Posted on 08/18/2005 1:31:40 PM PDT by Cool Chick
Many people have e-mailed asking for my opinion on the emerging Operation Able Danger story--in which army intelligence personnel were barred from notifying the FBI about Mohammed Atta.
While I agree that the Pentagon lawyers who stopped the Able Danger operatives from notifying the FBI are culpable, and their behavior is an outrage, my take is different from most conservative commentators.
I really don't think the FBI would have acted on the information. Instead, today, we'd be sweeping under the rug yet more ineptitude by the, unfortunately, "lead agency" in the War on Terror.
Let's look at what the FBI has done with other similar information they received before and, even worse, AFTER 9/11. Let's look at what the agency and its sleazy allies have done to harm brave men who did what the Able Danger men did not--men like FBI Special Agent Robert Wright, who warned the FBI to do something about the Al-Qaeda funding network.
Here's the FBI record:
* Warnings about 9/11 hijackers Khalid Al-Midhar and Nawaf Al-Hazmi living in San Diego and behaving suspiciously according to their informant landlord. (Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer of Able Danger said his group had info on Al-Midhar and Al-Hazmi, too.)
THE FBI DID . . . NOTHING.
* Warnings by FBI Special Agent Wright about an extensive Al-Qaeda funding network in the U.S. (tied to HAMAS funding network). Wright told his FBI superiors that if something wasn't done to stop them, more people would die. More people did die. Still . . .
THE FBI DID . . . NOTHING. THEN, THE FBI FIRED BOB WRIGHT. (It was Customs, now ICE, that fortunately acted on Wright's info.)
(Excerpt) Read more at debbieschlussel.com ...
I didn't like the basic premise. Then I read the content. Case proven.
Time to clear out these ossified government agencies that consume billions and produce armies of payroll patriots.
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
AFTER 9/11:
* Multiple, repeated requests to the FBI, by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Special Agent in Charge for Houston, Joe Webber, for permission to conduct wire-taps and a full-fledged investigation into Al-Qaeda operatives in Texas. (Senator Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, who is investigating this says there are dozens of such investigations.)
THE FBI DID . . . NOTHING. WEBBER IS NOW BEING INVESTIGATED.
* A Southfield, Michigan Islamic "charity," which openly declared on its taxes that it gave millions to HAMAS, has personnel deported for being members of Qaeda, raised money at a Los Angeles fundraiser for "more uprisings like the one in Fallujah."
THE FBI DID . . . NOTHING.
When the FBI did do something, it was equally distressing:
* Planned to give an award to a marriage fraud perpetrator and terrorist PFLP member Imad Hamad, who openly praises Islamic terrorists, is believed to be involved in a money scheme with similarly illicit parties, and is closely tied to various terror-related deportees. After I wrote about it, the FBI revoked the award, but then put out at least five different BS explanations for the revocation.
* FBI Director Robert Mueller announced that he will never use the words "Islamic" and "terrorism" together, according to Paul Sperry's "Infiltration."
* Top FBI brass, including Mueller, declared in lawsuit depositions that they knew little about Bin Laden or terrorism, yet kept a patriotic Arab agent who knew a great deal from getting top terrorism-related jobs.
Given all of this, a very abbreviated list of FBI foul-ups, inaction, and transgressions in the agencies non-War on Terror, do you really believe the FBI would have done a damned thing about Atta with Able Danger's information?
If so, I have some land under a building named after J. Edgar Hoover to sell you.
you are right. but still.
Yep, there is really no 'there' there.
Maybe they would have and then again maybe, just MAYBE they may have acted on the info about ATTA. The point is it was wrong to not give the FBI the opportunity to do the right thing.
It is common knowledge that the FBI and CIA did not share information for years and competed against each other. It took 9/11 to begin changing this. The agencies also needed better database technology to do this effectively as well as the right attitude stemming from the top. Let's face it, the man in charge at the time Clinton was nothing sort of treasonous for doing NOTHING about Bin Laden after the first WTC attack in 1992. Then, Sudan offered to extradite Bin Laden to the US us in 1996 and what did the Clinton Justice Department do handled under Janet Reno? Say "legal" matters prevented us from taking him. What a crock. The FBI would not have cared because the whole administration did not care.
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How many times did Clinton meet privately with his intern to discuss pizza deliveries and cigars?
Speaking of ignore, the left's leading target of "Right Wing Journalism" DOESNT EVEN HAVE THIS UP ON THEIR SITE. Fair and Balanced, well if you dont have it on there, it doesnt need to be fair or balanced. So much for Fox, the newest of the BS networks.
I think the real point of all this isn't so much which Administration was at fault, or which lawyer erected the wall. While it would be satisfying on a personal and political level to be able to point the finger at the previous Administration, even if we were able to do so, it wouldn't bring back the Twin Towers or the 3000 people. Such a tactic is useful only if it leads to solutions for revamping our intelligence agencies.
To my mind the most troubling aspect of all of this (and what I think Rep. Weldon's real point) is that we are 24 days from the 4 year anniversary of 9/11 and for all intents and purposes the defects in domestic and foreign intelligence services aren't all that much improved. The Homeland Security Dept. is basically a joke. All it did was give us a color code system and a new layer of bureaucracy in an already top heavy system. We're searching old women and young girls going through airports because we don't want to risk offending people by using information we have about who these attackers are.
Border security is a joke, and if we have another attack in the U.S. and we find they've crossed via the border the Minutemen will be the least of the Border Patrol's problem. And our solution to that is to just say well, everybody who's here and isn't supposed to be, just go home and get a stamped form and everything will be ok. This is the same type of reasoning that gives us gun control laws....the thinking that people who are already criminals will obey additional laws. There is no incentive to illegals to go home for the amnesty, um, guest worker permit since we've already said we aren't going to round them up. It hasn't worded each of the previous times we tried this solution, but, just like liberals, it's apparently only our intentions that count. Plus we don't want to lose a voting bloc!
We've forced our military to fight a P.C. war instead of doing all that it takes to win. Getting power plants running is fine, but it really isn't the job of the military - their job is to kill people and break things - if they were allowed to do that on a consistent basis instead of having to do P.R. work for America so that we don't look like occupiers, I would posit that homicide bombings would be down dramatically. I don't fault the service men for this....I can't imagine a group of volunteers who could have done a more selfless or professional job. I fault the politicians and bureaucrats in D.C. who value our image in the world among people who are going to hate us no matter what we do more than they value doing what it takes to win.
We'd better wake up and fast....the clock has been ticking for nearly 4 years now. We've made progress but not nearly enough. And the areas in which we have made the least progress are the ones that should have been the easiest to fix!
It was Reno's and Freeh's FBI. Willie was getting big bucks to make sure nothing bad happened to OBL. The FBI wouldn't have allowed anything to happen that might damage their mega-bureaucracy.
You'r right. Look what they did about the 20th hijacker before 9/11.
What do you say to the 83 men, women and children who were burned alive at WACO over a search warrant?
What about the murder of a Mother at Ruby Ridge Idaho, when an FBI sniper blew the head off this un-armed Mother while she held her baby in her arms inside her home?
Of course the Clinton administration and the FBI would never take any action against foriegn terrorist, no laws to support that, they are protected.
Now the Patriot Act, to continue this war on Americans and their evil guns, while the terrorist continue to cross the American-mexican border - OF COURSE THE FBI WILL CONTINUE TO AS ENEPT AS THEY HAVE ALWAYS BEEN, unless it is to take out some Americans with guns!
Shoot innocent women through the face and then lie about it.
Shoot Eagle Scouts through the face after stopping the wrong car and then call it a 'clean shoot.'
Gas women and kids, and then burn them to death.
Protect East Coast mobsters and hitmen while lying to keep people they know are innocent in prison for a decade or so.
L
"What I will absolutely NEVER understand, is that in '96 when the agent called in from the embassy requesting paperwork on OBL, OBL was THEN on the top 10 most wanted. We were overjoyed, to say the least! Then to hear Clinton say that had we taken custody of him in Sudan, we had nothing to charge him with??? What the hell was he doing on the top ten? We had plenty of evidence to connect him with terroristic incidents all over the world! I will hate Clinton and Reno to my dying breath over this, we just plain passed on stopping this man when we could. The FBI does not entirely consist of "payroll patriots" and lard-assed bureaucrats."
I know, this was probably the most treasonous thing he ever did to our country. Add giving the nuclear secrets of Los Alamos to it and you have the worst American traitor in US history. But what did most of the population of America think at that time? "Its the economy stupid".
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