Well, pals, the matter is that Bush together ...

What events and reveals of the last few days?

Did I miss something?

If you don't care to be reminded of your hypocricy, then don't trot it out. I didn't find it necessary to tell you to shove it when i pointed out the contempt which conservatives express continually for the UN, until they want to make excuses for the shithole war the Shrub started for the PNAC and the energy industry. So i will not stand for your mealy-mouthed hypocritical lies used to justify the deaths of thousands. Your snotty attitude gets in the way too often and i will call you on it whenever if feel like doing so. Your pot/kettle blackness denial is pathetically absurd.



You needn't expect me to stop pointing out your conservative hypocricy and hatefulness, either.

Well, I may stand solo on this statement...but here goes:

From our convenient place in history we are able to look backward and say what should have been done about these individual terrorists, with full knowledge of the passion and vigor with which they hope to pursue their fight.
9/11 gave us that information, not Bush and certainly not Clinton.
Had 9/11 not happened...and this may require some of you to remove the partisan boxing gloves for moment...I have two possible realities:

1. Bush would have gone ahead with the regime change that was in motion prior to 9/11 and had no success stabilizing the AQ or Islamist threat, as we are today seeing.

2. Bush would have left that silly "Bin Laden determined to strike the US" memo in the "in" bin indefinately. All talk of "Hijacker #(fill in the blank)" would be devoid of any meaning, as no such attack would have taken place.

9/11 launched the so-called war on terror, and the Islamic threat was ignited by that same event. What we would be here discussing in reality #1 would be "Gulf War II', or "The Iraqi/American War", or simply unknowingly waiting on a potential attack as was Bush I, Clinton, and Bush Jr.

Bush Jr. got hard on terrorism (pun....uhh, not inttended) because it hit home and it hit hard...we have no grounds other than 9/11 to think that his actions toward islamic militant/fascists would have been any different than his action pre-9/11, or Clintons, or his Dad's for that matter.
The onus of responsibility does not lie on those past presidents "who failed to act" because by all accounts, and by any understanding, thousands of terrorists are recognized by the US, Islamic or otherwise, but their potential has not and can not be realized until they move from benign ideologues to full fledged terrorists.

Hindesight makes it all too convenient to draw the partisan swords, and I too have been guilty, but in all honesty...can we fairly blame Bush I, Bush II or Clinton for inaction? If so, then we attribute culpability to all future presidents for the current known terrorists future actions.

Thoughts?

candidone 1
Why bother with thoughts since each side has its own views and neither side seems particularly willing to budge.

Talk about looking back! In a thousand years historians will look at us and shake their collective heads in disbelief at the level of stubbornness we have shown.

You willing to budge?
I am.
That's why I wrote it.

Candidone 1

I am willing to both listen and to budge. I have budged at times. My big problem has just been my muleheadedness with regards to all things Clinton; but, even there I realize at times I am not 100% right (often not even 15% right)
I discuss my views on the political front at great length with some of my friends, others steadfastly refuse to even open the matters up for discussion of any sort and some have stormed off saying they cannot be associated with an idiot (meaning me). So far I have attempted to not get into the name calling (not always successful though) since name calling does not address our core beliefs.

Name calling is so fun...especially when Set does it.
It's so colorful.

Anyway, this issue isn't even hitting "core beliefs". You can still think what you want of Clinton and I can still think the shrub is a little man in a little man's body with a little man's mind.
That's beside the point.
Attributing sole responsibility for 9/11 to the President of the US, or even the minions in his administraion for that matter, is to dangerously hold them accountable for the future actions of people they know are dangerous.
IMO, this would be the precedent set: If Clinton/the Bush's were responsible for not taking out Atta, OBL, or whomever, by the sole fact they were aware of thier potential for terror, then whatever hell a current "known terrorist" is preparing to unleash becomes the burden of the current adminsitration.
So, knowing about or having detailed information about potential terrorists and actually stopping future acts of terrorism by these individuals unfairly makes the president and his administration accountable for their future actions by the very fact that they didn't stop them.

I'm not prepared to put that on Bush, Clinton, or the next man or women who holds that office.

I don't even know so much that it is a matter of my really wanting to place sole responsibility firmly on any shoulders other than those of the terrorists themselves. The issue I have here is what exactly kept Clinton from attempting to take more action than he did. That is the missing piece of the puzzle for me right now and although I doubt that I will find real satisfaction in whatever answer he could give, I would like to hear something out of him. His silence is unfortunately (I feel) even more damaging than if he came out and said "hey guys I just darn tootin' didn't feel like getting any blood on my watch(administrative). Fort his sake he needs to address this matter and speak up.



As for me, I must dash off for now Candidone 1; but feel free to ask me another question or further this subject and I will hopefully get back to it by tomorrow morning.

Clinton did attempt an attack on al Qaeda in Afghanistan, but absent an incident as powerful as September 11th, and with a mostly hostile Republican Congress, he was unlikely to have gotten war powers to invade Afghanistan. Look how much trouble he had to get authorization to go into the Balkans. It is also noteworthy that he inherited the Somali situation from the previous administration, and felt that he had gotten burned in that deal. The explanation for that is lengthy, so i won't go into it here--suffice it to say that he was understandably reluctant to go to war without some very strong justification. Playing the blame game is not helpful in dealing with the current situation.

So, you're saying that you don't want to move on from this partisan fingerpointing....but


This "Clinton didn't do enough" bit needs a bit of massaging. Short of setting up an illegitimate camp in Guantanamo and just rounding up any suspected terrorist without rhyme or reason, what was he to do?
I assume this is framed around the event of 9/11.
"What should Clinton have done to prevent 9/11?"
Well, I guess he should have peered into his crystal ball and seen the faces of the 19 hijackers and sought to hunt them down. Maybe Dubya could have done that. Who knows. That's not the issue.
We're moving beyond that, because even I don't want to blame Bush for 9/11...or any other future terrorist for future acts of terror.



...and I'm not sure he could or should say anything. He wouldn't satisfy anyone other than those already satisfied with him.
If 9/11 was preventable because names on lists were highlighted in neon pink, then so becomes every future event in which actions are carried out by said highlighted individuals.
...and that's the onus of responsibility that is placed on the president for the individuals who have been highlighted, with no mention of those in the "other" category.

If you subscribe to the suggestion that knowledge automatically entails prevention, then I'm going to suggest outright and respectfully, that you are wrong.

I'd appreciate further information if and when you have the time Set.
Links would suffice.

Does what I say on this make any sense?

The embassy bombings and the first attempt on the World Trade Center (1993) may have been seen by insiders as al Qaeda's work, but to get war powers to go after bin Laden in either the Sudan or Afghanistan, Clinton would have needed some very concrete proof to take to Congress, and irrefutable evidence of a clear and present danger. The terrorists were simply not seen in that light in the 1990's.

As for Somalia, Mohammed Siad Barre's "socialist" regime collapsed because oil prices went through the roof as a result of the 1990-91 Gulf War. The situation was predictable--many such petty dictatorships leave the people to their own devices, and make sure their soldiers and political cronies get fed and paid. But the higher oil prices, for a country like that with negligible foreign exchange, meant that Barre was increasingly unable to do that. In 1991, he was run out of power by a coalition of clan war lords who united only for that purpose. When an international force lead by the United States went in, the war lords fell to bickering among themselves once again, and this time the stakes were control of the government. The Admiral who had been put in command by Bush, Sr. (and no, i'm not indulging in partisan blame here) turned out to be a loose cannon, and he decided unitlaterally to go after Mohammed Farah Aidid, then the most powerful of the clan warlords, whose people justifiably expected a large share of the power in government. A "hit team" of Delta force personnel and special forces were sent after one of Farah Aidid's lieutenants. This action was explicitly in contravention of the policy mandated by Bush's administration, which policy was continued by Clinton's administration. When the special forces went after Aidid's boy, they got into a really nasty fire fight, and then a helicopter was shot down. The nightmare only deepened as more troops tried to extricate the special forces and Delta force troops who had gone out on the hit, and nearly the entire population turned out to take pot shots at the infidels. A second helicoper was shot down, with the pilot made prisoner, his crew members killed and one of the bodies dragged through the streets. Pakistani troops, who had always gotten along well with the population, were driven back when they tried to come to the aid of the now isolated Americans, and finally, the Pakistanis and just about all the remaining American troops were sent out to escort the special forces back to the base at the harbor.

Clinton was completely blind-sided by that incident. He had justifiably thought the situation was being handled in a reasonable manner, and left the policies of Bush in place, as being effective. He got the news about the disaster in Mogadishu at about the same time it hit the evening news. He's a saavy enough politician to know that he'd take the blame for a situation which got out of hand because of an out-of-control commander.

Somalia is a failed state, which has already fragmented into three other failed states, and repeated efforts at mediation by other African states have failed to re-unite the divided sections of the country. Little wonder, then, that in 1995, Clinton frankly told the UN that we needed to pull out, and this was accomplished that same year. When he finally went into the Balkans to do something about Bosnia and Kosovo, he made damned sure that there was a complete operational plan in place, that there were well-defined rules of engagment, and that he had broad-based international support. In the end, when he and the rest of the NATO heads of state got all of their ducks in a row, the Serbs didn't stand a chance. The Powell doctrine of applying overwhelming force was used in Kosovo, and the Serbs never knew what hit them. Basically, the equation used was that the military would do what the civilian authority told them to do, and the military would be allowed to make their best operational plans about how to accomplish the mission. For all of the complaints about Clinton after the fact, his military decision subsequent to the Mogadishu debacle shows that he learned something about how to handle the military. I think he probably also felt that he had learned to be very careful about the use of military force. Whether others want to contend that he became too careful is not something which really interests me.

All good Set...two things.
1. Can you cut and paste me a fragment of your operational memory
2. Can you explain this abstract comcept to me.
Just can't seem to get my head around it.

First, i need to point out that Admiral Howe was not acting in a military capacity, but had been appointed by Bush as the ambassador. Second, i should point out that when Howe pushed an effort to take out Aidid, Clinton, Aspin (DoD), Berger (NSA), Christopher (State) and eventually even Powell (JCS) all backed the plan. What i wrote before gives the impression that Howe acted on his own authority. Rather, he gave bad advice, and Clinton's administration accepted it as being the best way to deal with the situation as seen by the man on the spot. I just checked my source material and some online accounts in order to correct what i had written.

Here is a link to Blackhawk Down, a series of articles in The Philadelphia Inquirer by Mark Bowden, which was then made into a book, and finally a movie.

An operational plan is a military statement of the goals to be achieved and how they are to be achieved. As an example, you are a regimental commander ordered to take out an enemy brigade command post known to be protected by an infantry battalion, indirect fire support from artillery, and on-call amored forces. Therefore, your goal is the destruction of the command post. Your method will be to line up the resources necessary to neutralize the artillery (either counter-battery artillery fire or air strikes), prevent the arrival of or achieve the destruction of the armored forces (air strikes most likely, as a direct armor to armor confrontation can get out of hand and lead to a general engagement, which is not necessarily what is wanted), and then in consideration of the relative balance of forces (the number of your men versus the number in the infantry battalion defending, the number and quality of your weapons versus theirs, the tactical doctrine in which your troops are trained as opposed to the tactical doctrine the enemy is known to use), and the terrain to be crossed in the approach march (moving the troops up to the firing line), and the terrain in which the defenders are located, you decide how much of your force to use and how to deploy them. Then the operational plan must be written so that all of the components act in concert to achieve the maximum effect in the minimum time with the least possible casualties.

Rules of engagement, simply stated, tell you who you can shoot and under what circumstances. Before we launched an all-out attack on Serb forces in Kosovo, American troops went into Bosnia to try to patch up the failed United Nations effort. A Dutch battalion in Srebrenica had been overwhelmed trying to defend a Muslim enclave there, largely because the rules of engagement did not allow them to take effective action against Serb paramilitary forces. Clinton would not go into Bosnia until he was sure the rules of engagement would effectively protect American troops and the civilian population, and that NATO and the UN agreed to those rules of engagment.

Broad-based international support ought to be readily understood--Clinton did not proceed until he got assurances that NATO, acting under UN Security Council Authority (a tough sell, as Russia has, literally for centuries, seen the Serbs as their "Slavic Little Brothers"), would provide air support and troops and material support.

Do the Iraqis think so?

Even back in March 2004, a survey in Iraq by a consortium of international news organisations found that 48 percent of Iraqis thought the invasion had been right, and 39% that it was wrong. Only 42 percent thought the invasion "liberated" Iraq, while 41 percent said it "humiliated" the country.

Those numbers were flattered still by the hugely positive attitide of the Kurds. Among Arab Iraqis (Sunnis and Shi'ites), only 33 percent said the war had liberated the country, while 48% said it had humiliated it. More Arab Iraqis also thought the invasion was wrong than right.

And that, of course, was before a large number of things making life in Iraq seem even harder (Abu Ghraib, Fallujah, Najaf).

Then there was another poll in May 2004, commissioned by the Coalition Provisional Authority itself. It found that only 2 per cent of the Iraqis polled saw the coalition troops as liberators, while 92 per cent said they were occupiers.

Change in public opinion was fast, which suggests the numbers must be even worse now: while back in January only 28% wanted the American troops to leave "immediately", that was up to 55% in May. Only 10% trusted the US/UK troops, and only 11% the CPA (this in a CPA-commissioned poll!). On the other hand, a full 67% said they supported rebel leader Sadr, back then.

More info in this thread.

You're too good Set.
I appreciate the follow up, but I was jokingly highlighting how past circumstances have met success when they have a complete operational plan in place, well-defined rules of engagment, and that broad-based international support...
Thanks though, it was not wasted...I always appreciate the wealth of information you spread about this forum.

Yes, well the best laid plans o' mice and men . . .

Both Lee and Jackson of Confederate fame in the American Civil War were fond of saying that the best operations intend to succeed, and plan for how to deal with failure. Jackson had a further saying, best illustrated by an anecdote told by a young staff officer. He was reporting to Jackson on the whereabouts of some cavalry, and it was not what Jackson wanted to hear, so he began by saying: "General, I'm afraid . . ."

And Jackson interrupted him immediately to say:

"Never say your are afraid in such matters. Never take counsel of your fears."

Does this look familiar?

http://www.cdt.org/policy/terrorism/adm-anti-terror-otl.html

Note the date.


Here's what he ran into:

http://www.cnn.com/US/9607/30/clinton.terrorism/

Does that sound like he wasn't taking terrorism seriously?

http://nsi.org/Library/Terrorism/rites.htm




And as for doing nothing:

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

So what is the new and revealing information indicating terrorist attacks were Clintons fault?

Ooops! I mean, so from what is this information being used to divert our attention?

Squinney, would you mind reading my conversation with Sturgis from one page back and commment re: the partisan blame game and holding the high office too accountable for treatment of information.
I'd appreciate your feedback and input.