compare TKE-Teg's summary,

Quote :

"He [bin Laden] was arrested in the Sudan and [Clinton] had a choice to make, and [Clinton] did nothing."

with the Wash Post's report, that eyedrb seems to think corroborates ...

Quote :

" The government of Sudan, employing a back channel direct from its president to the Central Intelligence Agency, offered ... to arrest Osama bin Laden and place him in Saudi custody ... The Clinton administration struggled to find a way to accept the offer in secret contacts that stretched from a meeting at a Rosslyn hotel on March 3, 1996, to a fax that closed the door on the effort 10 weeks later. Unable to persuade the Saudis to accept bin Laden, and lacking a case to indict him in U.S. courts at the time, the Clinton administration finally gave up on the capture."

and then ask yourself, how is it that an ophthalmologist could have such a reading comprehension problem?

did you miss when they covered this basic comprehension stuff in High School? or do you need to have your lens prescription checked?






[Edited on June 7, 2007 at 3:23 PM. Reason : ]

6/7/2007 3:15:37 PM

^^ It seems the issue was overblown by the feds. In that type of situation, it would make sense to not give it top priority.

Unless you support a sensationalist, ratings-driven media.

And Bloomber, Guiliani's protege, had this to say about it:

Quote :

" Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg waded once again into the emotional discussions of how ordinary residents can conduct themselves in a post-9/11 world. WCBS-TV quoted Mr. Bloomberg as saying: There are lots of threats to you in the world. There’s the threat of a heart attack for genetic reasons. You can’t sit there and worry about everything. Get a life. The mayor added, “You have a much greater danger of being hit by lightning than being struck by a terrorist.” "

http://empirezone.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/06/06/buzz-over-mayors-get-a-life-remark/

6/7/2007 3:33:29 PM

I'm not sure what hooksaw was crying about with his last post on page 1. I applaud the NYT for being smart and not overreacting to this crap like the fair and balanced network did.

6/7/2007 4:20:25 PM

^ people are simply seeing through this bullshit.

we cant throwing every drug-addled homeless bum who mumbles shit about "blowin some motherfuckers up" into the pens at Guanatamo. even if we filter out the muslims from the rest of them.

the fact that most people these days have finally woken up and can see how corrupt and/or incompentent various entities in this Administration is... actually gives me some hope for this country yet.

6/7/2007 6:24:30 PM

Quote :

"Gitmo should be like Vegas: What happens in Gitmo stays in Gitmo."

--Dennis Miller

6/7/2007 10:52:02 PM

joe, are you that blinded by your hate?

It seems pretty clear we had bin laden wrapped up. We didnt take the opportunity at the time. I view it as a missed opportunity, but one that we didnt/couldnt make happen at the time. No way clinton could have known what was going to happen a couple years later. In hindsight it makes us wish we had gotten him.

6/7/2007 11:17:15 PM

^ no, on the contrary, and aside from some subtle word choices, I essentially agree with what you just posted right there.

what i took exception to is TKE's falsifying the facts, saying:

(1) that bin Laden "was arrested".

He wasn't. Sudan was offering to arrest him if he could be sent somewhere. Actually we dont know if the Sudanese could have successfully arrested him. they said they could, but people say a lot of things.

(2) that Clinton did nothing.

according to all involved, the Clinton Admin did everything they could have over a 10-week period until it finally fell through. At least, they did all that they could do without blatantly breaking international laws.

and while i agree with most of what you just said now, you seemed to be presenting that link as backing up TKE's lies... implying that, somehow, the Washington Post article corroborated his false claims.

because it didn't. One can not simply say that "Clinton had bin Laden, but let him go." thats just plain retarded, and completely disregards the extreme complexity of the situation back in the mid-1990's.




[Edited on June 7, 2007 at 11:46 PM. Reason : ]

6/7/2007 11:43:04 PM

Joe, I have just a couple points then this old man needs to get his sleep.

It seems to me we had OBL wrapped up. At that time, OBL was known, but not perceived as a big threat. Do you think international law would have mattered after the cole, or 9/11? Of course not. In hindsight it was obviously a mistake to have not taken them up on their offer and put OBL in gitmo. I dont view this as clintons fault, just a terrible misfortune of a missed opportunity.

People who rush to blame clinton for "doing nothing" in hindsight, are the same idiots that claim bush knew Iraq had no WMDs, just on different sides. Iraq too has turned out to be a pretty big mess, but I dont think bush lied. Im sure there are some intel that told bush iraq didnt have wmds, just like im sure there is intel that OBL was a pretty mean guy, who needs dealt with. Hindsight is always 20/20, and raking our leaders over missed opportunities and mistakes, when given the info at the time was the best we could do, is pointless, imo. We do the best we can at the time with the info we have, and deal with the consequences....which in these two cases are pretty severe.

The main problem I have with clinton, besides the tax increases, was him lying before a judge and the nation. I could care less who he screws, etc. And I realize its damn hard knowning what crazy people are doing/planning to do all over the world. But to flat out lie, like you got bad intel on whose mouth your dick was in..was over the top. It cost us millions for him to admit the truth(which was also a bullshit witchhunt), when all he had to say, was its "none of your damn business." If any of us perjured ourselves like that, esp on national tv.. we would be in jail. Clinton is by far the best politician that ive seen. For better and worse.

This whole combative political bs needs to stop. Its fueled mainly by 24 hr news that promote conflict and a "choosing sides" mentality. "Oh it must be shit, its an idea from a republican". Or, "its on cnn, cant trust it". Its all bullshit. The majority of people have views that are traditionally split between the two parties, but lean more heavily one way. But, there seems to be a push to get people out of the middle and choose a side and stick with it, dont compromise they are either out to convert you or give you an abortion. It all creates tension so that people are less receptive to other ideas. You insinuate im an idiot bc I lean republican and have different values than yourself. I dont know what ive done to insult you, or create such feelings, but simply having an opposing view should not create such a reaction. I dont think things will get better until people actually LISTEN to other ideas.

Sorry for the rant, as you can tell I really enjoy politics and enjoy the discussions and hearing different perspectives/ideas. Have a good night.

6/8/2007 12:08:49 AM

Quote :

"At that time, OBL was known, but not perceived as a big threat."

OBL was virtually unknown except to some intelligence analysts as a financial sponsor of Islamic extremists. he had done nothing illegal and was not wanted for any crime. Even his infamous fatwa of 1996 wasnt issued until 6 months after this whole event blew over.

Quote :

"In hindsight it was obviously a mistake to have not taken them up on their offer and put OBL in gitmo."

mistake? obviously?? that sure is easy for you to say. the Cole was bombed 4 years later. WTC/Pentagon, 5 years later. no one knew these plans, I daresay not even OBL himself

And Gitmo was not a prison of any sort at that time. such a scenario was unthinkable, and would have been roundly condemned by all quarters.

Quote :

"People who rush to blame clinton for "doing nothing" in hindsight, are the same idiots that claim bush knew Iraq had no WMDs,"

oh, come on now. the two events are not even remotely comparable. Clinton did his best to try and take out someone who the CIA considered a potential threat. But Saudi Arabia wouldnt take him, and the FBI said they had nothing on OBL, so they couldnt extradite him for a crime he never committed. America still nominally followed laws in those days, or at least cared enough to make the appearance of doing so.

On the other hand, the Bush Administration fabricated WMD evidence, and drew big cartoons at the UN, and viciously retaliated against anyone in the military and intelligence communities who dared contradict their foregone conclusion with factual analysis. Evidence has been repeatedly demonstrated that Bush and Company were actively debating on how a war against Iraq could be waged within a couple MONTHS after taking the White House in early 2001. long before the WTC/Pentagon attacks.

Of all the billions of dollars spent on this war (500 billion? a trillion?) where do you think its gone? it sure hasnt gone to stabilize Iraq or even adequately equip our fucking troops. its gone by and large to prime US Defense contractors and laying the foundation for the eventual privitization of Iraq's oil fields. This is done in our name, US citizens, and it's fucking criminal. How anyone can not see this is beyond me.

Quote :

"It cost us millions for him to admit the truth(which was also a bullshit witchhunt)"

where are you going with this? yeah, clinton fucked up. yeah its none of anyones business. yeah Ken Starr needs to be ass raped with a garden hoe. But you people need to drop this fucking Clinton/Lewinski bullshit. its pathetic. $100 million, or whatever it was, is a drop in the bucket compared to what Bush's Private War is costing us. And 100,000 women and children weren't killed either.

Quote :

"You insinuate im an idiot bc I lean republican and have different values than yourself."

no i thought you were an idiot because i thought you were positioning the Washington Post article as a defense of TKE-Teg's factually-challenged post. I see that is not the case now, so I'll take the personal attacks back. Dealing with the sheer idiocy of some people here makes me a little quick on the trigger. In my defense however, when someone asks someone to support their bullshit post, and someone else immediately posts a related link without any sort of context, I don't know what other conclusion they could come to.

Quote :

"Have a good night."

back atcha mate.




[Edited on June 8, 2007 at 1:19 AM. Reason : ]

6/8/2007 1:18:46 AM

I disagree with you on a couple of your points. I dont think the bush admin fabricated anything. It was widely though of that iraq did indeed have them. Hell, you can even watch videos of clinton, gore, kerry, etc talking about how they are concerned about iraq and thier wmds. They all got the bad intel, apparently.

Why the resentment towards starr? Ive never understood why people villianized the man. He was doing his job, when he was asked to take over the investigation...and in hindsight did a good job. It was just SO poorly handled from the start, and it all started from a lie and snowballed...hmm kinda like a similar LAX situation.

We had OBL wrapped up, but didnt/couldnt take him. Its unfortunate, but hopefully things have changed now. I wonder how many 9/11s have been avoided bc of us taking the offensive. We know of a couple plots already, but im sure you can agree there are probably several more that have been prevented by taking these nut jobs early.

6/8/2007 6:52:02 PM

^I know there are some videos, Im not going to lie, I dont remember from what time period, where clinton said he was a little concerned about such programs. I think he knew enough to realize that they had nothing, and it was not worth going to a unilateral preventive, not pre-emptive (this term gets tossed around alot incorrectly) war over.

I have to side with joe_schmoe on this one though. They fabricated intel, used intel that was straight up told to them was bad and of dubious sources, and even people on the inside said that finding a way to war with Iraq was on the agenda since day 1 of his presidency. I wrote a paper on this 2 years back which I got an A+ on by the way, using all credible and for the most part scholarly sources to back my claims. The info to support the facts that they lied to us is there, you just have to look for it as I did.

I don't understand why people still will not believe the facts about this case however. Looking at his track record its not that hard to believe it, even if you choose to ignore the facts, which can be found.

6/9/2007 1:36:14 AM

http://youtube.com/watch?v=B25jjXgzx78&mode=related&search=

THere are some clips. I think what is shows is how we ALL thought they had them from the intel we had.

Look, I dont like bush, but with the information we had at the time, it was the right call. Now its turned into a mess, and he is shouldering the blame. However, to claim he lied to go to war is, in my mind, a ridiculous statement. He would do this why? To help out his buddies in defense contracts? Cheaper oil? come on, I just dont buy it.

However, I would like to read your paper if you dont mind.

6/10/2007 11:26:41 AM

^Unless you were some high level person on the Bush team, you couldn't know the information they had at the time. You knew the information they told you they had at the time. Big difference.

Now that people have had a chance to come forward and people have been able to scrutinize what happened, it's clear that they had plenty of information to counter the WMD claims. The admin just chose to ignore it and present the scary image to the public because they wanted to attack Iraq as soon as they got into office. The Office of Special Plans was formed specifically for this purpose because the intelligence community wasn't eager enough to give a slam dunk case for war.

6/10/2007 11:51:54 AM

^well thats an argument. However, its hard to imagine the bush admin somehow funneling bad intel into the clinton admin, 2 yrs before they took office. Plus the fact that this idiot president is somehow smart enough to fool everyone? I just dont buy it.

I think its erring on the side of safety more than anything. However, people will make up whatever they want to bash bush. From lies on iraq to blowing up levees. Thats fine. I dont support alot of what bush is doing, but I will defend the fact that I dont think he lied about iraq. And going in was the right call at that time, but has been a big mess for awhile now.

6/10/2007 11:59:22 AM

^ I understand where you are coming from so Im not trying to bash you, I reserve that for hooksaw

However as I said earlier I think the Clinton admin was concerned about Iraq, because no un inspectors had been in for a while. During Bush's time UN inspectors were allowed back in Iraq, but Bush did not seem to be satisfied with this move, and most definitely did not give them enough time. Clinton was not convinced to the point to severe ties with allies and take unilateral preventive action against Iraq like Bush did. You have to look at the time period though; in fall 2002 when they were pushing the hardest for war, 9/11 was still very recent and fresh in everyone's memories, and everyone was scared. So much so that even democrats voted for the violation of rights that is the patriot act. The Bush administration knew this and decided to fabricate and use bad intel into scaring everyone into believing that some serious shit was going to go down if we did not invade Iraq, such as their reported link between al-qaeda and Iraq, which they later went back and said they never claimed. Thats how he was able to manipulate and lie to everyone.

Give me some time to dig that paper back up, I wrote it in October 2005 when I was a freshman, once I find it I will send it to you.

6/11/2007 1:20:43 AM

Im looking forward to it.

However, we had had UN inspectors in iraq for years. They were either getting thrown out, or limited access. Sadam was given countless deadlines to allow inspectors, but failed to meet those. Yes, blitz was allowed to go into iraq, but wasnt allowed to search anything he wanted...so it def. gave the perception of misdoing.

I 100% agree that the mindset/revenge after 9/11 snowballed the iraq war. One couldnt speak out against the war, and if you did you were muted by the what 90% approval of going into iraq at the time.

6/11/2007 9:54:08 AM

Quote :

"However, we had had UN inspectors in iraq for years. They were either getting thrown out, or limited access. Sadam was given countless deadlines to allow inspectors, but failed to meet those. Yes, blitz was allowed to go into iraq, but wasnt allowed to search anything he wanted...so it def. gave the perception of misdoing."

Or the perception of he was sick and tired of other countries meddling in his affairs.

6/11/2007 10:16:32 AM