Richard Clarke 60 Minutes interview this Sunday

[John Reynolds]

One part of how the media is handling Clarke's book this week that's truly disappointing is that they're the ones sensationalizing it into a vicious attack on the Bush administration when, in fact, Clarke blasts career politicians right 'n left, regardless of partisanship.

 

[Natoma]

Joe, as I said, you're the chalnoth of republicans...

And you're the Hellbinder of liberals. Glad we got that settled.

Unlike either of those two, and yourself Joe, I don't care who's right or wrong. I want to know what happened, when, why, and how to fix it. If that ends up painting a bad light on "my" president, i.e. clinton? So be it. If that ends up painting a bad light on "your" president, i.e. bush? So be it. You on the other hand just don't seem to be able to see anything wrong. There is a marked difference.

My point? Someone's word while part of a political body should always be taken with a grain of salt.

And someone hawking a book shouldn't be taken with a grain of salt?

You have gone way beyond "grain of salt" Joe. And need I remind you that, as shown in the 9/11 commission thread I started, the 9/11 commission's preliminary findings back up Clarke's assertions. Not to mention Paul O'Neill's assertions, and Bush's own assertions in the book "Bush at War" written by Bob Woodward, regarding his lack of urgency at first in dealing with Al-Qaeda.

But go ahead and continue to impugn the man because of his obvious bias and lack of credibility. This situation is simply too important for petty politics imo.

 

[Joe DeFuria]

One part of how the media is handling Clarke's book this week that's truly disappointing is that they're the ones sensationalizing it into a vicious attack on the Bush administration when, in fact, Clarke blasts career politicians right 'n left, regardless of partisanship.

But the "mainstream media" isn't tilted toward the left, is it?

 

[John Reynolds]

But the "mainstream media" isn't tilted toward the left, is it?

I think it goes beyond political leanings. It's hardly juicy to blast a former/retired president and/or his administration compared to the current one, so while Clarke is being accused of sensationalizing things to sell copy the media is certainly doing just that themselves by focusing their interests to only a portion of the book's content.

That said, Fox News was on the TV in the gym's bike room this morning and as I watched their 9/11 panel coverage I noticed that, interestingly enough, all they mentioned were Clinton-related issues, not one single statement on anything related to the current administration. Granted, I was only on the cross country machine for 45 minutes so I might've missed something.

 

[Babel-17]

Clarkes testimony today included statements by him that went to the question of how his book can be reconciled against the backround briefing he gave the press that Fox saw fit to release.

Whether it is a satisfactory answer will, I suspect, be a further topic of debate.

A side issue was raised by the commission member who questioned him. I think it was Kerrey, he blasted Fox for releasing the contents of a backround briefing, evidently this is a big "no-no".

Imo Clarke answered the question in a fairly satisfactory way. His delivery was excellent though his exculpatory excuse that delivering positive spin on the behalf of the administration when asked to is a duty for one in his position does imo dull his shining armor a tad.

But, bottomline, I feel his credibility remains intact.

 

[Joe DeFuria]

Unlike either of those two, and yourself Joe, I don't care who's right or wrong. I want to know what happened, when, why, and how to fix it.

And unlike you, I don't think much will actually come out of this commission, other than

1) A bunch of people pointing fingers
2) A bunch of people saying "there isn't much that could have been done."

If that ends up painting a bad light on "my" president, i.e. clinton? So be it. If that ends up painting a bad light on "your" president, i.e. bush? So be it. You on the other hand just don't seem to be able to see anything wrong. There is a marked difference.

Actually, I believe I do see what was "wrong". That is, we were not pro-active enough in going after Al-Quaeda. That is, it was "feared" (from both administrations) that it wouldn't be "politically acceptable" to proactively wage war on Afghanistan before such an attack as 9-11.

That it wouldn't be "politically acceptable" to go on assassination missions of Al-Quaeda leadership.

Hell, look at all the "second guessing" going on wrt Iraq...a case where we are trying to "connect the dots" and act proactively. And yet even AFTER 9-11, it's politically a tough battle.

I mean, I just love how the general concensus seems to be "we weren't aggressive enough against Terrorists". When you of all people should know damn well that being "aggressive" would never fly.

This is why the Clinton adminstration never did anything of substance.

And this is why the Plan placed before and endorsed by Bush had a 3 year timeline of "increasing pressure" until we actually went in with force.

So what went wrong is self-fulfilling.

What went wrong is that we needed to be successfully attacked before we could respond in the way we should have been doing for the past 10 years.

 

[Natoma]

I disagree completely. Unlike Iraq, there was instance after instance after instance of Al-Qaeda attacking US interests around the world and here at home. We were successfully attacked by Al-Qaeda over and over again, here and around the world, and got lucky in a few other cases.

1993 WTC Bombing, or was it 1994?
1999 attempted LAX Bombing
2000 USS Cole Bombing
Kenya embassy bombing, though I forget the year off the top of my head.

There are several others that happened during Clinton's term, and a few around the world that happened after Bush took office, some of which were thwarted, others not, under both Clinton and Bush. It is clear that Al-Qaeda has been at war with us for at least 12 years. That was certainly enough to declare war, especially since the Taliban was actively harboring Al-Qaeda and would not give them up.

Iraq had absolutely none of that backing it.

And yes, I do believe something positive will come of this commission. Getting past all of the political wrangling and sniping, facts will emerge that cannot be spun. That is what I'm looking for. Damn the politics to hell. 3000 people died on 9/11. That is enough imo to take off the political blinders and look at the truth. My hope? The facts that come out of this commission will help us shore up the problems we had then, and still have today. As I listed in my last post on page 1 of the 9/11 commission thread, there are tons of problems remaining with our security that have only been addressed in a half-assed, or no-assed fashion.

 

[Joe DeFuria]

I disagree completely. Unlike Iraq, there was instance after instance after instance of Al-Qaeda attacking US interests around the world and here at home.

Sort of like instance after instance of palestinian suicide bombers hitting Israel...and look at all the support Isreal gets...

We were successfully attacked by Al-Qaeda over and over again, here and around the world, and got lucky in a few other cases.

The WTC bombing was "taken care of" as a "judicial matter." That was "solved" apparently. The other ones were not on US soil....attempted LAX bombing is not a successful attack.

It is clear that Al-Qaeda has been at war with us for at least 12 years.

I agree.

That was certainly enough to declare war, especially since the Taliban was actively harboring Al-Qaeda and would not give them up.

I agree there too. But I think you're kidding yourself if the public or the world could be sold on an all out war (like is being waged now).

Iraq had absolutely none of that backing it.

Right up until we get hit sometime down the road with a chemical attack on U.S. soil with an agent that is traced back to Iraq, you mean. And then we can all look in hindsight and say "God...it was so obvious. the unaccounted for weapons....Sadams continued defiance of the U.N.....all of this other "anecdotal evidence"....why didn't we take him out?"

 

[Natoma]

I disagree completely. Unlike Iraq, there was instance after instance after instance of Al-Qaeda attacking US interests around the world and here at home.

Sort of like instance after instance of palestinian suicide bombers hitting Israel...and look at all the support Isreal gets...

The problem with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is that Israel and Palestine have both committed egregiously violent acts against one another and do not want to come to a peace agreement, until recently that is, when Sharon profferred giving up portions of the West Bank and Gaza Strip to the palestinians, a point which had long been in contention between the two sides.

We were successfully attacked by Al-Qaeda over and over again, here and around the world, and got lucky in a few other cases.

The WTC bombing was "taken care of" as a "judicial matter." That was "solved" apparently. The other ones were not on US soil....attempted LAX bombing is not a successful attack.

Yes the perpetrators were caught, but they admitted to being part of Al-Qaeda and that this was an organizational hit.

If Saddam Hussein had attempted to bomb the United States, you don't think we would have razed his country to the ground in response? What about if we had found out that the Japanese were on their way to destroy Pearl Harbor and we thwarted them. Would we have not hit back? Should we have not hit back?

That was certainly enough to declare war, especially since the Taliban was actively harboring Al-Qaeda and would not give them up.

I agree there too. But I think you're kidding yourself if the public or the world could be sold on an all out war (like is being waged now).

If we had come out publicly saying "You either give us Al-Qaeda, who committed these acts and conspired in these acts, or we're coming in there and taking them," I doubt anyone would have disagreed. The problem with the public back then is that there was no mention of terrorism. Even after the WTC bombing, everyone thought it was just a couple of nut jobs. Al-Qaeda? Wth is that? That's where the public friction would have come in imo. Lack of understanding of who and what Al-Qaeda is.

There is a difference imo between terrorists that are hiding in a country, but you're getting cooperation with that country's authorities in order to apprehend them (extradition and what not) and a government that willingly and gleefully props up those terrorists and openly flaunts their support of them to the world. Two different situations imo.

Iraq had absolutely none of that backing it.

Right up until we get hit sometime down the road with a chemical attack on U.S. soil with an agent that is traced back to Iraq, you mean. And then we can all look in hindsight and say "God...it was so obvious. the unaccounted for weapons....Sadams continued defiance of the U.N.....all of this other "anecdotal evidence"....why didn't we take him out?"

Iraq hadn't attacked us, or our interests around the world. That separates it from Al-Qaeda. Anyway, that's what the weapons inspection process was for. We should have provided all of the intelligence we had gathered to the weapons inspectors. If they find WMD, we go in and take out Saddam. If they don't, the sanctions are working. What have we found out now that we've done a full inspection process? The sanctions worked.

 

[Joe DeFuria]

The problem with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is that Israel and Palestine have both committed egregiously violent acts against one another and do not want to come to a peace agreement,...

Some will say the same thing about the "U.S. vs. Terrorists." See just about every "peace march".

If Saddam Hussein had attempted to bomb the United States, you don't think we would have razed his country to the ground in response?

We probably would have...that's my point.

Al Quaeda (not directly state sponsored) attempted to bomb the U.S....and we didn't go to all out "war" with them. Because terrorism is a different kind of war....and it took 9-11 to convince people of that.

If we had come out publicly saying "You either give us Al-Qaeda, who committed these acts and conspired in these acts, or we're coming in there and taking them," I doubt anyone would have disagreed.

Wanna bet?

What if they said "we dont have Al-Qaeda...we're not responsible for them...you can't attack us because of what this group is doing. And by the way, we don't want you coming in here to our soverign nation and snoop around."

 

[RussSchultz]

If we had come out publicly saying "You either give us Al-Qaeda, who committed these acts and conspired in these acts, or we're coming in there and taking them," I doubt anyone would have disagreed.

Wanna bet?

What if they said "we dont have Al-Qaeda...we're not responsible for them...you can't attack us because of what this group is doing. And by the way, we don't want you coming in here to our soverign nation and snoop around."

Do you guys even remember 2 1/2 years ago? There was a week or two after 9/11 where we publicly 'negotiated' with the taliban. "Give us bin laden" "No, he's our guest, and he didn't do it, and if he did do it, you deserved it" "Give us bin Laden" "Bin Laden? Who's he. We don't know who he is" "Ok, *bomb*" followed by the anti-war cry "No blood for gas pipeline" and "no proof of bin laden", and "why are we bombing afghanistan who had nothing to do with 9/11".

 

[Joe DeFuria]

Do you guys even remember 2 1/2 years ago? There was a week or two after 9/11 where we publicly 'negotiated' with the taliban. "Give us bin laden" "No, he's our guest, and he didn't do it, and if he did do it, you deserved it" "Give us bin Laden" "Bin Laden? Who's he. We don't know who he is" "Ok, *bomb*" followed by the anti-war cry "No blood for gas pipeline" and "no proof of bin laden", and "why are we bombing afghanistan who had nothing to do with 9/11".

Exactly.

And if it weren't for the horror on 9-11, I don't see any way that we would have proceeded like we did. In fact, I'm 50/50 on whether or not we would have went in, if Gore was leading this nation.

 

[Natoma]

Huh? I don't remember anti-war-with-afghanistan protests. When did this happen?

 

[RussSchultz]

Huh? I don't remember anti-war-with-afghanistan protests. When did this happen?

Apparently when you were under a rock. Go google for 'anti-war protests afghanistan'

edit: not meant to be offensive, just that you had to have forgotten them or been under a rock to have not seen them.

 

[Joe DeFuria]

Huh? I don't remember anti-war-with-afghanistan protests. When did this happen?

Apparently when you were under a rock. Go google for 'anti-war protests afghanistan'

No, just selective memory...

 

[Natoma]

Apparently when you were under a rock. Go google for 'anti-war protests afghanistan'

edit: not meant to be offensive, just that you had to have forgotten them or been under a rock to have not seen them.

:? Apparently so. This is the first time I'm reading about any of that occurring.

I don't see how anyone could possibly think Bin Laden wasn't responsible considering he's on video taking credit for the attacks. That belies common sense. Let alone march against it? Uhm, ok....

 

[Natoma]

Huh? I don't remember anti-war-with-afghanistan protests. When did this happen?

Apparently when you were under a rock. Go google for 'anti-war protests afghanistan'

No, just selective memory...

Go troll under some other bridge will ya? Yeesh.

 

[Joe DeFuria]

You miss the point completely.

What gives us the right to go and topple Afghanistan, because of "a group of individuals, not speaking for the country of Afghanistan, might be dangerous?"

It's because of 9-11 itself.

 

[Natoma]

There is a difference imo between terrorists that are hiding in a country, but you're getting cooperation with that country's authorities in order to apprehend them (extradition and what not) and a government that willingly and gleefully props up those terrorists and openly flaunts their support of them to the world. Two different situations imo.

 

[Joe DeFuria]

You miss the point completely.

What gives us the right to go and topple Afghanistan, because of "a group of individuals, not speaking for the country of Afghanistan, might be dangerous?"

It's because of 9-11 itself.