Left Hand (FBI), please meet Right Hand (DoD)
You've no doubt seen the bumper sticker that proclaims, "If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention." Well, frankly Koko has not been paying attention and I'm still rather miffed at torent of crap spewing from the infected rectum that is this Administration. But this lack of focus on my part has hindered my usually pithy and pointed punditry and, more specifically, the due diligence and rapacious research one has come to associate with this blog.
Be that as it may, a casual stroll this morning by a cafeteria television tuned to CNN brought my attention to Rep. Curt Weldon, vice chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee. I heard the words "Able Danger" and recalled that I had just heard Mark Maron of Morning Sedition refer to that this morning..."hmm, that's right," I thought, "something about domestic spying by the Department of Defense..." I made a mental note right then to verify that and firm up my understanding of posse comitatus and promptly forgot all about it until I heard Congressman Weldon. Representative Weldon, a Republican from Pennsylvania, has been asking some rather embarrassing questions about the fact that the DoD knew of an al Qaeda cell in New York City led by none other than Mohammed Atta of 9-11 infamy. This was back in September of 2000, a year before 9-11! But the info never got to the FBI because...well, that's really the story, isn't it?
What the hell happened? Atta had a green card so he was to be afforded the same treatment as an American citizen. However, a 1981 amendment to the Posse Comitatus Act allows for the military to provide survelliance and intelligence support to law enforcement--they just can't be there when the caca hits the occilating whirligig. In the interest of fairness let's poke the Clinton administration with a sharp stick and ask, "Hey, this was on your watch and shortly after this the USS Cole was bombed which you linked to Osama bin Ladin. WTF, guys?!" The line I've heard from ol' Bill himself is that by the time they connected bin Laden with the Cole, it was early January 2001 and W's inauguration was less than three weeks away. So, maybe they didn't realize how great a threat Atta et al truly were...? Anyway, Gentlemen Bill thought it bad form to saddle his successor with a war on his first day on the job. Oh, they did give the incoming administration dire warnings but the good ol' boys from Texas were too busy devising disinformation schemes like the "tale of the missing 'W' keyboards". So all this info just sat and stewed while VP Cheney/Palpatine headed the administration's task force on terrorism which met all of ZERO times in the 9 months before September 11 and Richard Clarke ran around with his "hair on fire" trying to warn them.
Best of luck, Congressman Weldon, from the other side of the aisle. We need to understand how badly we dropped the ball on this so that we might truly learn the lesson that our country and our people are far too precious to be sacrificed on the altar of partisan politics.
posted by Kokopelli @ 3:36 PM
6 comments
6 Comments:
Koko - wasn't that the name of the monkey who could use sign language?
Looks like the monkey learned to type too!
You would think that even a monkey would clearly see that if one wants to point fingers and assign blame, clearly the Clinton Administration over the eight years they ignored the growing threat, must take the vast bulk of responsibility over the 8 months of the Bush Presidency prior to 911.
Read the post you're commenting on, bozo! I did finger the Clinton Admin, the same people BTW who STOPPED the Millenium plot, the same people secured the Atlanta Olympics, the same people who recognized the growing threat of non-state terrorism. Unfortunately, their timing was a bit slow and they were too considerate of (and too confident in) the incoming admin to do anything about it.
"they were too considerate of (and too confident in) the incoming admin to do anything about it."
Oh good grief, you've done it again Koko! I laughed so hard at this one that milk came out of my nose!
Well, at least you're citing what you are supposedly contesting. I gotta give you that. Not that you then counter it with anything beyond snarkiness. Still, in response...
transcript from Meet the Press, March 28, 2004:
Richard Clarke (counter-terrorism advisor to Presidents Clinton & George W. Bush) --
What was the Clinton administration doing and what did it fail to do? Because it failed to do some things. Thirty-five Americans over the course of eight years--35 Americans--were killed by al-Qaeda during the Clinton years. And as a result of those 35 deaths, President Clinton ordered the assassination of Osama bin Laden, breaking with years of tradition and precedent, and the assassination of his deputies, by CIA. He fired cruise missiles into a base where he thought bin Laden was going to be. He launched a series of diplomatic, intelligence, law enforcement, military steps against al-Qaeda.
What he failed to do was to take all of the camps in Afghanistan where these terrorists were being trained on a conveyor belt that was turning out thousands of people and sending them overseas--what he failed to do was to eliminate them, just to bomb them. Now, there were lots of other things going on in the world. And to be fair, he had the Middle East peace process close to an agreement. He was bombing in Serbia. He was bombing in Iraq. In retrospect, with 20/20 hindsight, people now understand that he should have bombed the camps.
Richard Clark -
Nice impartial source monkey!
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