Phil,
That's a lot of words that doesn't take away from the fact that we had OBL in our SIGHTS on THREE occasions. Bubba Clinton didn't pull the trigger on two of the occasions due to collateral damage. Once was due to civilians the other was due to OBL was standing next to a Prince of the UAE.
So... you are saying that Clinton fucked up because he DIDN'T kill the the Prince of a nation we have an ALLIANCE with? Or because he was reticent to kill a bunch of civilians?
The fact was, the potential fallout, both collateral, and from Republican histrionics caused to Clinton decide against trying to kill him in favor of CAPTURING him and putting him on trial.
He was trying to arrange that capture when the method we were using to track was leaked.
Seriously, tho... he was TRYING to do something about it... he had people on it and was paying lcose attention to it.
He WARNED Bush about it.
What did Bush do?
What did Condi do?
Not one fucking thing. They see a report on Bin Laden determined to attack in the US... AND they see intelligence indications of imminent hijackings AND they have reports of Arabs on student visas taking flight training...
Dod any of that spark any interest? No.
Why? because the Arabs taking training were Saudis... that's why, and Bush had a strict hands off policy on Saudi's from day one.
Policy makers, including Bubba passed the word to not take him out due to this, it has NOTHING to do with Republicans stopping him. You need to do more research.
Sorry, buddy, I don't accept republican disinformation and self exculpatory spin as research.
The Republicans put together a team to fuck up Clinton BEFORE he even took the oath.... they perpetrated an 8 year long series of attacks and investigations that came up with NOTHING but a blowjob....
And, once they had the majority, they acted to cripple him politically.
A LAW ABIDING president who shows respect for the will of the public does not act unilaterally when throwing force around.
If he got accused of Blowing up an al queda encampment for political reasons... how the fuck do you think he would have been treated by republicans for killing an emirate prince?
Clinton was not acting ALONE.. he was acting in a sphere politicized and partisanized by republican anti-clinton rhetoric.
And stop pretending you don't know that and that it didn't play a role.
The FACTS are the facts. When Clinton was trying to focus a republican congress on the threat of Al Queda, the Republicans were too busy painting our own democratic president as the REAL threat.
Republicans utterly IGNORED terrorism for 8 years... and it took an attack on the WTC to wake them up... and even THEN.... they over-reacted, reacted ineffectually, and literally made the situation FAR worse.
And, managed to turn the real threat of terrorism into a graftapalooza war in the wrong country, killing the wrong people, for reasons having nothing to do with al queda and everything to do with oil.
And show me were in any of my posts on these forums I've defended Bush. You're talking about Iraq now in your rebuttal, I'm not talking about Iraq or what Bush did or didn't. I'm talking about your claim that Republicans got in the way of Bubba taking out OBL, which they didn't. So before you start jumping around to other topics to try and stick to the question and do some more research.
Don't pull that innocent noise on me. When you claim that it was CLINTON who dropped the ball on Bin Laden, you are acting as an apologist for Bush.
No one has 20 20 foresight. I don't condemn Bush for the 9/11 attacks... by defintion a sucker punch is one you didn't see coming.
No one had ever pulled a stunt like that before...
However, when you invite comparison of the two administrations' response to terrorism, I CAN condemn him for disregarding Clinton intelligence on Al Queda, I can condemn him for not having even ONE meeting on the issue of terrorism.... on Condi for not ONE follow up question regarding hijackings or all queda... for assuming Saudi nationals were no threat.
And I can absolutely condemn the republican repsonse to everything Clinton did to TRY and address the Bin laden issue. I watched unfold.
They did not take Bin Laden seriously as a threat and they were bound and determined to destroy the Clinton presidency by ANY means.
And, dude, I voted for Bush1 his first term, so I am hardly a liberal brain donor.
Nothing the Republicans did would have stopped Bubba from doing his job. We had him, we were looking right at him, just sitting there waiting for the order and he said NO THREE TIMES.
Bullshit.
HE ACTED. that's the diametiracl opposite of what the republicans did under the exact same circumstances.
Where was their support for action against bin laden? They were part of the government, they were on the intelligence committees and defense committees... were they pounding the podium demanding action agsint al queda?
no.
They decried all actions Clinton took.
And sorry.. we DIDN'T have him. CLinton had to evaluate how defensible an assassination would be on the world stage.
HE did not ascribe to the Bush doctrine of pre-emptive war.
( lookee how well that turned out.)
You wanna talk when we HAD him?
It was when we had an ACTUAL war on to GET him... had him corralled in a small range of mountains.... and the general in charge asked the Bush administration for just 3,000 lousy troops to effectively cut off any escape.
This was less than a year after 9/11-AFTER the towers fell... we were AT WAR with Al queda... and the Bush Administration REFUSED to allocate 3 fucking thousand troops to secure Bin Laden's capture....
A TRILLION dollar war... AIMED at and justified by bin laden and these dumb fucks couldn't spare 3,000 troops to get the job done?
WHO dropped the ball?
Makes perfect sense form the republican point of view, cause capturing bin laden that early on would have pulled the rug out from under their OIL grab in Iraq.
Look, I can find a lot to criticize Democrats over... but Republican failures belong to them and I won't accept bullshit arguments about how Clinton fucked up because he had to exercise better judgement than Bush.
Another key difference? Clinton fought terrorism far more affordably and judiciously, and DID NOT bankrupt the nation. He did more, with less, than Bush has managed to accomplish... AND balanced the budget.
He had three imperfect opportunities to kill Bin laden... and the one actual strike he carried thru on, the one that was unlikely to kill innocents or important allies missed Bin Laden very narrowly...
Bush has had a trillion dollars and the FULL employment of the entire military over SEVEN years.... and has not so much as FOUND bin laden... much less defeated him.
Why? because republicans are too busy lining their fucking pockets at the expense of the nation to be bothered with actually thinking about how to wage a war.
Excuse yourself all you want... your rhetoric is lifted off FOX news malarky verbatim.
Its partisan and aimed at blaming democrats for the war the NeoCons wanted even before 9/11 gave them an excuse.
If you want to blame someone for Al Queda.... blame the republicans who ARMED him to fight the soviets.
Or blame the republican ( Bush 1) who put a US military base in Saudi Arabia... because, truly. THAT is why Bin Laden is attacking us.
He has vowed to stop the minute US troop are OUT of Saudi Arabia.