Text 8112, 109 rader
Skriven 2006-09-11 21:28:00 av Robert E Starr JR (8609.babylon5)
Ärende: Re: ABC backs down on 9/1
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"Bill" <beastmachinery@msn.com> wrote in message 
news:1157900943.611884.105960@d34g2000cwd.googlegroups.com...
> Carl wrote:
>> The only issues that I know about (I tend to ignore such movies as 
>> complete
>> nonsense anyway) are whether Clinton was preoccupied with Lewinsky or 
>> made
>> decisions for political reasons rather than national interest, Ms. 
>> Albright
>> (as opposed to a "High State Dept official") told the Pakistanis 
>> something
>> early that allowed UBL to get away, or whether Sandy Burger slammed down 
>> a
>> phone and denied authorization of an attempt on UBL for political 
>> reasons.
>> Most of the stuff (like Clinton having several chances to get bin Laden)
>> were known before.
>
> I think you should read the 9/11 Commission Report. Either that or you
> have interpreted it much differently than I have. Clinton wasn't as
> preoccupied with Lewinsky as the Republican Congress was preoccupied
> with finding dirt on him and Hilary. So much so that they refused to
> grant him a legal declaration of war to go after the Taliban, al-Qaeda,
> bin Laden, etc. following the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole. As for
> "several chances to get bin Laden," the situation doesn't appear to
> have changed. bin Laden remains elusive with false sightings everywhere
> (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14724112/). U.S. intelligence may have had
> a line on him before, but sharing of information was prohibited, as
> pointed out in the 9/11 Report.


I was reflecting the issue as it was being portrayed in the movie. I wasn't 
sayting that he was preoccupied with Lewinsky or the political fallout from 
it.  I don't know, nor does anyone that is very likely to write about it. 
That was not an accusation from me.

As to giving him a legal declaration, he didn't seem to need it when he 
fired some cruise missiles, so I'm not sure that's exactly the right way to 
frame that.   It wasn't declaring war, it was going aftrer a terrorist.  I 
also don't recall Clinton asking for authorization either.  Such a request 
would (and should) have come in public and involved a disclosure to the 
public.

Clinton seemed to be treating the incidents of the USS Cole and the original 
attack on the WTC as criminal acts more than anything else, so asking for 
authority from Congress would seem out of place with that mindset.

What I've heard on several interviews on television and on the radio is that 
there were about eight to ten times that we had good intelligence as to 
where he was, and there were two specific incidents that were very, very 
likely that we would have gotten him.  As I understand it, in one of those 
Clinton was concerned with collateral damage, and the other had a State Dept 
official telling Pakistan too early about a strike and that someone in 
Pakistan warned UBL.  IIRC, the State Dept expected Pakistan to warn UBL and 
planned to tell them before the attack but several hours later when it was 
too late for them to do anything about it.


> Related note. The 9/11 Report states that the Republican Congress was
> more focused on real or perceived misconduct by President and Mrs.
> Clinton than it was on the world outside the Oval Office. That focus
> culminated in the Starr Report, which read like a bad soap opera IMO.

They were stupid and deserved all the bad rap they got for it.

> The Republicans *succeeded* with those personal attacks on the Clintons
> and are now going nationwide with the same strategy of highlighting
> events unrelated to their opponents' governmental duties
> (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14757598/).

The Clintons did a number of stupid things that made it worse for themselves 
too.

> I know that I probably sound like a Democrat most of the time, since I
> make no secret of my extreme dislike of the current President or many
> of his party members and party tactics. But I do vote independently.

I don't like GWB.  I didn't like Clinton either.  A big frustration for
me is that I don't see anyone in politics that I would want to see as 
president.

The choices from both parties are terrible.  These are the best we can do?

> Personally, I'm sick of the whole incestuous backbiting disaster that
> American politics has devolved into.

I've argued this same point more than once.  Most people reading this
are no doubt sick of my talking about it.

> Since I live in the Philadelphia  area, I've begun to wonder more often,
> "What would Ben Franklin think?"

I think that if the Founding Fathers could see what America has become I 
think
they would have written a different Constitution.  I'm not saying a better 
or worse
one, just a very different one.
                                                                     
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