Gee, that "random" example seemed to roll off his tongue rather readily.
But that would be a thread on a completely different set of "Missed Messages," wouldn't it?
Posted on 05/27/2002 11:47:41 AM PDT by OKCSubmariner
And recall that Ken Williams of Phoenix had gone to the CIA in July with his FBI memo warning of Bin Laden using hijacker pilots to attack targets inside the US.
But Bush ordered the FBI in August 2001 to stop investigating Saudi's in the US who were helping AlQaeda and the hijacker pilots and Hamas. Some of these men were Bush campaign donars and business partners associated with Harken Energy and with Holy Land Foundation in Dallas.
If I werer to give Bush the benefit of the doubt, was Bush blinded by his associations with these Saudi men in August 2001? Is Bush still blinded by his associations with these men like Khalid Mafhouz and Prince Abdullah? If he is still blinded, someone had better get to Bush quick and wake him up.
If Bush was not blinded, then why did he block the FBI investigation? In a democracy, we the people have the right to demand that even the Presient himself explain and account for his own actions and not by way of spin meisters out of the White House ,the FBI or DOJ.
Gee, that "random" example seemed to roll off his tongue rather readily.
But that would be a thread on a completely different set of "Missed Messages," wouldn't it?
But Bush ordered the FBI in August 2001 to stop investigating Saudi's in the US who were helping AlQaeda and the hijacker pilots and Hamas. Some of these men were Bush campaign donars and business partners associated with Harken Energy and with Holy Land Foundation in Dallas.
What's the source for this information?
Please site specifics. Isn't this a pretty broad statement to make without supporting documentation?
But the real question is, when did our government know and why wasn't anything done? We had plenty of warnings something would happen, it was only a matter of time. The warnings Bush received were vague. Like others have pointed out, if Arabs, Muslims or other people from the ME were known to be planning attacks, Bush would have been vilified for racial profiling. Seems to be a lose-lose situation for his administration.
So quickly people forget. Especially when those people are democrats/liberals/psuedo-conservatives. Although some would like to believe Bush knew, all roads lead to the previous administration.
*The first World Trade Center bombing was on February 26, 1993, one month into the Clinton Administration. The terrorists - Egyptians and Palestinians -- blew a hole six stories deep beneath the North Tower intending to topple it onto the South Tower and kill 250,000 people. It was - in the words of the definitive account - "the most ambitious terrorist attack ever attempted, anywhere, ever." Clinton did nothing. He did not even visit the site. Worse, he allowed the attack to be categorized as a criminal act by individuals, even though its mastermind - as the administration soon discovered -- was an Iraqi intelligence agent named Ramzi Youssef.
*The second attack took place 10 months later in Mogadishu, Somalia. It was an attack on American military forces who were in country to bring food to the starving Somalis. In the battle, which has been memorialized in Black Hawk Down, eighteen American soldiers were killed and the body of one was dragged through the streets in a gesture designed to formally humiliate the world's greatest super power. Clinton's response? He turned tail and ran.
*In 1995, Ramzi Youssef was captured in the Philippines with plans to use commercial airliners to blow up CIA headquarters among other targets. This al-Qaeda plot was termed "Operation Bojinka," which means "the big bang."
*After the discovery of "Operation Bojinka," Al Gore was appointed to head a task force to tighten airport security. Its key recommendations, which would have prevented 9/11, were rejected by the White House on the grounds that they might be construed as "racial profiling."
*In 1996 the Khobar Towers - a barracks housing U.S. soldiers was blown up in Saudia Arabia by Iranian and Palestinian terrorists acting on behalf of al-Qaeda. Nineteen U.S. servicemen were killed but the Saudis refused to cooperate in tracking down the killers.The Clinton Administration did nothing.
*In 1998, the year of Lewinsky, al-Qaeda blew up the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania- under any circumstances an act of war. Two-hundred-and-forty-five people were killed and 6,000 injured, mainly Africans. Clinton's response? The infamous strike on a medicine factory in the Sudan and a spray of missiles into an emptied terrorist camp in Khost.
*In October 2000, al-Qaeda attacked the U.S.S Cole, an American warship, killing 17 servicemen. Another act of war. The Clinton response? Nothing. Every year that these terrorist attacks were taking place, Democrat congressional leaders supported bills to cut U.S. intelligence funding and/or hamstring CIA operations, and/or prevent the tightening of immigration controls - all of which would have strengthened American defenses against an al-Qaeda attack.
*Meanwhile, the principle ally of Saddam Hussein, the architect of suicide bombing, the creator of the first terrorist training camps, and the apostle of terror as a redemptive social cause -- Yasser Arafat -- was a "partner in peace" and the most frequent guest at the Clinton White House among foreign heads of state.
*Despite the fact that Republicans had fought Democrats for eight years over the military and intelligence budgets, over immigration and security issues, despite the alliances that leftwing Democrats had made with America's enemies in the UN, despite the obstructionism of Senate Judiciary chairman Patrick Leahy in opposing domestic security measures and efforts by the Justice Department to bring al-Qaeda to heel, Republicans refused to point a partisan finger on issues of war and peace. Now their self-restraint has come back to haunt them as the Democrats seek to shift the blame they have done so much to earn to the shoulders of their political opponents.
*The Democratic attack on George Bush is based on an intelligence analysis he received a month before 9/11, which indicated that al-Qaeda terrorists were planning to hijack planes. The described threats in this analysis came under the category "general" meaning they did not specify time, place or method, and they were uncorroborated. The reports the President received in the months prior to 9/11 described targets that were mainly overseas - in the Arabian Peninsula, Israel, Italy, Paris, Rome and Turkey. On the slim reed of the existence of a possible hijacking threat in the United States - included with all these others -- the Democrats have built their treacherous case.
You've made this point before -- do you have a reference or link? Not challenging -- just asking.
OK, I'll be the third person on this thread to ask where is your definative proof of this?
If you don't respond then my only logical conclusion is to beleive you have no real proof of this and are just buying into some lame conspiracy theory.
Also, this article is written by Seymour Hersch, he also wrote of the "failed airborn assault" in the opening days in Afghanistan, with numerous American casualties. This report was discredited.
Nowhere in this article is any mention that under Clinton, the search for domestic terrorists ala McVeigh, were the "orders du jour" for the FBI. I can understand why upper management FBI ignored any middle eastern terrorist warnings. They were trained by Clinton's PC crowd to look for us common folk as the real enemies.
Our FBI has been infiltrated. The question is who is pulling the strings?
"WHERE'S THE BEEF" for this beef?! need supporting evidence for this possible OUTRAGE!!
On a thread where shooting from the hip seems de riguer, maybe you ought to back up this statement as well.
That's what I thought. So how come Clinton was able to fire Sessions on bogus, trumped-up, penny-ante charges?
According to numerous posts on FR Bush and Powell still say Hamas and Arafat are not terrorists because they have agreed to be part of the peace process and because Prince Abdullah has called Hamas “freedom fighters” rather than terrorists. I do not agree with Bush or Powell about Hamas and Arafat.
The White House connection: Saudi `agents' close Bush friends
Boston Hearald | December 11, 2001 | Maggie Mulvihill, Jonathan Wells and Jack Meyers
Link: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/625849/posts
Posted on 2/11/02 10:15 AM Pacific by Triple
A powerful Washington, D.C., law firm with unusually close ties to the White House has earned hefty fees representing controversial Saudi billionaires as well as a Texas-based Islamic charity fingered last week as a terrorist front.
The influential law firm of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld has represented three wealthy Saudi businessmen - Khalid bin Mahfouz, Mohammed Hussein Al-Amoudi and Salah Idris - who have been scrutinized by U.S. authorities for possible involvement in financing Osama bin Laden and his terrorist network.
In addition, Akin, Gump currently represents the largest Islamic charity in the United States, Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development in Richmond, Texas.
Holy Land's assets were frozen by the Treasury Department last week as government investigators probe its ties to Hamas, the militant Palestinian group blamed for suicide attacks against Israelis.
Partners at Akin, Gump include one of President Bush's closest Texas friends, James C. Langdon, and George R. Salem, a Bush fund-raiser who chaired his 2000 campaign's outreach to Arab-Americans.
Another longtime partner is Barnett A. ``Sandy'' Kress, the former Dallas School Board president who Bush appointed in January to work for the White House as an ``unpaid consultant'' on education reform.
In September, a federal grand jury issued subpoenas for Holy Land records around the same time terrorist investigators froze the assets of a North Texas Internet firm hired by Holy Land.
Holy Land shared office space with that firm, InfoCom Corp., which was raided by police on Sept. 5, just days before the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks.
Holy Land has denied any link to Hamas.
According to Akin, Gump, the firm represents Holy Land in a federal lawsuit filed against the charity and another suspected Hamas entity by the parents of a man allegedly murdered by Hamas operatives in the Middle East.
In a statement issued Friday, Akin, Gump said it decided last week to decline a request to represent Holy Land in its defense of terrorism-related charges made by the U.S. Treasury Department.
Akin, Gump, which maintains an affiliate office in the Saudi capital of Riyadh, is also a registered foreign agent for the kingdom. It was paid $77,328 in lobbying fees by the Saudis during the first six months of 2000, public records show.
In addition to the royal family, the firm's Saudi clients have included bin Mahfouz, who hired Akin, Gump when he was indicted in the BCCI banking scandal in the early 1990s. In 1999, the Saudi's placed bin Mahfouz under house arrest after reportedly discovering that the bank he controlled, National Commercial Bank in Saudi Aabia, funneled millions to charities believed to be serving as bin Laden fronts.
A bin Mahfouz business partner, Al-Amoudi, was also represented by Akin, Gump. When it was reported in 1999 that U.S. authorities were also investigating Al-Amoudi's Capitol Trust Bank, Akin, Gump released a statement on behalf of their client denying any connections to terrorism. One year earlier, the firm had co-sponsored an investment conference in Ethiopia with Al-Amoudi.
Akin, Gump partner and Bush fund-raiser Salem led the legal team that defended Idris, a banking protege of bin Mahfouz and the owner of El-Shifa, the Sudanese pharmaceutical plant destroyed by U.S. cruise missiles in August 1998.
cw-2 The plant was targeted days after terrorists - allegedly on the orders of bin Laden - bombed two U.S. embassies in Africa. The U.S. Treasury Department also froze $24 million of Idris' assets, but Akin, Gump filed a lawsuit and the government later chose to release the money rather than go to court. Idris, who insists he has no connection whatsoever to bin Laden or terrorism, is now pursuing a second lawsuit with different attorneys seeking $50 million in damages from the United States.
Charles Lewis, executive director of the Center for Public Integrity, a Washington, D.C.-based non-partisan political watchdog group, said Akin, Gump's willingness to represent Saudi power-brokers probed for links to terrorism presents a unique ethical concern since partners at the firm are so close to the president.
The concern is more acute now, Lewis said, because Bush has faced stiff resistance from the kingdom in his repeated requests to freeze suspected terrorist bank accounts.
``The conduct of the Saudis is just unacceptable by international standards, especially if they are supposed to be one of our closest allies,'' Lewis said.
Speaking of Akin, Gump partner Kress' office in the White House, Lewis added: ``That's not appropriate and frankly it's potentially troublesome because there is a real possibility of a conflict of interest. Basically you have a partner for Akin, Gump . . . inside the hen house.''
But another longtime Washington political observer, Vincent Cannistraro, the former chief of counter-intelligence at the Central Intelligence Agency, said the political influence a firm like Akin, Gump has is precisely why clients like the Saudis hire them.
``These are cozy political relationships . . . If you have a problem in Washington, there are only a few firms to go to and Akin, Gump is one of them,'' Cannistraro said.
Cannistraro pointed out that Idris hired Akin, Gump during the Clinton presidency, when Clinton confidante Vernon Jordan was a partner at the firm. ``He hired them because Vernon Jordan had influence . . . that's a normal political exercise where you are buying influence,'' he said.
Akin, Gump is not the only politically wired Washington business cashing in on the Saudi connection.
Burson-Marsteller, a major D.C. public relations firm, registered with the U.S. government as a foreign agent for the Saudi embassy within weeks of the Sept. 11 terror attacks.
One of Burson-Marsteller's first public relations efforts for the Saudis was to run a large advertisement in the New York Times reading: ``We Stand with You, America.''
The Washington chairman for Burson-Marsteller, which also maintains an office in Saudi Arabia, is Craig Veith, who ran communications for the Republican Party in the 1996 elections.
Other GOP heavyweights who have held top positions at the PR giant include Sheila Tate, the campaign press secretary for the elder George Bush; Leslie Goodman, deputy director of communications for the 1992 Bush-Quayle campaign; Craig L. Fuller, chairman of the 1992 Republican National Convention and elder Bush's vice presidential chief-of-staff.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.