|
|
Thread Tools | Display Modes |
#21
|
|||
|
|||
Semi-OT--Biking To Nowhere
Robert Chung wrote: Bill C wrote: There were reasons why neither President did much of anything about Al Qaida before 9/11 [...] but it needs to be clear that it was both administrations In every other thing it did during its first few months, the guiding principle of this administration was: if Clinton did it, it must be bad, so we'll do it the other way. If the previous administration had done nothing about terrorism, this administration would have made it their top priority. I don't think they were even vaguely organized enough to begin to deal with this. The people who say that it was low on their list of priorities are absolutely right. All the intel from the during the Clinton administration said that at most Al-Qaida could kill a couple of hundred, and probably outside the US as they had already done. They were being pretty closely monitored, and Clinton had decided against several possible military and covert solutions. Please tell me what alarming new info came in between 20 Jan and 9 Sep that should have caused an all out scramble to attempt to quickly cobble together an operation to kill or capture Bin-Laden by the Bush team? The Clinton administrations decided, and I can ubderstand why, that there was way too much risk, and cost, both internally and internationally to going after him using all resources. They consistantly blocked this option, that's clear from the evidence before the committee, and had followed this since at least 96, and continued it even after the embassy bombings. The planned operation to capture him sounds a lot like the failed Iranian hostage mission, and probably had less chance of success and more risk for global disaster. I'm willing to bet that, even now, if the US military or Intel types kill Bin-Laden, there will be a huge outcry among the "progressives" about extra-judicial executions, and that he was killed, rather than brought to trial to protect the Saudi government from being exposed. It would've been a hundred times worse before 9/11 if they had killed him. Arresting him once he was out of Sudan was going to be damn near impossible. You tell me how either administration could've done anything really effective against him without generating a huge legal headache both here in the US, UN, and World Courts? Then how about the backlash against the US for unilaterally going into another sovereign nation, before 9/11, and killing or kidnapping a guest, especially an Islamic hero? What came out of the Church commission and the US intel agencies actions prior to that around the globe was the neutering of our capability to deal with any situation, no matter how bad. Carter gutted US Humnit, becuase he personally found spying repugnant, but that just added to what Congress and Ford had done in swinging the pedulum on Intel way too far the other way so that they were3 basically blind except for NSA, and that doesn't give you people on the ground to handle operations, and get a feeling for the context of the intercepted information, let alone actually act on it to kill someone like Bin-Laden. We didn't have the ability, or any way for the president to legally authorize his killing. The Taliban sure as hell weren't going to extradite him, kidnapping him using the US military would've been an open act of war, especially when it failed and they had a couple of US helicopters, bodies, and prisoners to parade on tv. Sanctions almost never work. How about you telling us just what reasonable action, either administration could've taken, without causing a huge legal and political firestorm? Bill C |
Ads |
#22
|
|||
|
|||
Semi-OT--Biking To Nowhere
Bill C wrote:
Please tell me what alarming new info came in between 20 Jan and 9 Sep that should have caused an all out scramble to attempt to quickly cobble together an operation to kill or capture Bin-Laden by the Bush team? How about, "Bin Ladin determined to strike in US?" "The system was blinking red:" http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report_Ch8.pdf |
#23
|
|||
|
|||
Semi-OT--Biking To Nowhere
Robert Chung wrote:
Bill C wrote: There were reasons why neither President did much of anything about Al Qaida before 9/11 [...] but it needs to be clear that it was both administrations In every other thing it did during its first few months, the guiding principle of this administration was: if Clinton did it, it must be bad, so we'll do it the other way. If the previous administration had done nothing about terrorism, this administration would have made it their top priority. Actually, I remember reading one area that they saw things the same way; that the US would not accept a judgement by the World Court--at the same time as the administration acceded to holding other countries to accept the court. It was supposedly something to do with surrendering sovereignty to a foreign power. Steve -- Mark & Steven Bornfeld DDS http://www.dentaltwins.com Brooklyn, NY 718-258-5001 |
#24
|
|||
|
|||
Semi-OT--Biking To Nowhere
Bill C wrote:
I'm willing to bet that, even now, if the US military or Intel types kill Bin-Laden, there will be a huge outcry among the "progressives" about extra-judicial executions, and that he was killed, rather than brought to trial to protect the Saudi government from being exposed. It would've been a hundred times worse before 9/11 if they had killed him. Arresting him once he was out of Sudan was going to be damn near impossible. You tell me how either administration could've done anything really effective against him without generating a huge legal headache both here in the US, UN, and World Courts? Then how about the backlash against the US for unilaterally going into another sovereign nation, before 9/11, and killing or kidnapping a guest, especially an Islamic hero? Bill, I'm not sure you're clued into reality here. The Bush administration does not give a **** about progressives, the UN, or the World Court. In the US, liberals are on the outside of the halls of power, looking in. The list of stuff that has happened in spite of howls of protest from "progressives" is really long. With very few exceptions the Bush administration does whatever the **** it wants. You seem to have a very inflated sense of the left's influence in current American politics. Bob Schwartz |
#25
|
|||
|
|||
Semi-OT--Biking To Nowhere
Bob Schwartz wrote: Bill C wrote: I'm willing to bet that, even now, if the US military or Intel types kill Bin-Laden, there will be a huge outcry among the "progressives" about extra-judicial executions, and that he was killed, rather than brought to trial to protect the Saudi government from being exposed. It would've been a hundred times worse before 9/11 if they had killed him. Arresting him once he was out of Sudan was going to be damn near impossible. You tell me how either administration could've done anything really effective against him without generating a huge legal headache both here in the US, UN, and World Courts? Then how about the backlash against the US for unilaterally going into another sovereign nation, before 9/11, and killing or kidnapping a guest, especially an Islamic hero? Bill, I'm not sure you're clued into reality here. The Bush administration does not give a **** about progressives, the UN, or the World Court. In the US, liberals are on the outside of the halls of power, looking in. The list of stuff that has happened in spite of howls of protest from "progressives" is really long. With very few exceptions the Bush administration does whatever the **** it wants. You seem to have a very inflated sense of the left's influence in current American politics. Bob Schwartz All of which happened after 9/11. 9/11 was the excuse that turned the neocons and their agenda loose on the world. Everything they've done, they have claimed to do in the name of defending America from terror. Before 9/11 their hands were still tied, but as I pointed out there was no major new intelligence. We knew that Bin-Laden wanted badly to hit inside the US, but nobody thought he could pull off anything even approaching the level of 9/11. From page 258 0n for the next couple it deatials the threat assessment rising through the end of july with everyone reporting the "spectacular attack" was going to happen somewhere in the middle east, noone gave any credibility to it happening here. Not the CIA, FBI, any of the military etc. And by the end of July it was WAY too late to do anything except try and find the people already pre-positioned and prepared. MoveOn.org, Soros, Hollywood etc are spending how much money, the last two elctions were how close? Bush's approval rating is where? I'm not sure the left's power is growing but the rights is fading with the majority of the country who are pretty moderate. If the Democrats manage to lose this next election they should just disband as a party, because they are hopeless. We're way into the next election cycle and most of the GOP are shaking in their boots, from what I'm seeing, and that's not coming from sources that lean way left. There's a huge sense of Bush may have wrecked the GOP for decades to come, and that's coming from GOP leaders off the record. Bill C |
#26
|
|||
|
|||
Semi-OT--Biking To Nowhere
Robert Chung wrote: Bill C wrote: Please tell me what alarming new info came in between 20 Jan and 9 Sep that should have caused an all out scramble to attempt to quickly cobble together an operation to kill or capture Bin-Laden by the Bush team? How about, "Bin Ladin determined to strike in US?" "The system was blinking red:" http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report_Ch8.pdf There was an increase in activity, but it was way too late, with way too little in the way of Human Intelligence resources to do a damned thing about it. If we had solid evidence of a specific cell operating, or even solid info on the target we might've had a shot at stopping it. Nothing in the intelligence world happens quickly, especially when we hadn't restructured after the cold war. There was a complete failure to assess where, and what type of threats we were going to face. As far as I can tell we were still locked in on China, and the activities of Cuba in Central and South America. We had ****, and still have **** for a reliable network in the Middle East, we've always counted on the Israelis to handle that for us. Didn't work out too well, did it? You've got to recruit good people, but the CIA recruiters keep getting run off college campuses here, train them, acclimate them to the culture and life of the region they're going to work in,make them fluent and literate not only in the academic language but local slang and dialects, get them enough experience to have some idea when they are being mislead, and then have enough of them inserted and trusted in all the strategic places you need them. Any guesses how long that takes? This isn't a stupid Hollywood thriller movie, intelligence work is years of dull boring plugging away at getting to the right spot to pick up one or two important and accurate chunks of info. Do you have any idea of the amount of garbage they sort through, and have to try to piece together to even beging to decide on what's crdible and where to beging digging at it? Then since the early 70s they more often than not found they didn't have the resources on the ground to really follow it up and relied on the Brits, French, and other allies who did, and do have extensive networks on the ground. If on Jan 21 someone had guaranteed that before June Bin-Laden was going to be at a certain spot, at a certain time, they might have been able to get an operation together to slip in a sniper team, make the kill and get them out, but the hard intell needed to make a strike happen, and the network to support it just didn't exist, and still doesn't. Are you aware of the fact that over 75% of the intel budget was dedicated to NSA, who was supposed to have 0 Humint Resources? Carter took us out of that business in a wholesale fashion. NSA does have some clandestine operations groups, and the ability to call up anything they need from the military, but without people on the ground you just aren't sure exactly what those satelite photos are, or those conversations mean for sure. Bit us in the ass big time, didn't it? The truth is that there was really no way in hell politically for Clinton to do much more than he did, and Bush had no time, if he'd wanted to, and neither had the resources. I'm on the outside looking in taking guesses about what we were capable of, and I'd bet that I'm seriously overestimating just how prepared and capable we were, and still are. Bill C |
#27
|
|||
|
|||
Semi-OT--Biking To Nowhere
Bill C wrote:
intelligence work is years of dull boring plugging away at getting to the right spot to pick up one or two important and accurate chunks of info. Do you have any idea of the amount of garbage they sort through Yes. |
#28
|
|||
|
|||
Semi-OT--Biking To Nowhere
Bill C wrote:
Robert Chung wrote: Bill C wrote: Brian, what did Clinton do in all the time after he was given these reports? http://www.judicialwatch.org/5504.shtml http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report_Ch4.pdf Thanks it was good to read through that again. It just confirms the fact that the Clinton administration, did nothing even remotely effective [about Al-Qaida], mostly for fear of offending people and creating a backlash. So what has the Bush administration done that's been remotely effective about Al-Qaida? Not for want of trying in Afghanistan, either (although the whole Iraq thing IMO has benefited Al-Qaida, as there never were many members in Iraq under Saddam, but you can bet there are now). Peter |
#29
|
|||
|
|||
Semi-OT--Biking To Nowhere
Bill C wrote:
MoveOn.org, Soros, Hollywood etc are spending how much money, the last two elctions were how close? Bush's approval rating is where? I'm not sure the left's power is growing but the rights is fading with the majority of the country who are pretty moderate. If the Democrats manage to lose this next election they should just disband as a party, because they are hopeless. We're way into the next election cycle and most of the GOP are shaking in their boots, from what I'm seeing, and that's not coming from sources that lean way left. There's a huge sense of Bush may have wrecked the GOP for decades to come, and that's coming from GOP leaders off the record. You need to get out more. This is just not possible. If there is one area of cooperation between the two parties it is in gerrymandering electoral districts. There are almost no swing districts and incumbents don't lose. There will not be a big change in seats at any level because that is no longer possible. The Senate can't be gerrymandered so that's really the only place where meaningful pickups could be made. But the margin is still too big. Where I live there will be no political swing with the exception that the GOP has an excellent chance to pick up the governor's office. The GOP congressional seats are so safe there is no way they could **** up enough to lose one. Wrecked for decades to come? Whoever is telling you that is needs to stop smoking dope. No one in the GOP is shaking in their boots here. Or any incumbent Dem for that matter. Everyone is safe. And the people at MoveOn are idiots. You're not in a swing state. If you were you would have seen that. The money that organizations like them and ACT were spending was based on the premise that the small number of target areas were not yet saturated, when in fact they were so oversaturated that it was getting painful. Because of that they completely missed valid secondary targets like Sen Alzheimer in Kentucky. If you give an idiot a lot of money they are still an idiot. Bob Schwartz |
#30
|
|||
|
|||
Semi-OT--Biking To Nowhere
Peter Allen wrote: Bill C wrote: Robert Chung wrote: Bill C wrote: Brian, what did Clinton do in all the time after he was given these reports? http://www.judicialwatch.org/5504.shtml http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report_Ch4.pdf Thanks it was good to read through that again. It just confirms the fact that the Clinton administration, did nothing even remotely effective [about Al-Qaida], mostly for fear of offending people and creating a backlash. So what has the Bush administration done that's been remotely effective about Al-Qaida? Not for want of trying in Afghanistan, either (although the whole Iraq thing IMO has benefited Al-Qaida, as there never were many members in Iraq under Saddam, but you can bet there are now). Peter Have you read the thread? Bush has made it worse by going into Iraq. They along with the other governments have taken out a huge portion of Al-Qaida's top leadership, the Saudis just got another. If Bush hadn't gone off on his merry little adventure, we would've had plenty of troops available to really hurt Al-Qaida in Afghanistan, but the problem is that they are perfectly safe on the Pakistan side of the border as long as they stay in those tribal regions. The reality is that the Pakistan situation is a little better than it was with Cambodia but not much and the list of friends and neighbors still pouring in money and support for the extremists starting with the Saudis makes this a holding action for the forseeable future. Bill C |
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
Mountain Biking FAQ Updated Again (see # 13) | slartibartfast | Mountain Biking | 20 | May 15th 05 09:56 AM |
Take A Kid Mountain Biking Day--Oct 2 | IMBA Jim | Mountain Biking | 8 | September 30th 04 04:52 PM |
Vacation Biking and the Internet | Badger_South | General | 1 | June 3rd 04 07:46 PM |
Little biking accident | Badger_South | General | 11 | May 22nd 04 02:23 AM |