From the Institute of Advanced Hindsight...
By Mark Alexander · Friday, April 2, 2004
Winston Churchill said famously, "A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on." That was 1945. Today, lies are capable of circling the globe at the speed of light -- especially when a Leftmedia outlet like CBS's "60 Minutes" hosts "The Dick Clarke Show."
Richard Clarke, a leftover from the Clinton regime, seems to have confused George W. Bush for William J. Clinton. Errantly, Clarke claims President Bush ignored the al-Qa'ida threat and implies culpability for the attack on our countrymen 11 September 2001, eight months after Mr. Bush took office. That attack, you'll recall, was orchestrated by Osama bin Laden, the Islamist terrorist whom Bill Clinton ignored for eight years.
Why is Clarke stepping forward now? Politics and publicity.
George Bush's military record as Commander-in-Chief is far more impressive than anything John Kerry has been able to conjure up. Thus, Kerry and company are determined to undermine President Bush's credibility as CiC by accusing him of dereliction of duty with regard to 9/11 and the war against Jihadi terrorists. To that end, a few weeks back, Kerry's operatives rallied a small group of family members of 9/11 victims against the Bush administration in a shameless exploitation of 3,000 dead Americans. And now they have enlisted Clarke to further erode the perception of the President's CiC performance.
As for Clarke's accusation that President Bush "ignored terrorism for months, when maybe we could have done something to stop 9/11," it doesn't hold up to even the most fundamental scrutiny.
Contrary to Clarke's "recollection," long before 9/11 President Bush told his National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice that he was "tired of swatting flies," as had been the policy of the Clinton Administration. Instead, the U.S. would need to take the fight to al-Qa'ida. After all, under Clinton's watch, al-Qa'ida operatives had already bombed the World Trade Center, plotted to bomb simultaneously a dozen U.S. trans-Pacific flights, successfully bombed U.S. Embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, attempted to bomb Los Angeles International Airport, and bombed the USS Cole in the port of Aden, Yemen. Did we mention the bombing of Khobar Towers?
In effect, Osama bin Laden and his al-Qa'ida terrorist network had operated with impunity since 1993.
To support President Bush's directive, spending for covert action against al-Qa'ida was increased 400%, while the administration's National Security Council deputies began to develop an operations plan to destroy al-Qa'ida. During that time, the Counterterrorism Security Group, the government's interagency counterterrorism crisis-management forum chaired by Dick Clarke, met on a near-daily basis prior to 9/11 out of concern for a potential al-Qa'ida attack. The new plan, a complete departure from the previous administration's policy of appeasement, was on the President's desk by 4 September 2001. Tragically, this wasn't soon enough to prevent the actions of al-Qa'ida one week later -- actions that were planned two years before President Bush took office.
Clarke, testifying before the commission investigating intelligence failures prior to 9/11, should have spent less time peddling books and more time preparing his story. Indeed, when asked by former Sen. Slade Gorton if there was "the remotest chance" the events of 9/11 could have been avoided if the Bush administration had adopted ALL of Clarke's recommendations for dealing with al-Qa'ida, Clarke answered, "No."
Additionally, Clarke's big adventure into the realm of Clinton-sized prevarication was not solely a politically-motivated assault on the President's integrity, but timed to give maximum exposure by the Leftmedia to his new book, which is little more than a Leftist diatribe against the Bush doctrine of preemption. To that end, it is worth noting that the parent company of CBS (Clarke's principal promoter) is Viacom -- which also happens to be the parent company of Simon & Schuster, the publisher of Clarke's dubious new book, "Against All Enemies." (Recall that in January, CBS and Viacom orchestrated the same "60 Minutes" book promotion for another Bush-bashing tome -- that of fired former treasury secretary Paul O'Neill.)
Quote of the week...
"You can't walk away from this challenge. You can't say it isn't going to affect me. You can't say let's not take any actions that a terrorist might not like, like say, participating in the Coalition in Iraq or doing other things … because you are afraid of what the terrorist reaction might be. This is the time to fight terrorism, not to walk away or be terrified by terrorism." --Secretary of State Colin Powell
On cross-examination...
"For us, today, the hearings and frantic finger-pointing about September 11 are as silly and pointless as they are inevitable. The emergence of Islamist terrorism has been a good half century in the making -- from the theoretical writings by Egyptian intellectuals at the middle of the last century to September 11 and beyond. The clash between our civilization and that force was probably inevitable. If the events of September 11 had failed for any reason, there would have been another day and another disaster." --Tony Blankley
Open query...
"...Wednesday, Clarke ... testified before the 9/11 commission. Was his testimony helpful to those seriously attempting to craft an effective policy to defeat terrorism? Or was he selling books and giving a job interview? You ... make the call." --Clifford D. May
The BIG lie...
"In the march to war, the president exaggerated the threat. It was not nuanced. It was pure, unadulterated fear-mongering, based on a devious strategy to convince the American people that Saddam's ability to provide nuclear weapons to Al-Qa'ida justified immediate war. Why would the administration go to such lengths to go to war? Was it trying to change the subject from its failed economic policy, the corporate scandals, and its failed effort to capture Osama bin Laden? The only imminent threat was the November congressional election. The politics of the election trumped the stubborn facts. What happened was not merely a failure of intelligence, but the result of manipulation and distortion of intelligence and the selective use of unreliable intelligence to justify a decision to go to war. The administration had made up its mind and would not let stubborn facts stand in the way." --Teddy Kennedy (D-Lirious)
On the Warfront with Jihadistan...
While John Kerry and his band of malcontents continued to undermine U.S. resolve in the war against Jihadistan ("aiding and abetting the enemy," it's called), four American civilians and seven American military personnel were murdered by al-Qa'ida wannabes in the Sunni Triangle around Baghdad. "The insurgents in Fallujah are testing us," says USMC Captain Chris Logan. "They're testing our resolve. But it's not like we're going to leave."
Despite these attacks, there was additional evidence that the U.S. presence in Iraq is having the desired effect on Iran and Syria. Syria has asked U.S. ally Australia for help in repairing its relations with the U.S. Australia, you'll recall, helped "negotiate the peace" between the U.S. and Libya earlier this year. Seems that Syria's Baathists are running scared....
From the Department of military readiness...
All those Lefties suggesting the U.S. has a "hollow military" will be sad to learn this week that the five Army divisions that have units deployed in the Middle East for the past 12 months have met virtually every re-enlistment goal. Retention targets for enlisted soldiers -- the 416,000 privates, corporals and sergeants of the Army's 490,000 active force, are standing firm. The all-volunteer force remains strong despite the stress of frequent deployments and hazardous duty. "This tends to rebut armchair critics who said the sky is falling and the vultures are circling and the Army is gong to lose all its troops," said Lt. Col. Franklin Childress. "This is not true. The soldiers get it." Hooah!