Clinton's blunders??? i think i got this from one of Les post.
Scott: America Made Mistake
By BETSY BETHEL
Retired Army Col. Charles Scott said America has made grave mistakes by not putting an end to terrorism long before Sept. 11. In the aftermath of the attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C., he believes Congress must officially declare war on terrorists to solidify the country's goals.
Scott, who addressed the Woman's Club of Wheeling Friday, is one of America's first victims of terrorism. He was the senior military officer on duty in the American Embassy in Tehran, Iran when militant Iranian students seized the embassy and took him and 51 others hostage in 1979. They were held for 444 days.
Ever since his release, Scott has been warning American audiences about the volatile situation in the Middle East and threat of terrorism that goes hand-in-hand with that unrest.
In fact, Scott said America's first grave mistake in the war on terrorism was paying $8 billion for his and the other hostage's release in 1981. This was seen by the Iranians as a victory and a validation of terrorism as a viable foreign policy.
The Iranians thought they walked away the winners "with no cost to them whatsoever in blood or treasure,'' Scott said. From that point on, those who wanted to have their way with America felt they "could conduct acts of terrorism against America and get away with it.''
"For 20 years, we've known the threat was there and basically we've done nothing significant about it until Sept. 11, when we really got our noses bloodied,'' Scott said.
He cited many examples of terrorist acts against America that have not met with significant reprisal, including the 1998 bombings of the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. For those acts, Scott said, President Clinton launched a "feel-good missile strike on some empty (terrorist) training camps'' in Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, Saudi exile Osama bin Laden, who is thought to be responsible for the embassy bombings, was sitting back and wondering what it would take to destroy America, Scott said. Bin Laden, he said, must have figured that Americans don't care about their own diplomats and military personnel, based on their lack of response to previous attacks, so he decided in 1993 to go after its citizens by bombing the World Trade Center in New York City.
That plot failed, but eight years later, a similar plot that bin Laden is suspected to have masterminded culminated in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks that killed thousands of Americans.
However, America is still as powerful as ever, Scott said. Bin Laden might have thought the country would "fall apart at the seams'' after the attacks, but he was wrong.
The fact that firefighters and rescue workers pulled together and toiled around the clock for weeks after the attacks must has been "tremendously debilitating to people like Osama bin Laden,'' he said.
Scott has no serious criticism of the way the Bush administration is handling the reprisal for the attacks, other than the lack of an official declaration of war.
"We need a declaration of war so that every human being in this country knows that they are involved, too,'' Scott said.
Scott also briefly discussed his involvement with a lawsuit he and some of the former Iran hostages have brought against their captor's nation. The hostages are seeking punitive damages against Iran for the unspeakable torture they suffered during their captivity.
Scott told the Wheeling audience he was tortured 12 to 24 hours a day for the first month he was held. He was constantly threatened with immediate execution, beaten on the soles of his fee with steel rods, "tied up like a pretzel,'' awakened every 15 minutes so he could not get restful sleep and kept in a 12-by-12 foot bare concrete cell without a toilet.
He and others testified to the atrocities on Monday in Washington before U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan. The testimony nearly was thwarted in an attempt by the U.S. Justice Department to preserve a newly formed alliance with Iran following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The judge allowed the testimony, but he said he will have to consider the Justice Department's plea.
Scott said the Justice Department is trying to protect Iran using a 20-year-old accord signed in Algiers. The accord, which led to the hostages' release, prohibits future claims against Iran. Scott said the accord is null and void following a 1996 anti-terrorism law that allows victims to sue nations that sponsor terrorism.
"Let me tell you this, ... if you use the State Department (sic) logic, 20 years from now, the United States government will be defending Osama bin Laden and the al-Qaida network! Does that make any sense? Not to me it doesn't,'' Scott said.
Scott also gave an inspirational talk about how he survived his captivity by setting realistic goals and sticking to them.
He said that on the day that was to begin his month of torture, he had a clear mental image of pages from a book he'd read years earlier about people who survived torture and brainwashing behind the "Bamboo Curtain'' in China.
Scott remembers seeing in his mind's eye, word for word, passages that stated the survivors had two things in common: they all had a deep and abiding faith in God and they all set a series of realistic goals for themselves.
Setting realistic goals means setting goals that capitalize on your strengths, consider your weaknesses, consider your aspirations and consider your environment, Scott said he remembered from the book.
That day, he set four realistic goals: first, he would not say or do anything to embarrass the United States, second, he would not say or do anything to bring pressure or danger to the other hostages, third, he would not write down anything for his captors, because it might be misused against him and the United States, and fourth, he would not aid and abet the Iranians in any way.
During his weeks of torture, when a voice inside would tell him to give up, a stronger voice told him he set four goals and he must see them through.
And he did. One day, one of his captors banged his fist on a table and told him he must be "the dumbest American colonel'' because he had told them nothing. "A flush came over me,'' Scott said. "I realized I'd just won the toughest fight of my entire life.''
"Bringing this to today, we must set realistic goals for ourselves and stick to them, even if it costs your life. Because if there are things worth living for,'' Scott said with an emotional catch in his voice, "there are still some things worth dying for.''
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