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Clinton's Job Approval Rate is Up Again

Discussion in 'Political Debate & Discussion' started by The Galatian, Jul 28, 2006.

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  1. The Galatian

    The Galatian New Member

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    (Barbarian points out how the Bush Administration removed programs to keep track of Al-Qaeda)

    (translation: "I don't what to believe that Bush did it, so I'm ging to change the subject")

    It's true. He did it.
    If the Bush administration was sounding the alarm about Al Qaeda in its first few months in office, the national-security bureaucracy was not listening. At the Justice Department, Attorney General John Ashcroft downgraded terrorism as a priority, choosing to place more emphasis on drug trafficking and gun violence. That summer, a federal judge severely chastised the FBI for improperly seeking permission to wiretap terrorists; as a result, NEWSWEEK has learned, the Justice Department curtailed a highly classified program called "Catcher's Mitt" to monitor Qaeda suspects in the United States.
    http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4571338/

    As you learned above, the administration didn't even think terrorism was a priority. Ashcroft presented seven goals for his tenure as Atty Gen. Fighting terrorism wasn't even on the list.

    Justice Department documents released by American Progress reveal that in August 2001, the FBI specifically requested additional resources to bolster counterterrorism resources. In response, Ashcroft actually cut counterterrorism funding in critical areas including equipment grants, border control, and the National Domestic Preparedness Office. Our new analysis reveals the 2002 counterintelligence budget proposed by Ashcroft cut counterintelligence spending by more than $476 million – a 23 percent decline from 2001 funding levels.
    http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=45491

    It's not as though he did nothing, however. Ashcroft, in the months before 9/11, suddenly stopped flying commercial and started using a chartered jet at $1600 an hour.

    Paid off for him.

    I can see you're suprised to learn about this. But those are the facts. The Bush admninistration knew something big was up. And they trimmed back our ability to learn about it.

    And then it happened. Clinton couild have done more, BTW. But Bush removed much of what he was doing to protect us. And maybe that was all they needed to make 9/11 happen.

    Doesn't matter much if you agree or not. Bush still left us open to attack.

    (carpro ducks, dodges, weaves, and tries to change the subject to "liberals")
    At least I'll meet it head on instead of using your favorite liberal tactic of duck, dodge, weave, and change the subject.

    Imagine that...
     
    #21 The Galatian, Aug 2, 2006
  2. carpro

    carpro Well-Known Member
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    http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1461690/posts

    How Chinagate Led to 9/11

    By Jean Pearce FrontPageMagazine.com | May 25, 2004

    As the 9/11 Commission tries to uncover what kept intelligence agencies from preventing September 11, it has overlooked two vital factors: Jamie Gorelick and Bill Clinton. Gorelick, who has browbeaten the current administration, helped erect the walls between the FBI, CIA and local investigators that made 9/11 inevitable. However, she was merely expanding the policy Bill Clinton established with Presidential Decision Directive 24. What has been underreported is why the policy came about: to thwart investigations into the Chinese funding of Clinton’s re-election campaign, and the favors he bestowed on them in return.

    In April, CNSNews.com staff writer Scott Wheeler reported that a senior U.S. government official and three other sources claimed that the 1995 memo written by Jamie Gorelick, who served as the Clinton Justice Department’s deputy attorney general from 1994 to 1997, created "a roadblock" to the investigation of illegal Chinese donations to the Democratic National Committee. But the picture is much bigger than that. The Gorelick memo, which blocked intelligence agents from sharing information that could have halted the September 11 hijacking plot, was only the mortar in a much larger maze of bureaucratic walls whose creation Gorelick personally oversaw.

    It’s a story the 9/11 Commission may not want to hear, and one that Gorelick – now incredibly a member of that commission – has so far refused to tell. But it is perhaps the most crucial one to understanding the intentional breakdown of intelligence that led to the September 11 disaster.

    SNIP

    Without an enforcer, the walls Gorelick’s memo put in place might not have held. But Scruggs acted as that enforcer, and he excelled at it. Scruggs maintained Gorelick’s walls between the FBI and Justice's Criminal Division by threatening to automatically reject any FBI request for a wiretap or search warrant if the Bureau contacted the Justice Department's Criminal Division without permission. This deprived the FBI, and ultimately the CIA, of gathering advice and assistance from the Criminal Division that was critical in espionage and terrorist cases.

    It is no coincidence that this occurred at the same time both the FBI and the CIA were churning up evidence damaging to the Democratic Party, its fundraisers, the Chinese and ultimately the Clinton administration itself. Between 1994 and the 1996 election, as Chinese dollars poured into Democratic coffers, Clinton struggled to reopen high-tech trade to China. Had agents confirmed Chinese theft of weapons technology or its transfer of weapons technology to nations like Pakistan, Iran and Syria, Clinton would have been forced by law and international treaty to react.

    Gorelick’s appointment to the job at Justice in 1994 occurred during a period in which the FBI had begun to systematically investigate technology theft by foreign powers. For the first time, these investigations singled out the U.S. chemical, telecommunications, aircraft and aerospace industries for intelligence collection.

    By the time Gorelick wrote the March 1995 memo that sealed off American intelligence agencies from each other and the outside world, all of the most critical Chinagate investigations by American intelligence agencies were already underway. Some of their findings were damning:

    SNIP

    The Cox Report, which detailed Chinese espionage for Congress during the period, revealed that FBI surveillance caught Chinese officials frantically trying to keep Democratic donor Johnny Chung from divulging any information that would be damaging to Hughes Electronics. Chung funneled $300,000 in illegal contributions from the Chinese military to the DNC between 1994 and 1996.

    It was this web of investigations that led Gorelick and Bill Clinton to erect the wall between intelligence agencies that resulted in the toppling of the Twin Towers. The connections go on and on, but they all lead back to Gorelick, the one person who could best explain how the Clinton administration neutered the American intelligence agencies that could have stopped the September 11 plot. Yet another high crime will have been committed if the September 11 Commission doesn’t demand testimony from her.
     
    #22 carpro, Aug 4, 2006
  3. The Galatian

    The Galatian New Member

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    Frontpage.com is a wacked-out site that considers Ann Coulter to be a moderate.

    Let's look at the claims...

    Tracking Al Qaeda's financial trail made 9/11 inevitable? That's why Bush cancelled it? You're pretty gullible, carpro.

    (argument that not tracking the Chinese closer had something to do with 9/11)

    It would have been more persuasive, if they had actually shown how. It looks like a rather desultory attempt to show that Clinton was as neglectful of security as Bush.

    If Clinton was tracking Al Qaeda, and Bush put an end to it, wouldn't any reasonable person conclude the obvious?

    And if the FBI agent in charge of tracking terrorists quits in protest of the Bush Administration's interference in tracking Al Qaeda, wouldn't any reasonable person draw the conclusion that Bush, not Clinton was the problem?

    And if a second FBI agent testified that he "almost fell off my chair" when he realized that the Bush administration no longer regarded terrorism as a priorty, wouldn't any reasonable person draw the obvious conclusion?

    The fact that no evidence whatever is offered to show that Clinton did anything at all to impede our surveillance of Al Qaeda pretty much settles the issue. In fact, as you learned, Clinton established an entire program to keep an eye on himt. Bush killed it. Bush also downgraded the Clinton emphasis on controlling terrrorism, cut counter-intelligence budgets, and (according to O'Neill, the FBI agent who quit in protest) protected the Saudis in this country from the FBI.

    Did that in itself, make 9/11 inevitable? It sure didn't do anything to stop it.

    Did Bush's connections to the Bin Ladens have anything to do with his decision to kill surveillance of Osama? We can't say. What do you think?
     
    #23 The Galatian, Aug 4, 2006
    Last edited by a moderator: Aug 4, 2006
  4. carpro

    carpro Well-Known Member
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    "It was this web of investigations that led Gorelick and Bill Clinton to erect the wall between intelligence agencies that resulted in the toppling of the Twin Towers. The connections go on and on, but they all lead back to Gorelick, the one person who could best explain how the Clinton administration neutered the American intelligence agencies that could have stopped the September 11 plot. Yet another high crime will have been committed if the September 11 Commission doesn’t demand testimony from her."
     
    #24 carpro, Aug 6, 2006
  5. The Galatian

    The Galatian New Member

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    Accusations are easy. Evidence is another matter. You've seen the testimony of two FBI agents who were upset and angry that Bush was preventing survellience of potential terrorists and had taken terrorism off the list of admnisistration priorities. You've seen that he stopped "operation catcher's mitt", which was monitoring the financial dealings of suspected terrorists. Bush also cut funds for counter-intelligence. All of these made it easer for 9/11 to happen.

    On the other hand, you have an unsupported allegation that Clinton did something like that.

    But you aren't going to show us, are you? We all know why.

    How, exactly, is tracking the activities of suspected terrorists, "neutering" intelligence agencies? That was the single best thing anyone could have done to prevent 9/11. And yet Bush killed it.

    Surely you can see how your argument appears to any rational person. Can't you?
     
    #25 The Galatian, Aug 6, 2006
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