National Defense
Here are a few stories about Clinton's attempts to combat terrorist forces and the brick walls he ran up against:
April 24, 1995 The American Civil Liberties Union today said that the “counter-terrorism†proposals suggested by President Clinton Sunday evening threatened to repeat the mistakes of the past and erode constitutional principles that have shaped our society and remain at the core of our freedom and liberty.
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http://www.aclu.org/news/n042495.html
April 18, 1996 Congress on Thursday passed a compromise bill boosting the ability of law enforcement authorities to fight domestic terrorism . . . The measure, which the Senate passed overwhelmingly Wednesday evening, is a watered-down version of the White House's proposal. The Clinton administration has been critical of the bill, calling it too weak.
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http://www.cnn.com/US/9604/18/anti.terror.bill/index.html
July 30, 1996 Paris -- A Fact Sheet from the July 30 ministerial meeting of the P-8 (the industrialized nations of the world plus Russia) notes that President Clinton for three years has led an international campaign to combat terrorism in concert with the P-8 as well as with allies in the Middle East and elsewhere . . . Following is the official text of the Fact Sheet.
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http://www.fas.org/irp/threat/p8_facta.htm
July 30, 1996 President Clinton urged Congress Tuesday to act swiftly in developing anti-terrorism legislation before its August recess . . . But while the president pushed for quick legislation, Republican lawmakers hardened their stance against some of the proposed anti-terrorism measures . . . Clinton said he knew there was Republican opposition to his proposal on explosive taggants, but it should not be allowed to block the provisions on which both parties agree.
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http://www.cnn.com/US/9607/30/clinton.terrorism/
August 25, 1998 The August 20 bombing of Osama bin Laden's terrorist bases in Afghanistan and the alleged bin Laden-funded chemical weapons production facility in Khartoum, was a decisive and appropriate U.S. response to the atrocities in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, and President Bill Clinton should be commended.
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http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/media/schenker.htm
March 21, 2000 US President Bill Clinton said on Tuesday that he would take up with Pakistan military ruler Gen Pervez Musharraf the issue of terrorism in the Kashmir valley.
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http://www.indiainfo.com/news/2000/03/21/clin
March 22, 2000 Clinton is pushing General Musharraf to use his influence with Afghanistan's leaders—the Taliban—to bring Bin Laden to trial . . . Even if Musharraf could convince the Taliban to give Bin Laden up, there is an abundance of anger, frustration and weapons in the region, left over from the Afghan war, when thousands of extremists came together to bring a superpower to its knees . . . That militant network has built up in this region over two decades of conflict. The president believes America must get deeply involved in South Asia to crack the terrorist problem, a process Clinton continues throughout this week.
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http://www.kdka.com/now/story/0,1597,1747
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A8734-2002Jan19
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A62725-2001Dec18
http://www.cnn.com/2000/ALLPOLITICS/stories/01/24/pentagon.budget/
http://www.cnn.com/US/9604/18/anti.terror.bill/index.html
http://www9.cnn.com/US/9607/30/clinton.terrorism/
http://www.fbi.gov/congress/congress99/freehct2.htm
http://online.securityfocus.com/news/201
http://www.prospect.org/webfeatures/2002/01/page-a-01-23.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A61219-2001Oct2
And don't forget how GW stopped ongoing terrorist investigations:
FBI claims Bin Laden inquiry was frustrated
Officials told to 'back off' on Saudis before September 11
Greg Palast and David Pallister
The Guardian Wednesday November 7, 2001
FBI and military intelligence officials in Washington say they were prevented for political reasons from carrying out full investigations into members of the Bin Laden family in the US before the terrorist attacks of September 11.
US intelligence agencies have come under criticism for their wholesale failure to predict the catastrophe at the World Trade Centre. But some are complaining that their hands were tied.
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They said the restrictions became worse after the Bush administration took over this year. The intelligence agencies had been told to “back off†from investigations involving other members of the Bin Laden family, the Saudi royals, and possible Saudi links to the acquisition of nuclear weapons by Pakistan.
“There were particular investigations that were effectively killed.â€
Only after the September 11 attacks was the stance of political and commercial closeness reversed towards the other members of the large Bin Laden clan, who have classed Osama bin Laden as their “black sheepâ€.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4293682,00.html
Hart-Rudman
Not only did Clinton's actions prevent Y2K terrorist acts (eg, a bomber headed off on his way to the celebration in Seattle), but much more occurred in his administration to ward off terrorism ~ only to be scuttled by the Bushistas:
Commission warned Bush
But White House passed on recommendations by a bipartisan, Defense department-ordered commission on domestic terrorism.
by Jake Tapper
Sept. 12, 2001 | WASHINGTON -- They went to great pains not to sound as though they were telling the president “We told you so.â€
But on Wednesday, two former senators, the bipartisan co-chairs of a Defense Department-chartered commission on national security, spoke with something between frustration and regret about how White House officials failed to embrace any of the recommendations to prevent acts of domestic terrorism delivered earlier this year.
Bush administration officials told former Sens. Gary Hart, D-Colo., and Warren Rudman, R-N.H., that they preferred instead to put aside the recommendations issued in the January report by the U.S. Commission on National Security/21st Century. Instead, the White House announced in May that it would have Vice President Dick Cheney study the potential problem of domestic terrorism -- which the bipartisan group had already spent two and a half years studying -- while assigning responsibility for dealing with the issue to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, headed by former Bush campaign manager Joe Allbaugh.
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Before the White House decided to go in its own direction, Congress seemed to be taking the commission's suggestions seriously, according to Hart and Rudman. “Frankly, the White House shut it down,†Hart says. “The president said 'Please wait, we're going to turn this over to the vice president. We believe FEMA is competent to coordinate this effort.' And so Congress moved on to other things, like tax cuts and the issue of the day.â€
“We predicted it,†Hart says of Tuesday's horrific events. “We said Americans will likely die on American soil, possibly in large numbers -- that's a quote (from the commission's Phase One Report) from the fall of 1999.â€
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http://www.salon.com/politics/feature/2001/09/12/bush/
The Gore Commission
also known as the White House Commission on Aviation Safety and Security.
http://www.airportnet.org/depts/regulatory/gorecom.htm
Here is what seems to have happened to the recomendations of the Gore Commission:
We begin our news with a quote: “The federal government should consider aviation security as a national security issue, and provide substantial funding for capital improvements. The Commission believes that terrorist attacks on civil aviation are directed at the United States, and that there should be an ongoing federal commitment to reducing the threats that they pose.â€
If you think that comes from a recent Bush White House report, guess again. In the summer of 1996, shortly after the crash of TWA flight 800, President Clinton asked Vice President Al Gore to chair a commission on improving air transportation safety. As a result, the White House Commission on Aviation Safety and Security, commonly known as the Gore Commission, conducted an in-depth analysis of the U.S. commercial airlines' safeguards against terrorist attacks. In its final report, which is what I quoted from a moment ago, the Gore Commission found that security measures used by U.S. airlines were extremely inadequate, and made over 50 recommendations to improve security.
What happened? Well, the Gore Commission demanded tougher airline security, but airlines and conservatives said no. Specifically, the airline industry dismissed the threat of terrorists, and attacked the commission. Indeed, the day after the final report was published, the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association fought back with a legislative action of their own that claimed the Gore Commission existed simply to thwart the will of the Republican Congress.
And conservative ideologues rejected the proposal on “cost-effectiveness†grounds. OK, so how much are 6,000 lives worth - not to mention the dollar value placed on the World Trade Center, a portion of the Pentagon, an economic recession, and America's security?
http://www.d28dems.org/pspeak/psE85.htm
For instance, the commission, headed by then-Vice President Al Gore, wanted airlines to screen all passengers with computerized profiling systems to detect potential terrorists.
http://www.detnews.com/2001/nation/0110/06/nation-312052.htm
http://www.democraticunderground.co...cgi?az=show_thread&om=25100&forum=DCForumID35
I think that what Shrub is doing is *creating* terrorism and murdering hundreds of thousands of innocent people and whole families.
Before 9.11:
Bush defunds international organizations that provide abortions or abortion counseling to poor women.
Bush postures over North Korea.
Bush pulls out of the Kyoto treaty.
Bush makes a gaffe over Taiwan/China policy.
Bush returns the world to a Cold War-level arms race.
Bush rejects a protocol to enforce germ warfare treaty.
Bush denies Africans AIDS drugs through international aid agency.
Bush isolates United States in denying support for Kyoto treaty.
Bush officially rejects germ warfare treaty protocol.
Bush announces that the United States will withdraw from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.
Bush skips an international conference on racism.
After 9.11:
Bush tries to end arms sanctions.
Bush approves the assassination of Osama bin Laden.
Bush proposes trying suspected terrorists with military tribunals.
Bush abandons ABM treaty.
Bush plans to store--rather than destroy--nuclear weapons slated for reduction.
Bush invents the “axis of evil.â€
Bush tries to limit Congressional probes of September 11 terrorist attacks.
Bush releases his laughable global warming plan.
Bush makes the possibility of using nuclear weapons much more likely.
Bush lifts restrictions on aid to Colombia.
http://www.wage-slave.org/scorecard.html
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In 2000, when Prime Minister Ehud Barak, PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat and President Clinton were meeting at Camp David, Perle made news when he warned Barak not to let Vice President Al Gore become involved in the peace summit, for fear it would boost Gore's election prospects. He also told Barak to “walk away†from a peace plan if it left the thorny issue of a divided Jerusalem unresolved. Working as an advisor to candidate Bush, Perle warned Barak he would urge the Texas governor to condemn any peace plan that gave the PLO a foothold in Jerusalem. The Bush campaign quickly distanced itself from Perle's remarks.
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http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2002/09/05/perle/index.html
Anger at peace talks 'meddling'
Political scandal in US as Bush advisers tell Israelis to be ready to walk out of Camp David negotiations
http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,342857,00.html
You’re Invited to the War Party (“Bush at War†book review)
By Georgie Anne Geyer
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Another time, he says to Woodward,
“I’m the commander—see, I don’t need to explain—I do not need to explain why I say things. That’s the interesting thing about being the president. Maybe somebody needs to explain to me why they say something, but I don’t feel like I owe anybody an explanation.â€
At still another point after the Afghan war has started, the president says to his staff,
“Look, our strategy is to create chaos, to create a vacuum.†And Woodward ends the book with another quote from the president, in which he again reflects the obsessive chaos theory of the neoconservatives surrounding him like sentinels and for whom Iraq has become the sina quo non of political existence:
“We will export death and violence to the four corners of the earth in defense of our great nation.†Whew.
http://www.amconmag.com/01_13_03/geyer7.html
Global Warming
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GLOBAL TEMPERATURE WARMEST ON RECORD FOR SEPTEMBER
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Globe:
The average global surface temperature for combined land and ocean surfaces during
September 2003 (based on preliminary data) was 1.0°F (0.6°C) above the 1880-2002 long-term mean, the
warmest September since 1880 (the beginning of reliable instrumental records). The 2nd and 3rd warmest on record occurred in 1997 and 1998, respectively. Since 1900, global surface temperatures have risen at a rate of 1.0°F/century (0.6°C/century), but the rate has increased to approximately three times the century-scale trend since 1976.
Land surface temperatures were second warmest for September.
Temperatures were extremely warm throughout much of eastern Canada, where monthly anomalies in excess of 4.0° F(2.2°C) were widespread. Unusually warm temperatures also covered much of Asia and Europe. The global ocean surface temperature was warmest on record, and
temperatures in much of the central and eastern equatorial Pacific were near average as the neutral phase of ENSO (El Niño/Southern Oscillation) continued.
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http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/2003/sep/sep03.html
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WHITMAN {CNN CROSSFIRE}: He has also been very clear that the science is good on global warming. It does exist. There is a real problem that we as a world face from global warming.
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BASKIN: Controversy dogged Christie Whitman up until she resigned last spring. Once again the issue was global warming.
One of Whitman's first directives as EPA administrator had been to order up a report card on the environment...a report card which, by the spring of 2003, had become politically radioactive. A trail of internal documents reveal what happened.
A November 2002 draft of the report contained strong language on global warming concluding that climate change has, quote, "global consequences for human health and the environment" and that global warming is, quote, "most likely a result of human activities."
But by the following April, an internal EPA document shows the White House removed that language and declared, quote, "no further changes may be made" to the report.
And it came at a time when environmentalists were pressing Whitman to stand up to the White House. Eric Schaeffer is the EPA's former Director of Enforcement.
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BASKIN: But internal EPA documents refer to a quote "scientific consensus" within the EPA on global warming. So who exactly was opposed?
It turns out it was the White House Council on Environmental Quality. Its offices are across the street from the West Wing. And how many scientists are on its staff? None.
It's headed by James Connaughton, and who is he? A former lobbyist for power and electric utilities, the same industries who once opposed the very idea of global warming. That's where the ultimatum came from.
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http://www.pbs.org/now/transcript/transcript_clearingtheair.html
Arctic ice shelf breakup reported
Largest ice shelf in region was solid for 3,000 years
WASHINGTON, Sept. 22 — The largest ice shelf in the Arctic, a solid feature for 3,000 years, has broken up, scientists in the United States and Canada said Monday. They said the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf, on the north coast of Ellesmere Island in Canada’s Nunavut territory, broke into two main parts, themselves cut through with fissures. A freshwater lake drained into the sea, the researchers reported.
LARGE ICE ISLANDS also calved off from the shelf and some are large enough to be dangerous to shipping and to drilling platforms in the Beaufort Sea.
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Records indicate an increase of four-tenths of a degree centigrade every 10 years since 1967. The average July temperature has been 1.3 degrees Celsius or 34 degrees F —just above the freezing point — since 1967.
Climate change has affected ocean temperature, salinity and flow patterns, which also influence the break-up of ice shelves in the Antarctic. “It’s not just as simple as it gets x degrees warmer and the ice melts this much,†Mueller said.
Warmer temperatures weaken the ice, leaving it vulnerable to changed currents and other forces.
http://stacks.msnbc.com/news/970325.asp?0cv=cb10
Britain bakes, Europe burns. Is this proof of global warming?
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If it isn't proof of global warming at last, it certainly looks like it. As much of Europe burns like a furnace and rivers run dry across the continent, Britain is bracing itself for its own record temperature.
Sometime tomorrow, in southern England or the Midlands, the mercury in the thermometer may pass 37.1C, which became the national record when registered in Cheltenham on 3 August 1990. That centigrade peak translates as 98.8 Fahrenheit, so the remarkable figure for Britain of 99 or even 100F- is on the cards.
A record would be hugely significant - a three-figure Fahrenheit temperature for the UK would be breaking psychological as well as new meteorological ground as it would give many people for the first time the perception that global warning is a real, not a theoretical phenomenon - and that it is happening to them.
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http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/environment/story.jsp?story=430750
Canada anxious about snow melting in Arctic
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Snow melting in the Arctic as a result of global warming can pose a threat to the population of Canada's northern provinces, said Canadian Environment Minister David Anderson at the World Conference on Climate Change held in Moscow on Monday.
"Climate changes already pose a serious threat in the Arctic, and this bears directly on Canada," he pointed out. In this connection the Canadian minister did not rule out a possibility of resettling the population of the country's northern districts.
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According to Norwegian Environment Minister Borge Brende, in the recent decades global warming has become evident.
"Scientist forecast that during the forthcoming century, the average air temperature on the Earth may increase by 5.4 degrees, while over the last 10,000 years the temperature growth has not exceeded 8 degrees," Brende pointed out.
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http://newsfromrussia.com/world/2003/09/29/50234.html
