Bill Clinton on 9-10-01: I Could Have Killed Bin Laden
Talk about bad timing. Bill Clinton gave a speech in Australia the day before 9-11 in which he mentions that he passed up a chance to kill Bin Laden because it would have meant killing 300 innocent women and children.
You know how it is; in hindsight it looks like a terrible decision. But it's probably defensible on the basis of what Clinton knew at the time. I do find it interesting that he mentions 300 innocent women and children. What, no innocent men in the area? Or do they just not factor into the equation? I also wonder what the acceptable number would have been.
posted by Pat @ 5:31 PM
66 comments
66 Comments:
Actually, he couldn't have killed Bin Laden at that time.
You see, his Illuminati masters based in Tel Aviv had told him not to, as Larry Silverstein hadn't met with Giuliani yet to get him to hire the demolition experts to place the hidden explosives in the 3 WTC buildings, and to hire all the NYFD and NYPD personnel about would keep quiet about the operation. Plus, they hadn't decided on a Republican Presidential candidate who would be in on the whole plan and the elevator operator uniforms weren't ready.
Makes perfect sense - all very plausible and logical.
In othet news, Tenet felt that if Condi had acted on the warnings he gave her on July 10, 2001, then 9/11 could have been prevented. Cofer Black said "The only thing we didn't do was pull the trigger to the gun we were holding to her head." Tenet also felt that had the FBI run a simple credit card check on two known al qaeda agents known by bothe rFDBI and the CIA to be inside the USA, then the FBI would have found that they had purchased ten airline tickets dated 9/11/01.
See Woodward, State of Denial p. 80
The reliability of Clinton's tale is damaged when he claims that killing bin Laden would have required that he destroy "a little town called Kandahar". Kandahar is the second largest city in Afghanistan, with a population of over 450,000. Al Qaeda's Tarnak Farms training facility was near the Kandahar airport, so very likely Clinton is confusing the suburban facility with the town itself, but it's still very telling in terms of showing Clinton's ignorance about Afghanistan.
I'm shocked that anyone would opine that killing three hundred innocents to get one evil-doer would have been the right call. Leaving morality aside, it would have done enormous damage to the international image of the USA, and it very likely would have been impossible to provide convincing evidence that such an attack was justified. I must suppose that the calculus of the evaluation that the attack would have been right is skewed by the notion that the lives of Persian civilians are worth less than are European lives. In 1996 bin Laden was unknown, and the 1998 African Embassy bombings had not happened yet. Killing hundreds of innocents to get a guy who hasn't yet done what you're killing him for is a pretty cynical call.
Bin Laden was believed to have been in the fall of 2000 at Tarnak Farms, and again the decision was made not to strike.
At the time Clinton was facing passive resistance from the Navy, the Secretary of Defense, and the CIA when it came to getting bin Laden--and he later said he was reluctant to start a war against al Qaeda (and Taliban) in the last months of his Presidency. Had Gore been permitted by the Supreme Court to take office, Philip Zelikow would not have demoted Richard Clarke, and Clarke's plan to go after al Qaeda both financially and militarily probably would have been started in early 2001.
It wasn't necessary to kill bin Laden to stop 9/11. It was only necessary to heed warnings from 13 foreign countries, 4 FBI office and the CIA. Had ordinary and perfectly legal surveillance procedures been done, the 9/11 plot could have been detected and prevented.
I just love that horsecrap about 13 foreign countries warning us about the 9-11 attacks. And the 4 FBI offices; was one of them the Phoenix office?
I think Brian's having a change of heart guys:
It wasn't necessary to kill bin Laden to stop 9/11. It was only necessary to heed warnings from 13 foreign countries, 4 FBI office and the CIA. Had ordinary and perfectly legal surveillance procedures been done, the 9/11 plot could have been detected and prevented.
According to that he's not saying it was an Inside Job.
Looks like a twoofer kook slipped through a primary.
There is a whole lot wrong with Michael Peroutka, GOP candidate for the Anne Arundel County Council in Maryland. His neo-Confederate attitudes are drawing the most attention, but he also also at least distributed twoof material in the past.
http://fauxcapitalist.com/tag/michael-peroutka/
Like most truthers that are still out there 13 years later, he cannot choose.
It is both for him : terrorists hijacking planes and crashing them , combined with the govt planting explosives and thermite to finish the job..
But don't call it an inside job...
Cons, he sounds like quite a crackpot and he spreads it around. But County Council is pretty small beer and I am uncomfortable with the source for the Trutherism. Let's hope the GOP continues to disavow him and he goes down in flames in November.
Pat, admittedly, his connection to the twoof movement is a bit tenuous. However, I wouldn't dismiss a twoof candidate for office below the state or federal level. These clowns would milk any otherwise legitimate platform to its fullest. They'd love to have a seat on the NYC city council for sure.
This comment has been removed by the author.
DWM, I never said 9/11 was an inside job. I said the official investigations were incomplete and corrupt, that the truthers have valid questions, that new investigations are needed, and that "debunkers" are poorly informed and don't mind lying to give the impression that they know what they're talking about (when they don't).
I don't know if 9/11 was an inside job or not. History will decide, of course. The evidence that it was is very strong, sop it's a question well worth examining.
th, I see no need to choose. Truth is not a football game with two sides. Choosing when we haven't even had a proper investigation yet is irresponsible. Why must one choose between hijacked planes and controlled demolition? Why can't one have both? If you poisoned someone to make him stupid and the shoved him out in front of a speeding car, would that fact that he was hit by a car do away with the fact that he was poisoned?
Pat, what is horsecrap about the warnings of upcoming attacks from the FBI's Washington, Phoenix, Minneapolis, and NY offices; and from Morocco, Italy, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, UAE, Germany, France, the UK, Cayman Islands, Argentina, Russia, and Taliban?
The Israeli warning even named names. They said 19 terrorists were inside the US with big plans. Only four of the names have been released. Two of them were alleged 9/11 pilots (Atta and al Shehhi) and two known al Qaeda agents (al Mihdhar and al Hazmi) known by both the FBI and the CIA to be in the country whose purchase of ten airline tickets dated 9/11/01 could have been turned up on a simple credit card check.
So what's horseshit about that?
In other news, Richard Gage appears for 40 minutes on C-Cpan, the Highrise Safety Initiative people announce they'd reached their signature goal of 100,000; and Willie Rodriguez is still not in the news, anywhere. I hope Elvis is OK!
and Willie Rodriguez is still not in the news, anywhere
That is, if you don't know how to use Google.
But anyway: your comment proves again how obsessed you are by him.
Face it: he went on with his life, you are still stuck in the past.
Why must one choose between hijacked planes and controlled demolition? Why can't one have both?
Precisely. You cannot choose between the two. You want it all....
If you poisoned someone to make him stupid and the shoved him out in front of a speeding car, would that fact that he was hit by a car do away with the fact that he was poisoned?
So you are basically saying that Al Qaeda rigged the sky scrapers with explosives and termite to demolish them in a controlled way and then hijacked planes to fly into them, to make it look like the buildings collapsed due to the plane crashes and not by other means. To do so, they rigged the buildings secretly and also took the effort to hide the explosions so that no one would notice that the buildings were demolished.
You also state that the official investigations were corrupt.
Meaning that Al Qaeda paid them off to make sure that no report would conclude that the destruction of the buildings was caused by a combination of plane crashes and a controlled demolition...
And you find it odd that people look fuzzy at you when posing such hypothesis..
I don't know if 9/11 was an inside job or not. History will decide, of course. The evidence that it was is very strong
So the evidence of an inside job is very strong, but you still don't know if it was an inside job..
That contradicts each other.
The fact that your so called evidence cannot convince you means that it is weak, not strong.
the Highrise Safety Initiative people announce they'd reached their signature goal of 100,000
Seen their add:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZ5s5xGI9PI
They speak of safety of high rises in case of fire, not about your inside job theory.
They say they want to investigate the collapse of wtc7 to ensure that other high rise towers are safe during fire..
They ommit the fact that there already has been an investigation which has shown which flaws there were in the redundancy of the structure which caused a local collapse to turn into a global collapse.
I doubt very much that they can produce an convincing argument why the investigation of NIST should be repeated.
I guess Gage did get 40 minutes on CSPAN. Although I don't think he is the first twoofer to get on CSPAN, the rest of the goofs are going apeshit like this is some big accomplishment. I love quotes like "the vast majority of the callers were supportive." Yes, because the only people who pay attention to twoofer crap are other twoofers.
Having said that, I can't find the initiative wording but if it is as innocuous as the title, it might pass. What would it stipulate? If it doesn't require the study include twoofers, that means while it would still be a waste of time, it would be staffed with sane people and thus wouldn't a platform for the anti-American nutcases like Gage and Alex Jones.
I don't know if 9/11 was an inside job or not.
Then why are you speculating about it if you don't know? All you can do is assume and provide nothing to help back up your statements.
The evidence that it was is very strong, sop it's a question well worth examining.
But you haven't shown any kind of evidence to determine that. So how can you say that there's evidence but won't or can't produce it? I'd say you're just providing double negatives against yourself.
"I never said 9/11 was an inside job."...."I don't know if 9/11 was an inside job or not. History will decide, of course. The evidence that it was is very strong"
So in one post you contradict yourself. It is a serious mental flaw you have.
"I said the official investigations were incomplete and corrupt,"....
Which is another way of claiming a cover-up, meaning inside job.
"that the truthers have valid questions, that new investigations are needed,"
No they don't have valid questions. They have stupid questions that when answered they change the questions...because they are mentally ill.
"and that "debunkers" are poorly informed and don't mind lying to give the impression that they know what they're talking about (when they don't)."
Translation: Normal people don't buy into our paranoid, anti-American, anti-Semitic bullshit.
This comment has been removed by the author.
mgf, your belief that there is a contradiction between "I never said 9/11 was an inside job" and "the evidence that it was is very strong" shows your limited analytical powers. Perhaps you should work on those by pursuing further education.
Why do you insist on marrying "cover-up" to "inside job"? It sounds like you're offering discount prices on package deals.
The truthers have valid questions, and 9/11 Commissioners have acknowledged that this is the case. 273 of the widows' 300 questions were not answered, and NIST did not address the ten essential mysteries of the collapses of the towers.
There is nothing paranoid or anti-semitic about demanding thorough, complete, and honest investigations of what happened on 9/11 and its associated intelligence failures, air-defense failures, structural failures, and investigatory failures.
It's all very simple, Brian is a big tent conspiracy theorist. It doesn't matter if his statements are self contradictory rambling. What matters is that he always has a position to retreat to.
DWM, I never said 9/11 was an inside job.
No Ian, an inside job could not go forward with no Muslims. The Towers and the Pentagon couldn't just blow up by themselves. Even people like you would notice, and there would be no excuse to take over Afghanistan and invade Iraq.
This comment has been removed by the author.
When people around here can't even tell the difference between an opinion and a fact, it's no surprise that they're also confused about what a contradiction is.
My position is a fortress of irrefutable facts.
@brian:
That is the fun with truthers: they think that they know it all, yet even after 14 years, they cannot prove anything.
Face it Brian, you have nothing..
@GMH: so Brian continues to contradict himself...
So surprise here...
Why do you insist on marrying "cover-up" to "inside job"?
Explain this ( i know you won't, but i ask it anyway): why would the govt cover up the controlled demolition if it wasn't an inside job, but performed by the same terrorist group as the plane hijackings?
The truthers have valid questions
You haven't posed any valid questions.
and 9/11 Commissioners have acknowledged that this is the case.
That is what you are saying, but since you are some anonymous john doe on the internet, without any proof your statements are m00t.
273 of the widows' 300 questions were not answered
They aren't truthers.
and NIST did not address the ten essential mysteries of the collapses of the towers.
You mean the mysteries that you never dare to mention here.
why should NIST address some mythical list of mysteries?
Can you prove that they were assigned to do so?
Blah, blah, blah. You're silly.
mirrortalk, brian....
"there is nothing paranoid or anti-semitic about demanding thorough, complete, and honest investigations of what happened on 9/11"
And yet the only ones demanding a new investigation are neo-nazis and Code Stink America-Haters.
"...and its associated intelligence failures..."
Investigated multiple times.
"...air-defense failures..."
Investigated.
"...structural failures..."
Investigated, and if you look at the recommendations and changes made to building codes you get a solid picture of why each of the buildings failed.
You know, if you weren't a dipshit.
"...and investigatory failures."
Investigated.
Nothing would change by investigating again. Lets be clear, you aren't interested in answers - no Troofer is - you want a witch hunt. Nothing more.
Marc, your claims are just lies.
Are the 2200 architects and engineers for truth " neo-nazis and Code Stink America-Haters"? Do you have evidence to support this claim?
The intelligence failures have not been investigated. Did Maltbie and Frasca and Corsi and Rossini and Miller and Sarshar testify under oath? Did 3 FBI agents cited by American Conservative magazine who wanted to testify but could not do so unless they were subpoenaed ever testify? Has Sibel Edmonds been permitted to tell what she knows?
Has CIA agent Larry Mitchell testified about his meeting with bin Laden two months before 9/11? Has the NSA ever been questioned about its knowledge of 9/11?
The air defense failures have not been investigated. NORAD officials were permitted to lie to the 9/11 Commission without any accountability, and the 9/11 Commission simply made up the data points they needed to make NORAD's shifting stories make some kind of sense.
The structural failures have not been properly investigated. NIST's collapse theory about WTC7 demands the removal of essential structural elements from the system if it is to be plausible at all. NIST's investigation of the towers' collapses did not analyze the collapses.
The investigatory failures have not been investigated. Condi Rice was never prosecuted for perjury. The 28 pages from the Joint Inquiry have not been declassified. The widows 273 unanswered questions have not been answered. NIST's failure to address the ten essential mysteries of the towers' collapses has not been corrected.
You make stuff up to protect your illusions.
It all has been investigated, Brian.
That you don't like the way it was investigated or the outcome is another issue.
And to no surprise as you fall over such minor details like who wrote the NIST FAQ
Are the 2200...
Argumentum ad populum
If Clinton, or Bush or any of their ilk were concerned about the lives of women and children, they would stop our extermination by fluoridation which IS the #1 cause of hardening of the arteries world wide and it lowers IQ. Search: fluoride hazard, chlorine hazard, milk hazard, sugar hazard, alum hazard. Search: water contaminants
Open: www.morpix.biz/wipeout
Bill Gates wants to depopulate with VACCINES! See and hear him conspiring www.morpix.biz/gates We made him rich and he conspires to make us expired!
th, it has not been investigated. NIST claims they did not analyze the collapses. There is no indication that the 9/11 Commission investigated 91% of the widows' questions.
It is not an argumentum ad populum to ask Marc to back up his claim that truthers are "neo-nazis and Code Stink America-Haters". It is a convenient sample. If Marc can not indentify any neo-nazis among the 2200 signatories to the architects' and engineers' petition (and he can't) that shows that he's fos (and he is).
..NIST claims they did not analyze the collapses....
They analyzed what they were assigned to analyze
That is enough.
Their number one objective was to explain why and how the buildings collapsed.
How can they explain how the buildings collapsed without analyzing the collapses?
Their number one objective was to explain why and how the buildings collapsed.
Nope, their objective was to investigate if and in what way the structure of the building and the used material played a role in the global collapse of the building and to come with recommandations for new regulations.
The most repeated lie: "Government spends money." Where would they get
money when all that we have in banks is numbers? Why would they need any money when all of us are
risking our lives for more numbers?
This comment has been removed by the author.
th, the number one objective of NIST's investigation was to explain why and how the buildings collapsed. It says so in the introduction to NCSTAR1.
You claim their objective was "to investigate if and in what way the structure of the building and the used material played a role in the global collapse of the building and to come with recommendations for new regulations." Where do you get that language?
Winsmith, the point is that the numbers are supposed to add up. Debits and credits and all that.
Your credit card bill is all just numbers too, right? But as long as you keep scribbling numbers on a monthly check and those numbers are supported by the numbers on your bank statement, you can keep on charging stuff and running up the tab. It's just numbers but you can swipe away booze and food and clothes and a vacation at Club Med.
So what is your point?
@brian
Read the preface.
But besides that, they have shown in their report why and how the buildings collapsed.
This comment has been removed by the author.
You confused the goals with the objectives, and implicitly claimed that the #1 objective was not the #1 objective when in fact the #1 objective was, as I said, to explain "why and how" the towers collapsed.
Your claim that they explained how the buildings collapses is ridiculous when they claim that they did not analyze the collapses and when their report dodged the ten essential mysteries of the collapses.
They claim this, they claim that..
The fun with you truthers is that you are using quote mining to prove whatever point you are trying to make.
I don't care about what NIST claims, i only look at the fact.
And the fact is that NIST released a 10,000 paper report explaining the collapse of the towers.
That is more than enough.
Nobody, except you, is interested in why Girder X fell to the left in stead of to the right.
"their report dodged the ten essential mysteries of the collapses."
There are no ten essential mysteries.
"You confused the goals with the objectives"
Goal and objective means the same thing.
You are the one making a fuzz out of it.
Like you did when you demanded to know the name of the person who wrote the nist faq.
As if that had anything to do with the subject..
I didn't mine anything. I accurately stated what the #1 objective of the investigation was. And you lied about it.
If goal and objective are the same thing, the explaining "why and how" the towers' collapsed was not only the #1 objective of the investigation, it was also a goal of the investigation, so you lied TWICE when you claimed that explaining why and how was not an objective.
There are ten essential mysteries, and NIST"s failure to explain them makes your claim that NIST explained the collapses absurd.
@Brian: the goal of the investigation is to find if and in what way the construction and used materials contributed in the global collapse of the buildings and to come with recommendations for building regulations.
That is what NIST is about. Nothing more, nothing less.
In order to do so, NIST must look at why the building collapsed and how.
And that is what they did. NIST has shown in its report that the towers collapsed due to a combination of structural failure caused by the plane impact and further structural failure due to the fires.
NIST has also shown how the towers collapsed: the floors collapsed around the core, which initially remained standing and followed the collapse later on, while the perimeter was pushed outwards.
NIST has stated that they didn't further investigate the details of the collapse after the initiation of the global collapse. And that is logical, since when the global collapse started, there was no stopping it. You acknowledged that when you stated that there was no point in rigging the lower floors with explosives. They would collapse anyway.
So what is the point in starting a new investigation into the details of the collapse itself?
Same with the rest of your mumbo jumbo: what is the point? What would it add to what we already know?
There are ten essential mysteries
Nope, there aren't.
The fact that you fail to name them proves it.
Also, the preface of the nist report doesn't name solving your so called ten essential mysteries as their goal of objective.
So why should they explain them?
They are your mythical mysteries, not theirs.
"I didn't mine anything."
Yes you did, but you don't seem to know what mining means.
Hint: it doesn't mean that you aren't accurate in your mining.
th, NIST did not explain "why the building collapsed and how". They claim they did not analyze the collapses. They did not even address the ten essential mysteries of the collapses. They can not explain how the buildings collapsed if they do not analyze the collapses and do not explain the mysteries of the collapses.
Your assumption that once the collapse started there was no stopping it is unjustified. NIST did not show that. They assumed it.
The point in having complete investigations is to fuilfill NIST's objective of explaining why and how the towers collapsed, and of explaining the ten mysteries associated with those collapses.
NIST should explain the ten mysteries because an hypothesis that explains more of the observables is better than one which explains fewer of them. That's how science works.
I know what quote mining means. It means taking a quote out of context. I didn't mine anything. I said NIST's #1 objective was to explain why and how the towers collapsed. That was true.
Your persistent lying is getting to be quite tiresome.
Again a lot of babling but no list of those mythical essential mysteries.
I said NIST's #1 objective was to explain why and how the towers collapsed. That was true
It is also incomplete, thus a quote mine.
"to fuilfill NIST's objective of explaining why and how the towers collapsed, and of explaining the ten mysteries associated with those collapses. "
explaining your imaginary ten mysteries is not an objective, nor a goal of NIST.
So not only do you quote mine NIST, you also make it look like that there were other objectives that they had to fullfil....
A real need for a new investigation should imply that another outcome is expected or that new information about the collapses would suggest that.
Both are not the case.
So there is no need for a new investigation.
And you know that, that is why you are babling about 1 sentence from the preface of the report, which in your non expert opinion wasn't met (and that opinion isn't even based on the report, but on some statement) and your so called essential mysteries which aren't essential enough to mention in this discussion.
th, I have many times listed the ten essential mysteries. Any fool can google them. It is useful to me rhetorically to point out that you're a fool who can not. So keep on whining, fool. Whine louder and longer!
I said NIST's #1 objective was to explain why and how the towers collapsed. That was true, and that was complete. NIST's #1 objective was to explain why and how the towers collapsed. You lie like Ian. You lie like M. Gregory Ferris. You lie like Guitar Bill. You lie like Willie Fraudriguez.
Explaining the ten essential mysteries of the collapses is essential if NIST is to do a credible job of meeting their #1 objective of explaining why and how the buildings collapses. NIST's failure to explain those mysteries renders their report incredibile.
A real need for a new investigation is to have a thorough, complete, and honest investigation employing proper scientific methodology to support its thesis beyond a reasonable doubt and with a preponderance of evidence. NIST has not met that standard.
Far from "babbling about 1 sentence from the preface" I am quite lucidly pointing out that NIST failed to fulfill the #1 objective of its investigation.
Please explain your thinking about how an investigation can explain how a building collapsed when the investigation does not analyze the collapse, and does not explain the ten mysteries associated with that collapse.
What epistemic criteria do you employ in your standard for sufficient explanation? Is it number of pages? Number of dollars spent? Computer models? Authorial credentials? What is your standard? Do you claim that the current report meets scientific standards, meets the standard of "beyond a reasonable doubt" or meets the standard of "preponderance of evidence"?
Pat, you still didn't say what was horsecrap horsecrap about 13 foreign countries warning us about the 9-11 attacks, and 4 FBI offices, and the CIA.
Did you know about the FBI memo entitled "Kamikaze Pilots"?
I have many times listed the ten essential mysteries.
So it shouldn't be a problem for you to list them again.
Yet you don't list them, despite the fact that you do take the time typing lengthy replies.
That can only mean one thing: you are afraid that those so called mysteries will blow up in your face once you mention them in this discussion.
I said NIST's #1 objective was to explain why and how the towers collapsed.
Which they did.
That was true, and that was complete.
Indeed, it was a complete quote mine.
You omit the other goals and objectives listed in the preface.
Explaining the ten essential mysteries of the collapses is essential
No, it isn't.
NIST task isn't to hunt down some mysteries that you find essential.
Like you said: their objective was to explain the why and how of the collapse, not to explain your mysteries.
A real need for a new investigation is to have a thorough, complete, and honest investigation employing proper scientific methodology to support its thesis beyond a reasonable doubt and with a preponderance of evidence. NIST has not met that standard.
Not the case.
As seen in the preface of the report: the goal of the NIST investigation is to discover if and in what way the structure of the building and the used materials played a rol in the global collapse. And the reason why NIST has to investigate that is to come with recommendations for new building regulations that will make buildings more safe.
That is what it should be all about. Not about some scientific game or hunting down mysteries that people like you come up with.
Please explain your thinking about how an investigation can explain how a building collapsed when the investigation does not analyze the collapse, and does not explain the ten mysteries associated with that collapse.
First of all, you haven't shown any mystery that is associated with the collapse.
Second: hunting down mysteries wasn't the goal, nor the objective of the NIST research.
The goal is as i described above and the objectives to investigate the collapse should be seen in that light. NIST wasn't assigned to cover every detail of every second of the collapse, nor assigned to explain exactly why Girder X fell in whatever direction.
What epistemic criteria do you employ in your standard for sufficient explanation?
The main objective of a building is that its inhabitants are safe inside.
And that is what an investigation should reveal: in what way did the structure of the tower, the used materials, etc. fail in protecting the people inside during the attacks on 911 and in what way can we ensure that more people would survive such an disaster.
NIST has investigated that and came with recommendations for new building regulations.
So They did their job and did it sufficient enough.
Do you claim that the current report meets scientific standards.
Irrelevant.
meets the standard of "beyond a reasonable doubt"
Also irrelevant.
or meets the standard of "preponderance of evidence"?
Also irrelevant.
None of that is the goal nor the objective of the NIST investigation.
If others want a report that meets scientific standards beyond reasonable doubt, meeting the standaard of "preponderance of evidence", they are free to do so. more than 10,000 pages of documentation and more than 2 terrabytes of video material are available for them.
No one ever did, which indicates that there is no real need for such an investigation.
You still didn't say what was horsecrap horsecrap about 13 foreign countries warning us
Why should he state the obvious?
Post a Comment
<< Home