Some gaping holes in Yer Librul Media's 9/11 coverage this weekend. For one, they went right back into propaganda mode by repeating the lie that the reason for the attack was "they hate us for our values." Osama Bin Laden was always quite clear: We were attacked because of supporting Israel's treatment of the Palestinians, and our presence and support in other countries where Muslims were being oppressed. Doesn't fit on a bumper sticker, but oh well.
Also, they completely erased the part played by then-Sen. Hillary Clinton in getting New York back on its feet and looking out for first responders. I guess I expected that.
But to allow the odious George W. Bush to make a nice speech and thus erase his administration's bungling (and possible complicity) of the intelligence leading up to the attacks? Don't take my word for it. Remember Richard Clarke? He was all over the teevee there for a few years, talking about he couldn't even get the Bush people to hold a meeting about the imminent threat, and when they finally did?
At the first Deputies Committee meeting on terrorism, held in April 2001, Clarke strongly suggested that the U.S. put pressure on both the Taliban and al-Qaeda by arming the Northern Alliance and other groups in Afghanistan. Simultaneously, he said that the US should target bin Laden and his leadership by restoring flights of the MQ-1 Predators. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz responded, "Well, I just don't understand why we are beginning by talking about this one man bin Laden." Clarke replied that he was talking about bin Laden and his network because it posed "an immediate and serious threat to the United States." According to Clarke, Wolfowitz turned to him and said, "You give bin Laden too much credit. He could not do all these things like the 1993 attack on New York, not without a state sponsor. Just because the FBI and CIA have failed to find the linkages does not mean they don't exist."
That's the same Paul Wolfowitz quoted in Politico this weekend:
“How did we let this happen? What could we have done to prevent it?” he recalled thinking. “And what could we do to make sure we prevent the next one from happening?"
I dunno, Paul. Maybe listen to the intelligence?
And here at 15:12, Bruce Reidel, then-senior adviser on the Middle East for four administrations, describes the Bush administration's stubborn refusal to deal with what all the intelligence described as an imminent threat.
He said there was clear information all summer warning that an attack inside the U.S. was imminent. "The CIA director went 'door to door' at the White House warning of an imminent attack. Unfortunately, the Bush administration didn't do anything about it.
"There was great concern at the White House that an investigation of what had happened would find that the administration had bungled the job very, very badly. So they wanted very much to go on offense, and to take action."
You can see why they would be nervous, considering they stole the election and all. They wouldn't want to remind anyone.
Remember the Project for the New American Century? We probably won't know in our lifetimes whether this Bush & Cheney gang simply took advantage of their own catastrophic mistakes to impose their vision on the Middle East (unsuccessfully, I might add), or whether they sort of helped the process along. Incompetence is a form of complicity, right? And the results were the same.
We now know it was the Saudis funding this attack all along, just as we Dirty F*cking Hippies always said:
Here's what it all boils down to: Over a million Iraqis dead because the boys in the Bush administration wanted to remodel the Middle East. No one has ever been held accountable, not by the media, and not even at the ballot box.
Twenty years on, not only does the impulse to follow Bush’s foreign policy look worse, but so too does the impulse to overlook the method by which he gained his office. His party’s terrifying will to power, including mobs shutting down a legitimate government proceeding over groundless fears that Democratic cities would manufacture fake votes, was an eerie precursor to its future. The truth we’ve suppressed is that Bush not only misused his office, but never should have held it in the first place.
