Back to the law-enforcement model?

Wrong question.

Obama cites the “success” of the law enforcement model
Question, Does the law enforcement model work?

The 1993 WTC attack, everyone who was caught and tried was convicted, true.

How many were not caught? 12 out of 171

Who financed the 1993 WTC attack? KSM, yep THAT KSM.
Where did KSM get the money? OBL, yep that OBL.

How did Clinton react to the attack, he urged calm.
http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2001/12
/5/142108.shtml

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

And as all good leaders, he lead by example, he didn’t “overreact” in fact he really didn’t even react.

Ya just gotta love this revelation to insight after 911.

“Chuck Pena, senior defense analyst for the Cato Institute, agreed that Clinton’s actions after the 1993 attack failed to match his words. But, Pena said, the circumstances were different than they are today.
“[Clinton's] actions were not necessarily 100 percent reflective of his rhetoric, nor were they effective.” However, “there are some reasons for some of that. At the time, we were not looking at four or five thousand casualties as a result of a single terrorist act.””

Translation: Clinton didn’t realize that the objective of the 1993 WTC bombing, blowing out the base support of the building, was intended to bring the building down! With everyone in it!

1996 Khobar Towers Bombing.

Shiite militant terrorists with connections to bin Laden are thought to have been responsible for the attacks.

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

And then did nothing, nada, Zippo, Nyet.

“Pena said one must consider that terrorism was not the high-priority issue it is today.

“Part of it reflects, at that time, a certain tolerance for terrorism that was, compared to September 11, pretty small scale. I think the Clinton administration may have been overly cautious about not wanting to respond disproportionately to the terrorist acts that were perpetrated.””

We have to cut Clinton some slack here cuz as we all have heard for YEARS about Clinton “All he did was get a BJ” and that is obviously true.

1998 Embassy Bombings

The attacks were blamed on bin Laden’s terrorist group, al-Qaeda, which by this time had developed into a worldwide network.

On Aug. 20, 1998, Clinton ordered cruise missile attacks on suspected terrorist training camps in Afghanistan and a pharmaceutical plant in Khartoum, Sudan.

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

BTW: the pharmaceutical plant in Khartoum, Sudan, we were told was a Saddam AQ operation.

2000 USS Cole Bombing

On Oct. 12, 2000, terrorists bombed the USS Cole as it sat in the Yemeni port of Aden. The bomb killed 17 U.S. sailors.

“If, as it now appears, it was an act of terrorism, it was a despicable and cowardly act,” he said.

“We will find out who was responsible, and hold them accountable. If their intention was to deter us from our mission of promoting peace and security in the Middle East, they will fail, utterly.”

Clinton,

1993, “trying to figure out who did this and why”
Clinton said the United States was “absolutely determined to oppose the cowardly cruelty of terrorists, wherever we can.”

Clinton, 2000,

“”We will find out who was responsible, and hold them accountable”
“If, as it now appears, it was an act of terrorism, it was a despicable and cowardly act,” he said.

Does this need an explanation?

DSchoen on May 28, 2009 at 6:19 PM

BUT, that wasn’t between 1993 and 9/11. Small technical point, but it was the question asked.
todler on May 28,

Todler, that’s the point.

The “planed attack” DIDN’T happen under the Bush model.

Prior to 911, we were using the Clinton model of “law enforcement” or after the fact/attack.

DSchoen on May 28, 2009 at 6:32 PM

Just out of curiosity, how does the FBI question a suspect that has asked for a lawyer and invoked his right to remain silent?
rw on May 28

D’oh!

I’m still trying to figure out how, Matthew Alexander, (not his real name), determined through his own interrogations of 300 detainees and the supervision of a thousand more, that 95% of all suicide bombers in Iraq WERE motivated by tails of abuse at Gitmo.

How do you interrogate someone AFTER they blowed them self’s up!

DSchoen on May 28, 2009 at 7:04 PM

Constantine
Against what target?

How bout OBL?

The Clinton admin knew who OBL was and knew he was the money man for the 1993 WTC bombing.

Richard Miniter, Brussels-based investigative journalist.

Richard Miniter: One of the big myths about the Clinton years is that no one knew about bin Laden until Sept. 11, 2001. In fact, the bin Laden threat was recognized at the highest levels of the Clinton administration as early as 1993. What’s more, bin Laden’s attacks kept escalating throughout the Clinton administration; all told bin Laden was responsible for the deaths of 59 Americans on Clinton’s watch.

And the attempted murder of tens of thousands!
If the 1993 WTC bombing was “successful” the tower would have instantly collapsed with no one getting out. ALL DEAD.

Richard Miniter

Why did Clinton treat the attack as a law-enforcement matter? Several reasons. In the first few days, Clinton refused to believe that the towers had been bombed at all — even though the FBI made that determination within hours. He speculated a electrical transformer had exploded or a bank heist went bad.

More importantly, treating the bombing as a criminal matter was politically advantageous. A criminal matter is a relatively tidy process. It has the political benefit of insulating Clinton from consequences; after all, he was only following the law. He is not to blame if the terrorists were released on a “technicality” or if foreign nations refuse to honor our extradition requests. Oh well, he tried.

Lopez: What most surprised you to learn about the Clinton years and terrorism?

Miniter: Three things:
1) That the Sept. 11 attacks were planned in May 1998 in the Khalden Camp in southeastern Afghanistan, according to American and British intelligence officers I interviewed. In other words, the 9/11 attacks were planned on Clinton’s watch.
2) The sheer number of bin Laden’s attacks on Americans during the Clinton years.
3) And how much senior Clinton-administration officials knew about bin Laden and how little they did about it.

Lopez: This sounds like this could all be right-wing propaganda. How can you convince readers otherwise?
Miniter: Most of my best sources were senior Clinton officials, including both of his national-security advisers, his first CIA director, Clinton’s counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke, Madeline Albright, and others. Plus, I interviewed scores of career federal officials. None of them are card-carrying members of the vast right-wing conspiracy.
And, while I shine the light on Clinton’s shortcomings in dealing with bin Laden, I also give credit where it is due. Chapter nine is all about one of the greatest (and least-known) Clinton victories over bin Laden — the successful thwarting of a series of plots to murder thousands of Americans on Millennium night, 1999.

DSchoen on May 28, 2009 at 9:47 PM