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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (127535)	3/28/2004 2:44:50 AM
From: JohnM	Read Replies (6) \| Respond to of 281500

The unpolitic truth is that Al Qaeda was not right at the top of anyone's agenda before 9/11 except Richard Clarke's (certainly not Bill Clinton's), there was a massive intelligence failure, and there's plenty of blame to go around on all sides. You would need to provide some sort of documentation here. The best two books on the Clinton side of things, Sacred Terror and now Clarke, disagree with you. Both argue that Clinton grew into considering Al Q as his top priority such that by 1998 he was obssessed with it. As for the Bush folk, I agree with your point. It certainly fits the 9-11 commission's staff treatment. while the Bush adminstration had little use for what they considered a "whack-a-mole" counter-terrorism strategy and sought ways to go after the terror-hosting states. This is the core of the realist/neocon divide and Richard Clarke is on the realist side. I don't know that I would elevate this difference to the "core of the realist/neocon divide" but it was clearly the big difference. The problem, however, is that the Bush folk did little, at best, with it prior to 9-11. They were looking elsewhere, not at Al Q. This focus on other problems then led them to deal, inadequately, with the chatter in the summer of 01. Clarke's discussion of the difference between the Clinton approach in 99 to the millenium alerts and the Bush approach to the chatter of 01 is both enlightening and, so far, not been challenged in all the motive mongering the Bush attack crew mounts. As for your comments about Clarke's motives, who knows. It's become standard issue now with the Bush folk that when some former member of the administration writes critical stuff about them they let loose this rabid attack stuff that tries to distract discussion of the issues.

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (127535)	3/28/2004 3:30:17 AM
From: NightOwl	Respond to of 281500

The unpolitic truth is that Al Qaeda was not right at the top of anyone's agenda before 9/11 except Richard Clarke's (certainly not Bill Clinton's), there was a massive intelligence failure, and there's plenty of blame to go around on all sides. Why AQ should be at the top of any administration's pre or post 9/11 agenda is what I'd like to know. Frankly, placing them in the top 5 seems a stretch to me, unless you're forming your list based purely on the priorities of electoral politics. As far as Clarke's concerned, I still say he has one upped George C Scott and the entire Motion Picture Academy. He isn't "playing" at Patton. He is Patton reincarnate. I haven't read his alleged book but from all accounts if you strip out the adverbs, adjective, and express opinions you have a fairly accurate account of anti terror US style. ...True Clarke may have done far more damage to his country than Patton did, but he has the luxury of a non-military bureaucratic background; and Patton didn't outlive his usefulness long enough to write a book of memoirs in the midst of the Big Red Scare. But I am really surprised by this "massive intelligence failure" stuff. I have seen worse. Much worse. And I am not at all sure I want any "domestic intelligence system" that's much more "capable" than the one we have. Although... I expect I'm going to get it whether I want it or not. And speaking of domestic intelligence... what's cooking on the Anthrax investigation front? <g> 0\|0

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (127535)	3/28/2004 3:50:55 AM
From: Ilaine	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

I suspect that Clarke's problem is more fundamental, and it has to do with theories of mind. Remember my anecdotes (cribbed from neurologist Oliver Sachs) about the autistic children who could not comprehend that other children could believe something that they, themselves, knew to be false? The autistic child watches two children hide a candy, and then later watches while one of the two children moves the candy, while the other child is not present. An autistic child cannot comprehend that the other child does not know, cannot know, that the candy has been moved while she was not present. An autistic child cannot comprehend that someone else can reasonably believe something that the autistic child personally knows to be untrue. If the other child says, "I did not know, I could not know," does the autistic child say "you're lying"? I don't know but we are in that situation with Clarke. Two and a half years later, Clarke insists that Bush and Rice must have known things that even he, at that time, did not know. He's completely forgotten that he did not know these things then. He knows them now, thus, he must have always known them. And Bush and Rice must have always known them, too. He has a very warped theory of mind. Or he could simply be evil. Or it could all simply be typical Washington scorched-earth spinball/hardball as she is played in an election year. In Clarke's corner, Faultline, Stockman Scott, E, John M (resurrected from the grave just for this, apparently), all insisting that Clarke is as pure as the driven snow. And against Clarke, well, you know. Politics? Nah, couldn't be.