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Oct 15, 2007 11:57 pm

[quote=BondGuy] 

What fantasy? Why beyond the pale?[/quote]   Because there are simply too many comments from Democrats who saw the same raw intel and came to the same conclusions.   [quote=BondGuy] Bush, by his own admission was extremely weak on foreign policy ...............[/quote]   Blah, blah, blah, blah...   You still haven't gotten around to explaining why/how every intel agency on the planet came to the same conclusion about Saddam and WMDs, how so many Democrats said the same thing after seeing the same intel, yet "Bush made it up". It's just pathetic...   [quote=BondGuy] I don't have that answer, however,  there is at least a plausible possibility that we were had. Bolstered by the fact that the pre-invasion "there making it up" crowd turned out to be right. It is not beyond the pale for those of us in the center to at least consider evidence of contreivance. [/quote]   Pardon me while I put on my hip waders here. There's an obvious answer, it dates back to observations made by Clinton in 1998 (and of course it is relevent what he and our intel agencies said then, Saddam didn't have some sort of conversion on the subject and he never did document what he'd done with WMDs he admitted that he had had). There were very, very few "making it up" people before the war. There were plenty of "we can contain him" and "we can't invade, he'll use those WMDs" types, but the "making it up" types could have met in a phone booth and even the Democrats who voted against the war didn't take them seriously.   Funniest of all "us in the center"????? ROFLMAO....                         [/quote]
Oct 16, 2007 12:04 am

[quote=BondGuy]Mike, you help make my case. You conveniently buy into the Bush slime machine's… [/quote]<?: prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

 

Oh, so it’s the “slime machine” that accurately points out how Clarke lost his access to the presdient, became a disgruntled employee, was removed from the loop and exaggerated his “success” prior to 2000. Well, it’s a good thing they got Scheuer onboard with the “slime machine”, isn’t it?

 

Talk about sheep, how many times does Clarke have to be exposed before people give up Carville’s talking points? I guess Sandy Berger stole and destroyed those classified documents because they reflected so well on his adminstration’s efforts?  
Oct 16, 2007 12:09 am
Ashland:

Title of this article: Political Cycles and the Stock Market

 

What a wonderful demonstration of how some people don't know the difference between correlation and causation.<?: prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

 

Will you stop dancing any time soon and address issues like Democratic positions on Medicare prescription drugs and SCHIP?  I mean, it’s obvious why you want to ring the “fiscial responsibility” bell and then run from reality, but I hope you’ll get around to the issue ……
Oct 16, 2007 12:58 am

Ashland,
 I plan to pay for these HUGE, not little, wars by lowering taxes across the board, igniting a wave of economic growth the likes of which the world has never seen, flooding the treasury with all the dough they’ll need.  As further improvements, I would completely privatize social security over the next 15 years, privatize Medicare in the next 10 and eliminate the Federal Dept. of Education, effective immediately. Additionally, I would close the borders and deny all illegal immigrant ALL federal benefits, just for the mean time, until they can all be deported.
 Any other questions I can help you with?

Oct 16, 2007 5:40 am

[quote=BondGuy]To be more clear about Clarke:

  Under Clinton he held a specially created NSC position in which he reported directly to the president. In this position, in addition to producing daily briefing papers, he attended the weekly princpals meetings. These were meetings held directly with the president, FBI , CIA Sec of Def., NSC chief, and the NSA. When hired by the Bush admin, Rice demoted him. Understand he was our top counter terrorism guy. Under Rice he produced daily breifing papers but was cut out all principals meetings. Rice later defended this move by saying Clarke wasn't needed at those meetings because Tenet was at the meetings. This is a bit of slight of hand on Rice's part, giving the appearance that Bush was getting his info first hand, rather than from an "Underling." Yet, as our go to terrorism expert, it was Clarke who had the first hand info. He supplied it to Tenet for the daily meetings. Clarke took the demotion to mean that the Bush admin was less focused on terrorism than had been Clinton.   In July/aug of 01 as reports of an impending attack were raised at a meeting Bush asked Rice why we couldn't attack Al Qaida instead of "Just swatting at flies." Rice told Bush something was in the works and that the principals would meet in two days and and that she would then get back to him. Then Rice did nothing.   Contrast that to the 2000 terrorist threat against LAX, which was no more certain.  Clinton called an emergency NSC meeting. The principals then met every day to discuss only the threat. They were asked in person every morning, and again in a phone call every evening by Clinton what they had done that day to subvert the threat. This forced the FBI and the CIA to shake the branches of their organizations to get information.   Regarding 9/11, the FBI had the info that the terrorist were in the country. Yet, no one was shaking the branches looking for info. No one was doing anything. The promised principals meeting never took place.   Again, the tragedy being that we never took advantage of our one best chance to stop 9/11.    [/quote]

Well BG I'll give you props...you are seriously plugged in and right about many of your points...

The one issue on which I will argue with you is the whole CIA/FIB issue.  According to my research(not that I'm a scholar)  the CIA had all the intel and failed to share it with the FBI for fear that they'd start a criminal(domestic) investigation that would compromise their intel sources.

Clinton may have been more aware, and had more info, but his implementation sucked.  Perhaps Monica distracted him.....
Oct 16, 2007 5:55 am

[quote=mikebutler222][quote=BondGuy] 

What fantasy? Why beyond the pale?[/quote]   Because there are simply too many comments from Democrats who saw the same raw intel and came to the same conclusions.   [quote=BondGuy] Bush, by his own admission was extremely weak on foreign policy ...............[/quote]   Blah, blah, blah, blah...   Mike don't you mean Bah, bah, bahhhh? Speech impediment?   Apparently while reading Bush's bio you missed the use of a Bush friend, a Saudi Prince, as his first foreign policy mentor. Bush admits he was just about clueless on foreign policy prior to his bid for the oval office. This is fact, not partisan. And it's nothing to get your short and curlys all tied up in knots over. many Prez hopefulls come from the ranks of being state governors, as did Bush, without foreign policy experience. That Bush recognised this as a weakness and put a first class team together to fill this gap is commedable. That much of this team had a hidden agenda was tragic. Who knew they were all hell bent on invading iraq. Again, this is well documented fact that the players involved do not deny.   You still haven't gotten around to explaining why/how every intel agency on the planet came to the same conclusion about Saddam and WMDs, how so many Democrats said the same thing after seeing the same intel, yet "Bush made it up". It's just pathetic...   There you go again...(who said that one mike?) putting words in my mouth. Mike you are so far right you refuse to consider the possibility that anyone Bush could do anything wrong. It is in your words "beyond the pale" that Bush admin did anything wrong. Afterall, republican leaders would never do anything wrong, right mike? It's all the democrats fault. Just like when Nixon covered up a burglary.   And for the record, i don't think Bush made anything up. Now Cheney, that's a different story. I especially love the way the 07 Cheney says we had no idea that Iraq would destabilize along tribal lines, when played against the 92 Cheney who said we didn't go after Saddam in the Gulf War because doing so would have destabilized Iraq along tribal lines. That's classic! But it's also typical of the information flow from the admin. How do you reconcile being lied to? A liar is a liar. it's not someone I can trust. And that's where i part ways with the Bush admin.   I believe Bush received poor advice.   [quote=BondGuy] I don't have that answer, however,  there is at least a plausible possibility that we were had. Bolstered by the fact that the pre-invasion "there making it up" crowd turned out to be right. It is not beyond the pale for those of us in the center to at least consider evidence of contreivance. [/quote]   Pardon me while I put on my hip waders here. There's an obvious answer, it dates back to observations made by Clinton in 1998 (and of course it is relevent what he and our intel agencies said then, Saddam didn't have some sort of conversion on the subject and he never did document what he'd done with WMDs he admitted that he had had). There were very, very few "making it up" people before the war. There were plenty of "we can contain him" and "we can't invade, he'll use those WMDs" types, but the "making it up" types could have met in a phone booth and even the Democrats who voted against the war didn't take them seriously.   Funniest of all "us in the center"????? ROFLMAO....   Actually, the funniest is that you are a sheep and don't realize it. When it comes to Bush, "drank the cool aid" doesn't quite cover your fanatical zeal to defend him. Nor does it explain why you take the most mundane of facts regarding Bush and politicize it.                                [/quote] [/quote]
Oct 16, 2007 2:31 pm
       

[quote=BondGuy]  <?: prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

Apparently while reading Bush's bio you missed the use of a Bush friend, a Saudi Prince, as his first foreign policy mentor. [/quote]

 

 That’s sounds like “those guys made the NY Times apologize”…. IOW an big steamy pile of nonsense….

 

 

[quote=BondGuy] 

There you go again...(who said that one mike?) putting words in my mouth. Mike you are so far right you refuse to consider the possibility that anyone Bush could do anything wrong. It is in your words "beyond the pale" that Bush admin did anything wrong. [/quote]

 

Talk about putting words in someone’s mouth. Perhaps you forgot that I said that I could go along with “they were wrong” it’s the “they made it up” stuff that’s beyond the pale.

 

 I know you want to ignore it, but the fact is that most every intel agency on the planet believed Saddam had WMDs, that Clinton believed it enough (and so did Clarke) to make it official US policy and to attack the aspirin factory and that every Democrat who saw the same raw intel reports came to the same conclusion that Saddam had WMDs.

 

 

 

[quote=BondGuy] 

 

Funniest of all "us in the center"????? ROFLMAO....

 

Actually, the funniest is that you are a sheep and don't realize it. When it comes to Bush, "drank the cool aid" doesn't quite cover your fanatical zeal to defend him. Nor does it explain why you take the most mundane of facts regarding Bush and politicize it. [/quote]

 

Seriously, your sheep costume is slipping. Your recitation of the fringe talking points is so spot on that I’m sure you’re reading them as you type.. It’s just one distortion half-truth and outright fiction after another with you on this subject. “Us in the center” lol……

   
Oct 16, 2007 5:54 pm

[quote=joedabrkr]

   [/quote]

Well BG I'll give you props...you are seriously plugged in and right about many of your points...

The one issue on which I will argue with you is the whole CIA/FIB issue.  According to my research(not that I'm a scholar)  the CIA had all the intel and failed to share it with the FBI for fear that they'd start a criminal(domestic) investigation that would compromise their intel sources.

Clinton may have been more aware, and had more info, but his implementation sucked.  Perhaps Monica distracted him.....
[/quote]   Thanks for the props Joe.   Agree that the non sharing of info between agencies was a factor in 9/11. As much for turf protection as for the reasons you state.   I disagree on Clinton. All my reading shows that Clinton got the most out of a calcified bureaucracy. The big knock on Clinton is that he didn't respond to a series of terrorist attacks during his admin. And that, that non response is responsible for 9/11. Also, that he dealt with the original WTC bombers as criminal case and not as matter of Natl security.   The criticism holds some water in that perhaps had Clinton chosen a different course 9/11 could have been averted. Yet, to believe,wholesale , as many Clinton detractors do, that Clinton was a total failure on terrorism is simply not looking at the world and political climate for what  it was during those times.   The choice of responses open to Clinton was limited. He could lob in a few cruise missles aimed at Afghanistan or the Sudan. In fact this was done on at least one or two occasions. Or he could go with a full scale military invasion. Lastly he could go with a special ops mission into afghanistan to find and take out bin Laden. Clinton's top military advisors recommended against all three options.   Taking cruise missle pot shots was nixed because every miss gave bin Laden more star power in the middle east. And gave us a bad guy rep if we killed innocents.   The top brass refused to forward a special ops mission because of the lack of actionable intel. We had no one on the ground in this area. It was thought that a special ops mission would in fact become a suicide mission.   The full scale invasion was off the table for many reasons. First, the political climate in our country for a preemptive invasion did not exist. It is without doubt that neither congress or the public would have stood for such a course of action. Remember, Iraq is the first time in our history that we have ever invaded a country preemptively. The political will to mount such an invasion didn't exist in the late nineties.    Next, there was the politcal climate of Pakistan. Pakistan wanted to keep Afghanistan in its back pocket politically speaking, and was against an invasion. Pakistan was face to face against India in a Nuclear standoff. And at the time that was the big issue of the day. To Clinton's credit he talked Pakistan down from a Nuclear war with India. Critics refuse to give him props for that acoomplishment. We had little leverage with Pakistan to get their cooperation. What we did have was spent averting nuclear war.   Next, there was the logistics. An invasion was to be a big move. Lots of troops and equipment. We have no friends in the region. This meant no staging area, and long supply lines. Putting an invasion together would have been, as Bush later found out, no easy task. Within the Pentagon the One Stars wanted to move forward with an invasion, however their bosses, the top brass, after looking at the entire picture, refused and said no.    Lastly, as Rumsfeld has said time after time, Afghanistan is a target poor environment. We could bomb them back to the seventh century, except they were already there.   Judging from our performance in Afghanistan it appears Clinton's advisers had it right.   IMO measuring Clinton by today's events and its easy, if uninformed to criticize him. Measured by the political will of the day, during his time, as well as the constraints he was up against, he is not an ineffective figure. He is today painted as a guy who did nothing. Yet, he is, in fact, a person who saw the problem but was ham strung on what to do about it. He took the advice of his top commanders. Against the history of our last 6 years in Afghanistan it looks to me that he made the right decisions.   And remember, the goal had we invaded ten years ago would have been to rid the country of al Qaida and to kill or capture bin Laden. Isn't that the same goal our military has had in that country since 2001? Yet, we have not succeeded. Does anyone think Clinton could have prosecuted this war, for this long, without success, without a 9/11 as a backdrop galvanizing our political will?  I for one don't.   As for Monica? Not a factor.    
Oct 16, 2007 7:07 pm

Anyone who doubts my my statementsa about Bush’s Saudi mentor, read Bob Woodward’s book “Plan of Attack”  Of interest, the book is based upon taped interviews with the key planners of the iraq war. It’s all on tape including Bush. All one has to do is read. Of course its easier to spew baseless venom.

  Again, from my centered position I see nothing wrong in Bush's inexperience.   As for Clinton's bombing of an aspirn factory: Again a derisive  comment. Yes, Clinton did mount a cruise missle attack against a pharmacutical plant in the Sudan because intel had it that the plant was being used by bin Laden to manufacture weapons. It had nothing to do with Saddam and WMDs. Because bin laden was not killed in the attack, nor was he the target, middle east extremist painted the U. S. as impotent.   lastly, in the world of wmd intel 1998 has nothing to do with 2003. Can one imagine our leaders mounting an attack on such out dated data?
Oct 16, 2007 10:33 pm

[quote=BondGuy]Anyone who doubts my my statementsa about Bush's Saudi mentor… [/quote]<?: prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

 

Rather than take your word, how about a quote, a link?

 

 

[quote=BondGuy]Again, from my centered position I see nothing wrong in Bush's inexperience. [/quote]

 

“Centered”  LOL…..

 

[quote=BondGuy]As for Clinton's bombing of an aspirn factory: Again a derisive  comment. [/quote]

 

Actually, it’s accurate. It turned out to be a pharmaceutical plant. They made, among other things, aspirin.

 

[quote=BondGuy]Yes, Clinton did mount a cruise missle attack against a pharmacutical plant in the Sudan because intel had it that the plant was being used by bin Laden to manufacture weapons.[/quote]

 

Notice how you don’t claim Clinton “made up” the intel (and neither do I), which turned out to be wrong. Would that you give Bush the same benefit of the doubt.

 

 

 

[quote=BondGuy] It had nothing to do with Saddam and WMDs. [/quote]

 

Oh, did you bother to tell Richard Clarke that? That’s not what he was saying at the time….

 

 http://www.villagevoice.com/news/9910,vest,4380,1.html

 

No matter. On January 22, as demonstrated in The Washington Post, the government's story underwent yet another permutation. Currently, according to White House terrorism czar Richard Clarke, the U.S. is "sure" that the Iraqis were the sinister force behind Al Shifa, producing what the Post characterized as "powdered VX-like substance at the plant that, when mixed with bleach and water, would have become fully active nerve gas."

 

 

 

 

[quote=BondGuy]lastly, in the world of wmd intel 1998 has nothing to do with 2003. Can one imagine our leaders mounting an attack on such out dated data? [/quote]

 

Nice try, but it was anything but dated. The situation hadn’t changed, Saddam was still interfering with inspections, he still hadn’t accounted for WMDs that Clinton was talking About in 1998. Moreover, you ignore the fact that most Democrats, even in 2002, after reading the same raw intel, said Saddam had WMDs….
Oct 17, 2007 1:03 am

As usual, BG you make some good points.

One thing for which I do hold Mr. Clinton fully responsible and that is his evisceration of our human intelligence capabilities.

THAT could have helped to protect us from attacks.  You said yourself that we didn’t have enough resources in Afghanistan.

Oct 17, 2007 1:56 am

Mike, rather than a link, how about this: Go and buy the book. Woodward does a good job of presenting a centered view.

  If there is one book I would recommend everyone read, it's that book. AS well as Mann's Rise of the Vulcans. Two great books that give a lot the Iraq War's back story.    
Oct 17, 2007 2:00 am
joedabrkr:

As usual, BG you make some good points.

One thing for which I do hold Mr. Clinton fully responsible and that is his evisceration of our human intelligence capabilities.

THAT could have helped to protect us from attacks.  You said yourself that we didn’t have enough resources in Afghanistan.

  Joe , you may be right. I haven't gotten that far as to know why our intel was spread so thin. I do know there is a connection to the fact that within iran/afghanistan we have no friends in that neighborhood and nothing to trade with. As for pakistan, not really a willing player. This is not an excuse to exonerate clinton. You are dead on target that this was his failure.