OT - John Kerry - Conspiracy to Commit Murder ???

"pigo" wrote in message
...

"Richard Henry" wrote in message
news:XVI7c.98$Q45.1@fed1read02...

"Walt" wrote in message
...
AstroPax wrote:

And one clear difference between you and me is that you just called
this thread an "argument".

No I didn't.

http://tinyurl.com/vsru

Just like rsa.

Also this, I stunbled on this morning:

http://tinyurl.com/2f3wa

Hey! Can you spell stumbbled?

Well, not like that.

"Richard Henry" wrote in message
news:QIM7c.243$Q45.78@fed1read02...

"pigo" wrote in message
...

"Richard Henry" wrote in message
news:XVI7c.98$Q45.1@fed1read02...

"Walt" wrote in message
...
AstroPax wrote:

And one clear difference between you and me is that you just
called
this thread an "argument".

No I didn't.

http://tinyurl.com/vsru

Just like rsa.

Also this, I stunbled on this morning:

http://tinyurl.com/2f3wa

Hey! Can you spell stumbbled?

Well, not like that.

Maybe not, but it's closer than stunbled. I was trying to catch the spirit
of hipiocirite, but alas, that's going to be a toughie.

"pigo" wrote in message
...

"Richard Henry" wrote in message
news:QIM7c.243$Q45.78@fed1read02...

"pigo" wrote in message
...

"Richard Henry" wrote in message
news:XVI7c.98$Q45.1@fed1read02...

"Walt" wrote in message
...
AstroPax wrote:

And one clear difference between you and me is that you just
called
this thread an "argument".

No I didn't.

http://tinyurl.com/vsru

Just like rsa.

Also this, I stunbled on this morning:

http://tinyurl.com/2f3wa

Hey! Can you spell stumbbled?

Well, not like that.

Maybe not, but it's closer than stunbled. I was trying to catch the spirit
of hipiocirite, but alas, that's going to be a toughie.

One problem with typing without my glasses is that m's look like n's.

Walt wrote in :

Exactly. You're looking for any excuse to dismiss Clarke's story and
change the subject. That way you don't have to listen to things you
don't want to hear.

OK, how about this....

Politicized intelligence . . .

By Mansoor Ijaz

LONDON. — Richard Clarke, former White House counterterrorism czar
for Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, testifies today before
the commission investigating the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks
against the United States. He is well-qualified to do so because few
individuals over the last decade, inside or outside government, better
understood the Islamic extremism threat in all its dimensions.

But rather than deliver a factual recounting and analysis of
intelligence failures and politically charged antiterrorism policies that
plagued his years as coordinator for counterterrorism operations, he has
chosen to characterize the Bush White House as indifferent to the threat
posed by Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network prior to the September 11
attacks without consideration for the failures on his watch during the
Clinton years. This is inaccurate and adds nothing to our understanding
of how distant terrorists could plan and carry out such daring and
effective attacks.

Mr. Clarke's premise that Bush national security officials neither
understood nor cared to know anything about al Qaeda is simply untrue. I
know because on multiple occasions from June until late August 2001, I
personally briefed Stephen J. Hadley, deputy national security adviser to
President Bush, and members of his South Asia, Near East and East Africa
staff at the National Security Council on precisely what had gone wrong
during the Clinton years to unearth the extent of the dangers posed by al
Qaeda. Some of the briefings were in the presence of former members of
the Clinton administration's national security team to ensure complete
transparency.

Far from being disinterested, the Bush White House was eager to avoid
making the same mistakes of the previous administration and wanted
creative new inputs for how to combat al Qaeda's growing threat.

Mr. Clarke's role figured in two key areas of the debriefings —
Sudan's offer to share terrorism data on al Qaeda and bin Laden in 1997,
and a serious effort by senior members of the Abu Dhabi royal family to
gain bin Laden's extradition from Afghanistan in early 2000.

• Fall 1997: Sudan's offer is accepted by Secretary of State
Madeleine Albright, then rejected by Mr. Clarke and Clinton National
Security Adviser Samuel "Sandy" Berger.

Sudan's president, Omar Hasan El Bashir, made an unconditional offer
of counterterrorism assistance to the vice chairman of the September 11
Commission, then Rep. Lee Hamilton, Indiana Democrat, through my hands on
April 19, 1997. Five months later on Sept. 28, 1997, after an exhaustive
interagency review at the entrenched bureaucracy level of the U.S.
government, Mrs. Albright announced the U.S. would send a high-level
diplomatic team back to Khartoum to pressure its Islamic government to
stop harboring Arab terrorists and to review Sudan data on terrorist
groups operating from there.

As the re-engagement policy took shape, Susan E. Rice, incoming
assistant secretary of state for East Africa, went to Mr. Clarke, made
her anti-Sudan case and asked him to jointly approach Mr. Berger about
the wisdom of Mrs. Albright's decision. Together, they recommended its
reversal.The decision was overturned on Oct. 1, 1997.

Without Mr. Clarke's consent, Mr. Berger is unlikely to have gone
along with such an early confrontation with the first woman to hold the
highest post at Foggy Bottom.

U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were bombed by al Qaeda 10
months later. Files with detailed data on three of the embassy bombers
were among the casualties of Mr. Clarke's decision to recommend missile
attacks on an empty Khartoum pharmaceutical plant rather than get Sudan's
data out almost a year earlier to begin unraveling al Qaeda's network.

To this day, neither Mr. Berger nor Mr. Clarke has explained to the
American people why a deliberative decision of the U.S. government, made
by interagency review, was overturned in such cavalier fashion by a small
clique of Clinton advisers in the face of Sudan's unconditional April
1997 offer to cooperate on terrorism issues. If he was interested in
facts, why did Mr. Clarke spurn the recommendations of his own
intelligence and foreign policy institutions that the Sudanese offer be
explored? Why did he not act on the Sudanese intelligence chief's direct
approach to the FBI, of which he was aware, in early 1998 just prior to
the final planning stages of the embassy bombings?

Spring 2000: Abu Dhabi's offer to get bin Laden out of Afghanistan
falls flat.

In late 1999, after a barrage of threats from al Qaeda's senior
leadership against the Abu Dhabi royal family, a senior family member
approached the Taliban foreign minister and Mullah Omar to discuss
mechanisms for getting bin Laden out of Afghanistan. Mr. Clarke, who
enjoyed close relations with the Abu Dhabi family, was brought into the
loop early to prevent separation between Washington and Abu Dhabi on such
a sensitive matter.

While Mr. Clarke was skeptical of the idea at first, he played ball
long enough to understand the real intentions of the Taliban regime.
Smart enough, except when the deal got real.

As the strategy started taking shape in earnest — a personal request
from President Clinton to Sheikh Zayed, Abu Dhabi's ruler, seeking help
to get bin Laden coupled with a $5 billion pan-Arab Afghan Development
Fund that would be offered in return for bin Laden taking residence under
house arrest in Abu Dhabi, with the possibility of extraditing him later
to the United States — Mr. Clarke again scuttled the deal by opting
instead for the militaristic solution. He pushed for armed CIA predator
drones to hunt bin Laden in the remote mountains of northeastern
Afghanistan.

Abu Dhabi was left with a black eye. The Taliban became even more
aggressive in allowing al Qaeda to plan and carry out terrorist
operations from Afghan soil. Another chance to capture the world's most
notorious terrorist had been lost.

Mr. Clarke's selective memory serves no interest but his own agenda.
He personifies the politicizing of intelligence by pointing fingers
during the political high season for failures that not only occurred on
his watch but also were due partly to his grand vision he would one day
personally authorize a drone operation to kill bin Laden.

Mr. Clarke, as he testifies today, should remember he served at the
pleasure of the American people. He was appointed to defend us against
the very terrorists he repeatedly assessed inaccurately. A grateful
nation recognizes the difficulty of his task but we ask that he stick to
facts rather than inject vitriol and untruths into a debate that must
yield answers to help protect our children in the future.

Mansoor Ijaz is chairman of Crescent Investment Management in New
York.

Walt wrote in :

AstroPax wrote:

snip

Newsmax. Drudge. Do you ever read any real news sources?

Anyway, even assuming it's true (which coming from Drudge is about a
30% chance) it doesn't rebut the factual claims of Richard Clarke.

If you're serious about this stuff, you need to take his criticisms
seriously. Dismissing them out of hand is just pure
head-in-the-sand-ism.


How about the fact that he has personal ties to the Kerry campaign. Or
that he was working on the Al Queda intelligence for 8 years in the
previous administration and did nothing about himself while he was right
in the thick of it. Or that he claimed to hold a cabinet level position
under Clinton, which he did not. Or that according to Mansoor Ijaz who
was brokering the deal to get Bin Laden, Clarke actually stonewalled his
efforts. Or that he was digruntled over being demoted by the Bush
administration. Is that enough to dismiss his claims out of hand? --
Chuck
Remove "_nospam" to reply by email

Chuck wrote:

How about the fact that he has personal ties to the Kerry campaign. Or
that he was working on the Al Queda intelligence for 8 years in the
previous administration and did nothing about himself while he was right
in the thick of it. Or that he claimed to hold a cabinet level position
under Clinton, which he did not. Or that according to Mansoor Ijaz who
was brokering the deal to get Bin Laden, Clarke actually stonewalled his
efforts. Or that he was digruntled over being demoted by the Bush
administration. Is that enough to dismiss his claims out of hand? --

No. Even if all that were true.

This guy has serious credentials. I would not dismiss his claims "out
of hand". That would be a very foolish thing to do. I would suggest
reading his book first.

Dave

Chuck wrote:
Walt wrote in :

If you're serious about this stuff, you need to take his criticisms
seriously. Dismissing them out of hand is just pure
head-in-the-sand-ism.

How about the fact that he has personal ties to the Kerry campaign. Or
that he was working on the Al Queda intelligence for 8 years in the
previous administration and did nothing about himself while he was right
in the thick of it. Or that he claimed to hold a cabinet level position
under Clinton, which he did not. Or that according to Mansoor Ijaz who
was brokering the deal to get Bin Laden, Clarke actually stonewalled his
efforts. Or that he was digruntled over being demoted by the Bush
administration. Is that enough to dismiss his claims out of hand? --

No. Even if your assertions were true (which they aren't) .

I don't know where you got them, but you should stop believing sources
who lie to you about these things. To deal with just two:

1) Ties to the Kerry Campaign? The closest association I'm aware of is
that he teaches at a school that has someone else on staff who's
associated with the Kerry campaign. (Rand Beers, a lifelong Republican
like Clarke who was appointed by Reagan and quit in disgust under Bush
Jr.) By that standard, Ann Coulter has personal ties with Madeline
Albright. Got anything more substantive tieing him to the Kerry
Campaign? Or are you just mindlessly repeating Rovian spin?


2) His position as National Coordinator for Security and
Counter-Terrorism *was* a cabinet level position in the Clinton
Administration (i.e. he had a reserved seat at Cabinet meetings) The
Bush administration decided that counter-terrorism was not important
enough to warrant cabinet level and downgraded the position. See
http://www.library.cornell.edu/colldev/mideast/clark.htm


Like I said before, his criticisms are quite serious. I know that
they're uncomfortable, and the natural reaction is to find any excuse to
ignore them. The Bush administration is providing plenty of excuses in
the form of a full frontal character assassination, but they haven't
disputed his factual claims.

Remember though, that this guy is a lifelong Republican who was
appointed by Reagan, continued to serve under Bush Sr., Clinton and Bush
Jr. His credentials are *very* serious - he was one of a very few people
with the foresight to understand what terrorists were capable of and
dedicate his professional life to trying to stop it. He was definitely
someone worth listening to before 9/11 (and I wish we had paid more
attention to him) and he's worth listening to now. You don't have to
buy his book or believe everything he says. Just give him a fair
hearing.


And frankly, the character assassination that the Bush administration
has unleashed against him is not only shameful, but a clear indication
that they can't argue with him on the *facts*.


Transcript at

http://www.sadlyno.com/archives/60mi...ranscript.html

--
//-Walt
//
// The next several posts will be about [ob]skiing. I promise.

"Walt" wrote in message
...

And frankly, the character assassination that the Bush administration
has unleashed against him is not only shameful, but a clear indication
that they can't argue with him on the *facts*.

It seems to me that regular rsa readers should be familiar with the tactics
of those who do not wish to face the facts or answer direct questions.

Walt wrote:

Like I said before, his criticisms are quite serious. I know that
they're uncomfortable, and the natural reaction is to find any excuse to
ignore them. The Bush administration is providing plenty of excuses in
the form of a full frontal character assassination, but they haven't
disputed his factual claims.

Remember though, that this guy is a lifelong Republican who was
appointed by Reagan, continued to serve under Bush Sr., Clinton and Bush
Jr. His credentials are *very* serious - he was one of a very few people
with the foresight to understand what terrorists were capable of and
dedicate his professional life to trying to stop it. He was definitely
someone worth listening to before 9/11 (and I wish we had paid more
attention to him) and he's worth listening to now. You don't have to
buy his book or believe everything he says. Just give him a fair
hearing.

He's no Democrat, no peacenik, no liberal. Quite the opposite, in fact.
This is a HAWKISH critique of the war of the terror.

And frankly, the character assassination that the Bush administration
has unleashed against him is not only shameful, but a clear indication
that they can't argue with him on the *facts*.

It's what they do against everybody who disagrees with them. They are
liars and bullies who have to cover up the facts, because the facts are
so indefensible. The reason they are so aggressive all the time is that
the center of their administration - the President of the United States
- is so weak: an ignorant, shallow mediocrity who cannot speak for
himself in an unscripted situation, a man who would never have become
President at all if it were not for family connections.

Dave