One more time I read this false
narrative…Bush and Cheney failed to protect the country and 9/11 happened.
Now I am not a big fan of Bush.
He started losing me right after 9/11 when he started this “Islam is the
religion of peace” nonsense. And his strategy of “nation building” without
first absolutely destroying the current leaders and totally occupying the
country long enough to change the culture…see WWII and Germany and Japan…was
totally wrong. Although Obama, against the advice of his military leaders,
executed Bush’s mistake when he could have corrected it but he did not and ISIS
was created. But I digress.
First of all, remember that
Clinton had an opportunity to arrest Osama bin Ladin but didn’t. This was despite the fact the first WTC attack
happened in January ’93 and we had suffered numerous attacks outside the US on
US facilities. bin Ladin was offered to us in ’96 by Sudan and even though we
knew what was going on Clinton refused saying incorrectly that we had no reason
to hold him and then blaming the Saudi’s for not arresting him. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qgKAsfp_lc
And we had other opportunities to
kill him but they were never completed. There was even a Grand Jury Indictment
on bin Lain issued 11/6/1998 .
Read: http://fas.org/irp/news/1998/11/98110602_nlt.html
Now when Bush took office in
January 2001 the USS Cole attack had just happened and Bush decided to keep
Clarke in his administration , who had been Clinton’s National Security
Adviser, to insure that nothing was dropped in the transition. Clarke’s comments are instructive as to what
went on.
“WASHINGTON – The following transcript
documents a background briefing in early August 2002 by President Bush's
former counterterrorism coordinator Richard A. Clarke to a handful of
reporters,
Clarke: “….the
Clinton administration had a strategy in place, effectively dating from 1998.
And there were a number of issues on the table since 1998. And they remained on
the table when that administration went out of office —…”
Now stop and think. A number of issues had
been unresolved since ’98. That was over two years. Does that tell you that bin
Ladin and the Taliban was not a priority with Clinton? It does me and it should
you. Let’s go on.
“…the Bush administration
decided then, you know, in late January, to do two things. One, vigorously
pursue the existing policy, including all of the lethal covert action findings,
which we've now made public to some extent.
And the point is, while this big review was going on, there were
still in effect, the lethal findings were still in effect. The second thing the
administration decided to do is to initiate a process to look at those issues
which had been on the table for a couple of years and get them decided.
So, point five, that process which was initiated in the first
week in February, uh, decided in principle, uh in the spring to add to the
existing Clinton strategy and to increase CIA resources, for example, for
covert action, five-fold, to go after Al Qaeda”
Repeat. “…..to increase CIA resources, for example, for covert
action, five-fold, to go after Al Qaeda”
And yeah, that’s Fox News…but it is a verbatim transcript and
other reporters were there. So don’t try the old “it’s Fox and I don’t believe
BS on me.
Bush kept what was going on in place, resolved years old issues
and increased resources 500%.
Now, what did we get out of these increased efforts. Let’s fast
forward to another interview, this time with Bush’s NSA, Condi Rice. Now
remember, at this point Clarke had been fired by Rice and written a book
critical of Bush. So this interview was Rice’s response to Clarke. Now
understand. She is using Clarke’s own WRITTEN words.
“ And here's the
note that Dick wrote to me on September 15th: "When the era of national
unity begins to crack in the near future, it is possible that some will start
asking questions like, did the White House do a good job of making sure that
intelligence about terrorist threats got to the FAA and other domestic law
enforcement authorities, as the attached paper, which was sent to you in July,
and the e-mail, also July, note, in late June the Interagency Counterterrorism
Security Group,which I chair, warned of an upcoming, spectacular al Qaeda
attack that would be qualitatively different. We convened on 5 July a special
meeting of domestic federal law enforcement agencies because we could not rule
out the possibility that the attack would be in the U.S." In fact, that
was the meeting that we asked him to convene.
"At the special meeting on July 5 were the FBI, Secret
Service, FAA, Customs, Coast Guard, and Immigration. We told them that we
thought a spectacular al Qaeda terrorist attack was coming in the near
future." That had been had been George Tenet's language. "We asked
that they take special measures to increase security and surveillance. Thus,
the White House did ensure that domestic law enforcement including the FAA knew
that the CSG believed that a major al Qaeda attack was coming, and it could be
in the U.S., and did ask that special measures be taken."
At this point I wish one of you Lefties would tell me what else
Bush could have done. He had increased resources. The CIA used those resources
and said an attack was coming. A meeting was convened and all the agencies were
warned 70 days before the attack.
.
Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them." - Karl Popper “It’s the presumption that Obama knows how all these industries ought to be operating better than people who have spent their lives in those industries, and a general cockiness going back to before he was president, and the fact that he has no experience whatever in managing anything. Only someone who has never had the responsibility for managing anything could believe he could manage just about everything.” - Thomas Sowell in Reason Magazine
