Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: i-node who wrote (156118)	12/13/2002 3:10:10 PM
From: Tenchusatsu	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1578931

David, what were the reasons given for Clinton passing up the opportunity to capture Bin Laden? Hindsight is 20/20, but even Clinton wanted Bin Laden's head on a platter. Tenchusatsu

To: i-node who wrote (156118)	12/13/2002 8:08:17 PM
From: tejek	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 1578931

Here it is......from the horse's mouth. And here is Clinton's response. His anger suggests he is second guessing how he handled this issue. Its clear that there was an opportunity to nab OBL. At the same time, there is merit to his argument that he had no basis to hold OBL. While that looks pretty lame now, back then the world was a very different place. And how do you reconcile your high opinion of Bush Sr. with OBL's reason for his fatwah on the US? Had Bush Sr. staged his attack on Iraq from Turkey or Qatar instead of Saudi Arabia, OBL wouldn't have become obssessed with the US. Remember it was American troops on Islam's holy land soil that set OBL off in the first place. How much do we blame Bush Sr and company for 9/11 because they didn't do their homework? ted ___________________________________________________________ Monday, Nov. 4, 2002 2:45 p.m. EST Clinton Explodes at Bin Laden Question Ex-President Bill Clinton blew his top on Friday when a reporter for an Oregon TV station asked him why he didn't do more to stop Osama bin Laden. In an audio clip played nationally for the first time Monday by radio host Rush Limbaugh, Clinton first grew testy, then blamed Republicans for ignoring his warnings about the terror mastermind. CLINTON: What did I do? REPORTER: You had - CLINTON: What did I do? I asked you a question. REPORTER: You asked me a question? CLINTON: What was it that I did? REPORTER: You went after [bin Laden]. I'm asking if you should have gone after him much harder. CLINTON: Let me remind you that the Republicans who are now in power attacked me for what I did. They said he wasn't a threat at all. (Unintelligible) I told them he was the number one threat in the world. They ridiculed me. Now they're saying I should have done more, when they said I should have done what I did do. (END OF EXCERPT) The ex-president declined to repeat his admission of earlier this year, when he revealed to a New York business group that he passed up a chance to have bin Laden extradited to the U.S. years before the 9/11 attacks. "Mr. bin Laden used to live in Sudan. He was expelled from Saudi Arabia in 1991, then he went to Sudan," Clinton told the Long Island Association in February. "And we'd been hearing that the Sudanese wanted America to start meeting with them again - they released him. "At the time, 1996, he had committed no crime against America so I did not bring him here because we had no basis on which to hold him, though we knew he wanted to commit crimes against America. "So I pleaded with the Saudis to take him, 'cause they could have. But they thought it was a hot potato and they didn't and that's how he wound up in Afghanistan." Clinton's much angrier exchange with the reporter came while he was campaigning for Oregon Secretary of State Bill Bradbury, who is hoping to unseat incumbent Republican Sen. Gordon Smith.