I suppose that I am wrong, but I was sure that I had seen an interview, and not read about it on an internet sight. But, when your wrong, your wrong.

 

Not a problem. I'm wrong so much they pay me to come on this sight and be wrong. (Or at least that's what some people probably think.) :lol:

Again, whatever the intelligence reports said, the Clinton administration didn't stake lives of American troops on them.

No his inaction did that.

 

Afgahanistan, yes. We hit the people that were responsible for 9/11 and hit them hard.

Who did we hit? When? Where? I know we did not take Bin Laden when he was offered, wasn't he behind the whole thing? How about Khalid Mohamed didn't he plan it and survive long enough to plan another one.

Iraq, no. We started a war with an enemy that didn't attack us, very possibly to fulfill a desire that preceded 9/11 and while using 9/11 to justify it.

We started it with an enemy that had refused UN mandated inspections of his weapons programs, who had possessed WMD's and had used them and an enemy that everyone in the world had came to the same conclusion about having WMD's. UN action against Saddam had been warranted for over 3 years and had not taken. The 9/11 attacks while not connected to him made dealing with Iraq and WMD's possibly falling into terrorist hands an immediate need.

Well, they didn't hit us in America until well after Clinton was out of office. Gee, if Clinton was such a wimp you would have thought they would have done it while he was still residing in the White House.

They got bolder and bolder, first Somalia showed that the American president would not use the military to respond because he would back down at the first sign of blood, attacks on the Embassies in Africa showed we would do no more han send in the FBI to investigate and the Cole bombing showed there would be little if any response to a direct attack on the American military.

 

 

Bush is not PERFECT I will be the first to say that, but there is no way Clinton isn't culpable in the terrorist acts against this country by his in action and policies.

Jumper Dad, every president since World War II, well World War I, shares responsibility for it then. It doesn't pre-date W by only one administration. Be objective about it. It's our policies regarding the middle east for decades that put us in this situation.

Jumper Dad, every president since World War II, well World War I, shares responsibility for it then. It doesn't pre-date W by only one administration. Be objective about it. It's our policies regarding the middle east for decades that put us in this situation.

 

Good post, RM! :thumb:

Jumper Dad, every president since World War II, well World War I, shares responsibility for it then. It doesn't pre-date W by only one administration. Be objective about it. It's our policies regarding the middle east for decades that put us in this situation.

 

:thumb:

 

Surely you don't mean our penchant for arming middle eastern groups at various times only to fight the same groups we armed, on average, a decade later was/is bad policy.

 

In one of the earlier Republican debates the subject of the Middle East and Israel came up. Ron Paul advocates withdrawal from the area and obviously the rest don't. Mike Huckabee said, directly to Paul, that he would never abandon Israel to fend for themselves against the rest of the Arab world and Paul had a great response.

 

He said, "How are we being a good ally to Israel when we continue to arm their enemies?"

 

One of my favorite election moments of the year...unfortunately, ideas like that never get any further than an occasional mention.

:thumb:

 

Surely you don't mean our penchant for arming middle eastern groups at various times only to fight the same groups we armed, on average, a decade later was/is bad policy.

 

In one of the earlier Republican debates the subject of the Middle East and Israel came up. Ron Paul advocates withdrawal from the area and obviously the rest don't. Mike Huckabee said, directly to Paul, that he would never abandon Israel to fend for themselves against the rest of the Arab world and Paul had a great response.

 

He said, "How are we being a good ally to Israel when we continue to arm their enemies?"

 

One of my favorite election moments of the year...unfortunately, ideas like that never get any further than an occasional mention.

 

 

What astounds me is that anyone could think that Israel couldn't fend for themselves! It's not like they're flying rustbuckets and shooting nails with slingshots! :lol:

What astounds me is that anyone could think that Israel couldn't fend for themselves! It's not like they're flying rustbuckets and shooting nails with slingshots! :lol:

 

That slingshot thing worked well for the first king of Israel.

That slingshot thing worked well for the first king of Israel.

 

Actually he was the 2nd king of Israel. Saul was the first. :thumb:

Who did we hit? When? Where? I know we did not take Bin Laden when he was offered, wasn't he behind the whole thing? How about Khalid Mohamed didn't he plan it and survive long enough to plan another one.

originally posted by Jumper Dad

 

 

This link: http://www.snopes.com/rumors/clinton.htm

might provide some of the responses that Clinton did make toward the terrorist activities.

 

I also highlighted the above because I think it's been debated that Clinton was not really "offered the head of Bin Laden." and that is an internet rumor.

What astounds me is that anyone could think that Israel couldn't fend for themselves! It's not like they're flying rustbuckets and shooting nails with slingshots! :lol:

 

I don't agree with abandoning Israel, per se...but, I also think it's talking out of both sides of our mouth to say that while we arm militant Arabs at the same time.

 

Our foreign policy has been questionable at best, I'd say. I sometimes wonder if we'd been better off leaving Russia alone...at least with them we knew what kind of fight to expect should it happen...:lol:

I also highlighted the above because I think it's been debated that Clinton was not really "offered the head of Bin Laden." and that is an internet rumor.

No, it is not an internet rumor. It has been well documented. The defense of Clinton's decision has been that the US had no basis upon which to detain Bin Laden had the administration accepted his head.

No, it is not an internet rumor. It has been well documented. The defense of Clinton's decision has been that the US had no basis upon which to detain Bin Laden had the administration accepted his head.

 

Where is the documentation?

Where is the documentation?

 

Here you go, this is but one of many press reports on this issue....

 

Link to LA Times Story

 

 

From 1996 to 1998, I opened unofficial channels between Sudan and the Clinton administration. I met with officials in both countries, including Clinton, U.S. National Security Advisor Samuel R. "Sandy" Berger and Sudan's president and intelligence chief. President Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir, who wanted terrorism sanctions against Sudan lifted, offered the arrest and extradition of Bin Laden and detailed intelligence data about the global networks constructed by Egypt's Islamic Jihad, Iran's Hezbollah and the Palestinian Hamas.

 

Among those in the networks were the two hijackers who piloted commercial airliners into the World Trade Center. The silence of the Clinton administration in responding to these offers was deafening.

As an American Muslim and a political supporter of Clinton, I feel now, as I argued with Clinton and Berger then, that their counter-terrorism policies fueled the rise of Bin Laden from an ordinary man to a Hydra-like monster.

 

Realizing the growing problem with Bin Laden, Bashir sent key intelligence officials to the U.S. in February 1996.

 

The Sudanese offered to arrest Bin Laden and extradite him to Saudi Arabia or, barring that, to "baby-sit" him--monitoring all his activities and associates.

 

But Saudi officials didn't want their home-grown terrorist back where he might plot to overthrow them.

 

In May 1996, the Sudanese capitulated to U.S. pressure and asked Bin Laden to leave, despite their feeling that he could be monitored better in Sudan than elsewhere.

 

Bin Laden left for Afghanistan, taking with him Ayman Zawahiri, considered by the U.S. to be the chief planner of the Sept. 11 attacks; Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, who traveled frequently to Germany to obtain electronic equipment for Al Qaeda; Wadih El-Hage, Bin Laden's personal secretary and roving emissary, now serving a life sentence in the U.S. for his role in the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Tanzania and Kenya; and Fazul Abdullah Mohammed and Saif Adel, also accused of carrying out the embassy attacks.

 

Some of these men are now among the FBI's 22 most-wanted terrorists.

 

The two men who allegedly piloted the planes into the twin towers, Mohamed Atta and Marwan Al-Shehhi, prayed in the same Hamburg mosque as did Salim and Mamoun Darkazanli, a Syrian trader who managed Salim's bank accounts and whose assets are frozen.

 

Important data on each had been compiled by the Sudanese.

 

But U.S. authorities repeatedly turned the data away, first in February 1996; then again that August, when at my suggestion Sudan's religious ideologue, Hassan Turabi, wrote directly to Clinton; then again in April 1997, when I persuaded Bashir to invite the FBI to come to Sudan and view the data; and finally in February 1998, when Sudan's intelligence chief, Gutbi al-Mahdi, wrote directly to the FBI.

 

Gutbi had shown me some of Sudan's data during a three-hour meeting in Khartoum in October 1996. When I returned to Washington, I told Berger and his specialist for East Africa, Susan Rice, about the data available. They said they'd get back to me. They never did. Neither did they respond when Bashir made the offer directly. I believe they never had any intention to engage Muslim countries--ally or not. Radical Islam, for the administration, was a convenient national security threat.

 

And that was not the end of it. In July 2000--three months before the deadly attack on the destroyer Cole in Yemen--I brought the White House another plausible offer to deal with Bin Laden, by then known to be involved in the embassy bombings. A senior counter-terrorism official from one of the United States' closest Arab allies--an ally whose name I am not free to divulge--approached me with the proposal after telling me he was fed up with the antics and arrogance of U.S. counter-terrorism officials.

 

The offer, which would have brought Bin Laden to the Arab country as the first step of an extradition process that would eventually deliver him to the U.S., required only that Clinton make a state visit there to personally request Bin Laden's extradition. But senior Clinton officials sabotaged the offer, letting it get caught up in internal politics within the ruling family--Clintonian diplomacy at its best.

 

Clinton's failure to grasp the opportunity to unravel increasingly organized extremists, coupled with Berger's assessments of their potential to directly threaten the U.S., represents one of the most serious foreign policy failures in American history.

USAToday Story on Clinton and Bin Laden

Another story on this subject.

Where is the documentation?

 

Here you go, this is but one of many press reports on this issue....

 

Link to LA Times Story

 

Clinton Let Bin Laden Slip Away and Metastasize

By MANSOOR IJAZ

From 1996 to 1998, I opened unofficial channels between Sudan and the Clinton administration. I met with officials in both countries, including Clinton, U.S. National Security Advisor Samuel R. "Sandy" Berger and Sudan's president and intelligence chief. President Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir, who wanted terrorism sanctions against Sudan lifted, offered the arrest and extradition of Bin Laden and detailed intelligence data about the global networks constructed by Egypt's Islamic Jihad, Iran's Hezbollah and the Palestinian Hamas.

 

Among those in the networks were the two hijackers who piloted commercial airliners into the World Trade Center. The silence of the Clinton administration in responding to these offers was deafening.

As an American Muslim and a political supporter of Clinton, I feel now, as I argued with Clinton and Berger then, that their counter-terrorism policies fueled the rise of Bin Laden from an ordinary man to a Hydra-like monster.

 

Realizing the growing problem with Bin Laden, Bashir sent key intelligence officials to the U.S. in February 1996.

 

The Sudanese offered to arrest Bin Laden and extradite him to Saudi Arabia or, barring that, to "baby-sit" him--monitoring all his activities and associates.