NATIONAL DISGRACE (Democrats on 9/11 Commission)

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The antics of the Democrats on the 9/11 Commission point out something that has been obvious since at least the Vietnam era, that these leftist extremists don't care what happens to this country, only that they're in charge at all times.

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April 14, 2004 -- NY Post

The national 9/11 commission has been hijacked by political shills -- men and women eager to subordinate truth to partisan advantage; who hold a transitory victory on Election Day more dear than American victory in the war on terror.
Tawdry ambition has eclipsed sacred duty; all Americans are diminished, but none more than the families of the 9/11 victims -- who expect better from the commission, and certainly deserve it.

Unless it is the thousands of young Americans now under arms in Iraq and elsewhere; their bravery and devotion to duty is inspirational. How shameful that the commission attack dogs hold their sacrifices so cheaply.

And John F. Kerry, who presumes to the presidency, acquiesces. What a disgrace.

Yesterday, Democratic shills Richard Ben-Veniste and Bob Kerrey hectored Attorney General John Ashcroft. They implied he was a coward for travelling on government aircraft at a time of heightened pre-9/11 security - if not, in fact, a scoundrel in possession of advance notice of the attack.

Last week, it was National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice in the Democrats' dock; she was a fool, a filibusterer, a liar.

"Isn't it a fact, Dr. Rice, that [President Bush was] warned against possible attacks in this country?" demanded Ben-Veniste.

Funny thing about that warning. Ben-Veniste was speaking of the now-famous Aug. 6, 2001, presidential daily briefing paper - suggesting that it proved the White House had failed to comprehend al Qaeda's threat to America.

Yesterday, it came out that someone had indeed gotten it right.

George W. Bush, who had directed that the briefing paper be prepared.

In a 13-page report titled "Threats and Responses in 2001," the commission staff paints a picture of alarm bells going off throughout Washington in the months before 9/11 about an imminent "spectacular" terror attack by Osama bin Laden.

But the intelligence reports all talked about attacks occurring against targets overseas.

And the fevered reports, in the summer of 2001, of possible threats "seemed to be focused on Saudi Arabia, Israel, Bahrain, Kuwait, Yemen and possibly Rome, but the danger could be anywhere . . . "

So the CIA prepared the Aug. 6 memo, "summarizing its understanding of the danger."

In sum: The briefing paper was written specifically for the president in direct response to an order from the president!

Obviously, the CIA's "understanding of the danger" was deficient.

But it clearly was not "a fact" that Bush was "warned against possible attacks in this country."

It is clear, now, that the entire briefing-memo "scandal" was sewn from whole cloth. But will there be an apology from Ben-Veniste, Kerrey & Co.?

Not a chance.

Why not.

Because, to the Democrats, the enemy is not just al Qaeda.

It is also the George W. Bush White House.

So they cross the bounds of acceptable political discourse, twisting the truth and bending the facts to produce a product that will advance their political ambitions.

To hell with the 9/11 families.

And to hell with eight young Americans reported killed in action in Iraq just yesterday; to the 65 who died over the past week - and to the hundreds who have laid down their lives for peace and freedom since 9/11.

All to defeat Bush.

John Kerry could shut it down in a heartbeat, simply by saying: "Stop it!"

Kerry needs to do just that. He must state the obvious: that 9/11 was the work of Islamist fanatics, and that the danger will not have passed until those who make war on America are either killed or in captivity.

It is simply disgraceful that he hasn't already done so.

http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/editorial/18736.htm
 
This is always the case and why some pundit calls their tactics "the incredible Democrat baloney slicing machine." Every time there is a repub in power, the demons chisel him at every opportunity. The repub usually tries to play nice and every time he gives an inch they move their demands a mile. Another pundit characterizes the difference as the evil party vs. the stupid party. I will leave it to your imagination which is which. :p
 
It's amazing to me that people will read an editorial, and react to it as if it's the gospel truth... It's an editorial , people... It's just some guy's opinion. And you know what they say about opinions... They're just like *_________ *; everybody's got one and they're usually full of **it...



Every time there is a repub in power, the demons chisel him at every opportunity.




Are you forgetting when Clinton was President, during "The Time Of A Multitude of Pointless Lawsuits" ? What was that, if it wasn't chiseling at every opportunity? And as far as the Connie Rice testimony goes, I saw it, and yes she did have a tendency to filibuster. So if somebody says she did, then so what? She did!

I say we make both Democratic and Republican parties illegal, and start fresh...
 
It's amazing to me that people will read an editorial, and react to it as if it's the gospel truth

Editorials are a perspective. And sometimes they match our own. In this case it is the truth as far as I am concerned. This commission has turned into a political witch hunt. Our enemies are watching and laughing. It is only because we are strong that the US can be made a laughingstock and still be feared. The the donkeys seek to tear it down at every opportunity.

As far as Klinton, most of the swipes at him were for personal and domestic issues. You know, little things like lying under oath, filegate, campaign contributions, selling technology to our enemies, etc.

The difference is that Klinton knew and could have prevented any number of these investigations by obeying ethics and the law. What the donkey party is doing is playing 20/20 hindsight about an ethereal matter concerning connecting the intelligence dots regarding an enemy that practices tactics never before seen and is a member of no nation-state. A very dangerous game.

This commission should have been convened after the WOT like the Pearl Harbor investigation or, at the least, after the election cycle. No good will come of this misguided witch hunt.
 
ceetee:

It's amazing to me that people will read an editorial, and react to it as if it's the gospel truth... It's an editorial , people

I posted the NY Post editorial because I think the opinions expressed contain a great deal of truth. BTW, that's one of the purposes of this forum in case you missed it. Nobody said it was the Gospel truth. Nobody forced you to read it.

Are you forgetting when Clinton was President, during "The Time Of A Multitude of Pointless Lawsuits" ? What was that, if it wasn't chiseling at every opportunity

You are trying to say that the lawsuits brought by Klintoon's victims are analagous to the partisan behavior of the Democrats on the 9/11 Commission. That just isn't the case.

The lawsuits directed against Bubba Klintoon involved mainly the fallout from his past as a serial sexual predator committing sexual assault and rape against many victims over several decades.

The lawsuits against Klintoon were private suits not involving national security, except where Klintoon ordered missle strikes such as those against empty Al-Queda training camps in Afghanistan in order to distract public attention from his impeachment. Recall Klintoon's impeachment resulted from his committing perjury during testimony given during one of the civil suits against him.

The Democrats on the 9/11 Commission are trying to play partisan politics and pin the blame for 8 years of Klintoon Aministration incompetence regarding terrorism on the Bush Administration
 
Personally I'm glad it and other like it are posted. I don't take any newspapers, so posts like this are where I get a lot of info. This forum is kind of like being able to scan the ed op columns on a matter very important to me on a nationwide basis, without having to do all the research alone.

Keep up the good work.
 
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Who Said It ?

I haven't corroborated this but was sent to me from a credible source:

"One way or the other, we are determined to deny Iraq the capacity to
develop weapons of mass destruction and the missiles to deliver them.
That is our bottom line."
- President Clinton, Feb. 4, 1998

"If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear.
We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program."
- President Clinton, Feb. 17, 1998

"Iraq is a long way from [here], but what happens there matters a great
deal here. For the risks that the leaders of a rogue state will use
nuclear, chemical or biological weapons against us or our allies is the
greatest security threat we face."
- Madeline Albright, Feb 18, 1998

"He will use those weapons of mass destruction again, as he has ten times since 1983."
- Sandy Berger, Clinton National Security Adviser, Feb, 18, 1998

"[W]e urge you, after consulting with Congress, and consistent with the
U.S. Constitution and laws, to take necessary actions (including, if
appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites) to respond
effectively to the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons of
mass destruction programs."
- Letter to President Clinton, signed by Sens. Carl Levin, Tom
Daschle, John Kerry, and others Oct. 9, 1998

"Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology which is a threat to countries in the region and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process."
- Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D, CA), Dec. 16, 1998

"Hussein has ... chosen to spend his money on building weapons of mass
destruction and palaces for his cronies."
- Madeline Albright, Clinton Secretary of State, Nov. 10, 1999

"There is no doubt that ... Saddam Hussein has invigorated his weapons
programs. Reports indicate that biological, chemical and nuclear
programs continue apace and may be back to pre-Gulf War status. In
addition, Saddam continues to redefine delivery systems and is doubtless
using the cover of a ilicit missile program to develop longer-range
missiles that will threaten the United States and our allies."
- Letter to President Bush, Signed by Sen. Bob Graham (D, FL,) and
others, December 5, 2001

"We begin with the common belief that Saddam Hussein is a tyrant and a
threat to the peace and stability of the region. He has ignored the
mandated of the United Nations and is building weapons of mass
destruction and the means of delivering them."
- Sen. Carl Levin (D, MI), Sept. 19, 2002

"We know that he has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical
weapons throughout his country."
- Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002

"Iraq's search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to
deter and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is
in power."
- Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002

"We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seeking and
developing weapons of mass destruction."
- Sen. Ted Kennedy (D, MA), Sept. 27, 2002

"The last UN weapons inspectors left Iraq in October of 1998. We are
confident that Saddam Hussein retains some stockpiles of chemical and
biological weapons, and that he has since embarked on a crash course to
build up his chemical and biological warfare capabilities. Intelligence
reports indicate that he is seeking nuclear weapons..."
- Sen. Robert Byrd (D, WV), Oct. 3, 2002

"I will be voting to give the President of the United States the
authority to use force-- if necessary-- to disarm Saddam Hussein because
I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his
hands is a real and grave threat to our security."
- Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Oct. 9, 2002

"There is unmistakable evidence that Saddam Hussein is working
aggressively to develop nuclear weapons and will likely have nuclear
weapons within the next five years ... We also should remember we have
always underestimated the progress Saddam has made in development of
weapons of mass destruction."
- Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D, WV), Oct 10, 2002

"He has systematically violated, over the course of the past 11 years,
every significant UN resolution that has demanded that he disarm and
destroy his chemical and biological weapons, and any nuclear capacity.
This he has refused to do"
Rep.- Henry Waxman (D, CA), Oct. 10, 2002

"In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show
that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological
weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program.
He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including al
Qaeda members.. It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam
Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and
chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons."
- Sen. Hillary Clinton (D, NY), Oct 10, 2002

"We are in possession of what I think to be compelling evidence that
Saddam Hussein has, and has had for a number of years, a developing
capacity for the production and storage of weapons of mass destruction."
- Sen. Bob Graham (D, FL), Dec. 8, 2002

"Without question, we need to disarm Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal,
murderous dictator, leading an oppressive regime ... He presents a
particularly grievous threat because he is so consistently prone to
miscalculation ... And now he is miscalculating America's response to his
continued deceit and his consistent grasp for weapons of mass
destruction... So the threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass
destruction is real..."
- Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Jan. 23. 2003

SO WHY DO THE Democrats SAY PRESIDENT BUSH LIED, THAT THERE NEVER WERE ANY WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION AND HE TOOK US TO WAR FOR HIS OIL BUDDIES???
 
I saw it, and yes she did have a tendency to filibuster. So if somebody says she did, then so what? She did!

filibuster - Obstruct deliberately by delaying

Answering accusatory statements in addition to the question posed at the end is not filibustering.

BEN-VENISTE: Isn't it a fact, Dr. Rice, that the August 6 PDB warned against possible attacks in this country? And I ask you whether you recall the title of that PDB?

RICE: I believe the title was, "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States."

Now, the...

BEN-VENISTE: Thank you.

RICE: No, Mr. Ben-Veniste...

BEN-VENISTE: I will get into the...

RICE: I would like to finish my point here.

BEN-VENISTE: I didn't know there was a point.

RICE: Given that -- you asked me whether or not it warned of attacks.

BEN-VENISTE: I asked you what the title was.

RICE: You said, did it not warn of attacks. It did not warn of attacks inside the United States. It was historical information based on old reporting. There was no new threat information. And it did not, in fact, warn of any coming attacks inside the United States.
Link...

Two questions, two answers.

Benny-V just wanted to leave the first accusatory statement unanswered and without context to leave a false impression. He is morally bankrupt. Some people are biased by their beliefs but he intentionally tries to create a lie from the truth. Well, he's a lawyer and a Dem...right?
 
Yesterday the RATS were after Ashcroft. The liberal news like Reuters were implying in their headlines that he having trouble explaining how he let 911 happen. I seem to recall that at the beginning of Bush's term the RATS were actively blocking the Ashcroft confirmation.

Does anyone know exactly when Ashcroft was confirmed?

I sure haven't heard any of the liberal media bring up the RAT obstruction and question if this could have hindered necessary changes in how CIA and FBI can share info.

I am mighty glad that I switched out of the RAT party. It sure would be embarrasing to be associated with those clowns!!!
 
And where are the Republicans in all of this, out playing golf? Where's the fire? Where's the passion? Where are the point men and the bulldogs on the Right? It's all so damn polite and passive. Why did the GOP permit this Commission to happen now and to unroll as it has? Are they outright fools? Or part of some bigger scam being perpetrated on the American people?

The only visible people with some vim on the right, from what I can perceive, are the talk radio jocks like Hannity, Elder, Medved, Savage, et al.
 
When they let guys the calibre (note gun relatedness :cool: ) of a Trent Lott to be the LEADER cough cough is there any wonder they are correctly known as the stupids? -as opposed to the criminally evil dums. :scrutiny:
 
A different perspective for the 9/11 commission.

April 13, 2004, 8:45 a.m.
What About the Wall?
Commissioner Gorelick is not the right person to probe intelligence lapses.

By Andrew C. McCarthy

For those of us who were in the trenches of the struggle against militant Islam beginning in the early 1990s, it is jarring to hear, of all people, Jamie Gorelick — now a member of the 9/11 Commission — hectoring government officials about their asserted failure to perceive how essential it is that the right pieces of intelligence get into the right hands. Equally bracing is to read the account of Gorelick's star witness, former counterterrorism coordinator Richard Clarke — that hero of the last 15 minutes — who bemoans how, even though he "had asked to know if a sparrow fell from a tree" during the summer 2001, the FBI and CIA nonetheless failed to stitch together disconnected bits of information about al Qaeda operatives and flight schools.

No one in his right mind could say that intelligence breakdowns related to 9/11 are not worth exploring. At issue, though, is the proper explorer. One would have hoped the appearance of objectivity, never mind the reality, would be the 9/11 Commission's guiding compass. Instead, the panel is beset by a gargantuan conflict of interest — and it's starting to show.

THE ARCHITECT AS JUDGE

Commissioner Gorelick, as deputy attorney general — the number two official in the Department of Justice — for three years beginning in 1994, was an architect of the government's self-imposed procedural wall, intentionally erected to prevent intelligence agents from pooling information with their law-enforcement counterparts. That is not partisan carping. That is a matter of objective fact. That wall was not only a deliberate and unnecessary impediment to information sharing; it bred a culture of intelligence dysfunction. It told national-security agents in the field that there were other values, higher interests, that transcended connecting the dots and getting it right. It set them up to fail. To hear Gorelick lecture witnesses about intelligence lapses is breathtaking.
...

TERROR HITS HOME, BUT NO ATITTUDE ADJUSTMENTS

Nevertheless, flashing back to when the courts were still warping FISA, two significant developments occurred: first, in January 1993, the Clinton administration came to power; and second, a month later, militant Islam announced its war against the United States by bombing the World Trade Center and rapidly following that atrocity up with two unsuccessful schemes — a Spring 1993 plot to bomb the United Nations, the Lincoln and Holland Tunnels, and the FBI's Manhattan headquarters; and the 1994-95 Manila Air conspiracy to blow U.S. airliners out of the sky over the Pacific.

On this score, one can only shake his head at Dick Clarke's celebrated conclusion that we had been fairly successful in the fight against terrorism prior to 9/11 since "only" a few dozen Americans had been killed in the preceding eight years. The 1993 WTC bombing occurred at high noon on a weekday — a time when the complex was generally populated by between 60,000 and 120,000 people. That the death toll was less than ten rather than in the thousands or tens of thousands — as it would surely have been had the bomb-laden van been parked just a few yards differently — was nothing short of a miracle. The New York City landmarks' bombing conspiracy was thwarted only because the FBI convinced an informant (who had been cut out of the investigation months before the WTC bombing) to go back to work. The failure of Manila Air was sheer luck — incompetent bomb mixing caused a minor explosion that was detected by an alert Filipino police officer. (And I haven't even gotten to the 1998 embassy bombings that killed over 250 people — mostly Kenyans and Tanzanians — or the 2000 Cole bombing that killed 17 sailors.)
...

Clarke blames incompetence and apathy for the failure of our agencies to appreciate the significance of pre-9/11 information that our country had been infiltrated by two identified al Qaeda terrorists, Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaz al-Hazmi, who would eventually guide Flight 77 into the Pentagon.

A different take is offered by Stewart Baker, general counsel of the National Security Agency in the early years of the Clinton administration. In a courageous and forthright account published by Slate in December 2003, and aptly entitled "Wall Nuts," Baker surmises that "on Sept. 11, 2001, that wall probably cost us 3,000 American lives."

Baker recounts that an FBI intelligence agent who was trying to find the two terrorists during summer 2001, asked for help from the law-enforcement side of the house and was turned down flat by headquarters. The agent's responsive pre-9/11 e-mail, quoted by Baker, is chilling: "ome day someone will die — and wall or not — the public will not understand why we were not more effective and throwing every resource we had at certain 'problems.' Let's hope the [lawyers who gave the advice] will stand behind their decisions then, especially since the biggest threat to us now, UBL [Usama Bin Laden], is getting the most 'protection.'"

Baker's conclusion? "We couldn't find al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi in August 2001 because we had imposed too many rules designed to protect against privacy abuses that were mainly theoretical. We missed our best chance to save the lives of 3,000 Americans because we spent more effort and imagination guarding against these theoretical privacy abuses than against terrorism."



Link...
 
I'm no Clinton fan, but Gorelick didn't implement the 'wall'.

Gorelick wrote the regulations mentioned, but they were a codification of a preexisting policy. In fact it was a policy Ashcroft apparently agreed with at the time.

From the New York Times story on the subject.

Much of this little-known legal debate became public in November 2002 when a special federal appeals court ruled that the wall had been destroyed by the counterterrorism law called the USA Patriot Act, which was enacted after the Sept. 11 attacks. But the court added a stunning observation, saying that even without the counterterrorism law, the wall had never been necessary and that courts and Justice Department officials had misinterpreted the law for more than 20 years.


But Slade Gorton, a former Republican senator from Washington, challenged Mr. Ashcroft, noting that the deputy attorney general under Mr. Ashcroft renewed the 1995 guidelines. Mr. Gorton said the Bush Justice Department ratified those guidelines, saying in its own secret memorandum on Aug. 6, 2001, that "the 1995 procedures remain in effect today."

Ashcroft and the author of the posted article should get their facts straight. :rolleyes:


Gorelick does have problems in being impartial in that the law firm in which she is a partner is representing one of the Saudi princes being sued by the 9/11 families.

On that basis alone, she shouldn't be on the committee as it's a direct conflict of interest.
 
Gorelick didn't implement the 'wall'

No, she just Codified / Formalized and patched any holes that inteligence may have slipped through.


The Department of Justice has moved this Court to vacate the minimization and "wall" procedures in all cases now or ever before the Court, including this Court's adoption of the Attorney General's July 1995 intelligence sharing procedures, which are not consistent with new intelligence sharing procedures submitted for approval with this motion. The Court has considered the Government's motion, the revised intelligence sharing procedures, and the supporting memorandum of law as required by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (hereafter the FISA or the Act) at 50 U.S.C. §1805(a)(4) and §1824(a)(4) (hereafter omitting citations to 50 U.S.C.) to determine whether the proposed minimization procedures submitted with the Government's motion comport with the definition of minimization procodures under §1801 (h) and §1921(4) of the Act. The Government's motion will be GRANTED, EXCEPT THAT THE PROCEDURES MUST BE MODIFIED IN PART.

Link...

Apparently the court had previously adopted the 1995 "codified" procedures..."including this Court's adoption of the Attorney General's July 1995 intelligence sharing procedures" ???

Office of the Attorney General
Washington, DC 20530
July 19, 1995
MEMORANDUM

TO:

Assistant Attorney General, Criminal Division
United States Attorney, Southern District of New York
Director, FBI
Counsel for Intelligence Policy

FROM: The Attorney General [signed: Janet Reno]
SUBJECT:

Effect of Procedures Governing FBI-Criminal Division Contacts During FI/FCI Investigations on Specific Instructions Concerning Separation of Certain FCI and Criminal Investigations

The memorandum issued by me today regarding procedures for contacts between the FBI and the Criminal Division concerning foreign intelligence and foreign counterintelligence investigations does not affect the specific instructions, contained in a memorandum from the Deputy Attorney General issued March 4, 1995, governing the separation of certain foreign counterintelligence and criminal investigations. Those instructions remain in effect.

Link...
 
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