Richard Clarke attacks Bush

Chanak · Post by **Chanak** » Fri Apr 09, 2004 8:32 am

I've never had faith in the Federal Government...rather, I had faith in individual Americans. When someone like President Bush comes along, only one thing can stop him...the people of the country. In the same vein, only one thing can stop Washington, and that's the governed. That's where my belief in America lies.

It's not as simple as it may seem when you read the various spins in the media. It's not just President Bush...it's the entire Federal Government. It's the entire Federal apparatus, which includes the Executive, Leglislative, and Judicial branches. However, it is convenient for us, the American people, to single out one individual to place the blame upon...why? Because, it diverts our attention away from what's really responsible...and that's the goal of the media spins, information leaks, and carefully orchestrated events.

I do not wish to divert attention away from the topic of the thread...but I trust Clarke as much as I trust Bush himself, Kerry, Spiro Agnew...hopefully you get the picture. By voting for Bush, you may feel you are helping to keep a strong leader in the White House. By voting for Kerry, you may feel you are doing America a favor by removing Bush out of office, and in so doing you are helping out the "little guy." Clarke's accusations do not surprise me...I expect them. I believe Bush was planning to invade Iraq long before the events of 9/11 and the "war on terror."

Everything that has gone wrong in America is not Bush's fault...and not even the fault of the massive beast that is our Federal government. Nope, it's our fault. The blame is ours alone to bear.

fable · Post by **fable** » Fri Apr 09, 2004 8:46 am

I wish you'd start a new thread with those observations, @Chanak. I'd love to reply, but it would really take things off on a tangent.

RandomThug · Post by **RandomThug** » Fri Apr 09, 2004 8:48 am

Agreed Chanak. That is why one must do thier best to make this country strong and respected again, to turn your head and curse your own land would be a futile effort and damaging. It is our responsibility to do our research, to understand and to Vote.

George Carlin Bless America.

Chanak · Post by **Chanak** » Fri Apr 09, 2004 4:43 pm

Originally posted by fable
I wish you'd start a new thread with those observations, @Chanak. I'd love to reply, but it would really take things off on a tangent.

On the way.

Thinking of what to call it though....hmmm. The Big Lie? Yes...that sounds fitting.

fable · Post by **fable** » Fri Apr 09, 2004 8:36 pm

Thanks, @Chanak. I'll reply when I have time.

Everything that has gone wrong in America is not Bush's fault...and not even the fault of the massive beast that is our Federal government. Nope, it's our fault. The blame is ours alone to bear.

That may be, but there's also much to be said for putting the blame squarely on the person who has the most power, prestige, and control over both the situation at hand, where tens of thousands have lost their lives, and others have lost their rights. As Truman's little plaque declared on his desk, "The buck stops here." Dubya doesn't have a plaque, but if he did, it would have on it, as a motto for his entire presidency, "Keep secrets and discuss nothing."

InfiniteNature · Post by **InfiniteNature** » Tue Apr 13, 2004 1:29 pm

To be perfectly fair, realistically speaking we had no major terrorist attacks on the continental US for over fifty years, this being the height of the cold war when there were even more terrorist possibilities then there were now.

Not to say our intelligence could not be improved (I mean we need to have human intelligence not just depend on intercepted transmissions and also have more cultural studies((anyone know they reduced arab studies during the 1980s?)), but our intelligence did detect Al Quaeda and there were indications of a attack somewhere in New York, and the information was brought to the leaders in charge, question is did they take it seriously?

RandomThug · Post by **RandomThug** » Tue Apr 13, 2004 1:53 pm

@Infinite - Sure but the embassy bombins, the warnings all summer of attack, the Cole bombing.

pepsi · Post by **pepsi** » Wed Apr 14, 2004 1:05 am

Clarke is a douche. 'nuff said.

Nobody could even concieve of this type of terror attack happening to the US. I mean back then we thought 'We're the USA nobody messes with us. Nobody.'

I can GARUNTEE(I spelled that wrong, so shoot me you nitpicky bastards hehe, no offence) that if gore, arnold, or even Maguiver had been president that this attack STILL would have happened.

hold on to 'yer hats kiddo's the hatemail/hateposts is 'bout to get started.

YEE-HAW

Beowulf · Post by **Beowulf** » Wed Apr 14, 2004 5:29 am

Originally posted by pepsi

Nobody could even concieve of this type of terror attack happening to the US. I mean back then we thought 'We're the USA nobody messes with us. Nobody.'

Not at all. The US government was well aware that Al-Qaeda were planning to 'mess' with them. The experience of the Cole and the Embassy bombings would suggest that not everyone in the administration was as naive as you seem to think.
The Presidential Daily Briefing from Aug 6 has been (mostly) declassified (see here ), which warned the President directly of
"patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings."
Considering that, and the detailed warnings Clarke and others gave to the President's security team when they took over, it seems like a derrogation of duty for the government not to have had a plan eight months into the admisinstration.

Maybe even if Clarke's advice had been taken, the attacks would still have gone ahead, but that's an academic question. The fact remains that the warnings were given, the threat was known, and the cabinet didn't deal with it. In other words, the Government and the President failed in their duty of protection to the American people.
It's one thing for the government to listen to the experts, and then formulate a policy, and make every attempt to deal with the threat, and still fail to stop the attacks. It's quite another thing to essentially ignore the threat, to treat it as a low priority like Bush and Rice did, and then be surprised when the attacks are carried out.

RandomThug · Post by **RandomThug** » Wed Apr 14, 2004 10:21 am

@Beo

I don't believe they treated it as a low priority, if you read the report it says that the FBI had a bunch of investigations going on at the time. If I was a man in charge of a large corporation and my security team told me they were on top of it I'd believe them.

Sure Bush was wrong and made mistakes but I do not believe it is possible for them to look the other way so to speak. Rather I think (much like North Korea) they just took it as "Oh here he goes again with the threats" Sure there was a high number of threats and reports the summer before and even (I think Rumsfeld) stopped flying commercially. I think it was a mistake upon the government, which happens, and I think that is not the question we should be asking.

We should be asking why the PDB was released what was it saturday night, why it was so short. Why they have late meetings and why they are so secretive. They work for us. I wanna know on what leve does the president and co. think its ok to keep stuff from us, to lie to us for our safety. I believe a solid Democracy in Iraq will help with world peace and lower terrorism. I don't believe were currently going there anytime soon, but with deterimination and strong will eventually we will.

Beowulf · Post by **Beowulf** » Wed Apr 14, 2004 12:40 pm

Originally posted by RandomThug
@Beo

I don't believe they treated it as a low priority, if you read the report it says that the FBI had a bunch of investigations going on at the time. If I was a man in charge of a large corporation and my security team told me they were on top of it I'd believe them.

Terrorism, in particular Al-Qaeda, was not given priority commensurate with the threat it posed, ie. it wasn't dealt with at cabinet level, despite warnings, because it wasn't seen as important enough.
The administration had every reason to believe the terrorist threat was real, immediate, and large - Clarke's warnings, the PDB of August 6th and previous attacks (eg the Cole and Embassy bombings), all show that the scope and urgency of the threat was made clear to the administration.
Bush's security team did not tell him they were on top of the threat. Instead, like Clarke, they pointed out the threat to Bush and Rice.

The cabinet chose to deal very attentively with Iraq, based apparently more on personal vendetta than substantiated threat, which highlights that the admisitration's priorities were skewed.

I believe a solid Democracy in Iraq will help with world peace and lower terrorism. I don't believe were currently going there anytime soon, but with deterimination and strong will eventually we will.

Funny you should mention it. Iraq's in a bit of a mess at the moment. More importantly, the connection between the object of George Bush's crusade (the Ba'athist regime) and the object of his rhetoric (Al-Qaeda) was very, very small indeed. Non-existant, in fact.
Muqtada Al'Sadr, whatever his many faults, isn't a member of Al-Qaeda. Nor was he a terrorist, before very recently. But now, not only does the US have to deal with the constant threat of Al-Qaeda, undiminished by the Iraq war, they've also got a whole new brigade of malcontents on their hands.
You have to admit, Dubya's attempts at a solid democracy in Iraq haven't done very much for world peace or terrorism yet, and they haven't given much indication that they will.

pepsi · Post by **pepsi** » Wed Apr 14, 2004 1:20 pm

Originally posted by Beowulf
Terrorism, in particular Al-Qaeda, was not given priority commensurate with the threat it posed, ie. it wasn't dealt with at cabinet level, despite warnings, because it wasn't seen as important enough.

My point Exactly.

Beowulf · Post by **Beowulf** » Wed Apr 14, 2004 2:51 pm

I suspect one of us has misunderstood the other, @pepsi

I was implying that terrorism should have been given higher priority, and thus, that George w. is a failure, and Richard Clarke is not a 'douche'.

pepsi · Post by **pepsi** » Thu Apr 15, 2004 3:21 pm

And my point is that any person in the white house would have done that. Be him Gore or Bush, it would have happened.

VonDondu · Post by **VonDondu** » Fri Apr 16, 2004 12:18 am

Originally posted by InfiniteNature
To be perfectly fair, realistically speaking we had no major terrorist attacks on the continental US for over fifty years, this being the height of the cold war when there were even more terrorist possibilities then there were now...

I consider the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995 to be "a major terrorist attack", but I guess some people don't consider that to be "terrorism". (Same with abortion clinic bombings.)

There may or may not be fewer "terrorist possibilities" now than there were during the Cold War. But what scares me is that nuclear material is a lot less secure now than it was during the Cold War. It's funny that we go to war (whether it's a Cold War or a traditional shoot-em-up war) ostensibly to protect ourselves from weapons of mass destruction, but then we fail to do anything about them after we have "won", whether they are old Soviet warheads or radioactive materials in Iraq. Who knows where they will end up?

VonDondu · Post by **VonDondu** » Fri Apr 16, 2004 12:28 am

Originally posted by RandomThug
I believe a solid Democracy in Iraq will help with world peace and lower terrorism. I don't believe were currently going there anytime soon, but with deterimnation and strong will eventually we will.

Not to mention thousands of lives, trillions of dollars, and possibly a reinstatement of the draft. And even then a lot of people will still want to kill each other, and we'll still have terrorists. "Stay the course."

Beowulf · Post by **Beowulf** » Fri Apr 16, 2004 1:32 pm

Originally posted by pepsi
And my point is that any person in the white house would have done that. Be him Gore or Bush, it would have happened.

Which is almost entirely irrelevant.
The White House had a duty, which it failed to carry out. That, and only that, is what this is about.

pepsi · Post by **pepsi** » Fri Apr 16, 2004 1:35 pm

yeah...well...he's still a douche.

fable · Post by **fable** » Fri Apr 16, 2004 4:42 pm

Originally posted by Beowulf
Which is almost entirely irrelevant.
The White House had a duty, which it failed to carry out. That, and only that, is what this is about.

Judging from the last few days of hearings, I thought it was all about White House deniability, blaming the FBI and CIA, claiming the nation couldn't be successfully protected for another five years, but demanding more funds.

Chanak · Post by **Chanak** » Sat Apr 17, 2004 10:58 pm

Originally posted by RandomThug
We should be asking why the PDB was released what was it saturday night, why it was so short. Why they have late meetings and why they are so secretive. They work for us. I wanna know on what leve does the president and co. think its ok to keep stuff from us, to lie to us for our safety. I believe a solid Democracy in Iraq will help with world peace and lower terrorism. I don't believe were currently going there anytime soon, but with deterimination and strong will eventually we will.

Thug my man, the American public has been lied to for a very, very long time. Personally, I believe it all began in earnest in the mid-nineteenth century, but I digress...

The Middle East has been a powderkeg waiting to explode for decades. Warfare has been a fact of life for nations there long before the European tribes inherited what the Romans left behind for them...add to that the relatively recent discovery of massive oil reserves there, and you have perhaps the most volatile and strategically important region on planet earth.

What matters in Iraq...and anywhere else in the Middle East btw...are regimes which are sympathetic to the Western world, democratic or not. Thus the classic US practice of supporting whomever would pledge to support them, and aiding them in assuming power (Noriega, anyone?). As has been the case since the beginning of the 20th century, the US and Britain pretty much coincide where national interests are concerned. Therefore, it should come as no surprise to anyone that despite the present public opinion in their respective countries, the President of the United States and Prime Minister of Great Britain stand in the same camp. Intelligence is shared. Military objectives and force deployments are divvied up between the two, then amongst others who stand with them.

I don't believe that they are lying to us for our own safety, Thug....rather, they lie to us in order to control us. And it has worked beautifully, for the most part.