From the Institute of Advanced Hindsight...

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From the Institute of Advanced Hindsight... [/u]
Mark Alexander
April 2, 2004

Winston Churchill said famously, "A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on." That was 1945. Today, lies are capable of circling the globe at the speed of light -- especially when a Leftmedia outlet like CBS's "60 Minutes" hosts "The Dick Clarke Show."

Richard Clarke, a leftover from the Clinton regime, seems to have confused George W. Bush for William J. Clinton. Errantly, Clarke claims President Bush ignored the al-Qa'ida threat and implies culpability for the attack on our countrymen 11 September 2001, eight months after Mr. Bush took office. That attack, you'll recall, was orchestrated by Osama bin Laden, the Islamist terrorist whom Bill Clinton ignored for eight years.

Why is Clarke stepping forward now? Politics and publicity.

George Bush's military record as Commander-in-Chief is far more impressive than anything John Kerry has been able to conjure up. Thus, Kerry and company are determined to undermine President Bush's credibility as CiC by accusing him of dereliction of duty with regard to 9/11 and the war against Jihadi terrorists. To that end, a few weeks back, Kerry's operatives rallied a small group of family members of 9/11 victims against the Bush administration in a shameless exploitation of 3,000 dead Americans. And now they have enlisted Clarke to further erode the perception of the President's CiC performance.

As for Clarke's accusation that President Bush "ignored terrorism for months, when maybe we could have done something to stop 9/11," it doesn't hold up to even the most fundamental scrutiny.

Contrary to Clarke's "recollection," long before 9/11 President Bush told his National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice that he was "tired of swatting flies," as had been the policy of the Clinton Administration. Instead, the U.S. would need to take the fight to al-Qa'ida. After all, under Clinton's watch, al-Qa'ida operatives had already bombed the World Trade Center, plotted to bomb simultaneously a dozen U.S. trans-Pacific flights, successfully bombed U.S. Embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, attempted to bomb Los Angeles International Airport, and bombed the USS Cole in the port of Aden, Yemen. Did we mention the bombing of Khobar Towers?

In effect, Osama bin Laden and his al-Qa'ida terrorist network had operated with impunity since 1993.

To support President Bush's directive, spending for covert action against al-Qa'ida was increased 400%, while the administration's National Security Council deputies began to develop an operations plan to destroy al-Qa'ida. During that time, the Counterterrorism Security Group, the government's interagency counterterrorism crisis-management forum chaired by Dick Clarke, met on a near-daily basis prior to 9/11 out of concern for a potential al-Qa'ida attack. The new plan, a complete departure from the previous administration's policy of appeasement, was on the President's desk by 4 September 2001. Tragically, this wasn't soon enough to prevent the actions of al-Qa'ida one week later -- actions that were planned two years before President Bush took office.

Clarke, testifying before the commission investigating intelligence failures prior to 9/11, should have spent less time peddling books and more time preparing his story. Indeed, when asked by former Sen. Slade Gorton if there was "the remotest chance" the events of 9/11 could have been avoided if the Bush administration had adopted ALL of Clarke's recommendations for dealing with al-Qa'ida, Clarke answered, "No." [/u]

Additionally, Clarke's big adventure into the realm of Clinton-sized prevarication was not solely a politically-motivated assault on the President's integrity, but timed to give maximum exposure by the Leftmedia to his new book, which is little more than a Leftist diatribe against the Bush doctrine of preemption. To that end, it is worth noting that the parent company of CBS (Clarke's principle promoter) is Viacom -- which also happens to be the parent company of Simon & Schuster, the publisher of Clarke's dubious new book, "Against All Enemies." (Recall that in January, CBS and Viacom orchestrated the same "60 Minutes" book promotion for another Bush-bashing tome -- that of fired former treasury secretary Paul O'Neill.)

Open query...

"...Wednesday, Clarke ... testified before the 9/11 commission. Was his testimony helpful to those seriously attempting to craft an effective policy to defeat terrorism? Or was he selling books and giving a job interview? You ... make the call."
--Clifford D. May

On the Warfront with Jihadistan...

While John Kerry and his band of malcontents continued to undermine U.S. resolve in the war against Jihadistan ("aiding and abetting the enemy," it's called), four American civilians and seven American military personnel were murdered by al-Qa'ida wannabes in the Sunni Triangle around Baghdad. "The insurgents in Fallujah are testing us," says USMC Captain Chris Logan. "They're testing our resolve. But it's not like we're going to leave."

Despite these attacks, there was additional evidence that the U.S. presence in Iraq is having the desired effect on Iran and Syria. Syria has asked U.S. ally Australia for help in repairing its relations with the U.S. Australia, you'll recall, helped "negotiate the peace" between the U.S. and Libya earlier this year. Seems that Syria's Baathists are running scared....

From the Department of military readiness...

All those Lefties suggesting the U.S. has a "hollow military" will be sad to learn this week that the five Army divisions that have units deployed in the Middle East for the past 12 months have met virtually every re-enlistment goal. Retention targets for enlisted soldiers -- the 416,000 privates, corporals and sergeants of the Army's 490,000 active force, are standing firm. The all-volunteer force remains strong despite the stress of frequent deployments and hazardous duty. "This tends to rebut armchair critics who said the sky is falling and the vultures are circling and the Army is gong to lose all its troops," said Lt. Col. Franklin Childress. "This is not true. The soldiers get it." Hooah!

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Quote:

Arizona Daily Star
April 2, 2004
Missiles missed the point

There appears to be mounting evidence that, despite credible warnings, the Bush administration failed to consider al-Qaida, Osama bin Laden or terrorism a major or imminent cause for concern prior to Sept. 11, 2001.

Former White House counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke says as much in his best-selling book, and he repeated his allegations in sworn testimony before the 9/11 commission. Now, despite White House attempts to discredit Clarke and whitewash its own shortcoming, a new document has surfaced that in effect validates Clarke's criticism.

The author of the document, strangely enough, is national security adviser Condoleezza Rice. The document is a speech that Rice was scheduled to deliver on the day the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were attacked by terrorists.

Because of the attacks, the speech was never delivered. However, The Washington Post was given portions of it. The White House, while refusing to release the full text of the speech, did confirm the accuracy of the excerpts provided to the Post.

The Post reported that the speech reflected the administration's interest in developing a missile defense program as its foundation for national security. It made no mention of those elements that ultimately were responsible for the 9/11 attacks.

The development of a missile defense system was Bush's major preoccupation prior to 9/11, despite considerable evidence that the major threat to national security was more likely from terrorist organizations.

For example, in April 2000 the bipartisan Rudman-Hart Commission, co-chaired by former senators Gary Hart and Warren Rudman, issued a report to Congress called, "Seeking A National Strategy: A Concert for Preserving Security and Promoting Freedom." Congress had instructed that commission to conduct "the most comprehensive review of American Security since the National Security Act of 1947 was signed into law over 50 years ago."

The report, issued 17 months before the 9/11 attacks, attached primary importance to homeland defense. It said, "America's safety from direct attack, especially involving weapons of mass destruction, by either states or terrorists" should be a major concern.

The commission's final report. "Road Map for National Security: Imperative for Change," came out in March of 2001. It said, with startling prescience:

"The combination of unconventional weapons proliferation with the persistence of international terrorism will end the relative invulnerability of the U.S. homeland to catastrophic attack. A direct attack against American citizens on American soil is likely over the next quarter century. The risk is not only death and destruction but also a demoralization that could undermine U.S. global leadership. In the face of this threat, our nation has no coherent or integrated governmental structures."

That report was published just six months prior to the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington.

In the president's first address to Congress, a month before that final report came out but a long time after the commission's previous two reports had been published, , the threat of terrorism was mentioned only once.

"Our nation," Bush declared, "also needs a clear strategy to confront the threats of the 21st century - threats that are more widespread and less certain. They range from terrorists who threaten with bombs to tyrants in rogue nations intent upon developing weapons of mass destruction. To protect our own people, our allies and friends, we must develop and we must deploy effective missile defenses."

The undelivered Rice speech reflects the president's preoccupation with missile systems, and is a clear indication that neither the president nor his closest advisers recognized the need for aggressive action against terrorists already on U.S. soil.

Evidence gathered by the Rudman-Hart Commission and others suggested there was an imminent threat from terrorists, yet the Bush administration clung to a belief that the real threat was from Iraq and nations with missile launching capabilities

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Only a liberal 'anybody but Bush' columnist could think interest in building a missile defense system is admission that there is no danger on the home front. It never ceases to amaze me how some look for the troll under every bridge.

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That article doesn't prove that all the focus was on missle defense, we know The Admin had more than one type of enemy in mind. If N. Korea or whoever had launched a successful missle attack on us and all the focus had been on bin Laden type of attacks, the blame would have been all the same.

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Foxfyre wrote:

Only a liberal 'anybody but Bush' columnist could think interest in building a missile defense system is admission that there is no danger on the home front. It never ceases to amaze me how some look for the troll under every bridge.

Calm down there foxfyre. I was just providing a little balance to the "Bush walks on water" article just above it. The Federalist, c'mon, at least mine is from a real paper.

I really didn't have any real problem with Bush's pre 9/11 actions re terrorism. I disagreed with his economic and social policies and thought rapid deployment of the missile defense system was wasteful and stupid, but 9/11 caught everyone with their pants down.

The response to Afghanistan was appropriate, but the change of emphasis to Iraq before the job was done and endangering the progress already accomplished was a return to head up the anus mode.

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