CNN: White House April 2000 Terrorism report DOES NOT EVEN MENTION Al Quaeda.

CNN ^ | April 30, 2001 | CNN State Department producer Elise Labott and Correspondent Andrea Koppel

[Freedom2specul8]

Bookmarked and will pass along...

[InterceptPoint]

This is quite a find. We should find out on tomorrow's Talk Radio Circuit who the FR lurkers are.

[The_Reader_David]

Hmmm, maybe that fits with my observation: they were priority #1, but not in the sense we'd want. Giving them Bosnia and Kosovo seemed to be really important to Clinton. No contradiction at all between his testimony and his remarks to Russert if they were a priority in that sense. (Now was it appeasement or actual support?)

[windchime]

Great find, Homer1!

[eggman]

Well, I guess I was being very generous. His arguments appear to be "Clinton was a hardcore anti-terrorist, He (Clarke) was the only guy who could've prevented 9-11, Bush was fixated on Iraq, Bush should've preempted osama in Afghanistan but didn't, Bush's people were incomprehensibly uninterested in Al Qaeda before 9-11, and that Iraq isn't part of the WOT--that it makes terrorism worse."

The best part of Clarke's explaination of how the Iraq war makes terrorism worse was a poll of Islamic countries where 90% now claim that they hate the US and this is creating more terrorists. If that is true, why did al-Qaeda go from being a small faction when Clinton took office to a global terrorist threat by the time he left office? The Taliban also went from being a small faction in northern Afghanistan to running the country as a terrorist nation of radical Islamists by the time Clinton left.

Whether they like us or hate us terrorism was still growing strong and none of Clinton's actions did anything to stop that growth. What were Clarke's objectives under Clinton? Find out how to make terrorists like us?

[Triple Word Score]

Good catch.

[Objective Reality]

BRILLIANT catch!

"Paging Mr. Limbaugh, paging Mr. Rush Limbaugh, please pick up the courtesy phone for an important update from your contributors at Free Republic."

Ten bucks says this leads Rush's show tomorrow.

[RaceBannon]

more Clinton Legacy

[Right_in_Virginia]

BTTT

[11th Earl of Mar]

VIDEO U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell says state-sponsored terrorism is responding to world pressure

In April 2000, Madelyn Albright was Secretary of State.

[MEG33]

FYI

[leadpenny]

Thanks.

[Peach]

kayak - what a GREAT find. Thanks for pinging me.

[Triple Word Score]

Cheered me up quite a bit after last night's 60 Minutes.

[Different-is-good]

Let's clear up some confusion. The CNN article is from April of 2001. It is about the Bush administration's backward-looking report on terrorism in the year 2000. This is like when you fill out your tax return in 2001 but it is for the Tax Year 2000.

Also, al Qa'ida was founded in 1995, not at the beginning of the Clinton administration (1993), and surely took at least some time to become established, active, and effective. However, Osama bin Laden was part of the Mujahadeen fighting in Afghanistan in the 1980's, funded and armed by Ronald Reagan's administration. This group of Islamic extremists morphed into al Qa'ida.

Does that clear things up?

[Mr. Buzzcut]

al Qaeda was founded late '80's/early '90's.

[eggman]

Also, al Qa'ida was founded in 1995, not at the beginning of the Clinton administration (1993), and surely took at least some time to become established, active, and effective.

Your timeline is a bit off. Osama went to Afghanistan in 1979 and, with Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood leader Abdallah Azzam, formed MAK (Maktab al-Khidamat) which was used to recruit Muslims for the war in Afghanistan against the soviets. Toward the end of that war in 1988, Osama formed al-Qaida to carry the Jihad to other countries. By 1995 Osama was living in Khartoum and al-Qaida was well established in Sudan recruiting a growing number of Jihadists.

In an Interview with a French newspaper in 1998, Zbginiew Brzezinski, Jimmy Carter's National Security Advisor, admitted that the Carter administration started funding the mujahadeen a full six months before the Soviets invaded Afghanistan. The explicit purpose of funding the mujahadeen was to draw the Soviets into Afghanistan so that they would get bogged down in "their Vietnam".

Hope this clears a few other things up.

[Different-is-good]

Have to admit my 1995 date was off the cuff and wrong. Can't remember where I heard that--must have been in regards to bin Laden moving back to Afghanistan and allying closely with the Taliban. Did some checking after I saw your reply. Apparently in some computer files found in Bosnia was this:

But perhaps the most striking find were the handwritten minutes of an Aug. 11, 1988, meeting. It was there that bin Laden and others agreed on "the establishment of a new military group" consisting of three units, one to be called, in Arabic, Qaeda, or Base. A week later at bin Laden's home, they held a second meeting--for three days--that led to the official founding of the new entity. "Work of al Qaeda commenced on 9/10/1988 with a group of 15 brothers . . ." concluded the report. "And thanks be to God."

www.usnews.com/usnews/iss...terror.htm --> text found on: http://pub56.ezboard.com/ftalkinpoliticsfrm8.showMessage?topicID=533.topic

That date is interestingly similar to 9/11.

I was surprised to read that stuff about Zbginiew Brzezinski's interview. I searched on it and found a number of pages talking about it. Don't know if anyone has confirmed the validity of it yet (no major sources came up in a search), but there is one thing you overstated. According to the text of the interview, it was not the "explicit purpose of funding the mujahadeen was to draw the Soviets into Afghanistan." Brzezinski claims that he was simply warning Carter that this likely would be a consequence of the policy. Brzezinski claims to have understood the consequences and to be proud of the results. Also found this in my poking around:

1988: Bin Laden forms al-Qaeda this year (some reports claim 1989).

1988: Prior to this year, George Bush Jr. is a failed oil man. Three times friends and investors have bailed him out to keep him from going bankrupt. But in this year, the same year his father becomes President, some Saudis buy a portion of his small company, Harken, which has never worked outside of Texas. Later in the year, Harken wins a contract in the Persian Gulf and starts doing well financially. These transactions seem so suspicious that the Wall Street Journal in 1991 states it "raises the question of ... an effort to cozy up to a presidential son." Two major investors in Bush's company during this time are Salem bin Laden, Osama bin Laden's father, and Khaled bin Mahfouz. In 1999 bin Mahfouz will be placed under house arrest in Saudi Arabia for contributions he gave to organizations closely linked to al-Qaeda. His sister is married to Osama bin Laden.

http://www.cooperativeresearch.net/timeline/main/timelineabridged.html

[eggman]

1988: Prior to this year, George Bush Jr. is a failed oil man. Three times friends and investors have bailed him out to keep him from going bankrupt. But in this year, the same year his father becomes President, some Saudis buy a portion of his small company, Harken, which has never worked outside of Texas. Later in the year, Harken wins a contract in the Persian Gulf and starts doing well financially. These transactions seem so suspicious that the Wall Street Journal in 1991 states it "raises the question of ... an effort to cozy up to a presidential son." Two major investors in Bush's company during this time are Salem bin Laden, Osama bin Laden's father, and Khaled bin Mahfouz. In 1999 bin Mahfouz will be placed under house arrest in Saudi Arabia for contributions he gave to organizations closely linked to al-Qaeda. His sister is married to Osama bin Laden.

Wow! Just what is this propaganda supposed to prove? Harken was Bush's company? I think not! Bush was on the Board of Directors and had stock in Harken Oil after it acquired Spectrum 7 Energy which had acquired Bush's company. There were a lot of "failed oil men" with "failed oil companies" in the 80's that were aquired by rich investors who became very rich investors.

Guess who the primary stockholder in Harken was at that time. George Soros! Even if bin Laden himself was a shareholder, what does that prove? Absolutely nothing.

Take this leftist propaganda elsewhere. It won't sell here.

[Different-is-good]

I try to deal in facts, not propaganda. Here's some data I found:

George Soros held about 1/3 of Harken, the Harvard Management Fund held about 1/3 of Harken, and Sheikh Abdullah Bakhsh (with connections to the notorious Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI)) held a large stake and a position on the board with George W. Bush. Soros did sell his stock back to Harken in 1989. Bush made four Harken stock transactions over four years, reported them ALL late to the SEC, and in those deals alone made over $1 million off a company constantly in debt and losing money. Bush accepted loans for $180k from Harken at below market rates, bought Harken stock with the money, and never repaid the loan (it was "forgiven"). This is a corporate practice he recently denounced after Enron and WorldCom scandals.