Dr. Rice testifies

I was being sarcastic.
But, Brandon,...a speech shouldn't be considered evidence, in and of itself.

All that "Claim" and "Fact" stuff was posted and discussed in Titus's thread already. People are falling all over themselves to post the same lame and easily-debunked arguments.

The idea that the ANYONE could have prevented 9/11 based on information that was several months old, not indicating any specific method or date, and mixed in among many other similar threats, is ludicrous. I know there are people out there who want to see the President fail, but let's get real. You're not going to make it happen by citing a generic threat like this. You have to have a "smoking gun," and this definitely isn't it.

I would suggest for all the "Bush knew" crowd that you go read Dr. Rice's testimony from beginning to end and try to retain some of the information before you post some of these statements.

Re: Stupidity

What do you think of the job Clintonco did in thwarting the first WTC bombing? The USS Cole bombing? The Murrow Office Building bombing? The Khobar Towers bombing? Did his administration likewise botch their jobs on the days of those attacks?

Or do you hold this administration to a different standard than that, based on your personal partisan bias?

All this political finger pointing is fine given a commitment to D.C business as usual. However, it does not speak towards the problem at hand that begs for resolution. How is the U.S. to, first, secure the area? More Troops? Yes. But that begs the question why did the present U.S. administration wait until now? Is this mind set similar to that of: No! No! Condi should not testify because of executive privilege or (insert administrative spun reason here)? But wait! Maybe she should testify because...the present admin looks callously uncaring if she doesn't or (insert political correct reason here)? Where is the nobility of this Republican Admin? Are they special? If so, does this uniqueness stem from their inability to forecast the American citizen's ability to hold them responsible regarding a normal leader's requirement of commonly experienced human forethought?

Believe me; all this will be a mere footnote 20 years from now when historians look back at this U.S. admin's foray into Iraq:-- Is this a stroke of genius or the down turn of the American "Empire"?

The "9/11" Commission's value lies not with its ability to find "Gotcha" moments concerning Clarke or Rice testimony but, more pointedly, with its ability to produce suggestions involving historical repetitions of 9/11 and how to avoid such future disasters. Thomas H. Kean and Lee H. Hamilton, leaders of the commission, have notably floated above the political fray; unlike other members who have been unable to resist the ignoble attempt at partisan submarining presented them. However, the commission insists that its decision will be unanimous...well, OK.

We all have enjoyed the opportunity to "Cherry Pick" from the testimony but then this is merely the luxury afforded those engaged in voyeurism, my self included. But we see our military pressed into service, but surely that is not a problem. Unless those modern warriors feel that they are being miss-used. We all like to think that the military is a mere "instrument" of political policy but this administration has come close to the adjective of "abuse" in this respect. After all, the one thing that makes our military different and more valuable compared to, say the soviets, is the revolutionary concept of a free thinking and responsible warrior class.

I would like to think my thoughts are apolitical; others will surely point to the error of my ways...and subjectively so. However, my interests lie more towards how the United States is to accomplish the noble and extremely local goal of Iraqi self determination. Given That goal, two questions present:

Can America provide this opportunity for Iraqi citizens? (If we answer in the affirmative, this begs even more difficult questions)

If so, is the Middle Eastern mind plastic enough to not only encompass this concept of personal freedom but to embrace the concept of personal responsibility that is demanded by such aspirations?
If anybody is familiar with my posts they will recognize my continued skeptism towards those native to this area to overcome this Middle Eastern propensity towards this juvenile anthrophy in contrast to not only those of European (Occidental) but also those of Oriental origins.

This, I hope, brings to the fore that even those societies not familiar with our culture, and those societies who felt it necessary to convince their members that those in the west were so evil that they might, somehow, revoke their beliefs to the point of Armageddon were, at least, somewhat off the mark..

America is not the "Bad Guy". America is merely the "Guy" that feels that different voices have value. The qualifier is that America does not find value in physical threat coming from those that that can back up their arguments with shear force sans logical argument and moral foundation in humanity.

JM

Let me ask you people who are upset that we are taking the time and resources to question the Bush administration on this, did you think it was a waste of resources during the Clinton impeachment trial? Personally, I think both of them are a waste of time. But I do hope they end up hanging Bush. He's a corrupt man and he's taking our country down with him. Clinton just cheated on Hillary. Big deal...

Your post is truly a breath of fresh air amid the somewhat acrid smell of people who seem to hate their own country so much that they protest against the government that is trying to protect them instead of protesting against terrorism.

The only thing I would have to say in opposition to your opinion is the idea that the administration is somehow abusing the military. In Vietnam, the military suffered from being micro-managed from Washington, so instead of being allowed to win the war, they were tightly controlled and unable to fight to their full potential. In contrast to that, the current US Defense Department turned the Generals loose and let them come up with the battle plans, and as a result we have witnessed arguably the most successful battle campaign ever waged in recorded history. That is not abuse in my eyes, it's allowing the military to perform their duties.

Other than that, I would have to say "Wow, stick around and contribute to the discussion. Please."

Who the hell do you think you are to judge someone's patriotism Tarantulas? It just so happens that we love our country and hate to see it ruined by a mass murder in the white house who is in fact fueling terrorism! Open your eyes to reality for crying out loud? Do you really think Bush is making our country safer? That's a false sense of security. More people are plotting against us than ever before because we've pissed off practically every country on the planet who doesn't agree with us. It's only a matter of time before 9/11 happens again.

What's the logical relevance of that question to the issue of Bush's motive in invading? Do you just randomly insert jibes regardless of whether they have logical relevance to the argument?

Very true. Actually, my reasoning is thus:

1. I wanted to invade Iraq due to fear of the WMDs.
2. Bush said that he wanted to invade Iraq due to fear of the WMDs.
3. Since he was saying what I was thinking, his stated motive struck me as plausible.

I thought the Clinton impeachment was a waste of time, said so widely, and wrote Clinton twice to give him support (not that my letters have any significance). In your desire to hang Bush, do you care whether or not he's guilty of what he's charged with - bringing on 9/11 through negligence?

Starting a war is not usually regarded as mass murder. If Bush is guilty of it, so is FDR. Fighting dangerous people, like Hussein, radical Islamic groups, etc., will undoubtedly make them and their supporters angry, but that's hardly a reason for not trying to beat those who threaten us. Attacking the axis powers in WW2 probably made them mad too. Attacking the British in the Revolutionary War, most certainly made them very mad, and they acted on it too. I say this as someone who has extensively studied the debates in the British Parliament during the Revolutionary War. It was already only a matter of time before 9/11 happened again, seeing as similar events had happened before.

The big difference in this war and those other wars is that the other wars were for a good cause. We're not in Iraq to fight terrorism. Obviously Iraq wasn't a threat to the US at all. It's only a threat now because we made the mistake of going in there without a good reason. If you want to compare Iraq to another war, compare it to Vietnam. Don't belittle the great wars by comparing them to this one.

A patriot. A person of integrity and honor. One who knows a rat when he smells one.

Present company perhaps excluded. Only time will tell.

Republicans are so good at spitting and name calling when they can't come up with a better argument. It never fails.

Like calling your President a "mass murder in the white house?" At least I haven't stooped quite that low yet.

That's different because it's true. 600 American service men and women and the body count goes up daily. One can only guess how many innocent iraqi men women and children that Bush is responsible for killing.

And you don't think Clinton's inaction is responsible for the 3000 deaths in the World Trade Center?

I thought Clinton was a goofy skirt-chaser who would have been in jail if he had been a regular person, but I never would have said that while he was President. And ESPECIALLY not during wartime. THAT'S what I (and many others) call unpatriotic. It gives aid and comfort to the enemy. Ted Kennedy's Vietnam speech against the President was repeated two days later by that criminal ayatollah in Iraq. That's also unpatriotic.

I really don't blame Bush or Clinton for 9/11. I think they both probably acted in ways that were appropriate for the information they had at the time. Clinton just tried a different strategy, in this case Diplomacy didn't do the trick. I don't fault him for that. But if you're going to blame Clinton for that you have to blame Bush too because he was in office almost a year before 9/11 happened. Plenty of time to undo Clintons so called damage.

There are many studies that show clinton will be remembered in history as one of the 10 greatest presidents. I doubt seriously that anybody will care about the republican generated scandal in 50 years.

Bush doesn't need to be investigated for not preventing 9/11, though if they nab him for that I won't feel sorry. His crime is lying to the public to sell a war in Iraq and making people believe that it is related to fighting terrorism.

I thought Rice did as well as she could given the historical record which unfortunately for her is dismal. Not content with blaming the messengers' (the CIA and FBI) inability to communicate, she sat there and complained that nobody told her what to do next.

I hope someone other than newspaper columnists will point out to her that that's her job.

She has to eliminate any communication conflicts between her reporting agencies and she has to think up, write up and get up, walk down to the President's office and tell him what's going on.

I think she thought that was someone else's job, I don't know who.

I'm watching the morning papers, so far I haven't seen any with the 'no silver bullet' quote. I'm sure that will disappoint the White House writers.

Incompetent
W and Rice are inconpetent at their jobs. If they had been working for any corp. they would have been fired. The only thing Americans can do is fire these people every four years.

btw scrutenizing the Govt. is my duty as a citizen. I feel that both Republicans and Democrats mostly have done a crappy job in the past 3 + years. Also, I was not a fan of B. Clinton and was not pleased that he chose to lie about his sexual escapades. GW Bush lying about reason to con Americans into going along with invading Iraq is a bit more than lying about sexual infidelity, yet no impeachment or even a censure.

I'm not thrilled about J. Kerry either but he couldn't be as big of a screw up as W.

Buscho= Miserable Failure