The Democrat Thread

[Y2HH]

Dealing with global recessions and deciding whether or not to take threats from AQ seriously are not exactly the same category. There is nothing that prevented Bush & Co from giving credibility to those threats instead of dismissing them out-of-hand. Aside from their incompetence.

 

But they are in the same category because it's part of the job description.

[southsider2k5]

What on earth am I being dishonest about? I did not ever say or imply that he was in office for 5 years before 9/11. I said he and his administration were incompetent. They were. His record over 8 years bears that out. This most recent revelation, about their bizarre scenarios to jettison their cognitive dissonance, only adds one more layer to many that are already there.

 

I'll ask again, is there any possible criticism of Bush pre-9/11 that you would feel is legitimate? Or is it entirely off-limits? Should terrorists and state enemies plan their attacks for every President's first year since apparently that's a free pass year?

 

Stop here for a minute, and join me in August, 2001. How would it have gone over in America, if Bush for seemingly no reason at all, instituted the kind of securities changes that we now accept as normal. Federalizing airport security, long security lines, invasive checks, armed guards, bomb sniffing dogs, chemical and biological weapons detection systems, etc, in order to attempt to stop a potential 9/11, which no one outside of a few think-tanks and terror briefings even believed as a real possibility.

 

Are you seriously trying to tell me that the Democrats wouldn't have screamed at every step of the way, as would have 99.8% of American's?

[StrangeSox]

Careful, SS is going to attack you with his anti GW Agenda.

 

It couldn't have been Congresses fault...it was all GW's!

 

The Bush Admin's incompetence was a critical part, not the only part. As I've said, it may not have been possible for a group who wasn't staggeringly incompetent to connect the dots and prevent the attack, but their decisions guaranteed that it wouldn't happen.

[Y2HH]

The Bush Admin's incompetence was a critical part, not the only part. As I've said, it may not have been possible for a group who wasn't staggeringly incompetent to connect the dots and prevent the attack, but their decisions guaranteed that it wouldn't happen.

 

And again, I think you're being unfair considering the timeline.

[southsider2k5]

The Bush Admin's incompetence was a critical part, not the only part. As I've said, it may not have been possible for a group who wasn't staggeringly incompetent to connect the dots and prevent the attack, but their decisions guaranteed that it wouldn't happen.

 

So what changes did the previous administration make, if it was so obvious?

[StrangeSox]

No, I don't think their obsession with Iraq is justifiable. I don't think we should be there now, even...anywhere in that region.

 

That said, I also think it's unfair to say GW had enough time in office to go through the loads of information they had and what was given to them by the previous administration AND make sound decisions based on that.

 

I think it was just too much too soon.

 

But they still made decisions. Before they even entered office, they made decisions. That's the point. If you're going to go with that defense, that it wasn't enough time to make sound, solid decisions, then that makes their obsession with Iraq all the worse.

 

And I repeat, GW, IMO, was a failure. But I'm not basing that on a whole 8 months of time like you are.

 

This is just another layer on the many, many layers of his failure.

[Balta1701]

Stop here for a minute, and join me in August, 2001. How would it have gone over in America, if Bush for seemingly no reason at all, instituted the kind of securities changes that we now accept as normal. Federalizing airport security, long security lines, invasive checks, armed guards, bomb sniffing dogs, chemical and biological weapons detection systems, etc, in order to attempt to stop a potential 9/11, which no one outside of a few think-tanks and terror briefings even believed as a real possibility.

 

Are you seriously trying to tell me that the Democrats wouldn't have screamed at every step of the way, as would have 99.8% of American's?

The biggest problem with this statement is that these steps wouldn't have been necessary to break up the 9/11 plot. According to the 9/11 commission report, the CIA and FBI had enough pieces to put the puzzle together, but there was no one putting the focus on Al Qaeda, "Shaking the trees" I believe was the term, to try to force someone to realize what was about to unfold.

 

OTOH...You're completely right about one thing. Even the USS Cole attack was not nearly big enough to force the US into the kind of posture it was going to take to deal with Al Qaeda as a threat. We saw that when Clinton lobbed a few cruise missiles at Bin Laden, no one took it seriously despite the 100's of people already killed at the embassies. So then the question becomes...if the 9/11 plot was rounded up, which it could have been by the intelligence agencies...where do things go from there? And that is...one very messy question, because you could have still taken boxcutters, cigarette lighters, etc., on to planes, and Al Qaeda would have continued training and strengthening in Afghanistan where they had their safe haven.

[Y2HH]

So what changes did the previous administration make, if it was so obvious?

 

None at all, because it was so obvious.

 

But this doesn't fit his agenda.

 

I don't disagree with him that GW was a failure, just as I think Obama is a failure...but I think he's being unfair in his judgement of a president taking office and then this happening almost immediately after. That's why I said it's weak minded critique in hindsight. It's easy to do...which is why he's doing it. He knows it's unfair, but doesn't care...but it fits his world view.

[Y2HH]

But they still made decisions. Before they even entered office, they made decisions. That's the point. If you're going to go with that defense, that it wasn't enough time to make sound, solid decisions, then that makes their obsession with Iraq all the worse.

 

 

 

This is just another layer on the many, many layers of his failure.

 

How did "they" make decisions before entering office without a cabinet?

 

That makes ZERO sense. You're just making s*** up now.

 

His administration wasn't even intact before he was in office.

[StrangeSox]

Stop here for a minute, and join me in August, 2001. How would it have gone over in America, if Bush for seemingly no reason at all, instituted the kind of securities changes that we now accept as normal. Federalizing airport security, long security lines, invasive checks, armed guards, bomb sniffing dogs, chemical and biological weapons detection systems, etc, in order to attempt to stop a potential 9/11, which no one outside of a few think-tanks and terror briefings even believed as a real possibility.

 

Are you seriously trying to tell me that the Democrats wouldn't have screamed at every step of the way, as would have 99.8% of American's?

 

They did not need to implement the security theater we have now that would likely not have stopped the attacks anyway. I've accidentally carried a large blade onto a plane myself.

 

Join me in June, 2001. How would it have gone over in the intelligence community if, instead of coming up with absurd scenarios to dismiss anything that didn't paint Saddam as the #1 threat, they took these other reports seriously?

[Y2HH]

The biggest problem with this statement is that these steps wouldn't have been necessary to break up the 9/11 plot. According to the 9/11 commission report, the CIA and FBI had enough pieces to put the puzzle together, but there was no one putting the focus on Al Qaeda, "Shaking the trees" I believe was the term, to try to force someone to realize what was about to unfold.

 

OTOH...You're completely right about one thing. Even the USS Cole attack was not nearly big enough to force the US into the kind of posture it was going to take to deal with Al Qaeda as a threat. We saw that when Clinton lobbed a few cruise missiles at Bin Laden, no one took it seriously despite the 100's of people already killed at the embassies. So then the question becomes...if the 9/11 plot was rounded up, which it could have been by the intelligence agencies...where do things go from there? And that is...one very messy question, because you could have still taken boxcutters, cigarette lighters, etc., on to planes, and Al Qaeda would have continued training and strengthening in Afghanistan where they had their safe haven.

 

I think your assessments can be met with a bit more of an agreement.

 

I think this went back further than GW, and it's merely convient to blame him and his administration for it for some people...because, like I said, it fits their agenda to do so.

[StrangeSox]

And again, I think you're being unfair considering the timeline.

 

The CIA had to try to dissuade them of the notion that OBL was running false-flag operations for Saddam. There is no other way to describe that but incompetence.

[Y2HH]

The CIA had to try to dissuade them of the notion that OBL was running false-flag operations for Saddam. There is no other way to describe that but incompetence.

 

As Balta pointed out and highlighted pretty well, even Clinton wasn't convinced they were much of a threat...if they had been, more would have been done by his administration versus just "handing it off" to Bush and letting him take it when he had the time.

[StrangeSox]

How did "they" make decisions before entering office without a cabinet?

 

That makes ZERO sense. You're just making s*** up now.

 

His administration wasn't even intact before he was in office.

 

The people he chose for his administration had well-known policy preferences and would have begun forming policy goals during his campaign and certainly during his transition period of late-December to late-January. By Day 3, Colin Powell was aware that regime change in Iraq was a top priority. Clearly, decisions had been made, and those decisions were stuck to regardless of any new information.

[Y2HH]

The people he chose for his administration had well-known policy preferences and would have begun forming policy goals during his campaign and certainly during his transition period of late-December to late-January. By Day 3, Colin Powell was aware that regime change in Iraq was a top priority. Clearly, decisions had been made, and those decisions were stuck to regardless of any new information.

 

After a President takes office, it takes months to construct his cabinet and appoint people to important positions. You're just reaching now.

[StrangeSox]

After a President takes office, it takes months to construct his cabinet and appoint people to important positions. You're just reaching now.

 

Secretary of State Powell’s awareness, three days into a new administration, that Iraq “regime change” would be a principal focus of the Bush presidency

 

I am not reaching.

 

edit: I'm also not blaming Bush for 9/11. I'll say it again, maybe the pieces couldn't have been put together. I'm blaming him for being incompetent, though, and indirectly for lying us into a war with Iraq because that's what they were focused on from at least Day 3, if not Day 1.

Edited September 13, 2012 by StrangeSox

[Balta1701]

As Balta pointed out and highlighted pretty well, even Clinton wasn't convinced they were much of a threat...if they had been, more would have been done by his administration versus just "handing it off" to Bush and letting him take it when he had the time.

This one's harder...because there were some people (Richard Clarke) who were in the Clinton administration screaming that something big was coming...but the timing is so messed up because the Cole incident happened right around the 2000 election. It was December/January of 01 when they were finally becoming sure that it was an Al Qaeda planned operation...and there's decent reason to think based on their statements that they felt like a military response to the Cole was appropriate, but they didn't want to commit the U.S. to a military campaign in Afghanistan right before Bush took office, so they handed it off to them, tried to set up special briefings on Al Qaeda, tried to get the NSA to listen, but couldn't get the appropriate meeting, in no small part because the positions just didn't have staff for several weeks/months thanks to Congress's normal approval process.

 

By the time summer rolled around, "All the signs were blinking red", but it was so far past the Cole that if you wanted a military response to the Cole, it wasn't going to happen. The CIA and FBI could have still rolled up the plot almost until the week it unfurled, and frankly I would actually think there's a good chance that would have happened had the executive branch not run into the transition period...but the U.S. wouldn't have been able to respond to breaking up the plot by carpet bombing the f*** out of Afghanistan with B-52's, and where things go from there...eep.

[Y2HH]

Secretary of State Powell’s awareness, three days into a new administration, that Iraq “regime change” would be a principal focus of the Bush presidency

 

I am not reaching.

 

edit: I'm also not blaming Bush for 9/11. I'll say it again, maybe the pieces couldn't have been put together. I'm blaming him for being incompetent, though, and indirectly for lying us into a war with Iraq because that's what they were focused on from at least Day 3, if not Day 1.

 

So one guy was aware...that's still a small fraction of an entire administration that's being blamed here.

 

I'm not saying GW made the right moves here...

 

I'm ONLY saying that given the timeline, I think you're being a bit unreasonably unfair.

[CrimsonWeltall]

So one guy was aware...that's still a small fraction of an entire administration that's being blamed here.

 

I'm not saying GW made the right moves here...

 

I'm ONLY saying that given the timeline, I think you're being a bit unreasonably unfair.

 

It's not unfair to point out that the administration was irrationally focused on invading Iraq from the get-go.

 

It'd be unfair if he said 9/11 would have been stopped otherwise.

[StrangeSox]

So one guy was aware...that's still a small fraction of an entire administration that's being blamed here.

 

I'm not saying GW made the right moves here...

 

I'm ONLY saying that given the timeline, I think you're being a bit unreasonably unfair.

 

The Secratary of Defense was aware of a key policy goal. It's not a reach to say that they made important decisions, such as focusing on regime change in Iraq, prior to entering office. PNAC's policies were publicly available, and Bush's administration included members in key positions (Cheney, Rumsfeld, "Scooter" Libby, Wolfowitz, others).

 

What I'm saying is that, if you're going to give them an excuse on making important decisions only 8 months into the administration, then you have to heavily fault them for making the decision to focus so heavily on Iraq. Which, really, is the point of that article; they were blinded by their focus on Iraq to any other possibilities.

Edited September 13, 2012 by StrangeSox

[Y2HH]

The Secratary of Defense was aware of a key policy goal. It's not a reach to say that they made important decisions, such as focusing on regime change in Iraq, prior to entering office. PNAC's policies were publicly available, and Bush's administration included members in key positions (Cheney, Rumsfeld, "Scooter" Libby, Wolfowitz, others).

 

What I'm saying is that, if you're going to give them an excuse on making important decisions only 8 months into the administration, then you have to heavily fault them for making the decision to focus so heavily on Iraq. Which, really, is the point of that article; they were blinded by their focus on Iraq to any other possibilities.

 

Taken as a whole, I do fault them.

 

But I won't fault them over 8 months of decision making time while a presidential regime change was occurring. I just think it's an unfair critique.

[StrangeSox]

But they made firm decisions in the 8 months. Dumb ones. They should be faulted for that.

[Y2HH]

But they made firm decisions in the 8 months. Dumb ones. They should be faulted for that.

 

And they are faulted for that. But making mistakes when you have to make quick decisions is expected...the expected part of that equation is what you're conveniently ignoring to make your point.

 

I think it would be a bit different if they had 4 years to vet this information and STILL messed it up versus entering office and BAM.

[StrangeSox]

And they are faulted for that. But making mistakes when you have to make quick decisions is expected...the expected part of that equation is what you're conveniently ignoring to make your point.

 

I think it would be a bit different if they had 4 years to vet this information and STILL messed it up versus entering office and BAM.

 

Deciding to focus on Iraq regime change was not a quick decision. It was a years-long policy goal of many administration members prior to taking office. Their obsession blinded them. It's not about specifically missing 9/11 links here, it's about not seeing anything but Saddam-WDM links.

[StrangeSox]