Third Party & Independents: Archives

Terrorists attacked the WTC in the early 90’s. They attacked embassies in Africa, military installations in Saudia Arabia and they attacked the USS Cole in Yemen. Clinton did little to deal with the threat besides attack an aspirin factory in East Africa. Of course the CIA said it was a chem lab, but they were wrong - or was Clinton lying about it? But somehow it is Bush’s fault that 7 and 1/2 months after he took office they attack again? Perhaps if he had all his people in place and did not face the open hostility of the liberal establishment he could take some of the blame. Lets apportion fault by the amount of time each president had to deal with the problem. Bush is on the hook for a little over 7 months. Clinton is responsible for a little over 7 years. At least Bush got the message sooner than Clinton did.

Oh please, President Truman had a plaque on his desk with a now famous saying “The Buck Stops Here.” He was a leader, Bush is not! Do not try and lay 9/11 at Clinton’s doorstep, he was not President when it happened, Bush was! When Bush assumed the Office of the President of the United States he assumed responsibility for protecting this nation. Blaming past Presidents for Bush’s mistakes and lack of leadership is cowardice, and irresponsible, pure and simple.

Perhaps if the Bush Administration’s people had restrained its suffocating arrogance long enough to ask the outgoing the Clinton Administration’s people what was going on in the world of terrorism we could have saved 3000 plus lives.

Rather than repeat myself here, I’ll link to my comments on the same subject in A Presidential Obsession.

To sum up, Mr. Martin, you are totally correct that the responsibility belongs to George W. Bush.

Being President of the United States doesn’t just mean, “I am the commander, see? I do not need to explain why I say things. — That’s the interesting thing about being the President. — Maybe somebody needs to explain to me why they say something, but I don’t feel like I owe anybody an explanation.” though I guess you can get away with that.

Being President means being brave enough to bear the responsibility when things go wrong, as well as take the credit when things go well.

The attack on the WTC in 1993 happened only 38 days after Clinton took office. He didn’t cry like a big baby and blame GHW Bush. He tracked down the perps and threw them in jail.

The 9/11 Commission should receive testimony that the Bush Administration was alerted to the potential for planes being used as weapons and crashed into their targets. If that is true, and evidence can be corroborated to that effect, then the responsibility for having taken no steps whatsoever to beef up airline security prior to 9/11 lies with G.W. Bush and no other.

He purports to be a defender of Americans against terrorism. That may not be true prior to 9/11 and is debateable whether it is true now as his administration sees itself engaged in a war that could go on for decades and even generations. Such war would not be in the long term interests of Americans if his 2005 budget is any indication of what that means.

I agree with your sentiments, Edward, but impeachment isn’t the way to go. With a Republican controlled government, it wouldn’t go anywhere, and as a result it would just make the opposition look bad.

That is not to say that I don’t think his offenses are impeachable… I just think it would be a poor tactical move.

Gaelen, I agree entirely with comment save for the exception that an outcry from the public holds congressional office holders feet to the election fire if they refuse to impeach. Of course, that is very unlikely as well, unless a smoking gun is discovered, and even then, it would be an iffy proposition.

This country and interests overseas were attacked repeatedly under Clinton’s watch. Little was done.
If a fire inspector fails to do his duty but is fortunate enough to retire shortly before everything burns down due to shoddy construction, is the fire his replacement’s fault? Doubtful. Under that logic, the criminal deeds of the Enron executives who resigned just before the bust would be forgiven. Fortunately, the law sees no great distinction.
Most liberals, in their zeal to tear down the president, quickly believe anything which reinforces their negative view of him. Of course this was also true with the wild accusations against Clinton.
It is interesting to note that Lee praises Clinton for finding the perpetrators of the WTC 93 and putting them in jail. That would be appropriate if they robbed a bank. 1993 was the first strike in a war and Clinton did not realize it. Thankfully FDR defeated the Japanese instead of arresting them. This argument is the most damaging against Cliton - we were at war and he did not know. Relatedly, I think that is why a majority of Americans support Iraq. While there is some hesitancy in the support, they view Bush’s actions as consistent with being at war even though a direct link has not been drawn betwen Al Qaeda and Saddam
In just policy terms, it is right to hold anyone accountable when their actions play some part in later events, even if those events occur after their time is done.
Finally, I’ll repeat what I said in the first post. Bush likely has some measure of blame, but to say that Clinton does not simply because he was not president when the attack happened is letting partisanship blind you to common sense.
And really finally, it is amusing how blitheringly excited liberals get in their haste to condemn Bush.

Thankfully FDR defeated the Japanese instead of arresting them.

That would be a pretty good analogy if it were true; like Reagan’s ‘welfare queen’ story.

First off, it was Truman who dropped the bomb ending the war in the Pacific. Second, we did arrest the Japanese leaders who started the war and we tried them and executed them exactly the same way Clinton handled the 93 WTC.

And it wasn’t me who said Clinton did a great job focusing on terrorism, it was Robert Oakley and Paul Bremer. I just happen to agree with those fine, upstanding Republicans.

The fact is, Bush was warned about security. He chose to ignore the warnings and spend his time and political capital on tax-cuts-for-the-rich rather than securing this country.

The choice was President George W. Bush’s to make. He did not choose wisely.

BTW, if anyone can tell me exactly what President George W. Bush did to secure this country from a terrorist attack before 9/11, I’d appreciate it. I did some Googling and it doesn’t look like he did anything.

Here’s a bunch of stuff Republicans have voted against that lay this country wide open to another 9/11.

Thanks!

And cutting taxes doesn’t count.

“Nothing is more important in the face of a war than cutting taxes!”

Thank God FDR didn’t feel that way. Learning to speak Japanese is hard. :)

Lee, would we have arrested those Japanese leaders without first defeating them in war?

Would Saddam Hussein have been arrested in a spider hole if he hadn’t been first defeated in a war? Or do you think he just liked it down there, had his mail and pizza delivered to that address while he waited for Belgium (who has announced “worldwide jurisdiction on matters concering human rights”) to serve a ridiculous summons for him to appear in Brussels and answer for all the the ways he has offended oh-so-delicate European sensiblitles? These are just a handful of the questions Democrats need to start answering if they want to be taken seriously on matters of international affairs.

I never said you couldn’t use force in arresting a murderer. That would just be dumb. If they resist with force, shoot ‘em, invade ‘em, whatever it takes.

We got Milosovic, right? But we got him as part of a multinational organization (NATO) with broad international political support. We didn’t have to bribe countries to send 20 MPs and a letter of encouragement. We weren’t solely responsible for the cost, and we weren’t resented by the people we liberated.

It is interesting to note that Lee praises Clinton for finding the perpetrators of the WTC 93 and putting them in jail. That would be appropriate if they robbed a bank.

What would you have done?

Todd, you would be sad if you watched C-Span’s 9/11 investigations taking place. Today, Madeline Allbright and Colin Powell were interviewed, and they both contradicted your assessment. The Clinton Administration did a lot, spent a great deal of time and energy on taking on bin Laden and going after Al-Queda, but the simple fact was, prior to 9/11, there was neither the international support, nor the Congressional will to launch a ground war invasion in Afghanistan.

It is too easy and frankly a bit lazy to critique the Clinton Admin. on this issue without doing the research and failing to understand the mindset of everyone involved prior to 9/11. Fact is, the things Clinton’s admin. were doing were criticized as being too much, instead of not enough, and much of that criticism came from the right. Funny when you think about it. All this played out in testimony taken today.

Unfortunately I have to work and can’t watch TV or listen to the radio all day so I will have to take your word on Albright’s denial.

It’s curious to me that people are so against my position. It is balanced and seeks to apportion blame to all parties. In fact, blame goes to the presidents, the congress, and every other participant. This just gives even more evidence that govt. has too much power. Perhaps if they weren’t worrying about milk price supports or the newest multimillion dollar govt. bldg in West Virginia, they could focus on keeping America safer. When you add to this the fact that the people that hate the other guy refuse to look at any contrary evidence, there should be an upswell of support to limit the reach of govt. Maybe if they can’t concentrate on giving things to their constituents or taking more of our freedoms, they will focus on keeping Americans from being killed by terrorists.

Todd, the one apparently legitimate excuse the Clinton Admin. had, according Albright’s and Arbitage direct testimony and implied by Powell and the Generals who did not refute their testimony, is that efforts made in the 90’s and even in Dec. 2000 to take out bin Laden were thwarted by the Pentagon. The scenario was that Clinton ordered strikes on bin Laden a number of times, but, between the time the intelligence came in as to his position and the time a strike could be launched was too long. Bin Laden kept moving frequently and the intel. was stale by the time a strike could be launched. At the time we had only long range missiles and ships capable of striking into Afghanistan. The logistics of setting up a strike from those distances exceeded the freshness of the intel. as to bin Laden’s location, on most occasions as I understood the testimony.

when George W bush took over in January 2001, he IMMEDIATELY became responsible for this country. It was his job to learn what he could do to best protect this country from harm. Instead, he went on vacation off and on for 8 months. This is after the Clinton admnistration told him that Bin Laden was probably responsible for the Cole, even though he had no direct proof, and that he had sent a guy over to Yemen to investigate. Bush dismissed the investigator, ignored the pleas for action by Richard Clark, dismissed the solution to the information whole you suggest existed, which actually DIDN’T exist in the Clinton administration because The FBI, under the auspices of the DOJ, worked with Janet Reno, who reported directly to the President, as did the head of the CIA. This is the reality as to how ALL the milennium plots were stopped (there were more than 1, and if you want to claim one was luck, you still have to explain away LAX and The Space Needle in Seattle.)

Bill Clinton was not responsible for protecting the troops on foreign soil; that is the job of the leaders of those countries. Thus the attacks on US troops in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere are the responsibility of Prince Bandar. Personally, I believe Osama is actually working for Bandar. Either way, most of the terrorists were Saudis.

which brings to mind the fact that 15 of them weren’t in the country until after April 2001. If it was me, I would have put their faces on Americas Most Wanted, a show with proven results. But Bush did nothing.

He did nothing when the Joint Chiefs sent him intel about people learning to fly planes and not land them; June 10, 2001 if you want to try googling it.

He did nothing when He received the famous PDB, Osama Bin Laden intends to attack inside the US. August 6, 2001.

Strangely, NORAD did nothing when it saw 4 planes do 180 degree turns in the sky and deviate from their flight path and fly, a couple for close to an hour. Normally they scamble fighters withing 5 minutes of something like this. That is their job. The only way they wouldn’t…. you look it up.

Strangely, the FAA did nothing, even though a stewardess on the first plane to hit the first building apparently contacted the FAA directly, and was in contact until the time of the crash. She told them about the hijackers.

Strangely, when bush was told of the first hijacked airliner hitting the Tower, he went into an elementary school in sarasota florida, to read a book about goats to second graders in Booker elementary school.

Strangely, after he was interrupted with information about the second attack, he continued to read.

The man charged with protecting and defending the United States of America was in an elementary school while the attack was going on. That is why he IS responsible for 9/11.