Administration Ignored Bin Laden Intel

gettin-bored noted a nice article running in very high priority on the Washington Post, right up there on page 17 of the print edition, where it's revealed that the CIA Director warned Rice about Bin Laden two months before 9/11. And strangely, the meeting was never mentioned during all the 9/11 commission reports making you really question what exactly they were actually hearing that was more important than the CIA director telling the National Security Advisor that Bin Laden was going to attack Americans.

Proactive versus reactive

[BWJones]

The fundamental problem is that the current White house administration is not remotely curious or interested in looking beyond their narrowly defined agendas. So, any deviation from what they expect is by definition, unexpected or inconvenient. This is a recurring theme again and again with hurricane Katrina, Iraq, Afghanistan, Bin Laden, the economy, energy prices, the whole torture thing and recently with senator Foley, where higher ups *knew* what was going on but they either failed to act or simply did not care as long as they can maintain power. Power for powers sake seems to be the theme here as this administration is always behind the ball. They are constantly reacting to events rather than through analysis and action being proactive and it is costing the country financially and in lives lost as well as our international reputation.

Condi Rice has no experience.

[Anonymous Coward]

Condi Rice is both black and female. The Republican party wanted to ensure that she succeeds in order to increase the black vote. So, when she screwed up so badly that 3000 Americans died, the Republicans said nothing.

If she were a male American of Japanese ancestry, she would have been fired on the spot.

Look carefully at the background of Rice. She is smart and has earned a Ph.D. in international relations, but she has no experience. How many people become the national security advisor without expe

Re: Condi Rice has no experience.

[Black Parrot]

> Does anyone feel as though your life is being controlled by government officials who do not give a damn about you?

Don't worry; you'll matter when you become a billionaire.

Re:Condi Rice has no experience.

[icepick72]

If she were a male American of Japanese ancestry, she would have been fired on the spot.

That would make her a transvestite. I'm sure they want to secure the transvestite vote too.

Richard Clarke talks about 9/11.

[reporter]

On Thursday (September 28), Charlie Rose interiewed seven people: Chris Wallace (Fox News), Richard Clarke (Former NSC Counter-Terrorism Advisor), Representative Peter King (NY-R), Lawrence Wright (Author, "The Looming Tower"), David Remnick (Editor, The New Yorker), John Harris (Co-Author, "The Way to Win"), and Al Hunt (Bloomberg News). Richard Clarke made some eye-opening comments [google.com] about 9/11.

On Friday (September 29), Charlie Rose interviewed three people: Bob Wright (Chairman & CEO, NBC Universa

Re:

[spiritraveller]

Does anyone feel as though your life is being controlled by government officials who do not give a damn about you?

Well of course. They don't give a damn about us or anyone but their super-rich friends.

Why would they insist on starting a war based on lies? Why would they give no-bid contracts to the same companies that they used to run? Why would they let thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians die unnecessarily?

Because they simply don't care. Hundreds of billions of

Re:Condi Rice has no experience.

[notque]

President Bush asserted that the invasion of Iraq was undertaken as part of "a global war against terror" that the United States is waging. In reality, as anticipated, the invasion increased the threat of terror, perhaps significantly.

Half-truths, misinformation and hidden agendas have characterised official pronouncements about US war motives in Iraq from the very beginning. The recent revelations about the rush to war in Iraq stand out all the more starkly amid the chaos that ravages the country and threatens the region and indeed the world.

In 2002 the US and United Kingdom proclaimed the right to invade Iraq because it was developing weapons of mass destruction. That was the "single question," as stressed constantly by Bush, Prime Minister Blair and associates. It was also the sole basis on which Bush received congressional authorisation to resort to force.

The answer to the "single question" was given shortly after the invasion, and reluctantly conceded: The WMD didn't exist. Scarcely missing a beat, the government and media doctrinal system concocted new pretexts and justifications for going to war.

"Americans do not like to think of themselves as aggressors, but raw aggression is what took place in Iraq," national security and intelligence analyst John Prados concluded after his careful, extensive review of the documentary record in his 2004 book "Hoodwinked."

Prados describes the Bush "scheme to convince America and the world that war with Iraq was necessary and urgent" as "a case study in government dishonesty ... that required patently untrue public statements and egregious manipulation of intelligence." The Downing Street memo, published on May 1 in The Sunday Times of London, along with other newly available confidential documents, have deepened the record of deceit.

The memo came from a meeting of Blair's war cabinet on July 23, 2002, in which Sir Richard Dearlove, head of British foreign intelligence, made the now-notorious assertion that "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy" of going to war in Iraq.

The memo also quotes British Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon as saying that "the US had already begun 'spikes of activity' to put pressure on the regime."

British journalist Michael Smith, who broke the story of the memo, has elaborated on its context and contents in subsequent articles. The "spikes of activity" apparently included a coalition air campaign meant to provoke Iraq into some act that could be portrayed as what the memo calls a "casus belli."

Warplanes began bombing in southern Iraq in May 2002 -- 10 tons that month, according to British government figures. A special "spike" started in late August (for a September total of 54.6 tons).

"In other words, Bush and Blair began their war not in March 2003, as everyone believed, but at the end of August 2002, six weeks before Congress approved military action against Iraq," Smith wrote.

The bombing was presented as defensive action to protect coalition planes in the no-fly zone. Iraq protested to the United Nations but didn't fall into the trap of retaliating. For US-UK planners, invading Iraq was a far higher priority than the "war on terror." That much is revealed by the reports of their own intelligence agencies. On the eve of the allied invasion, a classified report by the National Intelligence Council, the intelligence community's center for strategic thinking, "predicted that an American-led invasion of Iraq would increase support for political Islam and would result in a deeply divided Iraqi society prone to violent internal conflict," Douglas Jehl and David E. Sanger reported in The New York Times last September. In December 2004, Jehl reported a few weeks later, the NIC warned that "Iraq and other possible conflicts in the future could provide recruitment, training grounds, technical skills and language proficiency for a new class of terrorists who are 'professionalised' and for whom political violence becomes an end in itself." T

Re:

[Darkman, Walkin Dude]

Why would they insist on starting a war based on lies? Why would they give no-bid contracts to the same companies that they used to run? Why would they let thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians die unnecessarily?

And here's another poser for you... why would they pardon themselves from war crimes prosecution? [youtube.com]

"Why would they start a war based on lies?"

[Brian Kendig]

Why would they insist on starting a war based on lies?

Remember that the elder Bush's war with Iraq, 1991's "Operation Desert Storm," was also founded on a lie.

Fifteen-year-old "Nayirah" (Nijirah al-Sabah) testified before the United States Congress in October 1990 that she was a refugee volunteering in the maternity ward of Al Adan hospital in Kuwait City, and that during the occupation by Iraq she had witnessed Iraqi soldiers dumping Kuwaiti infants out of their incubators "on[to] the cold floor to die,"

Re:Condi Rice has no experience.

[xappax]

If she were a male American of Japanese ancestry, she would have been fired on the spot.

I find it simultaneously ironically funny and disturbing that the primary complaint against Condi Rice is that she's the beneficiary of affirmative action. This is one of the key promoters and advocates of the USAPATROIT Act, the Iraq war, and the insane and deadly war on terror, this is someone whose actions have led to thousands upon thousands of innocent deaths...but the part we really find objectionable is that she only got to do all that because she's a black woman?

There's no way to deny that she got the job because she's a black woman, and maybe she did, but as far as I can see, her incompetence is not being treated any different from anybody else in Washington who Bush favors.

She would not be fired if she was a white male, because we've seen white men like Cheney or Rumsfeld get grilled far worse in the press, and stay in power. The US doesn't give a crap about incompetence, or we'd have had another revolution years ago.

Re:Condi Rice has no experience. [WRONG]

[BearRanger]

As reluctant as I am to defend this loathesome administration, you need to get your facts straight.

Condi Rice served as National Security Council staff director for Soviet and East European affairs in Bush 41's administration. By all accounts she did a very good job--as judged by her superiors Brent Scowcroft, the National Security Advisor, and the first President Bush. I think it's safe to say that a number of significant events in Soviet and East European affairs took place at this point in history, which I'll leave as an exercise for you to research. Do you think that maybe Rice had a hand in crafting the US response to those events, given her position?

Yes, Rice is black and female. So. What. Neither fact speaks to her qualifications to be National Security Advisor. Or is that a position that can only be held by a white male?

I think your racism and sexism is showing. (And no, your "male American of Japanese ancestry" comment does not insulate you.)

Re:

[Scrameustache]

Yes, Rice is black and female. So. What. Neither fact speaks to her qualifications to be National Security Advisor.

They don't, but tokenism makes people suspicious of multi-minority high-profile characters: If they got rid of her, their politically-correct minimum requirement of women and racial minorites could drop below acceptable levels.

For instance, Condi's name came up a lot during the whole "George Bush doesn't care about black people" hilarity.
That makes people think this is a big part of her job: Be

Re:Condi Rice has no experience.

[Doc Ruby]

How many Blacks and Women are part of Bush's Republican Party? Few. None independent - or they get fired, when they try.

How many Jews in Clinton's Democratic Party? Many.

Another "But Clinton..." fails from the Party which took over Washington to "change the tone". To whining.

Re:

[jkauzlar]

The gp's point is that they were afraid to chastise her based on these sensitive factors as a matter of politics. I think he would have a valid point without being racist or sexist, although he's wrong in this conclusion, because:

1. it's not clear (at least to me) that the Bin Laden intelligence was enough at the time to be taken seriously and that she was actually incompetent for ignoring it
2. the Bush Administration does not let its people 'spend more time with their families' for general incompetence, becau

She has much experience at being wrong

[Von Rex]

Do you think that maybe Rice had a hand in crafting the US response to those events, given her position?

You're talking about Bush the Smarter's administration, yes? The one that completely missed all warning signs of the impending fall of the Soviet Union? The one that labelled Mikhail Gorbechev as "the man with no new ideas"? The one that insisted that the Soviet Union was an overwhelming conventional threat that justified huge increases in military spending right up until the very day it imploded?

Must have been impressive advice she was giving.

No experience? No questions?

[cold fjord]

Dr. Rice had no experience? Her appointment was all and only about black voters? Hardly [whitehouse.gov]

In June 1999, she completed a six year tenure as Stanford University 's Provost, during which she was the institution's chief budget and academic officer. As Provost she was responsible for a $1.5 billion annual budget and the academic program involving 1,400 faculty members and 14,000 students.

As professor of political science, Dr. Rice has been on the Stanford faculty since 1981 and has won two of the highest teaching honors -- the 1984 Walter J. Gores Award for Excellence in Teaching and the 1993 School of Humanities and Sciences Dean's Award for Distinguished Teaching.

At Stanford, she was a member of the Center for International Security and Arms Control from 1981-1986 (currently the Center for International Security And Cooperation), a Senior Fellow of the Institute for International Studies, and a Fellow (by courtesy) of the Hoover Institution. Her books include Germany Unified and Europe Transformed (1995) with Philip Zelikow, The Gorbachev Era (1986) with Alexander Dallin, and Uncertain Allegiance: The Soviet Union and the Czechoslovak Army (1984). She also has written numerous articles on Soviet and East European foreign and defense policy, and has addressed audiences in settings ranging from the U.S. Ambassador's Residence in Moscow to the Commonwealth Club to the 1992 and 2000 Republican National Conventions.

From 1989 through March 1991, the period of German reunification and the final days of the Soviet Union, she served in the Bush Administration as Director, and then Senior Director, of Soviet and East European Affairs in the National Security Council, and a Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs. In 1986, while an international affairs fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations, she served as Special Assistant to the Director of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In 1997, she served on the Federal Advisory Committee on Gender -- Integrated Training in the Military.

Then, the conversation fell silent. Kay thought that someone would ask questions about his work, but no one asked any questions.

Questions? Kind of like what you just stated that Clark said that Kay said had just happened... shown below? (Is that hear say?)

According to Kay, Bush asked, 'What do you need from me?' Kay answered, 'I need patience to allow me to finish my work.' Bush answered, 'I have all the patience in the world.'

Subordinate asks for time to do work..... and gets it. Wow.

Clark saying that Kay reported there were no WMDs in Iraq also leaves out a few facts, as you can see in Dr. Kay's testimoney before Congress in 2003. It is well worth reading [cnn.com]. Just a sample:

What have we found and what have we not found in the first 3 months of our work?

We have discovered dozens of WMD-related program activities and significant amounts of equipment that Iraq concealed from the United Nations during the inspections that began in late 2002. The discovery of these deliberate concealment efforts have come about both through the admissions of Iraqi scientists and officials concerning information they deliberately withheld and through physical evidence of equipment and activities that ISG has discovered that should have been declared to the UN. Let me just give you a few examples of these concealment efforts, some of which I will elaborate on later:

A clandestine network of laboratories and safehouses within the Iraqi Intelligence Service that contained equipment subject to UN monitoring and suitable for continuing CBW research.

. .. New research on BW-applicable agents, Brucella and Congo Crimean Hemorrhagic Fever (CCHF), and continuing work on ricin and aflatoxin were not declared to the UN.

. .. A line of UAVs not f

Re:

[hey!]

I don't buy your theory. Political correctness could possibly explain the hiring, but it could not explain the tolerance for mismanagement.

If the reason Rice wasn't fired was political correctness, then why was she nominated for Secretary? Surely there were other blacks and women, possibly even black women, who could have been tapped? Normally in politics is you have the weak link resign. If that would look bad, you wait, shunting him or her aside. Eventually the boredom and internal disgrace of being ou

Reasons for terrorist attack & Bill Clinton

[shani]

The terrorists were already in place by then attacking us for Bill Clinton's policies during his term.

Bin Laden claims he got his first revelation in 1982, because of US support for Israeli involvement in Lebanon:

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/79C6AF22-98 FB-4A1C-B21F-2 [aljazeera.net]

Please remind me, but I think it was the conservative hero Reagan running the show at that time. Bin Laden is also a bit upset about the first Iraqi war (which is kind of ironic considering he volunteered to help defend Saudi Arabia

History is just repeating itself

[OzPeter]

I was going to use my mod points to mod you up but I decided to add a comment instead.

Although I have my own feelings about Bush's administration, I have to say that your description about their "policies" is nothing new. Recently I read "Overthrow - America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq" which lists 14 countries where the USA was instrumental in ousting the legitimately elected government over the last 120 years. What I got from reading this book was not so much that the "OMG the USA is EVIL!!!!" but that sucessive goverments over that span of time all made pretty well the same arguments for doing something, but had no regards for the consequences. The book ended with Iraq, and you could just feel the approaching train wreck eerily predicted by every other previous forced regime change.

Bush & Co's screw ups may be bad, but the USA's continual making of the same mistakes is in my opinion far worse. And I think this goes all the way back to the 19th Century and the Monroe doctrine [wikipedia.org] and the idea of manifest destiny [wikipedia.org].

Another book

[OzPeter]

Confessions of an Economic Hit Man [amazon.com] by John Perkins. It tries to show how the US (and others) reign in sovereign countries via economic power rather than brute force through use of things like the world bank. Chilling subject, but I think that Overthrow is better written and makes for a better read.

Re:

[notque]

Iraq had a murdering thug who theoretically won the support of an elected government, except that you would be shot for voting against Saddam. So the legitimately part falls flat.

Thankfully when he was the worst brutal tyrant he could be, we supported him with money and weapons. When he did what we wanted, and was useful to us regardless of the killing and repression he was fine. When it was useful for us to attack him, we did.

So your argument falls flat.

Re:Nice Democrat campaign ad there!

[philwx]

I'm sorry but to me, a blowjob will never, ever compare to the value of thousands of American lives, or 100s of thousands of foreign lives. If "slick" implies good at pulling the wool over people's eyes, I think Bush has succeeded Clinton in every way imaginable.

Re:

[rthille]

Well, Clinton acted on bad intelligence that the plant was supplying WMDs to Bin Laden. He sent some cruise missiles to destroy the plant. That seems reasonable, certainly in comparison to invading a foreign country based on intelligence of the same sort...

Re:

[sumdumass]

This isn't directed directly at the parent poster but feel free to respond because,

It wasn't bad inteligence. Clinton lied and janitors died!

Seriously, why is it bad inteligence when clinton acts on bad inteligence, it is reasonable. But Bush gets bad inteligence he's a lier and "he lied and people died" all hell is breaking loose?

There are planty of people that give clinton a pass just because he is thier guy.

Re:Nice Democrat campaign ad there!

[DMaster0]

Bush's mistake is still going and has taken thousands of American lives with no end in sight, countless numbers of Iraqi lives, and billions of dollars. What's the current cost, 1-2 billion a day? Is it really worth it? Didn't less people die in the unfortunate 9/11 incidents than have did in Iraq so far? Is this an appropriate response? Are we actually "winning" any war on terrorism by military destabilization, rather than education and assisting these people? I'd like to think that 300-400 billion dollars in aid every year could produce one hell of a better civilization for a 3rd world nation, rather than killing people and blowing things up, but that's just me.

When you're going to bomb a building, you should make sure you have the right intel. I'm not %100 sure but I think the building was bombed when there weren't many people inside (or a minimal amount) so the casualties weren't large. It's an appropriate response to a bad intel, which until the thing was actually bombed enough people thought it was a legitimate threat. (and honestly, there's no proof it wasn't making chemicals that could produce nerve agents, and there was still a very good chance it was supply the bin Laden group with money, which makes it a decent target anyway if you're actually fighting a "war on terror")

When you invade a country, depose their leader, destabilize the entire region, torture citizens and attempt to convert an entire nation to your form of government and social expectations in a small amount of time, I think you need to be absolutely sure of what you're doing and absolutely have your facts straight. It's a much larger idea. If Bush had decided to bomb all of the sites in Iraq that may or may not have had "WMD's", and just left things alone, I believe that the entire world would have supported his decision, even if a few of them were inaccurate. (they can probably dig up enough circumstantial evidence to attempt to prove that there was something sinister going on at a few sites, but perhaps not all). Instead, Bush went the extra mile of righteousness, and invaded the entire country under a very weak pretext. I don't care how Republican or Democrat you are, this should be a Very Bad Thing. Especially now that we know there was very little to no threat from Iraq in the near future.

This should not be about any ignorant partisan politics. People are currently dying, there's no end in sight, and people want to turn things into a "blowjobs vs. bombs" debate.

What a wonderful country. I've never felt more ashamed to be American.

Re:Nice Democrat campaign ad there!

[xappax]

Okay, so maybe the parent is a troll, posting AC and all, but in case you're not, my AC friend, I'd just like to make a request:

In the future, please make an argument against the issue or the facts presented, not simply against the supposed motivations of the presenter of the information. Because even if you're right, and this article is coming straight from DNC headquarters, that has no bearing on whether it's true or not, or whether the criticisms leveled in the article are valid.

kthx!

Re:Nice Democrat campaign ad there!

[notque]

Post anything remotely conservative, and be modded into troll oblivion.

Poor conservatives. If only you had the House.. Or the Senate.. Or the Judiciary... Or the Presidency...

Poor little conservatives, always beaten down by the brutal media.

*sniffle*

Re:Nice Democrat campaign ad there!

[TubeSteak]

I think his point was that this is Slashdot, not "the House.. Or the Senate.. Or the Judiciary... Or the Presidency..." (So why did you bring that up?)

Even though I agree with your sentiment, your comment is neither here nor there.

• Someone was making a comment about Slashdot and got modded 30% Insightful, 30% Underrated, 40% Troll

• Your "reply" wasn't really a reply at all, but got modded 100% Insightful

I have the sneaking feeling that all this somehow reinforces the AC's point.

Re:Nice Democrat campaign ad there!

[Captain Splendid]

Maybe if those poor conservatives had actually, y'know, posted a cogent argument instead of whining how liberal /. is, the comment would be a +5? Not to mention the point that if you have all 3 of the branches of government, who the fuck cares about how conservative /. may or may not be? Really, if it's too touchy-feely for you here, go to the Stormfront forums.

And one more thing: One of the main reasons conservatives get so much shit, especially here, is because they're using the same damn whiny arguments they've been using for decades. Unfortunately, times do change, and the cognitive dissonance is just ridiculous.

Re:

[Bowling Moses]

Yup, that eeevil librul media. If you compare the media's treatment of Clinton over the Whitewater witch hunt or his getting a blowjob and lying to Congress about it, versus Bush and Enron, Katrina, the Iraq war fiasco, foreign relations in the crapper, the 2000 and 2004 election scandals, no WMDs in Iraq, Valerie Plame, no Iraq-9/11 connection, lowering taxes in the middle of *TWO* ground wars, just to name a few, you can't but help to notice Bush's scandals receive a lot less intense coverage and is much

Re:Nice Democrat campaign ad there!

[sco08y]

Poor conservatives. If only you had the House.. Or the Senate.. Or the Judiciary... Or the Presidency...

If you didn't censor conservatives all the time you might pick up on what voters are actually interested in.

But then you might have the House, the Senate, &c...

So keep on censoring us. You're only driving your own ideology to irrelevancy.

Re:Nice Democrat campaign ad there!

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

If Right Wingers are censored, A) why do they have an all out media outlet(Fox News)? B) Why are they always in the media? Turn on any Sunday morning talk show, and there will be a sizeable rightwing presence.

Are you for real?

[/dev/trash]

Foxnews compared to NPR CNN MSNBC CBS

Re:Are you for real?

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

Yes, but why are Right Wingers given fair time on NPR(talk of the nation features many prominent conservatives, plus Wait wait features PJ O'Rouke, then again, that's not so damning), CNN(Bob "loose lips" Novak still regularly shows up), MSNBC(Ex home of Michael Savage, current home of Tucker Carlson) and CBS(John Stossel hasn't been given the conservative boot)? The only remotely left wing thing in that list is MSNBC, and that's just because they have Keith Olbermann, who's not a leftwinger either, but he's been really tough on Bush.

Listen to Air America Radio. Read "The Nation." Maybe THEN you'll have an idea what left wing bias looks like.

Then again... In the famous words of Stephen Colbert... "Reality has a well-known liberal bias."

Re:

[NoTheory]

I don't mean this as a troll or a snark, but i am honestly puzzled at how one could approve of Democratic tactics or corruption less than the Republicans? I really don't think that anyone could disagree that the Rove/Abramoff/DeLay triangle is really the most systematically unfair, corrupt, and underhanded political machine to exist in the past 25 years. Rove has been responsible for push polling (even against Republicans), phone bank DDoSing, money laundering, and swift-boating; Abramoff for more wide-sp

Re:

[Doc Ruby]

These are the Sudanese officials that Bush protects from intervention in their government's ongoing genocide. The Sudanese officials making oil development plans with Cheney while he was running Halliburton in the 1990s. The Sudanese officials who built that "pharma factory" - pharmaceuticals are made from petro materials. The same Sudanese officials who Clinton fired missiles into. The Sudanese officials who were harboring Bin Laden that whole time.

Sudan's claims against Clinton are about as credible as Ah

Re:It's like playing whack-a-mole.

[Doc Ruby]

Moderation -1
    100% Flamebait

TrollMods call citing the 9/11 Commission report to debunk Sudanese liars in defense of a 2-term US president "Flamebait"?

They're not just Republicans, these TrollMods. They're the goddamn Qaeda. As if there were a difference.

Appropriate venue?

[saintlupus]

Uh, WTF does this have to do with "News for Nerds"?

Don't get me wrong, I'm a Green Party-voting liberal, but I don't see how this is even remotely in line with the supposed purpose of this site. I mean, do we really need another ten thousand Bush-bashing posts?

--saint

Re:Appropriate venue?

[peterprior]

"Uh, WTF does this have to do with "News for Nerds"?"

It has "Intel" in the story title :)

Re:Appropriate venue?

[xx_chris]

Because even nerds need news.

Re:

[mikelieman]

Unless you SUPPORT Torture, Secret Prisons, and Domestic Surveillance so tight the Nazis and Commies would have given their right tits for,

EVERY VENUE is needed to denounce the Violations of:

Bush's oath to G-d, Articles 1, 4, and 14 of the Constitution. amd 50USC1802 and 1805, just to name a few...

I'm surprised you had the guts to suggest otherwise, Comrade.

Is it so black and white?

[paranode]

Does that mean everyone else supports letting terrorists go free after capture, open prisons with conjugal visits, and no interest whatsoever in a suspected terrorist cell making a call to a city in Pakistan?

While I join you in denouncing some of the shady goings-on, there are non-brutal and effective means of interrogation (depends on your def. of "torture"), there is a legitimacy to not telling everyone in the world where we are holding some of the top-ranking al Qaida operatives, and if done properly there is due process in surveillance (FISA) and this information could lead to the apprehension of cells waiting inside the US or abroad for another operation.

So I guess what I'm saying is that you are begging the question there. :)

Re:

[SirBruce]

According to the FAQ:

Politics This section is for news relevant to United States government politics. It was created primarily to cover the 2004 US Presidential Election, but today exists for occasional stories that fit the bill.

Okay, so if Slashdot is going to have a straight political blog-type section, fine. But where are the posts about the far-bigger political stories this week, such as Clinton going ballistic, Congress ending its session, a Republican resigning due to an Internet sex scandal, and

Re:Appropriate venue?

[Wandering Wombat]

Clinton always goes ballistic, because he's a smart man with eyes and ears.

Congress always ends sessions.

Republicans resigning over sex scandals is like me getting coffee in the mornings, you just EXPECT it.

But Bush doing something Unconstitutional? That's NEWS!

Re:

[Scaba]

Hardly the biggest sex scandal. He got a blow job from an adult woman who was not his wife, and tried to lie about it. Big deal. Who wouldn't? The scandal was the $150 million and two years spent investigating it, and the vindictiveness of the Republicans who placed Clinton's sex life as America's highest priority, even more important than terrorism.

Re:Appropriate venue?

[Wandering Wombat]

You're right. Nerds shouldn't be informed of what goes on at a national level... it might involve them leaving their basements.

Come on, guys... this is important. This is important on the global scale. This is a little more important than Paris Hilton's CD being hijacked, or Yahoo doing stuff with it's e-mail.

This is important.

Re:Appropriate venue?

[florescent_beige]

Every day I'm able (when I have the stomach for it) to watch America obsess inwardly about the minutae of it's own existence with rarely a mention of how the things they do impact upon the greater whole.

This is no accident. The reflexive American response to the subject of foreign events is dismissive and barely civil. As if every SINGLE other country is either backwards, lazy, unsophisticated, or a pathetic American wannabe. I deliberately cast this net wide, not every American says these things but it is their natural reflex: they are programmed that way in grade school by chanting chants, swearing oaths as children before they know what it means, and congratulating their adolescent selves with brave tales of the genocidic birth of their nation.

I'm a Canadian, I do a great deal of travel in the United States (or I did until who knows, my ranting gets me placed on some beaureaucratic American watch list or another designed to get some member of Congress re-elected) and I could not possible tell you (even under threat of water boarding) how many times the lets-take-over-Canada chestnut has so hilariously been tossed my way. I have had enough personal relationships to know that a joke told more than twice is not "just kidding" any more. Americans in their secret place really honest to God think that they need it, they want it, they can have it. And anyway, Canadians are smug socialistic freeloaders so who's going to stop us, Wayne Gretzky? Ha ha ha ha. Oh yeah, wimpy on terrorism too, the 9/11 hijakers came in through Canada everyone knows (Hillary Clinton, famously, publicly, and unretractedly), except they didn't although 80% of Americans continue to "know" they did, and your media doesn't budge an ever-so-cute hair on their pristine little CNN heads to correct that pathetic ignorance.

However, I digress. The matter at hand is why American intelligence fuck-ups are of any interest to non-Americans. I'll let my American friends in on a secret (which wouldn't be a secret if you got around more), nobody particulary thinks much of American intelligence or the American military in general. Mention the CIA to anyone besides an American and the first word out of that person's mouth is likely to be something like Pinochet, which if repeated to most Americans would garner the response, what is that, like, something new Taco Bell? Your military? Here's something apropos: lets say you are in your A-10 and about to blast the ever living shit out of something, don't you think you would go down and take a look at what ever it is you're about to shoot? American pilots apprently don't. They just follow the little numbers on their little displays in their little cockpits and push the little button on the stick when the light goes on, or whatever. Thats why they KEEP on blasting the crap out of their OWN British and Canadian allies. Any American apologist who tries to weasel-word his way out of the fact that this is obviously pathetic, I will personally come down there and puke on your mullet.

The few of you who actually retain enough common decency required to know what I'm talking about don't stand a chance of being able to do anything about it. And if you did, you would almost certainly be assasinated, just like the last three that tried.

So who cares if the CIA didn't get OBL. Or did. Or didn't try. Or did. Or was involved with him, or wasn't. If I thought for a picosecond the early interception of OBL would have caused the USA not to be a country of ignorant pricks any more, I would take an interest. But frankly, I'm sick of hearing American bullshit stink itself into my living room, so you can kiss my lily white Canaidan ass, you country of lowest common denominators.

Re:

[flyingsquid]

There's nothing more annoying than a whiny, self-righteous, American-hating Canadian. The reason that the "invade canada" joke annoys you is because of the element of truth- Canada has one of the world's weakest militaries, next to the world's strongest. But that's Canada's choice.

Canadians buy into the myth that they don't need to defend themselves because- unlike Americans- they aren't assholes to the rest of the world. Which is a joke. Think of Poland vs.Germany, or all the little states the Soviet Unio

Re:

[b0r1s]

Political flamewars drive pageviews which increases revenue. It's just like the " Bush Knew " headlines that ran in traditional press - it doesn't have to be true, it just has to make money.

Re:Appropriate venue?

[thrillseeker]

Who are we to argue with what Taco chooses to put on his own site?

The people who pay his bills?

Not the only administration

[SengirV]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A586 15-2004Jul17.html [washingtonpost.com]

Kinda makes Hillary a hypocrite based on what she said here, now doesn't it? - http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A586 15-2004Jul17.html [washingtonpost.com]

Those looking to pin this ONLY on this current administration are showing they are simply interested in partisan politics. There is plenty of blame to go around.

Re:

[tinrobot]

There is plenty of blame to go around.

Perhaps... but Clinton is at least honest and owns up to his failures. He did try to get Bin Laden back in 1998 when he bombed the camps -- despite that the Republicans said he was "wagging the dog"

This administration never owns up - they cover up their failures and point fingers. Perhaps if they admitted fault, I might be more inclined to spread the blame, but the fact that they obfuscate and cover up just adds more taint to an already abysmal record. This administr

Re:

[Black Parrot]

> You can lose many battles, but in the end you can still win the war.

That's hardly an argument in favor of a do-nothing strategy.

> I'm bloody amazed that we even won WW2. For fucks sake, your attitude is that of the French!

This has nothing in common with WWII, nor with the attitude of the French.

> What will it take before western civilization wakes up and realizes we have a pan-islamic threat. I guess we just have to face facts. It will take a few nukes going off in our country before something ha

Why security is a pain in the ass...

[MoneyT]

He did not know when, where or how, but Tenet felt there was too much noise in the intelligence systems.

So much information, so little to actualy go on. And these days, when the government steps up security measures when they don't know "when, where or how" people cry bloody murder. The problem with security is you never know if it's working until it fails to work.

Would it have mattered?

[antifoidulus]

Most of the principals were in the country by the time Bush came to office, killing Bin Laden wouldn't have done much. Even now, Al Qaeda is not some monolith organization, and it is academically lazy to think of it as one. Bin Laden's capture would certainly have a demoralizing effect, but it would not cripple the organization, nor would killing him in early 2001 have done so. Hell, we really need to get Al-Zawahri, but have been failing at that.

9/11 CANNOT be blamed on one individual. True, Clinton did not do as much as he should have during his term, but Bush obviously didn't see the flaws being all that major as he didn't do anything about them in the first 9 months. Also recall that anything Clinton did in the Middle East(most hypocritically was bomb Iraq) was labeled as "Wag the Dog" by Republicans. Meanwhile, when they do similar things they are being "tough on terrorism".

The intelligence failures showed systemic flaws in the US intelligence gathering organization, flaws that go back decades(hell, Bush Sr. was head of the CIA for a few months). As George Tenet said, 9/11 was a "failure of imagination" on the part of the intelligence community. And so far in my opinion Bush has done almost nothing to fix those flaws. Well, he has allowed Army translators who are in short supply to be fired because they are gay, I guess there is always that. Also see the court cases of dismissed FBI agents who claimed they were ignored when they warned about attacks. The system is broken, and Clinton blaming Bush and Bush blaming Clinton surprisingly won't fix it. Killing Bin Laden won't fix it. Iraq certainly won't fix it. Nor will using homeland security money to pay off political backers and punish adversaries(Because we all know Indiana has the most potential terrorist targets). What needs to be done cannot be boiled down to a soundbite, but I do know that past administrations, this administration and in all likelihood future administrations don't have the will or desire to really fix it, but instead like to apply popular band-aids and use ad-hominem attacks on their critics.

Re:Would it have mattered?

[theLOUDroom]

9/11 CANNOT be blamed on one individual.

Sure it can, has name is Osama Bin Laden. We just don't seem very interested in catching him.

Maybe if Bush wasn't so close with the rest of his family we'd be able to find him:
"Salem bin Laden invested through James R. Bath, the sole U.S. business representative for Salem bin Laden, some money in Arbusto Energy, a company run by George W. Bush" [wikipedia.org]

Big Dang Deal

[otterpop81]

This just in: Bin Laden is going to attack Americans. Big Deal. He already _had_ attacked Americans.

For months, Tenet had been pressing Rice to set a clear counterterrorism policy, including specific presidential orders called "findings" that would give the CIA stronger authority to conduct covert action against bin Laden.

Interesting, Bill Clinton said last Sunday night or whenever it was that He "left a comprehensive anti-terror strategy." I guess that turned out to be a lie if Rice was being pressured to set one herself.

There was no conclusive, smoking-gun intelligence, but there was such a huge volume of data that an intelligence officer's instinct strongly suggested that something was coming.

Sound to me something like, "we don't _really_ have any proof, but I have a hunch."

This is non-news. Why are the only political stories on Slashdot left-wing propaganda?

Re: Big Dang Deal

[Black Parrot]

> This just in: Bin Laden is going to attack Americans. Big Deal. He already _had_ attacked Americans. [...] This is non-news.

The news is that everyone "forgot" to mention it to the Commission.

> Why are the only political stories on Slashdot left-wing propaganda?

What is left-wing or propagandistic about this? Is it "left-wing propaganda" to point out the flaws and dishonesty in the way this country is run? If another party was calling the shots, would it be right-wing propaganda to point out the flaws in their behavior?

Re:

[roystgnr]

So what should have been mentioned to the commission, that some guy had no concrete evidence but had a gut feeling?

Well, if you replace "some guy" with "the CIA director and his counterterrorism chief", then replace "no concrete evidence but" with "communications intercepts and other top-secret intelligence and": yeah, that's exactly what should have been mentioned to the 9/11 Commission. Did you even read the article?

The fact that this is non-news but is still getting reported makes it propaganda.

The fact

Re:

[Black Parrot]

> So what should have been mentioned to the commission, that some guy had no concrete evidence but had a gut feeling? The fact that this is non-news but is still getting reported makes it propaganda.

It was the Commission's job to find out what happened and what intelligence failures let it happen. Neglecting to inform them about this is no different than Clinton neglecting to mention that he got a blowjob when asked about his relationship with Lewinsky.

And stems from exactly the same motivation.

Re:Big Dang Deal

[Saanvik]

Every administration, before they lose control of the executive branch, meets with the incoming administration. They also give the newcomers detailed information on their current policies and plans. The incoming administration usually tosses these in the trash and create their own policies. They can't create them all overnight, so they create them in priority. The Bush administration was not interested at all in "foreign entanglements" and, thus, everything to do with foreign policy took a back seat to domestic policies.

So, you see, both of those statements can, and are likely to be, correct.

This is real news, but not surprising news. The Bush administration had not interest in anything besides tax cuts and other domestic policies when they took office. They ignored foreign affairs, to the entire world's detriment.

Re:Big Dang Deal

[Mr. Slippery]

Bill Clinton said last Sunday night or whenever it was that He "left a anti-terror strategy." I guess that turned out to be a lie if Rice was being pressured to set one herself.

Non sequitor. It's entirely possible (indeed seems likely) that Clinton's people left a strategy (which may or may not have been comprehensive or effective), which Bush's people never adopted. If I leave you a cookbook and you never open it, it can be true both that I left you my fablous peanut butter/chocolate pie recipe, and that someone is pressuring you to come up with a dessert recipe.

Why are the only political stories on Slashdot left-wing propaganda?

What, are you saying that reality has a liberal bias [dailykos.com]?

Over the past few decades, the right wing has consistently aligned itself with ignorance: creationism, junk science, bad international intelligence. Take the religious right, stir in neocon ambitions for an American empire, sprinkle in corporate greed, and watch as any respect for truth rapidly evaporates from the mix.

The /. readership is more educated than the average American, and so places a higher value on acurate information and critical thinking. In contempory America, this puts them at odds with the leaders of the Republican party.

9/11 wasnt the fault of the Pubs or Dems

[jorghis]

It seems like all the members of the left want to blame buch for 9/11 and all the members of the right insist that Clinton could have stopped it. It seems to me that there is no way that some high ranking government official (republican or democrat) could have prevented 9/11 by reading some broad document titled "Bin Laden determined to attack Americans". I'm sure they see a million documents about terrorist organizations that dont like the US. I mean what were they supposed to do? Use their spider sense

Condi Rice's friend was in charge of commission

[MarkWatson]

Condi Rice's best friend was in charge of the 9/11 commission. From what I have read he forbade certain lines of inquiry. This is why so many family members of 9/11 victims are so critical of the commission's report.

Olbermann

[mabu]

Keith Olbermann has an incredibly poignant video response [bsalert.com] on this issue. This is probably what motivated some conservative nutjob to send him a letter full of soap powder. Sometimes I wonder about people.

Re:Olbermann

[nutshell42]

Am I the only one who thinks Olbermann is a left-wing O'Reilly?

I don't know whether he's quite such a pathological liar as O'Reilly but his whole rhetoric...

About all the /.-is-so-liberal whining:

I think you're wrong. I think based on the discussions on different kinds of stories that /. is actually very strongly libertarian.

Most people here prefer a government that is socially liberal and fiscally conservative. The reason it seems /. is overwhelmingly liberal in discussions such as this one is that people seem to assume that supporting the Dems atm is the same as being liberal. It is not. Clinton was both less obsessed with spying on you and didn't blow the budget so he could cut taxes for millionaires. He also didn't piss off just about all of your allies (notice how a few years ago, every time there was a story about the EU at least one Brit wrote a post that the UK should leave the EU and enter a closer relationship with the US? I haven't seen any of those lately =) and I think about a third of /. readers was non-US according to one of the old polls.

If I had to make a list with 10 people I'd like to see as POTUS there'd be more Reps than Dems on that list but somehow the demagogues, corrupt and stupid seem to have hijacked the GOP.

Well, how about this!

[SQLz]

Simply posting this information on Slashdot offers comfort to terrorists.

Speculation is ruining the possibility for truth.

[copponex]

Whenever I turn on the news, I always hear questions. I hear pointless speculation from anchors with no more credibility than anyone who is "able" to speak with enunciation and wear makeup, and worse, they are speaking about things that no one on earth can possibly know. Whether it's a school shooting, or a political scandal, or a celebrity arrest, the talking heads guess and guess about what the truth could be.

What happens? People make a decision based on their own biases, and then when the truth is actually known, it is written off or embraced on assumptions based on speculation based on nothing much at all.

Now, did the Bush Administration lie? Of course they did - just like all the administrations before it. Now, what did they lie about, and how important were the lies to the security and well-being of the American people? That is something we need to come to terms with as a country, but let's not speculate about it. We simply don't know. Conservatives should lay down their bias towards innocence, and liberals should lay down their bias towards guilt.

The only thing that concerns me is that the Bush Administration seems unwilling to submit to a full and thorough investigation, and no one, especially elected officials, are above criticism or criminal investigation. If the White House is unwilling to open all of their records, including all classiffied documents, to a special commission, many will simply assume guilt because they will not submit themselves to the same rules everyone else must follow.

Similarly, if America continues to display it's arrogance by flatly ignoring international law, I'm afraid we may reap what we sow when we are no longer the dominant superpower. We had moral credibility after WWII. We lost some in Vietnam, and in Grenada, then in the Iran Contra Affair, and more when we supported Hussein while he was gassing Kurds. So when the chips are down, and we are truly afraid, do we torture? Do we kill 20 civilians to kill one suspected terrorist? Do we withhold legal rights that were once so central to our belief that every man - suspected terrorist or not - is created equal, and has the right to be innocent until proven guilty?

I don't know. I can only speculate.

Why is this on slashdot?

[Ogemaniac]

This is a website about technology, not politics (except when directly relevant to technology, of course).

Second, can we quit with the childish "hindsight is 20-20" crap. Yes, Bush missed signs. Yes, Clinton missed signs. So did damned near everyone else. Picking out the needle in the haystack AFTER the fact is meaningless, however. Their is even a technical term for this psychological error many people make - hindsight bias. It is human nature to think "I woulda seen it coming if I were in your shoes" - when in fact, when tested, you would fail as often as anyone else.

Not too surprising...

[gorehog]

First, watch the testimony where Candi-ass Rice says "I believe the title was Bin Laden determined to attack within the US." Watch her demeanor. It's the demeanor of a petulant child. It's as if she's saying, "duh, of course we knew this was coming, how dare you ask me such a thing." It's like a student late to class in junior high and when asked for a reason just answers "Cause I was sucking dick for money. Schmuck."

The 9/11 Commission possibilites are pretty much these
1)They were covering up
2)They were denied information
3)They lost heart when they realized they would be ignored.

As the consumers of the data it's difficult to know what happened during that investigation and the only reason it matters is that there might be MORE evidence to bring against Bush in an impeachment or war crimes trial.

Fact is, when Bush stole into office he took over from Clinton who, in the last days of his administration, did LOTS of work trying to establish peace between the Palestinians and the Israelis. He ran out of time and Bush, instead of picking up the thread, instituted a "hands off the middle east" policy (insert ironic laughter here).

And the final fact of the matter is that once we were embroiled in war in Iraq the people of this country STILL relected Bush by a narrow margin. That election SHOULD have been so clearly against Bush that no amount of vote stealing should have put him in office, and the corrupt results should have triggered a revolution against the corrupt decision. Instead we end up with elections so close that they are easy to steal with small amounts of fraud.

Why was the election so close? This is what we must ask. WTF is wrong with half the electorate that they think it's ok to kill for oil? Or get distracted by gay marriage? Why are the priorities of the American public so fucked up?

Why there will be more 9/11s....

[i_want_you_to_throw_]

There will be more 9/11s, no doubt. Mainly because the U.S. has made no effort to understand our enemy very much disappointing the ghost of Sun Tzu.

For years we did everything we could to understand communism so we could undermine it and defeat it. It wasn't just the US that destroyed communism, but it was also an unworkable system (apologies to adherents of Saint Reagan).

We were not attacked because of "who we are". That is bat-shit stupid. We were attacked because of things like unquestionable support for Israel in EVERYTHING they do including the bad stuff, cozying up with dictators when it's convenient for our interests, and so on.

When you say things like "they hate us because of who we are" then obviously the only solution is to start bombing people, and it's even MORE non sensical when the place we are bombing has nothing to do with terrorism, such as pre war Iraq. This has already been proven by a bipartisan commission. If you plan on following up on this post I trust you'll keep that proven and non controversial fact in mind. Of course it's also non controversial that we just spent over 300 billion so far to now CREATE a terrorist petri dish out of Iraq.

Nope,...we understand nothing about the enemy and we understand even less about radical and fundamental Islam. This is why there will be more 9/11s to come. If you want to understand how little we really know, just look at the futility of bringing "democracy" to Iraq. You just can't invade and impose democracy. Assuming that we managed to kill three thousand Iraqis (an absurdly low figure by any estimate), and assuming that each of these three thousand have 3 other family members then you now have 9,000 who are thinking "Hmmm maybe bin Laden is right". 9,000 more recruits for jihad.

Fundamental Islam = Fundamental Christianity in terms of disgusting behavior. If you want to play the immature game of name calling then I suggest that you start referring to this administration as ChristianFascist.

While you're at it, start using "Stay and Die" when you say "Cut and Run".

I expect the neocon mod down in 3..2..1...

Page 17

[corby]

running in very high priority on the Washington Post, right up there on page 17 of the print edition

I think their decision is defensible. While the article is newsworthy, it is very unsurprising in the light of all of the related news stories that have already been given front-page treatment.

We already know that Rice and Bush reviewed a Presidential Daily Brief entitled "Bin Laden Determined to Attack inside US" in early August, but were reluctant to mention this at the 9/11 Commission hearings. We already know that Richard Clarke says that the administration was unengaged despite repeated warnings on the threat. We already know that when a CIA operative tried to impress upon senior administration officials the severity of the threat, Bush responded with, "There, you've covered your ass," and dismissed him. At this point, reporting that Tenet was trying to warn the Bush Administration about the threat in July is interesting, but is hardly a revelation.

What I find much more curious is that the article was printed without a byline, and that there was an apologetic Editor's Note explaining why they felt they were justified in printing the story.

Buy AMD

[srh2o]

I for one will not support Bin Laden Intel even if the administration chooses to ignore them and their processors for evil. The incidious plot must be stopped. Buy AMD and help fight terrorism.

What scares the shit out of me....

[TrumpetPower!]

Just for a moment, let's play a game of ``What if?''

What if the conspiracy nutjobs are right, and 9/11 was, in some way, a deliberate action by the Bush administration in exactly the same way that Hitler was behind the burning of the Reichstag [wikipedia.org]? (Godwin, I know--so sue me.) After all, the conspiracy theorists have some compelling points--the collapse of WTC #7, that none of the released footage of the Pentagon attack shows what actually hit the building, the striking dissimilarity of the appearance between the two impacts on the WTC and the impact on the Pentagon, the complete and utter lack of response by NORAD or the Pentagon's own on-site defense systems....

What scares the shit out me is that this article is perfectly consistent with the theory that the Bush administration knew just what bin Laden was up to, and chose to ignore it: the CIA (whom Bush, Jr., has always publicly kept at arm's length or further) told the administration, repeatedly and emphatically...and the administration most pointedly ignored everything the CIA had to say.

Of course, this could also be after-the-fact CYA by the CIA...but, then again, WTC 7 could have been the first skyscraper in history to collapse for no good reason whatsoever, and there could have been a massive and completely hushed-up malfunction in the anti-aircraft defensive systems in the most heavily protected building on the planet, and there could have been....

Honestly, I'm about as anti-conspiracy as one can get. There's just so damn much about 9/11 that's so glaring, so obvious, so uncomplicated, that I'm left with two conclusions: massive unprecedented incompetence by a team headed by some of the most competent political operatives in America (Cheney, Rove, etc.)...or a conspiracy. A conspiracy that would perfectly fit with the actions of an administration with decided totalitarian fascist tendencies, such as one that would strip civil liberties in the name of protecting the homeland, which would endorse and actually use torture and commit other atrocities, which supports big business at every opportunity over all else domestically, which would invade sovereign nations on trumped-up pretenses, which is accompanied by unprecedented corporate corruption, which wears its Christianity on its sleeve....

Whether for good reason or not, frankly, I'm scared shitless.

Cheers,

b&

Re:What scares the shit out of me....

[TrumpetPower!]

ObsessiveMathsFreak wrote:

TrumpetPower! wrote:

What if the conspiracy nutjobs are right, and 9/11 was, in some way, a deliberate action by the Bush administration in exactly the same way that Hitler was behind the burning of the Reichstag?

That assumes that the Bush administration had the competance to pull off such a delicate scheme. That flies in the face of everything we know about them.

I'll be the first to accuse the Bush administration of gross incompetence--but let's also not forget several stunning displays of true competence, including examples eerily similar to what would be required to pull off a Reichstag-esque plot.

I mean, we've got the lead-up to the Iraq War (Remember Colin Powell? Valerie Plame and the aluminum tubes? Condi's smoking gun in the form of a mushroom cloud?) for one very obvious example. And who could forget the Swift Boat Veterans, or the similar job done on McCain? Not to mention, of course, the whole Lewinsky affair....

And, before you dismiss the administration's conducting of the Iraq war as gross incompetence, ask yourself three questions: Is there anything that they've done that hasn't been the textbook example of how not to conduct this kind of a war? Is there any chance that Rumsfeld et al. have not studied the textbooks? And, finally, which is more beneficial to a cynical Orwellian regime: success in Iraq...or the spectacular failure (complete with the worst possible breeding ground for terrorists) we have there now?

Like I said in my original post: I'm not one for conspiracy theories. All I'm doing here is applying Occam's Razor, and feeling like we're experiencing the death of a thousand cuts.

The administration's actions in Iraq and elsewhere make absolutely no sense whatsoever not only if you grant them the benefit of the doubt, but even if you take their stated claims perfectly at face value: their actions are not only spectacularly counterproductive, but glaringly obviously so, and repeatedly, and often excessively.

They do, however, make perfect sense if you assume that Bush & co. is another Hitler & Nazis, and that they're doing all of this consciously, intentionally, and with malice aforethought.

Never forget that Hitler sincerely believed that all he did was not only in his country's best interests, but in God's and Christ's best interests, too. (Re-read Mein Kampf if you've forgotten.) Or that he had all sorts of seemingly-legitimate reasons and excuses for all his excesses. He really thought that Poland was a direct threat to German sovereignty, that a cabal of Jews controlled world finances and were committed to usurping German authority...and that Germany really was the best nation on Earth, the greatest hope for the human race and salvation, and that the power of the state and of the corporations was necessary to ensure the common security and welfare.

And he had lots of convincing evidence to back up all those beliefs! In the abstract, you're certainly more ``secure'' if you control not only your side of your borders, but the other side, as well--and Germany and Poland had long been rivals. There were disproportionate numbers of Jews in international finance, and a non-trivial number had Bolshevik and other ``left'' leanings antithetical to Hitler's (and many other German's) ideas of how to run an economy, which made for a natural enmity. Hitler could easily point to all sorts of great advancements in the arts, science, culture, and Christianity (think of the amazingly anti-Semitic Martin Luther, amongst others) to demonstrate just how formidable Germany had been historically. And lots of people to this day still believe that a strong central government with expansive policing powers is necessary for personal security, and that a strong corporate culture is necessary for economic security.

If you sta

Iraq, Iraq, Iraq

[Stalyn]

We can argue all day about who's to fault for 911 but honestly there is so much blame to go around, CIA, FBI, Clinton, Bush, etc. There is no one person or event that directly caused 911. The best thing is move forward and put in place security measures that will prevent another 911 (which is not being done btw).

Second Iraq has the potential to be so much worse than 911. The causalities already outnumber 911, but the damage done to America's world image has been catastrophic. After 911 we had the majority of the world with us, as well as the American public. We really had an opportunity to put in place a new foreign policy coupled with domestic initiatives that could have transformed American politics for the better. Yet all this energy was misplaced towards Iraq. Who's responsible for that?

Re:old news...

[Rascasse]

That's an urban legend [snopes.com].

Re:

[thrillseeker]

That's an urban legend

But, on slashdot, it's an insightful urban legend ... (a'la in Soviet ...)

False.

[tinrobot]

It's an urban legend.

Snopes has proved it false

http://www.snopes.com/rumors/north.asp [snopes.com]

Re:

[kalidasa]

In other words, instead of putting a massive number of troops on the ground to flush out and kill or (even better, capture) Osama Bin Laden, let's divert all those troops to overthrowing the regime of a bad guy who also happens to be Arab, whose government had maybe one or two meetings with Bin Laden but was widely considered (as a secular Ba'athist regime) to be effectively "infidel" by Bin Laden and his associates, and whose presence, while certainly very bad for his own people and a very minor threat to

How about ...

[khasim]

So what if we don't know where, when, or how the attack is to take place?

Perhaps we could explore doing things to proactively protect the United States, such as secretly monitoring and mining international calling records to try to eke out worrying patterns, or cooperating covertly with the EU to monitor bank accounts of suspected and/or known terrorist entities, or keeping the detention of high-value targets secret so that their collaborators might be kept in the dark for a period longer...

No, that would b

WTF?

[khasim]

And what if we don't know "what we're worried about"?

What then?

Then you're either paranoid or a child.

Or actually do something to aggressively try to detect plots and prevent attacks before they happen?

"Plots" from whom?

Since you "don't know 'what we're worried about'", you don't know if it the "enemy" is a group of fundamentalist Muslims ... or a group of ex-KGB agents ... or a US based Christian sect ... or a US citizen with a grudge against academics ... or a nutcase with lots of fertilizer and a truck.

G

Re:condi's Hotmail account

[Anonymous Coward]

Do spam filters work for printed documents? I think this is a good place to post a link to the August 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Briefing [thesmokinggun.com] on the state of security for the United States. This particular PDB had some pretty stunning statements that President Bush seemed to have firmly ignored.

The title of the briefing is "Bin Ladin Deteremined to Strike in US." What did Bush do after being read this briefing? He continued his month long vacation.

the spell checker chocked on it?

[krell]

"The title of the briefing is "Bin Ladin Deteremined to Strike in US."

I don't really know now. Maybe the spell check choked on it? What is more likely is that Bush saw the word "strike", mumbled something about the funny name of the new AFL-CIO chief, and passed the report onto the Secretary of Labor.

Re:

[Sj0]

"Good comeback... denial without explanation. The internet equivalent of closing your eyes, putting your hands over your ears, and chanting the theme sont to Gilligans Island."

No it isn't.

Re:

[__aaclcg7560]

Do spam filters work for printed documents?

Sure they do! It's called a secretary with an extra large paper shredder. Remember, kids, the Buck Stops Here applies only if the document reaches the final destination. That's why so many government officials can truly say they don't recall seeing the "smoking gun" document since it never came across their desk.

Re:condi's Hotmail account

[notque]

That's why so many government officials can truly say they don't recall seeing the "smoking gun" document since it never came across their desk.

It's just a lie. Don't rationalize the lies.

That's why they can just blame it a few levels lower. I didn't know they were torturing...

Well, yes I did try to get the torture bill passed, but I didn't think we'd actually USE it.

Re:condi's Hotmail account

[sumdumass]

It wouldn't have mattered if they saw it or not. It didn't say anything about what happened on 9/11.

At best, it says bin laden from 2 or more years ago wanted to strike the US inside it's borders, Some of his operatives are US citizens and have traveled in or though the US, there are 70 investigation going on by the FBI suggesting more information would become availible and they were monitoring it, It gives a few misleading potential targets, referes to a foiled attempted attack on LAX by the candian government, and suggest if a plane was hijacked, it would be to hold hostages for the release of two operatives and not to use as a missle and destroy several buildings.

Smoking gun? Only if you read into it what you know today. But if you objectivly look at it from what was known then, how would you read it? How would you have know that event on 9/11 was going to happen and how could you have stoped it. Remeber, don't answer with anything known after 9/11 to be honest. But if you ask the Question "did you get a report claiming 9/11 was going to happen 2 months before 9/11?" you could probably reply with hoestly and say "no". I'm not saying that more wasn't known but if what we know that was known is true, it didn't offer much of anything on the predictability of 9/11.

Now as this is related to the July 10th 2001 meeting between Tenet and Rice concerning a June 30th 2001 report that was a consolidation of "bits and pieces" of inteligence sent to the NSA for verification and analisis, that the article, though Tenet's own admisions, claims he and the document didn't say much of anything specific other then it is likley Al Qeada and Bin Ladin are up to something and he had a gut feeling it was going to be big and soon. Then Augast 6th 2001 the refernced document "Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in US," was submited to the presidential daily briefing.

What this shows to me is, that people were doing something about our security, they were analizing the facts and informing the people needing to make the decisions, but we didn't know how to act as Tenet would have liked on the information because it didn't tell us what was going to happen.

And the article did state a plan take out bin laden and Al Qeada leaders was in the works but stalled on technicle details and would take some time to work out. Curriously, I'm wondering why they couldn't use one of Clintons left over plans that should have already had the details worked out. I doubt just taking bin ladin and Al Qeada leaders out would have stoped or disrupted 9/11 though. The plan was too long in the making and too close to execution. I think this might be a political astro-turffing article designed to gain favor for republicans and motivate them to the polls this election cycle. It shows how dificult it was to determin what Al Qeada were upto and it shows that the government was actualy doing something, just not enough because the information wasn't there. I'm sure democrates will try to use the slant on this to make republicans look bad but repulican voters tend to look at all the information and see the entire picture so it is sure to infuriate them enough to show up.

Re:

[BalanceOfJudgement]

But if you ask the Question "did you get a report claiming 9/11 was going to happen 2 months before 9/11?" you could probably reply with hoestly and say "no". I'm not saying that more wasn't known but if what we know that was known is true, it didn't offer much of anything on the predictability of 9/11.

To be fair, you're probably right - most people would say 'no.'

Unfortunately, the United States Secretary of Defense does not have the luxury of saying 'no' when the Director of the CIA is telling you some

Re:condi's Hotmail account

[sumdumass]

Unfortunately, the United States Secretary of Defense does not have the luxury of saying 'no' when the Director of the CIA is telling you some kind of attack is imminent, despite your 'beliefs' to the contrary. To ignore that is total incompetence, pure and simple.

Ok, So what should she have done and what pieces of information did the CIA director give pointing to it? I mean the article admits that all the information was bits and pieces, the pressing parts were his gut feeling, Someone follwed up and made a presidential daily briefing on it and that birefing apears to have 70 investigations still going on.

So if you were Condi, what would your have done differently? And on what information would you have acted that might of saved us from 9/11? I think the monday morning armchair quarter backing has places the bar between competent and incompetence a little too unrealisticy high. I may be missing something though. It apears the biggest gripe is that she didn't apear the the CIA directer, to acting like it was the most important thing of the minute and praise the messenger for delivering the news.

Re:

[Saanvik]

At that late date they probably couldn't have done anything. However, if the Bush administration had spent any effort developing foreign policy, including anti-terrorism policy, they wouldn't just be finding out about the possiblity so late in the year. This is just another point showing that it wasn't lack of intelligence, but lack of focus, that made it easier for terrorists to attack the US.

Re:condi's Hotmail account

[sumdumass]

At that late date they probably couldn't have done anything. However, if the Bush administration had spent any effort developing foreign policy, including anti-terrorism policy, they wouldn't just be finding out about the possiblity so late in the year.

What foreign policy or anti-terrorism policy could have changed anything other then having more and acurate inteligence? We had all the policies the Clinton administration set up going until a change in policy was made. But that would mean they did have the policy then. Despite everyones best efforts to claim otherwise, No-one knew 9/11 was goign to happen, It wasn't because someone in either administration failed to do something, yet we keep seeing these slogans trying to claim otherwise.

Quit reciting one liners from talk shows and answer the question with something sustantial. It apears "if the moon was made of cheese and france gave us wine, we could feed the astronauts in space" type of replies that have an unrealistic claim by somethign sounding like it could have happened If certain unknown or false facts turned out to be true. The fact is, There wasn't any inteligence saying 9/11 was going to happen. There wasn't anyone making that claim at all, if anything, they were suggesting the targets to be something else with a different means. Nothing policy wise could have changed that without pieces of critical information that we didn't have.

These people planned this back when Clinton was in office. Is it just as prudent to make the same claim about his people and his administration? If only he had spent a better effort on foreign policy, including anti-terrorism policy they wouldn't be finding terrorist wanting to kill americans. Of If he took national security seriously, he would have known about it because it was planned and organized on his watch? Or maybe he took it so serious, he knew about it but refuses to tell anyone else? My god, We are trying to hold someone acountable because the sun came up one morning and hour later then it did 6 months ago. We are acting like because you ran a redlight or was speeding, your parrents didn't do a good job raising you (they need to take the blame)and the police chief didnt' do a good enough job policing you, they both should be held acountable.

So, i ask what could have been done differently. And this time, please don't answer with a "if you flip that switch over there on the wall, a light in this room or the next room may turn on or off or nothgin might happen" type comment cause the only thing we know for sure is that you might flip the switch. Not to say that it might be expected for a light to turn on or off but we are doing it backwards. We are suggesting that if we do something a specific even might happen while knowing what the event we want to happen is but not the detail of what something being done is. It's like Kerry and his plan of 2004 wich was just an outline of what the US already has done and wasn't working without any details. Then it was sugested that we needed to elect him to get the details of this brillient plan that would work so much better then current policy but it never has been shown to the public becuase it is a trade secrete or something. That or else he doesn't think the current administration or the military, risking thier lives, deserves knowing what could be done so radicly different that it would turn everything around because the people didn't elect him as president. Nahh, a politician would take somethign this serious and act like a school kid who is trying to entice another kid to do something by suggesting a reward for actions but then denying it when those actions don't come thru.

Re:condi's Hotmail account

[x2A]

"So if you were Condi, what would your have done differently?"

Got them teeth sorted... seriously, if you can't even defend your country against your face, how can you defend against terrorist threats?

Re:

[indifferent children]

the Buck Stops Here applies only if the document reaches the final destination

Remember kids, 'plausible deniability' is so much easier if you never read anything.

Bush admin acted on OBL plane threat at Genoa 7/01

[Burz]

In July 2001 CNN reported: [cnn.com]

The head of Russia's Federal Bodyguard Service has warned of a plot by terrorist Osama bin Laden to assassinate George W. Bush at the summit and the U.S. President may be staying at U.S. Camp Darby military base in Livorno or offshore on the American aircraft carrier, USS Enterprise to avoid any terrorist risk.

If Blair, Chirac, Putin, etc. were staying on a cruise ship but suddenly Bush had to stay at a military installation instead of joining them to avoid the possibility of Bin L

Re:

[Nutria]

Even if they took the report seriously I doubt they would have been able to prevent the attack. There was a lot of information and misinformation out there, and it would have taken a lot of luck for everything to line up properly in order to prevent it. I don't fault the administration for failing to prevent the attack, but obviously their actions following the attack speak for themselves. Do you honestly believe if Al Gore had won his administration would have done any better? Maybe (hopefully) they wouldn

Re:

[Nutria]

He couldn't get any action out of the administration

To do what? Would the attack be against

• land
• sea
• air?

Would the type of attack be

• a bomb
• gas
• biological (water, food or airborne?)
• radiation?

Would it be in

• NYC
• Boston
• Atlanta
• Chicago
• Los Angeles
• Seattle
• Las Vegas
• Houston
• Dallas?

The intelligence was fuzzy and vague beyond usability.

Re:

[theLOUDroom]

Of course there's always the theory that the administration thought that a terrorist attack would be a great way to rally the American populace and take their minds off much larger problems at home...

Which would seem crazy if they hadn't come up with the idea themselves and publicized it.

Indeed, the United States has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security. While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial Americ

Edits on P2911?

[Grendel Drago]

Edited? What edits? Any edits were made were not substantive, and the producers specifically stated that all edits were minor. It was aired intact as a big fat Clinton-bash, a $30 million RNC contribution just over a month before the election.

Re:

[BrookHarty]

Both Presidents are at fault. Both presidents failed when they had good chances of snagging him, clinton on numerous occasions, and bush with Tora Bora.

Can we count the 7 months bush joined office and didnt do keep up the weekly security meetings? Took 9-11 to get Bush to do his job, which he still hasnt done.