Figures dont lie. A spin is a lie.
Are you totally clueless?
What should we have done during those lost years? Clarke answered: "Blow up the camps and take out their sanctuary. Eliminate their safe haven, eliminate their infrastructure . . . That's . . . the one thing in retrospect I wish had happened."
siliconinvestor.com
Who was the president then? Um. Er.
Was it not William Jefferson Clinton?
The "Frontline" interviewer asked Clarke whether failing to blow up the camps and take out the Afghan sanctuary was a "pretty basic mistake."
Clarke's answer is unbelievable; "Well, I'm not prepared to call it a mistake. It was a judgment made by people who had to take into account a lot of other issues . . . There was the Middle East peace process going on. There was the war in Yugoslavia going on. People above my rank had to judge what could be done in the counterterrorism world at a time when they were also pursuing other national goals."
This is significant for two reasons. First, if the Clarke of 2002 was telling the truth, then the Clarke of this week--the one who told the 9/11 commission under oath that "fighting terrorism in general and fighting Al Qaeda, in particular, were an extraordinarily high priority in the Clinton administration--certainly (there was) no higher priority"--is a liar.
Geez. Fewer terrorist attacks during Clinton's years? I stand by my prior post, Al Quaeda was building its strength, living under the Clinton radar.
Clarke says he pushed very hard for such critical anti-Al Qaeda measures as aid to and cooperation with Pakistan, Uzbekistan and Afghanistan's Northern Alliance. By his own testimony, the Clinton administration then spent more than two years-- October 1998 to December 2000, the very time the 9/11 plot was hatched--fruitlessly debating this and doing absolutely nothing.
And the fault lies with Bush? Ha! You liberal, anti-American moron.
Do us all a favor and relinquish your citizenship and move to Tehran.
Look. George W. Bush did not distinguish himself on terrorism in the first eight months of his presidency. Whatever his failings, however, they pale in comparison to those of his predecessor.
Clinton was in office eight years, not eight months. As Clarke himself said in a 2002 National Security Council briefing, the Clinton administration never made a plan for dealing with Al Qaeda and never left one behind for the Bush administration.
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