximately 30 hours between early Saturday morning (September 8th) and mid-Sunday afternoon (September 9th) As a result of the power outage, the WTC's security cameras, ID systems, andelevators to the upper floors were rendered inoperative. Forbes noted that many --engineers" going in-and-out of the WTC had free access throughout the building due to its inoperative security system.Forbes also noted other security related anomalies: Video cameras positioned atop the World TradeCenter which were used to feed daily images to local television stations were inexplicably inoperativethat morning. Also, a Fiduciary employee who was on one of the lower floors and escaped immediatelyafter the first (North) tower was struck, reported that he was amazed by the large number of FBI agentsthat were already on the streets surrounding the WTC complex only minutes after the initial strike.Forbes says that even though these disclosures could jeopardize his current employment, he has stepped forward because, --I have mailed this information to many people, including the 9/11 Commission, butno one seems to be registering these facts." More at http://killtown.blogspot.com/2005/12/scott-forbes- interview.html
How many deaths were there on 911? 4000? There are already, on the low end, between 43,000 and 48,000 Iraqi civilian deaths in Iraq.
What percentage of those civilian casualties will result in a very upset Iraqi who hates America? 5%? 10%? 30%? What percentage of those America-haters has decided, or will decide, to get revenge? This is already a mess and is something that we will now have to deal with for decades. Thanks Bush!
Anyway, the story is wrong, it was Richard Clark, the Terrorist Zsar that alledgedly informed Rice.
And yes, I do wonder .. Who in their right mind put the likes of Jamie Gorelick and Richard Benuevista on the 9/11 commission.
End *quest for the holy grail voice* I don't know why someone modded me troll, above, but they might also want to mod down this thread on Fark, about 1200 odd posts long. That would be moderation abuse for four points, Trebek. The fact is they DID TRY TO PARDON THEMSELVES FOR WAR CRIMES. Don't know if it got through or not.
What he can't kill, he has sex on. Trent.
...was to legislate a requirement that airline pilots be secure in the cockpit of the planes. The airline industry itself could have pressed for such security measures, but didn't.
I read somewhere that last week, an American Airlines pilot left the cockpit of his plane to warn a gay couple that if they didn't quit their public display of affection, he would be forced to return the flight to its destination...
Conservative republicans are cowards, which is why they are so eager and willing to sacrifice our liberty for their short term safety.
Cold War tactics against the Soviet Union--propaganda and fear--are exactly the right tactics for what the Bush Administration wants.
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
Programmers and IT support people saying Clinton & Bush failed them is ironic!
Presidents have a massive staff instead of lots of code to maintain and gets blamed for bugs in the system. A system which can not run like a machine. IT people need bugs to employ them, while government needs problems to remind people of their use.
Where is the balance, you USERs of government?
"Failure of imagination" is a pure BS excuse on the level of ignorant IT phone support.
Clinton and Bush are nearly opposites. It was like a master unix admin retiring and a young MCSE taking his place and trying to move everything to windows 95. The major similarity was their sysadmin god complex; although, Clinton did little to expand his powers.
I don't blame my present crashes on my LAST OS. do you?
Besides, the price for freedom is courage-- non-military people will die defending our freedom. This may become apparent to people when we start to re-gain our lost freedoms in the future.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
Politics is a show, after all.
I think both the Republican Network and the Democrat Channel need to be cancelled; there's entirely too many performers that don't care about the viewers or the shows, just the sponsors. I vote to cancel them each election, but I'm not part of the Nielsen US 1,000,000 (the group of millionaires in the US) so they ignore my vote.
The assumption is that Condi couldn't have gotten the position through any other means than her race.
I personally think that, as a criminal mastermind, she's perfectly qualified to be at a high position in this administration.
But you have to admit, she sticks out in their line up of old white men, and they'd hate to loose that.
So I think "conspicuously black and female" is one of her qualifications that got her the job. That's a far cry from "her only qualification", mind you, but it still counts.
You can't take the sky from me...
Indeed there was a very strong reason to let the attack happen. As with all crimes consider how Bush and his buddies have gained, both politically and financially. Ultimately, the result has been the transition of the United States into a Fascist state, the goal of our corporations since they tried to bribe General Smedley Butler into leading a Fascist coup against Rooseveldt.
Think about Cui Bono, Dude. Then you will understand this crime.
Personally, I think that Bush himself authorized the attack on 9/11. There is really no way that two planes brought down three steel-framed buildings in exactly the same way. That was done with pre-placed explosives. They had to take down the third building because the explosives were already there and would prove an embarrassment if found. It was embarrassing enough that the third plane didn't make it.
This is exactly what they wanted to hear. They simply translated it into:
What part of that isn't great for the president (the executive) and terrible for everyone else? It's not like Bush cares about an approval rating... he's not going to have to worry about "elections" in 2008 or that "goddamned piece of paper" anyways... I'm sure he's warming up his shredder now (the one with the "Enron" badge on the side) for when he's able to push the constitution right through. Especially since the republicans now have all 3 branches of the government under their belt (thanks to hijacked elections) and the rest of the world under their feet...
"To make a mistake is only human; to persist in a mistake is idiotic." Cicero
While I am a Democrat, your post just proves the guy's point and how people here will mod up any old shit that sounds good.
But good job on derailing the guy's main point, give yourself a pat on the back for giving them even more examples!
The article referenced implies that the former CIA director, in effect, attempted to raise the 'terror alert level' at the time. While, these days, people roll their eyes, laugh and mock adjustments to the conveniently color coded levels of alert (all the way from The Daily Show to local newspaper editorials) it is apparently acceptable to in the same manner conclude that a past effort to modify the level was justified and correct: mostly, of course, by those displeased with current United States government officials.
To make it a little simpler? If someone said tomorrow that the alert level was red, most would laugh. If tomorrow the U.S. suffered a terrorist attack on the magnitude of 9/11, most would cry. Then, a year from now, everyone would wonder why nothing was done when the alert level was so 'clearly' red.
To make it even simpler? Hindsight is 20/20.
Does that mean everyone else supports letting terrorists go free after capture, open prisons with conjugal visits, and no interest whatsoever in a suspected terrorist cell making a call to a city in Pakistan?
:)
While I join you in denouncing some of the shady goings-on, there are non-brutal and effective means of interrogation (depends on your def. of "torture"), there is a legitimacy to not telling everyone in the world where we are holding some of the top-ranking al Qaida operatives, and if done properly there is due process in surveillance (FISA) and this information could lead to the apprehension of cells waiting inside the US or abroad for another operation.
So I guess what I'm saying is that you are begging the question there.
I agree. But there is a way to show future administrations that they need to take these issues seriously. Impeach our President, Vice-President, and Secretary of State. If we kick our current President out of office for his impeachable offenses future administrations will know they can't get away with the same arrogance.
Developers: We can use your help.
The whole issue of 9/11 keeps reminding me of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the many investigations that followed it. Some people still think that there was a White House conspiracy to start a war by ignoring warnings of a imminent Japanese attack. The American government, and top military commanders, knew that there was a very high probability of military action by Japan. The problem was that the available intelligence left them guessing as to when and where the Japanese might attack. The warnings that Bin Laden was planning and preparing major operations posed similar problems. Without more specific intelligence, what do you do about it?
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
If Blair, Chirac, Putin, etc. were staying on a cruise ship but suddenly Bush had to stay at a military installation instead of joining them to avoid the possibility of Bin Laden crashing airplanes into the conference (hence the anti-aircraft missiles at the airport)... shouldn't that make an impression on Dear Leader? Someone in the administration took the threat seriously at Genoa in July: That is a fact. Had I been shifted to military accommodations, I would have known there was a threat - anyone would.
Then seeing a briefing titled "Bin Ladin Deteremined to Strike in US" a few weeks later elicited no response from Bush, even knowing that Bin Laden had struck the US at least twice on the past (USS Cole and the basement of the WTC).
To me, he looks like a coward who went on a very long vacation away from Washington, DC in order to avoid getting whacked.
You can exchange them early next month. Whether or not another show will be much better than this one is open to debate. One thing is certain, though - it can't be any worse than the one you've got tickets to now. So my recomendation is to exchange when you get the chance.
That is all.
Medal of Honor, here we come!
Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind. - Dr. Seuss
What's wrong with lowering taxes? It is the only way I know to prevent bought "representatives" from taking even more freedoms away from citizens.
BTW, lying is lying. Lying under oath is a crime, regardless of the lie. If you've ever held a security clearance, you'd understand that it is the small lies which cause the most trouble.
There is merit in what some of what you say, but being obviously so one-sided shows your true warped beliefs. Think back to when facts were important to you, perhaps prior to President Clinton being in office?
Nothing. They didn't even keep track of Arabs from the middle east, didn't warn the police, didn't warn the FBI or tell anyone to keep and eye out for terrorist attacks, they didn't mention it to the mayors of
* NYC
* Boston
* Atlanta
* Chicago
* Los Angeles
* Seattle
* Las Vegas
* Houston
* or Dallas
They didn't warn the coastguard, the FAA or anyone else on
* land
* sea
* or air
Didn't call in any experts in on
* bombs
* gas
* biological (water, food and airborne)
* or radiation
Nothing at all. They did nothing, didn't even call a meeting to discuss it. Nothing.
Until it came time to cover their asses, when they sprung cat-like into action with soundbites and catch phrases and war-on-*.*
Ditto.... still, I envy you. Your life must be astoundingly rich and fulfilling for you to not have enough time to sign up for an account.
I like to place meaningful quotes in my sig, so people will know that I know what meaningful quotes are.
Is it "left-wing propaganda" to point out the flaws and dishonesty in the way this country is run?
The far-right screechers that most of the Bushbots model themselves after consider any criticism of their words or actions to be "left-wing propaganda". Usually they call it "giving aid and comfort to the enemy" as well.
Anything Republicans do is good. Anything Democrats do is bad. It's tribal thinking, and it's deep as most of them get these days. And then they have the nerve to accuse others of practicing moral relativism.
It was 1987. At a lecture the other day they were playing an old news video of Lt.Col. Oliver North testifying at the Iran-Contra hearings during the Reagan Administration.
There was Ollie in front of God and country getting the third degree, but what he said was stunning!
He was being drilled by a senator; "Did you not recently spend close to $60,000 for a home security system?"
Ollie replied, "Yes, I did, Sir."
The senator continued, trying to get a laugh out of the audience, "Isn't that just a little excessive?"
"No, sir," continued Ollie.
"No? And why not?" the senator asked.
"Because the lives of my family and I were threatened, sir."
"Threatened? By whom?" the senator questioned.
"By a terrorist, sir" Ollie answered.
"Terrorist? What terrorist could possibly scare you that much?"
"His name is Osama bin Laden, sir" Ollie replied.
At this point the senator tried to repeat the name, but couldn't pronounce it, which most people back then probably couldn't. A couple of people laughed at the attempt. Then the senator continued. Why are you so afraid of this man?" the senator asked.
"Because, sir, he is the most evil person alive that I know of", Ollie answered.
"And what do you recommend we do about him?" asked the senator.
"Well, sir, if it was up to me, I would recommend that an assassin team be formed to eliminate him and his men from the face of the earth."
The senator disagreed with this approach, and that was all that was shown of the clip.
By the way, that senator was Al Gore.
Was how she got her named slapped on the ass of that oil tanker?
As to the previous comment, Rice had focused on Russian studies and therein was her claim to fame, albeit little in the way of experience to backup her advisory capacities for which she later found herself employed.
It is noteworthy that upon her interactions with Russia in an official capacity, that country decided to reinstitute a then dormant nuclear weapons program and move forward with greatly enhanced bomb designs. Clearly Russia felt this an appropriate step and immediately actionable in light of their perceptions concerning Rice and the administration she represented.
When looking at the backround of Rice we see the suitability towards low to midlevel intelligence analyst work, not utilization in the capacity that she currently enjoys. Suggestion that she may have been a politically expediant and pliable affirmative action hire would not be found baseless for her education background and job experience at the time of her appointments certainly did not warrant even consideration.
Without doubt, Rice counters all the trends one might expect. A black woman, Republican with an education in Russian history leap frogging from college to sit on some of the most powerful boards of Corporate American to then quickly rise to her current position in the Bush administrations. One is left to ask on what basis did this happen? What did Condoleeza Rice bring to the table that was all so unique and desireable?
We can see GW Bush's career, such that it was and mentored by oil interests specifically, was bolstered in preparation for holding significant political office. GW was destined to become a "made man" at an early age on the basis of a Bush family name known for its former reliability and injected into the political pipeline as a future possibility.
There is little doubt that GW Bush, if left to his own devices would have been nothing more than an abject failure and a public embarassment from boyhood forward. But around the Bush family dinner table, GWB realized early that true economic power shapes this country and being usable is the easiest path to success. He seen that in his brother, his father and the grandfather before them. And then we have pilot fish like Karl Rove who called GWB the "most magnificient man he had ever seen."
Well Rove was either a love blind homosexual or recognized the opportunity he was given for what it was. IF GWB can be made respectable in spite of himself, Rove could go far and he was well aware the forces at work and the resources available to make that happen. Of course we know the result. Rove turned out to be a stone cold superstar and the human snake who veneered and varnished an abject failure and public embarassment all the way into the presidency. Not once but twice.
So here we have Condoleeza Rice. Unlike Colin Powell who just may pick up a pistol and splatter his grief strickened brains one day, Rice has no such compulsion. She knew her what her role was going in. A role fully embraced.
Perhaps we should not bother to ask how she got her named slapped on the ass of that oil tanker? Or why.
And why is is there no end in sight?
Time for a link to our National Strategy for Victory in Iraq
First of all, let's dispense with the obvious fact it's powerpoint presentation . Mentally we can insert the clippy jokes here.
The real problem is that it isn't really a strategy. There are some of the pieces you would need in a strategy. Some of the bits are actually quite good (I understand Kissinger had a major part in it -- but that's a different story). At least plausible. But look at the thing. It talks a lot about what we've done; what we are doing now (as of the time of the strategy last year); and what we want to happen. See what's missing?
What's missing is what we are going to do. Now granted some of this stuff might be sensitve. But that can't explain the complete lack of any sense of contingencies (Syria plays a rather important part in the strategy). Maybe those are senstive. But what about addressing strategic weaknesses in our position?
I'll give you an example. We have the most powerful military in the world. Much of that power comes from two things: its extreme mobility, consisting of both speed and coordination; and the almost unimaginable lethality of each of its units. Rumsfeld has been pushing the military more in this direction. But we take that highly mobile, highly lethal military and force them to stay put in the middle of a bunch of civilians, where they can't do what they do best and every mistake has the potential to spark civilian and international outrage.
It seems to me that this is a structural mismatch between the forces we have and the mission we've given them. Sure this sort of mismatch always happen, but my point is that that is why you have a strategy, to match what you need to accomplish the capabilities you have, and figure out what you are GOING to do about it.
If you read this document (which I encourage everybody to do), as I said there is much that is worth considering in it. But it does not connect the future results we want with any future actions we take. None. Somehow the outcomes envisioned in the strategy are supposed to happen.
If it was called "National Goals for Victory in Iraq" I'd be less concerned. But it's not. If this is our strategy, it explains why we're having so much trouble, because it isn't a strategy at all. It's reacting to situations as they develop ("adapting to win") by working like hell, and praying that will be enough for a miracle to occur. And because it's based on reacting towhat the enemy does, it cedes the intiative completely to the enemy, who is free to choose the times and places of engagement.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Do you think that maybe Rice had a hand in crafting the US response to those events, given her position?
You're talking about Bush the Smarter's administration, yes? The one that completely missed all warning signs of the impending fall of the Soviet Union? The one that labelled Mikhail Gorbechev as "the man with no new ideas"? The one that insisted that the Soviet Union was an overwhelming conventional threat that justified huge increases in military spending right up until the very day it imploded?
Must have been impressive advice she was giving.
So - how do we know we're on the side of good? The Germans who supported the Nazi's thought they were doing the right thing. At some point, past the point of no return, the reasonable ones must have realized they made a horible mistake.
/. qualify.
Here's a great reason to make sure that torture is illegal in this country - you might, someday, disagree with what we're doing, and you might find yourself being kept awake all night in some unlisted detainee.
Don't forget, folks - they usually go for the intellectuals first. I'm thinking some on
My apologies, I was incorrect in one statement: the number of detainees released is more like 1/3, not more than half; and perhaps 20% of those released were genuine fighters who returned to Afghanistan and took up arms against coalition forces. Regardless, a largish percentage were never a threat to the US - at least, not before their detention.
..was to make sure that, no matter what the circumstances, there would be fighter jets available and put in the air to avoid any such incident.
I know that average Joe Doe may never have thought about planes flying into buildings, but apart from some 'crazy conspiracy nuts' who e.g. watched the first episode of the Lone Gunmen or those architects actually responsible for designing the WTC even the government officials must have been aware of scenarios in which hijacked planes would be flown into civilian buildings or nuclear plants.
In fact during the cold war certain government officials were even far more creative in finding ways to start a war based on false or fabricated evidence. A plan had been put forth to the government detailing how to create support for a war by laying false evidence (e.g. hijackings of civilian airplanes and attacking civilians by military aircraft). Those plans, due to Kennedy's refusal, have never been put into action, but they show what certain members of government (in this case up to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff) were willing to do; imagine what might have happened if the president had instead been GW Bush back then..
The government is (or should be) concerned about and has the means to evaluate any potential thread against its citizens and act accordingly so that the citizens don't have to. Instead this administration has let four airplanes slip through that killed thousands of civilians and afterwards starts a campaign aided by the media to scare its citizens shitless as to what could happen next? (tm)
And when you gaze long enough into the code, the code will also gaze into you.
What prevents the "planes as missiles" plan from working now is not bans on silly objects, but the very same thing that foiled the fourth plane on 9-11 - the passengers. Bans on knives would not have stopped boxcutters, which appeared to be used. Since people were not worrying about "planes as missiles" but the more standard hijacking scenarios, the terrorists would have used hostages to gain access to the cockpit.
I would be surprised if the "planes as missiles" plan is ever attempted again, let alone executed successfully.
Odd that you dropped half the title - the one that is far more limiting. This article general politics, not nerd-related politics. There are plenty of sites for general politics. Slashdot should stick to its specialty.
Pop quiz: Without peaking, can you recall the biggest foriegn-policy incident in Bush's term before 9-11?
Hint: It had absolutely nothing to do with terrorism or Islam, and it was the major news story for a few weeks.
Here is your analogy, redone:
Foreman: Listen, Mr. Stevens. I'm concerned about some things... Mr. Stevens: Oh. What? Foreman: Well, as you know, lately, we've had a few problems around here. The boiler pipes is making that funny noise I noted in that report I sent you, the roof is leaking, and there is a smell near one of the gas heaters. I need more money to buy supplies, and I want a raise:
Secrectary (interupting): Excuse me, Mr. Stevens. You have four calls on hold. And here are the reports for the last four months, like you requested. Oh, and your meeting was rescheduled to 2-4. And don't forget to get the budget done by six.
Steven's cell starts ringing...
And so forth....
The fact that you only put ONE thing on the list means you are implicitly picking the needle out in advance, which is exactly what I was warning against. The president receives a security report EVERY DAY. One guessed right. What about the other couple hundred that didn't?
Aren't they bankrupt?
People who have "known stuff" about a politician for 20 years are suddenly "getting a conscience" and telling all, people are starting to "remember" stuff about politicians that they've "forgotten" about long ago, and embarrassing bits of documents that have been around for a long time are now getting leaked.
This couldn't have anything to do with an upcoming election, could it? Nah...
While I agree with you on several points, I for one take the tack that all liberalism should try to "upgrade" itself, at least get to Windows 95-era in terms of packaging, presentation and marketing of its ideas. Part of that is throwing away the word liberal altogether (let's go back to using "progressive" since you can't argue that progress is good, and it's less useless of a term). Let's throw out all the tired old "we will overcome" and "if I had a hammer" crap, since, well, it's been stigmatized big time by the other side. Let's make sure there isn't a lick of old Socialism in the New Progressivism that we want to make people interested in. Let's make sure that people who are rich, or who have a hope of being rich someday (read: everyone who ever went to college, everone who ever bought a share of stock, everyone who ever took interest in a startup company for any reason) doesn't feel they aren't perfectly welcome in this particular tent, which will no longer imply that wealth is bad, or that if a person runs a business or makes a profit they are unclean. Let's make sure that our platform is, reasonable taxes for reasonable services, respect for human rights, logical and far-thinking government.
Let's do some of these things, and see if we can't make a Democratic Party that is a lot more interesting to young people, who (I would venture to guess) tend to vote (R) more than (D) these days, and let's do a lot less of "if I had a hammer."
Any feedback on my suggestion?
You've got a friend in Japan: http://www.jlist.com
So much QQing here on Slashdot now, call it QQdot.org. JK guys, I wanted to ad to the comment count and click some ads.
Tenet could have used his buearcratic super powers to save us all if only the wicked witch and dumbo the flying elephant hadn't stopped him.
What's the track record so far on U.S. intelligince?
1. Knew where Bin Laden was, but couldn't persuade the former Pres. that it was anything but a domestic crime issue. The point is that we had OBL!
2. Knew about 9/11, but when the shit hit the fan they blamed the next administration for ignoring them, despite the fact that they knew about it for the past eight years!
3. Said Iraq was a "slam dunk" on WMD's, but didn't suspect that there might not be physical evidence found by the time we got there. Major double oops!
4. Played down Iran's nuclear threat, even though Iran's been openly defiant in letting just anyone inspect their nuclear plants. Is anyone actually buying that lie that they need nuclear power when they're country is a black goldmine?
At this point, I don't care which administration failed more times to capture Bin Laden. All I care about is improving our track record on intelligince.
I highly recommend the rest of the web article, or the book Debunking 9/11 Myths - Why conspiracy theories can't stand up to the facts, by Popular Mechanics.
The 9/11 attacks were a conspiracy, one planned and executed by Al Qaeda, an Islamist extremist group, international in scope, that has been attacking the United States, and many other countries*, repeatedly since the early 1990s. They took credit for the 9/11 attacks. Video has found in Afghanistan showing Bin Laden had prior knowledge of the 9/11 attacks. Muhammad Atta's "martyrdom video" has just surfaced.
Al Qaeda's goal is to reestablish the Islamic super-state combining government and religion, the Caliphate, over the entire region, and to spread Islam to control the entire world. They understand that it will take hundreds of years, but are willing to do their part. You can see this in Bin Laden's letter to America where his first two demands are to convert to Islam, and implement Sharia... if we don't, they will keep killing us.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
>I think you need to be absolutely sure of what you're doing and absolutely have your facts straight.
Compare and contrast to the One Percent Doctrine, Cheney's policy that if there's even a 1% chance of something bad happening then we're justified in taking all the action we would if it did happen.
The fair comparison here is with the turn-of-the-century terrorist plots. The US got the usual maddeningly vague intelligence warnings and made an appropriate response, sending heads-up messages down the line to security people. An alert border guard then stopped a terrorist with a car full of explosives destined for a US landmark.
If the same sort of alert had been raised in summer 2001, when the intelligence was just screaming about threats, maybe the FBI would have allowed their field people to ask for a warrant for Moussaoui's computer. Maybe the guards at Logan Airport would have reacted the third time a hijacker set off the metal detector. Maybe Condi Rice would have done something when, on July 6, Andre Carde told her that terrorists were taking flight training. Warnings about 9/11 were already documented before this story broke.
What can be taken as truth about "weapons-related program activities" after the biological weapons trailers story? Notice the key point, that these trailers were cited as evidence of bio-warfare activities in a public speech two days after Pentagon experts unanimously concluded they weren't. And over and over for almost a year after that.
America needs its "nerds" to stop bickering about how the 2 party system is a waste of time, how both parties suck, how what we really need is a new party, and any other thing, and just pick one of the candidates for each office running, and vote for him or her.
Go ahead and talk amongst yourselves the rest of the cycle, but right now we need your VOTE.
In many midterm elections, vote turnout can be especially light, so your vote will matter even more.
SO VOTE.
Please. Our future depends on it.
So, you're saying that "Occam's razor" tells you that the United States government flew two remotely controlled military aircraft (or the actual commercial planes; you haven't told me which conspiracy theory you believe) into two buildings, demolished them with explosives, destroyed a third in such an outrageous way as to be obviously demolition even to a child, fired a missle (or flew a drone) at the Pentagon, diverted one (or three) aircraft to secret locations, had agents of the US government actively murder all of the passengers, and then made it appear that it was all to blame almost exclusively on Saudi nationals, masterminded by a Saudi, and then used it as an excuse to warmonger in almost completely unrelated countries on unrelated evidence?
I know you probably don't give it much credence, but have you ever read the 9/11 Commission Report? I mean, consider the source and all if you really think it's part of the conspiracy, but your little rant leads me to believe you haven't read any official details - which there are hordes of - about the attack. Ironically, you're also posting this in a story about how the Bush administration was allegedly ignoring intelligence on the person who committed the attacks.
You kept saying I wasn't responding to anything you said. That's because NOTHING you said is provable. All of the "science" that allegedly "proves" this was a conspiracy isn't science at all. It's science with a political or ideological axe to grind. You can neatly dismiss anything I say with classic conspiracy theory justifications, like "anyone who questions the official line will have his/her career instantly ended", etc. If there weren't video that YOU felt believable enough of the planes crashing into WTC 1 and 2, I have serious doubts you'd even believe there were any planes at all...given everything else you've said, be honest with yourself here.
Hell, even when the US has *planned* false flag operations, they never target civilians, and they ALWAYS assign blame to the party we want to assign blame to. If we wanted 9/11 as an excuse to attack Iraq, you'd better be damned sure we would make certain it appeared that Iraq was to blame. (Again, hardcore conspiracy theorists will say that's exactly why we DIDN'T make it look like Iraq was to blame: because it's plausible that Saudi extremists would attack us, and because we're friendly with Saudi Arabia officially, it would for sure look like it wasn't planned, and all manner of other utter tripe. That's exactly how conspiracy theories work: anything I say can be brushed away with one stroke: "Well, of COURSE we didn't make it look like Iraq did it - that would be too obvious!"
As to WTC 7, you apparently choose to ignore numerous official and independent opinions and studies (no doubt because they don't agree with the things you're choosing to believe) that assert that the building was STRUCTURALLY UNSOUND after the collapse of WTC 1 and 2, and suffered severe damage, and that it was surprising but not at ALL impossible or even improbable that the damage could cause that level and type of destruction. The same thing goes for WTC 1 and 2. People keep saying it's categorically impossible that they would have collapsed at those temperatures, ignoring the pure facts that steel loses upwards of 50%-60% of its compression resistance and integrity at those temperatures. Steel doesn't have to melt to lose significant amounts of strength.
You also read nothing I linked in regard to the Pentagon. And yes, the reason I linked things is because people would say "OH, YOU HAVE NO PROOF!~!(@(!" if one posts something without links, so there you go. At LEAST read them. There were shitloads of windows broken out of the Pentagon, there are clear marks where the wings hit the building, Purdue did a simulation of exactly what happened, and the hole is exactly the appropriate size for a 757 fuselage. (And I love conspiracy theories: some say the hole is too *small*, and others - apparently yours - say the hole is too *big*! And you can't win with
Don't worry; you'll matter when you become a billionaire.
.... because it is well known that billionaire councils appoint the president?
.
It is a good thing that all of the billionaires were for Bush.... or were they?
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
I think maybe there are aspects of Conservative policy which elude you.
YES: Conservatives WANT to reduce spending, and reduce the size of government.
HOWEVER: They are not able to simply come into office and cut spending. The public won't stand for that - you'd never get re-elected. No, what you have to do to reduce government spending is to basically bankrupt the country.
The way you do this is by - oooooh - invading a couple of countries, spend - oooooh - maybe a couple of trillion dollars which need to be borrowed from other countries. THEN you cut taxes. (See there's a pattern forming here.) THEN you boost the budget for space, medical care, and make sure that the budget boosts and the tax cuts affect your buddies, so they can get Tera-Rich (Giga is so 20th century) without anyone REALLY caring too much. Oh, then you cut taxes again - or make the tax cuts permanent (invalidate the sunset clauses). If you think you need some "help" carrying your campaign of radical spending (cuts!) then you can always rely on the party faithful (who after all, have probably 20% more money in their pockets directly, and many millions more yet to come) to "deliver the election."
Then in a few years, when the country is so far in debt, the military has done all the investing it needs to for 20 years, business is tanking because of poor fiscal management, THEN the conservatives HAVE TO CUT SPENDING.
See - if you don't HAVE to cut spending - then you simply can't get away with it. BUT, if you completely insane, and drive the country into the deck, then you HAVE to. The result, is of course, a lot of misery - but Business will bounce back fast, with low taxes, and almost zero regulations. (Or in fact, a LOT of regulations, but from a government that can no longer afford to enforce or even police them.)
Because of cuts to spending, the government has to throw the consumer a bone - and so you reduce taxes...
THAT'S HOW CONSERVATIVES CUT SPENDING: BY GUTTING THE COUNTRY AND THE GOVERNMENT.
How many escape pods are there? "NONE,SIR!" You counted them? "TWICE, SIR!"
>We were attacked because of things like unquestionable support for Israel
Osama bin Laden didn't even mention the Palestinians until way late in his career. What drove him was something USians find hard to understand and believe.
US troops in Saudia Arabia were his top complaint. Incomprehensible? Try to imagine how a medieval European would have felt about Turks providing security for the Vatican. Unbelievable? Look up the history of the air base at Dhahran. It caused a general strike in 1956. It had to be closed until the rulers asked the Americans back to help with a border dispute with Yemen.
I asked a level-headed non-Saudi Arab once whether this was a truly important grievance. He gave me a "yes of course how can you possible ask" kind of answer. Foreign troops are uncomfortable to everyone, but if you're a closed culture with rigid customs then they're a disturbance, and if you've got them because you can't defend yourself, they're a humiliation.
(Notice that greater understanding leads to more horror at his evil. He committed an atrocity instead of organizing a general strike).
Remember that the elder Bush's war with Iraq, 1991's "Operation Desert Storm," was also founded on a lie.
- Nurse Nayirah
Truth is subjective.
If you don't want to be bombarded with other people's truth, do what you need to do to get the facts. Use those facts to get your own truth. Publish it, if need be.
Fact of the matter is, sensationalist truth sells. When you rely on someone who uses truth for their primary income, you're not likely to end up with something you entirely agree with.
>complete and utter lack of response by NORAD
F-16s scrambled.
Continental air defense was a neglected relic of the days when we worried about Soviet bombers. They were far from combat ready. The pilots took off with what they had, namely training ammunition or none at all.
If the pilots had been able to reach the jetliners with authority to bring them down, they didn't have the weapons to do it.
The pilots figured out what they'd have to do. Had it come to that, they had decided to ram the jetliners. Ejection seats are not designed to work when you've flown into a jetliner. They would have died.
I find it hard to think about that. The pilots don't need me to defend them against someone saying "complete and utter lack of response". But some things cannot be allowed to go uncorrected.
4. Finding: From at least 1994, and continuing into the summer of 2001, the Intelligence
Community received information indicating that terrorists were contemplating, among
other means of attack, the use of aircraft as weapons.
He[Sarshar] had first-hand information of prior specific warning obtained from a reliable informant in April 2001 on the terrorist attacks of September 11.
"...when hundreds of American bodies are laying[sic] around you will question whether there was anything else that could have been done. " -- Richard Clarke, memo to Rice, 9/4/2001
Powerty and bitterness are the breeding grounds for terrorism and radicals. Have you ever thought what would the situation be like if you would have started giving every iraqi a "citizen's salary", say $100/month. You'd give that money without requiring anything. They'd get the money so that they can decide how to use it to help their personal lives. That would cost US less than $3 billion a month, ie. cheaper than current war. I'm quite sure that approach would get rid of most of the terrorist breeding ground, most of the peoples anti-US attitude, etc. I say most, because you can never please all...
I read the headline of this and my first thought was that Intel had chosen a particularly poor taste name for their new chip.
Rice is a token black woman... Colin Powell (another token Black hire)...
Tell me, does a token normally go to the Secretary of State slot, the highest-ranking Cabinet post, or remain in control of the most prominent position (National Security Advisor)? And how many tokens does an administration have to hire before you would consider them not to be "tokens?" If the President is a Democrat rather than a Republican, does that number change? Finally, does one normally "put someone in their place" by making them one's right-hand (wo)man?
Revive the Constitution.
What Clinton did was lie while under oath in a case where he was identified as the serial sexual harassment predator he is. I thought after 'Clarence Thomas' that Sexual Harassment was a serious issue for the Democrats.
Hahahahahaha
So, let me guess, you are one of those guys who think that GTA San Andreas is TERRIBLY UNAEQUATE GAME because it is possible to unlock a sex scene? no mather killing people in the middle of the street etc etc etc...
Really, as a non american (Mexican if you care) I never really understood what was the problem with Clinton's Blowjob. Everybody wants a blowjob no?. What is the difference, it is a kind of sexual act. Nothing fancy. What, you said he "lied under oath"? okey, cool, just punish him because of that.
Really, how can you compare a blowjob to mmm lets see, a massive out of all proportion massacre of innocent people, both non-americans AND americans (yeah I consider the poor militar guys who enroll to get some money for their career as innocent) that the current president is backing up?.
Americans are hilarious. A woman shows a tit for 450 milliseconds on TV and everyone is so shocked that they even pass a "new law" while their consitution and basic rights are being abolished by your government...
Man... I have pitty for you. America is not even as cool as it used to be.
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
Sorry, I just can't let this one go:
"Also, your last statement about Christianity is pretty much bullshit, because where the Panislamic radicals are in respect to *anyone* in this administration with respect to religion are not even close. 11th century Christianity, maybe."
You cannot deny that certain christofascists fervently believe in Armageddon, the rapture, the subsequent tribulation, and the milennial reign of Jesus. In their view of the world, events that they see as a "prelude" to the apocalypse are not necessarily bad. If you're suggesting that this group holds no sway over the current administration, then you're simply wrong. Note that I'm not suggesting that Bush is actively conspiring with this group to bring about Armageddon - what I'm suggesting is that this group is, shall we say, less "risk-averse" than other - dare I say it - people of a saner disposition. Some of the leaders of said groups are known to converse with Bush on occasion, and Bush is known to seek counsel with same. You don't have to think too hard to consider the possibility that this mindsight has had a viral effect on the president's brain, which could be one of the factors driving this administration into an aggressive stance on all things Middle East (the others having been listed ad nauseum, ie. terrorism, oil)
Of course, this has nothing to do with 9/11 itself, only the aftermath.
And finally, I'll leave you with this. While conspiracy-whackers such as yourself are often great at debunking the dubious and poorly constructed, you're not so good at pointing out why these crazies proliferate. There was a recent book about conspiracies, and the author was interviewed on some NPR program (ugh, I wish I could recall the author and book title, but oh well...) In the interview, he mentioned that Tony Blair was rather frustrated by conspiracy theories and called them out in public. The author thought this was rather disingenuous, saying, "if governments don't like conspiracy theories, then don't act conspiratorially."
So no, there was no "9/11 cover-up" in terms of what planes hit which buildings, but there was a cover-up as to why we went to war, and there was a cover-up of things that have happened during the war, and there was a cover-up regarding the available information before 9/11, and there was a cover-up about recriminations for those officials who voiced public criticism of the administration, and there was a cover-up about how information was disseminated through certain media outlets, and there was a cover-up regarding the elections in 2000 and 2004.
So yes, it's sad that we have these fanciful conspiracy theories - it's sad because they detract from real, documented conspiracies that have taken place at an alarming rate ever since this administration took office.
Can you tell me what you are talking about and how it could have prevented 9-11? Even dropping a bomb on Osama's head would have stopped it.
The only realistic policies that could have prevented 9-11 are variations of the following:
1: A major separation of the barriers between foreign and domestic intelligence (FBI, CIA, etc). This was politically impossible pre 9-11 and not on the political radar at all.
2: A massive upgrade in airline security. This was probably possible, but was again not on anyone's agenda. Nor could it have been debated, legislated, passed and implemented in eight months. Even if Bush had considered it his mission from God himself, it could not have been done in time to prevent 9-11.
A vague terrorism "policy" would not have prevented 9-11. Only REAL changes to our intelligence gathering and security systems would have. These types of changes were simply not under significant debate as of 9-10.
...wouldn't you rather it be your own?
0 4.asp
Your formulaic repetition of the phrase "Clinton, advised by Dick Clarke, did nothing." Is a common and cheap tactic used by propagandists to try and drill that phrase into a persons head, and is not a proper logical argument.
This led me to believe that you just pasted it straight out of an email from your grandma. The real truth as it turns out, is not very far from the truth. Comes directly from here:
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/coulter0401
FACT: plagiarizing others in your Slashdot comments makes you LAME.
Plain reality is enough. This reminds me of when that group of Christian loons claimed to hear subversive messages in Stairway To Heaven when played backwards. Obviously they never took the time to listen to the lyrics played forwards...
What should scare the shit out of you is that after the 9/11 attacks Bush told the world that they either agree with US international policies in the future or they would be treated as terrorists. (That may mean being "bombed back to the stone age," especially if you are Pakistan.) Then the Bush administration made stuff up each and every day about why Iraq needed to be invaded, and did it in such a lax and transparent manner that it was obvious that they didn't consider it important whether people believed them or not. Try this: Bush is standing on the steps to the UN building in late 2003 with Annan standing right next to him, and Bush says that Saddam Hussein "refused to let the UN weapons inspectors in, and that's why we invaded." The man is, especially with the help of Dick Cheney, capable of lies of any magnitude, and he doesn't give a freck if people believe him. Not important. His power, after all, does not come from consensus, and he doesn't feel like he needs anyone's permission to do anything.
Five years later, Iraq is in flames, Afghanistan is in flames, southern Lebanon is in ashes, and US weapons have in a few years killed tens of times more innocent civilians than all the terrorists in modern history. Bush and the neocons are on a crusade to "fix the world." No amount of havoc, no number of dead women and children can ever convince them that they are wrong, because they don't belong to the "reality-based crowd." They will just keep going, and people will keep burning.
Meanwhile, US citizens approve and disapprove of the president mostly based on the price of gasoline. As always throughout history, burning brown people on the other side of the ocean carry little weight. People are burning, US citizens don't care, and freedum and democracy have been reduced to patriotic flags to wave in feverish support of a leader who couldn't understand less or care less about those concepts. That is what should scare the shit out of you.
What proportion of Iraq Civilian deaths were from Al-Qaeda suicide bombers, roadside boms, marketplace bombs, and other Al-Qaeda led attacks? You (an American Liberal) are again using defeatism and trying to point the finger of blame back at America. I just find it unimaginable, but you say it every day ... "Oh, even though Al-Qaeda pulled the trigger, America is to blame." Why do you give leniency to murderers, thugs, and bombers, but show no remorse and don't have a second thought about putting down your own countrymen?
unknown my foot. it was even in F/911 for pete's sake. there was public documentation of it.
our new washington friends were just looking for data that fit their existing perceptions, and not paying attention to data that didn't.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
daveschroeder wrote:
Will you please stop burning that damned straw man you're so fascinated with?
Because, unlike in your oh-so-black-and-white-world, there is a damned huge difference between ``the official explanations have huge, gaping holes you could fly a 757 through'' and ``ZOMG! Teh Men in Black teleported Elvis into teh cockpits!!!1!''
Look. It's simple, really. We have building 7, which collapsed so perfectly it would have made a 30-year demolition veteran proud. Yet there was no significant damage visible to witnesses on the ground or in still or video images we have of the building, and fires were visibly minor. Worse, the damage the official explanation says was responsible for the collapse not only would have caused a radically different collapse from what happened, it would have caused a radically different collapse from what the official explanations says happened--the damage on the south side, yet it collapsed inward with a slight west-to-east slumping.
That's all stuff that's uncontested, unquestioned, and plainly obvious from the first glance through the last final minute examination.
And we know that the explosion and resulting damage to the Pentagon looks absolutely nothing whatsoever like what we've repeatedly seen when a 757 hits a building. And that any camera pointed in the right general direction will very clearly show a plane hitting a building. And that the Pentagon's security was supposed to be far better than any civilian office building's--yet every office building I've ever seen has a plethora of plain ol' security cameras that would trivially capture something that was about to hit the second floor of the building. And that those same defenses, designed to protect the building in the event of attack from the evil Russkies, completely and utterly failed to even sound the alarm--let alone fire off anti-aircraft, anti-missile, anti-whatever defenses--even when the people in the building were supposedly coordinating our response to an air attack. And nobody in the administration appears upset in the slightest at that profoundly abysmal failure of the most important military defensive systems in the world.
That's all I'm saying. The facts are quite clear, and they don't even pretend to support the official position. I'm not saying that people were unloaded from the planes and then murdered in order to more easily fake their murders halfway across the country, or any of the rest of the bullshit you're accusing me of making up about the ``real truth.''
What I'm really saying, when it comes right down to it, is that the administration's explanations hold no more water than the nutjob conspiracy theorists'.
Oh--and nice job at playing the party line with respect to whitewashing the administration's anti-Semitism. Sure, they're happy to welcome selected Westernized Muslim religious leaders to be token house niggers alongside Condi. But the war is against Islamofascists, the extremists are all towelheads and sand niggers, and white Christian men's terrorist acts are completely ignored in the War on Terror. Bush's only beef is with ``radical Muslims,'' sure--but it's a damned funny coincidence that virtually all Muslims are
All but God can prove this sentence true.
So, Bush had eight months from election to Sept. 11th. Clinton had eight years to do something about UBL. Maybe if he'd spent less time chasing skirts and Big Macs he'd have been an effective president
The "explanation" is that the "war on the middle class" simply isn't in the overtime rules. I looked, not there. I think now it is up to the guy who claimed that it was there to back it up.
Where were you when the voynix came?
"How is this any different than 'assertion without explanation'? Seems to be par for the /. course..."
There's still silence from the guy who made the claim. I did, however find "war on the middle class" on Google used as a partisan insult-charge basically devoid of meaning. I think Sethstorm wants the government to force companies to give away money to workers for work they never did.
Where were you when the voynix came?
the Bush Administration does not let its people 'spend more time with their families' for general incompetence
Bullshit. Bush spends tons of time with his family in Crawford.
"and making one of the most middle-class hostile changes to overtime eligibility"
I bet you can't name one middle-class-hostile change.
Where were you when the voynix came?
Agreed. Anyone who's researched Condi's background would realize really quickly that she's a near prodigy. She got to where she is today because she is a talented and uber smart individual, not because she's the token black person.
Having said that though, even hardworking geniouses can dedicate their lives to EVIL instead of for the greater good. (There's better money and perks involved.)
It's hard to convict anyone, even a Bush administration official, for not acting on Tenet's "sixth sense", which is all this story is about. Sure they had a meeting to discuss the threat of an attack from Bin Laden but even Tenet himself admits that all he had to go on was increased radio chatter and his feelings, with no clear targets or plans.
The biggest governmental problem leading to the 9/11 attacks was not people ignoring some generic "attack emminent" type memo or meeting but the wall set up to prevent interagency communication. Army Intel couldn't talk to the CIA who couldn't talk to the FBI and so on. This was an ongoing policy (slightly reinforced during Clinton's term but originally created years earlier) when terrorism was considered a criminal act as opposed to an act of war. In hindsight it may have been a dumb policy, and many people thought so even then, but it was meant to allow for the prosecution of captured terrorists which couldn't happen if information gathered from the wrong agencies were used in making the arrests. So sadly, while there was probably enough information out there to have prevented, or greatly reduced the events of September 11th, the bureaucracy of Washington made it near impossible for anyone to put the pieces together.
It didn't matter who was in office, the system was just not well designed to handle this type of situation. If any good has come of this tragedy, it's the policy shift that has begun the process of tearing down the walls. There are still some communication problems but at least now the agencies are talking to each other. And sure this may lead to some problems with criminal trials later on (which is already a problem with the GITMO detainees) but I think preventing another attack is far more important.
Of course that's just my opinion...... you could be wrong!
While I am a talking cow that can do derivatives in my head while whistling Fortuna, Imperatrix Mundi and dancing an Irish jig, your post just proves that an AC can claim to be anything, so why bother claiming you are a Democrat? Maybe because you actually aren't a Democrat and you want to make them look bad?
The guy has a point, there is no liberal bias here, there is no liberal bias in the media. There is a conservative bias here and in the media, it's just become so blatant no on recognizes it, and what was once centrist is now considered left wing. Left wing is now called kooksville, right wing is now centrist, and the old right wing lunatic fringe is accepted as the new right wing. And anyways, who cares if there is a liberal bias, with conservatives holding all positions of power, doesn't that call for a little loyal opposition?
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
the problem here is that people don't take the time to actually do a little research before forming an opinion..
the Tenet did warn of bin Laden attacks on the US but 'not' on our soil..
and one would also want to consider the source of this claim.. the guy doesn't have any proof of this. he's just writing to push his own political agenda.
as a sidenote IMHO, if we can't unite as a nation we're all gonna burn.. i don't care repub/dem or who's running the country.. these people aren't gonna stop until they kill us all.. the quicker this nation gets that through their naive, comfortable, suburban middle-class, thick @$$ skulls the better off we'll all be..
I shall go and tell the indestructible man that someone plans to murder him.
Clinton was notorious for using his mod points to silence dissent, didn't you know?
I'm thinking of making a new sig:
Q. How do you know when a neo-con is guilty of something?
A. When he blames others for doing that very thing.
But I guess I want to keep my anti-pudge sig for a while.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
It's a simple question and, if you read through all intelligence reports, (i'd imagine that like most all conservatives, you've not read the 911 commission report) you'd see that we have a real problem on our hands. we're not talking about a simple 20 terrorists that we've helped create... we're talking about thousands that will now be a threat for, as is said in reports, over 40 years. Yes, Al Qaeda has killed some. Our "smart" bombs have killed some. Which do you think is an easier target, an entity that has no central location or one that is a country? I don't propose that we not stay the course. We now have to. And I support the troops as many of my family members are serving in the middle east. We're poor. You're probably not and probably can't name 10 people serving. Venequela no longer puts money into t bills after we purchase their oil. Iraq, after we attacked them, is finally trading oil in the dollar again. Iran also announced they are moving to the euro for oil trading... so we're going to have the same response? We cannot because China has said, "We've got your back," (see the chinese ambasador to iran saying so in his visit to iran two years ago around november after condi and cheney made threatening comments following iran's announcement of moving to the euro). China has us by the balls and there's no way we can attack Iran; but economically, (in the eyes of our elected conservatives) it would make sense for us to attack Iran. they won't after weighing the economic pressure china will put upon us after cashing out our t bills, cashing in on our loans from them, and killing the value of the dollar. Hell, China has been selling the dollar now, month after month, for almost a year... we're in a tight spot. This is all economics. The decision to attack was based upon economics, despite what the administration said leading up to the war, and it has made us less safe... that is all I am proposing. They only look at economic impact and don't much care for our safety. all of our elected officials have already moved their investment capital into different markets and currencies. They're protected. It's the little guy in the states who will be screwed. Thanks conservatives! You've been in control of all three branches of government for long enough to have an impact and have done a heck of a job.
We were attacked because of things like unquestionable support for Israel in EVERYTHING they do including the bad stuff, cozying up with dictators when it's convenient for our interests, and so on.
While I agree that US support for Israel has been unquestionable, it hasn't been unquestioning. They're far from perfect; however, nearly every government around them either would love to see them wiped off the map, or are unable to restrain the portion of their own populace that feels that way. Most of their worst behavior (such as the facist-style checkpoints and abrupt military incursions into others' territory) results directly from guerilla provocation. The US has on occasion quietly criticized Israeli tactics, and has encouraged Israel in peace negotiations.
The "cozying up with dictators" I have no quibbles about.
Fundamental Islam = Fundamental Christianity in terms of disgusting behavior. If you want to play the immature game of name calling then I suggest that you start referring to this administration as ChristianFascist.
Unfortunately, you're wrong; while there are strong parallels between them, they're not equivalent. First off, I've read both the Q'uran, the Old Testament, and the New Testament. I haven't read the Talmud; however, based on comments from my neighbors when growing up, I understand it moderates some of the more extreme tendancies of the Old Testament. The New Testament, while almost as large of a mass of contradictions as the Old, has more of a base message of tolerance than either the OT or the Q'uran. In many places, the Q'uran is downright Xenophobic. Furthermore, in Europe Christianity spent almost a thousand years fighting over what was Really The True Faith. It was this history that led to the Non-Establishment clause in the First Amendment. While Islam has had extensive conflicts as to the True Faith (between Sunni, Shia, Sufi, and other factions), they have been smaller in scope, with fewer factions, and overshadowed by the conflicts with outside faiths (particularly Christianity).
So, Christianity starts with a baseline more tolerant message, and furthermore, has had the practical importance of tolerance beaten into it by the few centuries of extensive infighting. (That they generally lost the crusades may also be a factor.) So, while the tolerance still follows a bell-type distribution, the median Christian is more tolerant than the median Moslem. Both faiths have their hair-shirt ranting whack-jobs... but Islam has a larger fraction who are further out on any given absolute value of whacko.
While I'll agree the US has not made substantial efforts to understand the neo-Caliphate very well, I'm not sure it would be of any great benefit. There is an overlarge faction within Islam that is primed with the idea of world conquest as an article of faith, and there doesn't appear to be any internal faction capable of effectively countering that. (In part, because one of Islam's main tenets is unity against outside threats.) I see relatively few courses that might change this. First, the emergence of a new religious leader within Islam; of a caliber comparable to Mohommet, Jesus, or Sidhartha; and oriented towards increased tolerance. I consider direct divine intervention only slightly less plausible. Second, some series of events triggers a large-scale conflict within Islam, devolving most of the Islamic lands into religious civil war for the next couple hundred years until they collectively realize the advantages of general tolerance and the separation between religion and politics. While a properly Machievellian management of Iraq might pull this off, I don't think anyone in the Bush team is this long-sighted, nor are they subtle enough to do it without leaving massive fingerprints on their efforts. Neither is any other prospective US candidate for 2008. Third, other global powers deciding that Islam constitutes a sufficient threat to world peace that they render large parts of the mideast glow-in-the-dark for the next mill
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
For those curious what "stormfront forums" was referring to, be aware that it is a White Nationalist movement of the kind that you probably don't want associated with your search history, especially from an office computer.
Tenet's story sounds fishy to me. Why is he only able to recall this now?
C ADIU&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
It sounds like the whole story is made up:
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/R/RICE?SITE=
I know this will probably disappoint the crypto-anarchists on here, and I'll be modded -5 flamebait, but it doesn't sound to me like the story holds any water.
Yet there was no significant damage visible to witnesses on the ground or in still or video images we have of the building, and fires were visibly minor.
This is completely untrue. There was significant damage to the south side.
And we know that the explosion and resulting damage to the Pentagon looks absolutely nothing whatsoever like what we've repeatedly seen when a 757 hits a building.
When have we ever seen a 757 hit a building except for WTC 1 and 2, which were built totally differently than the Pentagon?
And that any camera pointed in the right general direction will very clearly show a plane hitting a building.
Unless it didn't take a frame at the moment the plane hit. Hint: The plane was travelling something like 500 mph on impact. What was the frame rate of the camera and how far would the plane have traveled between frames?
And that those same defenses, designed to protect the building in the event of attack from the evil Russkies, completely and utterly failed to even sound the alarm--let alone fire off anti-aircraft, anti-missile, anti-whatever defenses--even when the people in the building were supposedly coordinating our response to an air attack
Who ever said the Pentagon had any kind of defense system anything like that?
That's all I'm saying. The facts are quite clear
Yes, they are. Two planes hit WTC 1 and 2, which later collapsed, damaging WTC 7 enough that it also collapsed. Another plane crashed into the Pentagon creating a large hole and leaving debris.
* 9/11 is a good thing for Bush. It helps to create an urgent issue of national security, thus diverting attention from national economy, public health, environment, and other difficult issues that could not be solved in 4 years. It helps to consolidate power and silence oppositions (Who dare to oppose a legislation named "Patriot act" ? only the unpatriotic ones, of course) This issue helps Bush appearing as a strong national leader. Risks ? What is the risk in fighting the poorest country on earth or an isolated crippled developing country ? None. It is all positive for Bush.
* A dependent Iraq is also a good thing for US. It provides justification for long-term US military presence to secure US interests. The war justifies increased US spending, which rewards many US companies in their patronage network. It also forced the Iraqi oil export to be dollar denominated, thus strengthing value of dollars and ease US inflation.
When a rich and powerful group of people play dumb, a reasonable person should think twice...
Now even Rice cannot comprehend how truly incompetent she is.
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make install -not war
Arthur Daniels Midland. ADM is big corn.
You've got to be kidding if you think Bush the sr. and his administration missed the warning signs of the Soviet fall. And pushing the idea that the Soviets were a huge threat.. that was no mis-calculation at all. It was well-known in the government for decades that the Soviets had a vastly smaller nuclear arsenal than we had, and that they were not a really massive threat. That's well documented at this point if you want to search through the National Security Archives at GWU. There was a very clear, very deliberate purpose in the government misleading the US population for that: they needed a reason to keep pushing for more military spending.
There are pretty much two primary ways that the government might try to maintain the economy. They can either dump money into social programs of some sort, or they can dump money into military spending. Each method benefits different people. Social programs benefit the population directly, while military spending primarily benefits large corporations in the form of big government contracts.
What a load of horseshit. Canada's armed forces are something like the 14th strongest in the world--stronger than badasses like Iran and Israel, and their overall tech level is top notch. We could defeat them if we tried (assuming they didn't have any help from their other allies), but they're hardly relying on us for protection.
He's a fun fucking idea, why don't you actually pick up a book (or mouse) and learn something instead of regurgitating the same retarded, redneck drivel that gives the rest of us Americans such a bad name.
Again, you miss the point. The issue isn't whether or not 9/11 was stoppable. From the sounds of the events behind 9/11, it probably *wasn't* stoppable (though some of the damage might have been mitigated). Instead, the point is that there wasn't even an *attempt* to do anything to stop bin Laden or al Qaeda. It was completely ignored. On top of that, the policies in place by Clinton, however bad they might have been, were at least an attempt to work towards protection from terrorism and shouldn't have been scrapped if no serious replacements were in consideration.
Put simple, it's a question of neglect. That's the incompetence that has repeatedly plagued the Bush administration. This is just a fine example of them hiding said neglect because they knew it'd make them look bad.
Eurohacker European paranoia, gun rights, and h
Clinton's policy was a failure, and it was running on autopilot when Bush entered. Bush failed to address this failure in time, therefore failing himself. There were no "policy changes", just a few bureaucrats doing the position shuffle as the new administration took over. I do not blame either president, however, because we the people did not press them to do something. Terrorism simply was not a matter of significant discussion pre 9-11. Many people seem to forget this because it is dominant in the political debate now. I just searched through the first debate between Bush and Gore. There were ZERO mentions of terrorism, Islam, etc. Neither man mentioned it during their security blurbs.
That is simply the way it was. No one was paying much attention, neither liberal or conservative.
Yea there are times when I think my countrymen have a memory like a goldfish.... they only retain the last session of what was on CNN, everything before that is lost. I personally just hope that either A) Our government leaks or does something so stupid and brazin that it wakes people from there prescription drug coma. or B) Enough people that are actually aware of whats going on get united and toss all of these idiots out of office, but not before making them beg the world for forgivness for all of the murder and mayhem they have caused.
And I support the troops as many of my family members are serving in the middle east. We're poor. You're probably not and probably can't name 10 people serving
My wife and I struggle to pay our heating and gas bills just like most of rural Wisconsin. I know 4 relatives / close friends in the Middle East right now. And I know there are many many more serving from my community, that I just don't happen to know personally. You do realize that you are mimicing the liberals right now? You cannot discuss the true issues without resorting to smear tactics and off-topic negative discussions.
The decision to attack was based upon economics, despite what the administration said leading up to the war
I couldn't disagree more. Look at your 2 choices right now, Liberals and Conservatives, and tell me who you think is more dedicated and determined to protect America? Is is the cut & run, let's hold peace talks, let's create sanctions, don't touch our phones even if it means catching terrorists, let's treat our Al-Qaeda prisoners farely liberals? Or is it the tough nosed, stay the course, intercept terrorist phone call, rough up our enemies during interrogation conservatives? The choice is easy.
And the funny thing is, the post kvetching about the moderation of its parent was modded higher than the original. It's a complete Slashdot inversion!
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca