[roger_ramjet]

Originally posted by Lerkfish:

now, what were you saying again re: Sudan?

So let's see. You've constructed a timeline that omits any mention of an offer by the Sudan to turn over bin Laden so that means it didn't happen! You would have made a good Soviet historian.

from the LA Times:

Clinton Let Bin Laden Slip Away and Metastasize
Sudan offered up the terrorist and data on his network. The then-president and his advisors didn't respond.

By MANSOOR IJAZ
President Clinton and his national security team ignored several opportunities to capture Osama bin Laden and his terrorist associates, including one as late as last year.

I know because I negotiated more than one of the opportunities...

This article from the Guardian says that the Sudan offered to turn over not bin Laden but two of bin Laden's operatives and a "vast intelligence database on Osama bin Laden and more than 200 leading members of his al-Qaeda terrorist network".

And finally this article archived from the Washington Post:

Sudan's Offer to Arrest Militant Fell Through After Saudis Said No

By Barton Gellman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, October 3, 2001; Page A01

The government of Sudan, employing a back channel direct from its president to the Central Intelligence Agency, offered in the early spring of 1996 to arrest Osama bin Laden and place him in Saudi custody, according to officials and former officials in all three countries...

[eVil_kEybOarD]

Originally posted by Lerkfish:
1993
-- February 26 -- a bomb at the World Trade Center kills six and wounds hundreds. Six Muslim radicals, who U.S. officials suspect have links to bin Laden, are eventually convicted for the bombing.

"I would plead with the American people and the good people of New York to keep your courage up and go on about your lives. I would discourage the American people from overreacting to this," Clinton said.

From the moment Clinton took office, a document called Presidential Decision Directive 39, the document defining what the missions and roles were of combating terrorism, sat at the National Security Counsil waiting for him to take action. It wasn't until after the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995 that the Clinton Administration acted on it.

1996
-- May -- Sudan expels bin Laden, his three wives and ten children under pressure from the United States and Saudi Arabia. Bin Laden moves to Afghanistan and declares a jihad, or holy war, against U.S. forces.

The Sudanese gave in to pressure from the US to expel bin Laden, but the Sudanese, among many others, thought that was a mistake because it was much easier to monitor him from there than elsewhere. And when bin Laden left Sudan, along with him went Ayman Zawahiri, Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, Wadih El-Hage, Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, and Saif Adel. All of whom are known terrorists, some of whom are serving time, but all of them made it to the FBI's Most Wanted list.

The evidence is there that Sudan was willing to arrest and extradite bin Laden, the Clintons lost the opportunity, and have since discredited Mr. Ijaz, using him as their scapegoat.

1996
-- Nineteen U.S. soldiers die in a bombing of the Khobar military complex in Saudi Arabia.

"The explosion appears to be the work of terrorists. The cowards who committed this murderous act must not go unpunished," Clinton said. "America takes care of its own."

HA! Don't make me laugh!!! During that investagation, indications were that the explosives used in the Kobar Towers came from the Becca Valley in Lebanon. A year later Clinton restores full diplomatic relations with Lebanon, including a lifting of both travel and trade restrictions, without so much as requiring them to locate, arrest, or apprehend anyone in connection to those explosives.

1998
-- August 7 -- Truck bombs explode outside U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, killing 224 people. This is the eighth year anniversary of United Nations sanctions against Iraq and the ordering of U.S. troops into the Gulf region. Iraq informed the US Security Council that it was not going to tolerate the continuation of the sanctions beyond the eighth year anniversary.

And on Aug. 20 Clinton bombs some suspected terrorist camps in Afganistan and a pharmaceutical plant in Khartoum, Sudan.

"Our target was terror. Our mission was clear: to strike at the network of radical groups affiliated with and funded by Osama bin Laden, perhaps the pre-eminent organizer and financier of international terrorism in the world today," said Clinton.

"With compelling evidence that the bin Laden network of terrorist groups was planning to mount further attacks against Americans and other freedom-loving people, I decided America must act," said Clinton.

"Afghanistan and Sudan have been warned for years to stop harboring and supporting these terrorist groups, but countries that persistently host terrorist have no right to safe havens," he added.

Tough talk with no results, and by 1998 Clinton had so degraded the CIA's ability to monitor terrorist groups that he left America vulnerable to future attacks (i.e., 9/11).

Clinton would like everyone to believe that he did everything possible to combat terrorism and he would like everyone to believe that if President Bush succeeds where he failed, it won't be because Bush tried any harder. That's been Clinton's MO since the day after 9/11. He's been on countless shows, with tears welling up from those baggy eyes, talking about how hard he tried to get bin Laden and how hard it was, when nothing could be further from the truth. The only goal Clinton had in the Middle East was to broker a deal between Israel and the Palestinians. It would have had little to do with our national security, but it would have made him look good in the eyes of the world and that to him was what was more important.

EDIT: misspelled "discredited" in paragraph 4.

[eVil_kEybOarD]

DP

[SimeyTheLimey]

Originally posted by eVil_kEybOarD:


Clinton would like everyone to believe that he did everything possible to combat terrorism

I basically agree with your litany, but I think you are being a little unfair in that I'm not sure that any president would have done much differently under the political circumstances of the time. In order to do more, Clinton would have had to reverse the presumption that terrorism is a law enforcement problem in favor of calling it a war issue. With the exception of a very brief period in the Reagan Administration (the Libya atacks) that had never been US policy in either Democratic or Republican administrations. Had Bush I been reelected, or Dole been elected, it is highly likely that the same policy would have held. It really took 9/11 to shock America out of that way of thinking and as we have seen, most of the rest of the world still doesn't think of terrorism that way.

On the other hand, the Clinton Administration was very active in counterterrorism. Force protection and first responder training got a lot of attention and it did save lives. Most directly, the hardening of the Pentagon that was done in response to the Khobar Towers attack saved many lives on 9/11. It doesn't get much attention, but it happened and they deserve credit for that.

I'm not a fan of the Clinton Administration. In hindsight they made mistakes. But hindsight is always 20/20. The important thing to do is to learn from it, not make unfair partisan jabs.

[eVil_kEybOarD]

Originally posted by SimeyTheLimey:
I'm not a fan of the Clinton Administration. In hindsight they made mistakes. But hindsight is always 20/20. The important thing to do is to learn from it, not make unfair partisan jabs.

The thing is he didn't do everything possible and terrorism was, in fact, a issue the Clinton Administration neglected. Clinton didn't give enough attention, publicly or privately, to terrorism and the same goes for Somalia. Throughout the 90's, evidence just kept mounting on these groups of terrorist, yet there were no concrete steps taken to actively go after them. Was the Clinton Administration trying to give Al Qaida enough rope to hang themselves with by letting bin Laden go free and waiting for the day they would strike at America and then have all the justification they needed? Was it all an elaborate game of chess by trying to set them up for a "Checkmate"? I don't know, but I doubt it. I think they were just consumed with domestic matters, then 9/11 happened, they all went on damage control, and people bought into it.

[Lerkfish]

Originally posted by SimeyTheLimey:
I basically agree with your litany, but I think you are being a little unfair in that I'm not sure that any president would have done much differently under the political circumstances of the time. In order to do more, Clinton would have had to reverse the presumption that terrorism is a law enforcement problem in favor of calling it a war issue. With the exception of a very brief period in the Reagan Administration (the Libya atacks) that had never been US policy in either Democratic or Republican administrations. Had Bush I been reelected, or Dole been elected, it is highly likely that the same policy would have held. It really took 9/11 to shock America out of that way of thinking and as we have seen, most of the rest of the world still doesn't think of terrorism that way.

On the other hand, the Clinton Administration was very active in counterterrorism. Force protection and first responder training got a lot of attention and it did save lives. Most directly, the hardening of the Pentagon that was done in response to the Khobar Towers attack saved many lives on 9/11. It doesn't get much attention, but it happened and they deserve credit for that.

I'm not a fan of the Clinton Administration. In hindsight they made mistakes. But hindsight is always 20/20. The important thing to do is to learn from it, not make unfair partisan jabs.

[roger_ramjet]

Originally posted by SimeyTheLimey:
... I'm not a fan of the Clinton Administration. In hindsight they made mistakes. But hindsight is always 20/20. The important thing to do is to learn from it, not make unfair partisan jabs.

Yes, I agree. But in order to learn from our mistakes those mistakes first must be aknowledged.

[Morpheus X]

"Originally posted by SimeyTheLimey:
I basically agree with your litany, but I think you are being a little unfair in that I'm not sure that any president would have done much differently under the political circumstances of the time. In order to do more, Clinton would have had to reverse the presumption that terrorism is a law enforcement problem in favor of calling it a war issue. With the exception of a very brief period in the Reagan Administration (the Libya atacks) that had never been US policy in either Democratic or Republican administrations. Had Bush I been reelected, or Dole been elected, it is highly likely that the same policy would have held. It really took 9/11 to shock America out of that way of thinking and as we have seen, most of the rest of the world still doesn't think of terrorism that way.

On the other hand, the Clinton Administration was very active in counterterrorism. Force protection and first responder training got a lot of attention and it did save lives. Most directly, the hardening of the Pentagon that was done in response to the Khobar Towers attack saved many lives on 9/11. It doesn't get much attention, but it happened and they deserve credit for that.

I'm not a fan of the Clinton Administration. In hindsight they made mistakes. But hindsight is always 20/20. The important thing to do is to learn from it, not make unfair partisan jabs."

Dito!

[roger_ramjet]

Originally posted by Morpheus X:
Dito!

You mean "ditto".

[Morpheus X]

Originally posted by roger_ramjet:
You mean "ditto".

Could be in Germany its "Dito"

[nickdman]

FOR ALL YOU PEACE PROTESTERS,

YOU ALL

[Lerkfish]

Originally posted by nickdman:
FOR ALL YOU PEACE PROTESTERS,

YOU ALL

hm...if you are offering your services as a sex slave, I must defer. I DO have some standards.

[Morpheus X]

Originally posted by nickdman:
FOR ALL YOU PEACE PROTESTERS,

YOU ALL

I guess you are still getting breast fed, right?

[Morpheus X]

Originally posted by Lerkfish:
hm...if you are offering your services as a sex slave, I must defer. I DO have some standards.

ROTFLOOOOOOOL

[SimeyTheLimey]

Originally posted by roger_ramjet:
Yes, I agree. But in order to learn from our mistakes those mistakes first must be aknowledged.

True enough. But the best way to do that is to not try to heap all of the blame on one party. I'd say the same to Democrats who want to blame all of 9/11 on Bush (and as you know, I have many times). It's therefore only fair to admit that Clinton's anti-terrorism policy was firmly in the American mainstream at the time he was president. After all, I don't recall either the Republican Congress or Republican presidential candidates proposing anything more proactive. It took 9/11 to change the consensus.

And again, I think it is fair to point out that many of the homeland security ideas that are now being implemented began as ideas in the Clinton Administration. Not necessarily at the top of the administration (though I have it on good authority that Clinton was personally involved in thinking through responses to a bio-attack). But at least at the cabinet and subcabinet level.

[roger_ramjet]

Originally posted by SimeyTheLimey:
True enough. But the best way to do that is to not try to heap all of the blame on one party... <snip>

Yes. That's all well and good but what brought this up was what happened with regards to the Sudan. There's no way around it: our policy with respect to the Sudan was a cluster****. A few months after we didn't take them up on their offer to turn over bin Laden, we bombed an aspirin factory in Khartoum. Now I understand why the Clinton admin didn't want to have much to do with the Sudanese government. It is one of the nastiest regimes in the world. But we really could have done a lot better.

[Lerkfish]

Originally posted by roger_ramjet:
Yes. That's all well and good but what brought this up was what happened with regards to the Sudan. There's no way around it: our policy with respect to the Sudan was a cluster****. A few months after we didn't take them up on their offer to turn over bin Laden, we bombed an aspirin factory in Khartoum. Now I understand why the Clinton admin didn't want to have much to do with the Sudanese government. It is one of the nastiest regimes in the world. But we really could have done a lot better.

nah, Simey's right, you have to view things chronistically.

for example the exact same right wingers that claim clinton should have done more are the ones that complained when he did anything at the time.

[roger_ramjet]

Originally posted by Lerkfish:
nah, Simey's right, you have to view things chronistically...

First of all, what does "chronistically" mean? Secondly, are you defending that hash of a policy we had with the Sudan? Thirdly, I don't just blame Clinton for 9/11. I'd also blame Reagan for getting 241 of our marines killed for nothing. I'd also blame Bush I for the way we negotiated the ceasefire ending the Gulf War. Beruit, the Gulf War ceasefire, Mogadishu - these events are all part of a pattern bin Laden learned. We were seen as weak or in the case of the Gulf War we showed mercy towards a regime that deserved no mercy and this was also seen as weakness. Bin Laden saw all this and exploiting our weakness, gradually escalated his attacks on us until 9/11.

[undotwa]

Originally posted by Morpheus X:
Yes just like Bin Laden is doing now and Bush and thats why i am against this war. Bush is again as many "individuals" before him using religion as an excuse for his actions. Never said individuals were not responsible.

It is often said, it is better to do SOMETHING, even if it is something stupid, than nothing at all.

There was some horrible diplomacy before this war. Horrible. Bush pushed himself into a corner, forcing him to declare war. The way it started out, from 1990 onwards, really stuffed things up. Not enough attention was directed at Iraq during the Clinton years. Bush Jnr pushed himself into a corner. All I can say now is, I'm glad they are doing something. Most of this bloodshed could of been avoided.