Let's wait and see if it is true - false flag operations, terrorist attacks

[TheOriginalFlashDavo]

I stand corrected, he did drop bombs in 96 and 98 and missed him by a few hours after that. Wonder why nothing much happened after 1998?

Nothing more in his time in office?

• In addition to a secret "finding" to authorize covert action, which has been reported before, Clinton signed three highly classified Memoranda of Notification expanding the available tools. In succession, the president authorized killing instead of capturing bin Laden, then added several of al Qaeda's senior lieutenants, and finally approved the shooting down of private civilian aircraft on which they flew.

• The Clinton administration ordered the Navy to maintain two Los Angeles-class attack submarines on permanent station in the nearest available waters, enabling the U.S. military to place Tomahawk cruise missiles on any target in Afghanistan within about six hours of receiving the order.

• Three times after Aug. 20, 1998, when Clinton ordered the only missile strike of his presidency against bin Laden's organization, the CIA came close enough to pinpointing bin Laden that Clinton authorized final preparations to launch. In each case, doubts about the intelligence aborted the mission.

• The CIA's directorate of operations recruited, trained, paid or equipped surrogate forces in Pakistan, Uzbekistan and among tribal militias inside Afghanistan, with the common purpose of capturing or killing bin Laden. The Pakistani channel, disclosed previously in The Washington Post, and its Uzbek counterpart, which has not been reported before, never bore fruit. Inside Afghanistan, tribal allies twice reported to their CIA handlers that they fought skirmishes with bin Laden's forces, but they inflicted no verified damage.

• Operatives of the CIA's Special Activities Division made at least one clandestine entry into Afghanistan in 1999. They prepared a desert airstrip to extract bin Laden, if captured, or to evacuate U.S. tribal allies, if cornered. The Special Collection Service, a joint project of the CIA and the National Security Agency, also slipped into Afghanistan to place listening devices within range of al Qaeda's tactical radios.

..."Until September 11th," said Karl F. Inderfurth, who was assistant secretary of state for South Asian affairs, "there was certainly not any groundswell of support to mount a major attack on the Taliban. This is just a reality."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp...&notFound=true

Gingrich and company derail the president and the country for two whole years over a minor sex scandal in the White House -- magnifying one act of oral sex into a full time, $50 million Independent Counsel investigation, weeks of House Judiciary Committee hearings, impeachment by the House of Representatives and trial in the Senate -- and then they accuse Clinton of not staying focused on government business!

Have they no shame?

The truth, of course, is just the opposite. Given how distracted he was by the Lewinsky scandal, (which was of his own making, but blown out of proportion by his political enemies), it’s amazing Clinton was able to continue governing at all. And during that time, as The Washington Post reveals, he did a great deal to combat terrorism, much of it behind the scenes.

Clinton’s most public response, of course, were the cruise missile attacks of 1998, directed against Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan and the Sudan, following the terrorist bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

Operating on limited intelligence -- at that time, Pakistan, Uzbekistan and Tazikistan refused to share information on the terrorists whereabouts inside Afghanistan -- U. S. strikes missed bin Laden by only a couple of hours.

Even so, Clinton was accused of only firing missiles in order to divert media attention from the Lewinsky hearings. A longer campaign would have stirred up even more criticism.

So Clinton tried another tack. He sponsored legislation to freeze the financial assets of international organizations suspected of funneling money to bin Laden’s Al Qaeda network -- identical to orders given by President Bush this month -- but it was killed, on behalf of big banks, by Republican Senator Phil Gramm of Texas…

In 1998, Clinton also signed a secret agreement with Uzbekistan to begin joint covert operations against Osama bin Laden and Afghanistan’s Taliban regime. U.S. Special Forces have been training there ever since, which is why the Pentagon was immediately able to use Uzbekistan as a staging area for forays into Afghanistan…

Clinton targeted bin Laden even before he moved to Afghanistan. In 1996, his administration brokered an agreement with the government of Sudan to arrest the terrorist leader and turn him over to Saudi Arabia. For 10 weeks, Clinton tried to persuade the Saudis to accept the offer. They refused. With no cooperation from the Saudis, the deal fell apart.

Conclusion: Rohrbacher, Limbaugh, Gingrich are dead wrong when they blame Bill Clinton for September 11. Did Clinton get Osama bin Laden “dead or alive?” No, but he came close, several times -- long before tracking down terrorists became a national priority.

http://archives.cnn.com/2001/ALLPOLI...umn.billpress/

When terrorists first tried to take down the World Trade Center with a truck bomb in February 1993, there was no organized outcry of recrimination against George Herbert Walker Bush, who had left the Oval Office a scant six weeks earlier. Nobody sought political advantage by blaming Bush for the intelligence failures that had allowed the terrorist perpetrators to conspire undetected for more than three years.

And no liberal commentator attempted to pronounce that former president guilty of "criminal negligence" based on the sort of fabrications and falsehoods deployed since Sept. 11, here and elsewhere, against Bill Clinton. Yet recently, opportunistic critics have mounted a false indictment of Clinton, attempted to erase his administration's extensive record of action against terrorism and smeared him by suggesting he should have prevented the tragedy of Sept. 11.

And a whole lot more of what I've read in a few places here: http://dir.salon.com/story/politics/...ton/index.html

But I guess if you only count invading countries and shooting rockets as doing "something" then yeah, old Bill didn't do so much I guess.

[TheOriginalFlashDavo]

...and turning world opinion against us in the process.

And I really wonder if any Bush supporter will ever admit (or should I say "realise") what sort of effect that's going to have on US security for a long time after Bush has left office imho?

[Loyal Rogue]

Look at Loyal Rogue, he still thinks that talking about Plame's job was illegal.

That's only because I choose to stick to the facts.
The special prosecutor already determined that she qualified on all counts as an undercover operative and leaking her real identity was a crime.
I'm sorry if you choose to believe FAUX news spin instead of the facts.

[FlashLackey]

Seems pretty effective to me... and he did it without needlessly spending half a trillion of our tax dollars, killing half a million innocent civilians, and turning world opinion against us in the process.

Shirley, you must be joking!

Arresting a couple guys involved in a world-wide network AFTER a successful bombing seems effective to you?

Yeah, that really deterred a lot of other terrorists, didn't it?

[villain2]

I said after 1998. I already ceded the point and changed my view on Clinton's efforts to stop Bin Laden ... it was one point in many of the original comment.

Another point on that bombing though, and this is a question, didn't that bombing result in them hitting a pharmaceutical building that didn't have any weapons in it?

Again, the nonsense about Monica was used to pull away from the whole thing. That's on the heads of the Republicans btw.

[TallGuyLittleCar]

About rallying the forces pre-911:
That's what leaders do. They know, before the general public does, who's planning what. There are tons of terrorists out there in the pre-9/11 era but Al Queda had made it a habit of bombing U.S. interests. After the, i don't know, fifth time ... someone should have told the American public about it. I'm personally disappointed that I didn't know jack about Al Queda before 9/11 and then found out they had been attacking U.S. interests for years before that.

leaders like Churchill and Roosevelt? I really can't think of one good leader that rallied the troops pre major incident without lying (hitler and poland).

[FlashLackey]

That's only because I choose to stick to the facts.
The special prosecutor already determined that she qualified on all counts as an undercover operative and leaking her real identity was a crime.
I'm sorry if you choose to believe FAUX news spin instead of the facts.

I believe you need to double-check your facts. It was found early in the case that Richard Armitage was the one who leaked her identity. I'll let you go ahead and do the homework regarding whether or not he has been charged with a crime.

[TallGuyLittleCar]

Apparently, you did - although much of what he fought for against a resistive opposition party in the congress ultimately got killed or defused when Bush took over, that's a far cry from saying that 'nothing' was done. It's also blind to the fact that the president doesn't write legislation - Congress does, and Clinton had a hostile congress for most of his eight years, whereas Bush had a rubberstamp for 6.

I find it somewhat ironic that the list of measures you mention are exactly what he was trying to do in the 90s; a bit of googling may help you out from under that rock.

clinton had a friendly congress his first 2 years, "hostile" for 4, and a split his last 2.

bush had a split his first 2 years and friendly for 4.. hostile for 2.

[TallGuyLittleCar]

Nothing? No missiles were fired?

sure did get those dangerous aspirin factories... and really bombed the stink of bosnia.

Clinton was criticized for doing it by the Republicans at the time? The 93 bombing warranted the invasion of an entire other nation? The Republican Congress at the time would've supported him?

The congress was democrat at the time.

[villain2]

That's what I was asking about. When I read that post by Japan-guy, I thought I had missed something. Now that I looked it up, I remember now that Clinton's admin bombed the Sudan yes ... they bombed an asprin factory because they thought it was housing weapons (chemical). They did bomb a spot in Afghanistan where they thought Bin Laden might have been at and missed him by a matter of hours.

Why did you guys leave that out in the reporting of all the things Clinton did? ... and ultimately, as we can see, Clinton's efforts weren't successful.

HOWEVER, Bush's are a disaster, so it's another case of "there ya are".

[japangreg]

Putting forth things doesn't mean you're getting anything done. I can say the same about the Dems in Congress right now, who are saying a bunch of stuff but haven't actually DONE anything to end the Iraq War. That's what I mean when I say the Clinton admin didn't do anything ... no excuses, results. That's why Congress' rating is the lowest ever, they haven't actually DONE anything.

Did you miss the part where the Dems kept the Repubs. in session all night last night to force them to actually fillibuster a resolution to bring them home? That hasn't actually happened since the early 90s - filibusters were more of a gentlemans agreement rather than an actual mours-long debate. And what happened? Even with many Repubs. publically saying the war was a mistake and should be ended, they ended up voting the party line because they "made a promise" to give the surge till September; basically, they said they know it won't work, but are bound by party loyalty to leave the soldiers in harms way.

That's getting things done? The repubs. have completely switched to the obstructionist tact since losing in 06 - they've said it outright that they plan to stop anything the dems try to do. So, is it Ds being ineffective, or Rs putting party loyalty over common sense and the common good?

[japangreg]

That's what I was asking about. When I read that post by Japan-guy, I thought I had missed something. Now that I looked it up, I remember now that Clinton's admin bombed the Sudan yes ... they bombed an asprin factory because they thought it was housing weapons (chemical). They did bomb a spot in Afghanistan where they thought Bin Laden might have been at and missed him by a matter of hours.

...Japan Guy?

Why did you guys leave that out in the reporting of all the things Clinton did? ... and ultimately, as we can see, Clinton's efforts weren't successful.

It's not our job to educate you on this issue - especially when you come in here shooting off a sarcastic tyraid about what Clinton didn't do without bother to actually, you know, research it first.

And I'd put to you: Clinton bombs Bin Laden, he lives. Bush bombs the entire middle east, Bin Laden lives.

And yet, repubs are so much better than dems on security...

[TallGuyLittleCar]

The minority party is always an obstructionist.. if you believe otherwise you are somebody's *****.




anyway back to the false flags.. here is Mr.Magoo warning about a iranian gulf tonkin.

[david petley]

Gee-wiz Dave, you're such a cynic.

What on earth would ever make you suspect that the group responsible for defrauding two elections, committing treason by outing an undercover CIA operative during a time of war, invading a country and killing over 500,000 citizens based on a pack of lies, embezzling $9 Billion in cash, and torturing POWs to death would ever stoop to something so low as running a simple false flag operation?

I think it comes from about 40 years of watching politicians lie and put their own interests before the well-being of their country.

[FlashLackey]

anyway back to the false flags.. here is Mr.Magoo warning about a iranian gulf tonkin.

the guy doesn't make any sense. "our naval presence in the region" could cause war with Iran? so, now we should be worried about driving ships too close to a country that doesn't like us?

"...being used to justify having all options on the table". All options are always on the table, regardless of what people say they will and will not do. What advantage would be gained with Iran in saying "whatever you do, we won't do x, y and z." agreements are supposed to be mutual trades.

"rumors...!" so, we're in the business of gossip now? claiming rumors is fine between friends and co-workers. but, if you're supposed to be leading the country, it seems that you should make less room to speculate and let it be known who is saying what. we're talking about matters of a nation of people. not whether or not uncle Jimmy is rumored to have fallen off the wagon.

[FlashLackey]

I think it comes from about 40 years of watching politicians lie and put their own interests before the well-being of their country.

I share that sentiment. That's why I don't understand why you guys think its better to have those monkeys in more control of programs than they need to be (health care, etc.).

[Loyal Rogue]

I believe you need to double-check your facts. It was found early in the case that Richard Armitage was the one who leaked her identity. I'll let you go ahead and do the homework regarding whether or not he has been charged with a crime.

Actually Armitage is just one of several administration members responsible for leaking her identity and the trail of evidence continues to point to the VP office.
As to whether there can be any successful justice and prosecution of this crime with all of the lying and obstruction of justice is another matter entirely and has no bearing or relationship to the fact that she was an undercover CIA operative working on nuclear WMD investigations in the middle east.
Nor does it change the fact that by exposing her and her entire "Brassplate" company that the leakers also exposed and endangered every other undercover CIA agent that used her and Brewster Jennings as part of their own cover identities which at any time, but especially during a time of war, is not only illegal but an act of treason.
These are just simple facts.

[TallGuyLittleCar]

the guy doesn't make any sense. "our naval presence in the region" could cause war with Iran? so, now we should be worried about driving ships too close to a country that doesn't like us?

you can only fit so many carriers in the Persian gulf before you bump into somebody or accidentally shoot down an airliner.


and I really just wanted to call ron paul mr.magoo

[Loyal Rogue]

Ahhhh, just like old times.

[Subway]

There you go, the new Bin Laden vid is actually five years old and already aired for the thrird time: http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles...oldfootage.htm

Fredi