It would be so much easier if they hadn't known anything. It's no wonder they're so adamant about keeping it away from the public! Without even considering the ramifications to their political careers if it was found to be true that they had some rather descriptive warnings about what might come, think about the potential lawsuits from families of the victims. I cannot imagine what would happen to our economy if all of the victims sued.
There are probably laws that protect the Federal government from those types of lawsuits, but I bet we'd end up paying out some sort of reparations to the victims. Which means that all of the rest of the nation would be paying off the victims because our leaders did not take sufficient heed of the warning signs.
Still, even with warning that Al Qaeda wanted to hijack planes and wanted to make massive terrorist attacks against major U.S. targets, I still don't know how anyone could have anticipated what actually happened. It was unprecedented-who'd have imagined intentionally flying planes into all those buildings? I guess after Pearl Harbor we shouldn't be so shocked.
Peggy C
at November 22, 2003 12:38 AM
Sadly, it wasn't unknown to the FBI:
ìThe FBI was warned six years ago of a terrorist plot to hijack commercial planes and slam them into the Pentagon, the CIA headquarters and other buildings, Philippine investigators told CNN."
I have to admit that I wasn't able to read through all of David Corn's piece. I heard him on the radio this morning and found him not particularly interesting as a speaker either. Maybe it's just the alcohol (mine, not his). Still, I think I got the jist by glancing through it.
I'd just like to know if the kind of intellegence that Bush may have gotten about the potential attack was so out of the ordinary. Is it possible that this is just some variation on "the boy cried wolf"? Maybe one way to answer that would be to compare the information on the impending 9/11 attacks with information on other potential attacks that surfaced before Bush was in office. Was this so remarkably different and alarming?
Like Peggy said:
"[...] even with warning that Al Qaeda wanted to hijack planes and wanted to make massive terrorist attacks against major U.S. targets, I still don't know how anyone could have anticipated what actually happened."
I don't find it hard to imagine that previous administrations shrugged off similar warnings in the past. But maybe that's just the Smirnoff talking....
Lena from the black lagoon
at November 22, 2003 1:34 AM
Nor do I (find it hard to imagine that previous administrations shrugged off warnings). I'm actually not partisan. Loathe all lying slimebag politicians -- which is probably most of them, Democrat and Republican.
I saw Bill Clinton on David Letterman about a year ago, and he talked about some of the things that he was aware of about Osama while he was in office, and how they wanted to get him and knew he was behind a lot of bad stuff. I think it is a bit of 'overload'--there are always so many possibilities, that it has to be hard to determine which ones are imminent and which are just brewing. But I thoroughly expect the politicians to be covering up as much as they can to save their careers.
Peggy C
at November 22, 2003 4:05 PM
Clinton's great mistake, in my opinion, was not saying "none of your damn business" when asked about his sex life. It was a travesty -- how much of his time in office --and I can only imagine how much -- was devoted to the Monica Lewinsky issue. And quite frankly, you're the leader of the free world and somebody offers you a blow job under the desk -- whatever! In short, his stupidity was answering the question as it was asked -- not telling the questioners to fuck off. Arnold did it right during his campaign - with the attitude, "yeah, I did some shit -- and now about governing California..." I'm pretty shocked now that Arnold's hired a private investigator to go digging on the groping issue. Nobody was concerned with that anymore -- now it'll be a central issues again -- when we really need and fulltime (and then-some) governor of California.
Yeah, David Corn is a pretty turgid writer and disorganized thinker ... yes, there is a point to be made that the Administration should avoid even the appearance of cover up, beyond that people need to remember that we also had a lot of intelligence that Pearl Harbor was coming. It was only after the attack that the intelligence could be pieced together into anything like a road map pointing to the attack. In intelligence, the signal to noise ratio is stunning. Often, it's only after an event that what was real is clear from what was bogus.
Amy, I'm totally with you on the whole Bill Clinton/Lewinsky thing. He should have just told them to mind their own damned business.
I had a little trouble slogging through the Corn piece, but what I found most unsettling was "The White House had refused to turn over this material to the House and Senate intelligence committees when they were conducting a joint investigation of 9/11..." Excuse me? Where does Bush get off refusing to turn over ANYTHING pertaining to an investigation of 9/11. And what's this garbage about a compromise? Go ahead with the subpoena and accept nothing less than those documents and full disclosure to the public.
Patrick
at November 27, 2003 1:31 AM
He's back! Lena and I were both missing you. Yeah - Corn is rough reading, but the point is good.
"Excuse me? Where does Bush get off refusing to turn over ANYTHING pertaining to an investigation of 9/11."
I think the administration claims that turning over the documents will threaten their ability to conduct the war on terror effectively. And anyone who takes issue with that is, according to Ashcroft and pals, effectively taking sides with the terrorists.
Lena
at November 28, 2003 5:53 PM
I'm so sick of everything that doesn't reflect on this administration in the most positive light being spun as "siding with the terrorists."
It would be so much easier if they hadn't known anything. It's no wonder they're so adamant about keeping it away from the public! Without even considering the ramifications to their political careers if it was found to be true that they had some rather descriptive warnings about what might come, think about the potential lawsuits from families of the victims. I cannot imagine what would happen to our economy if all of the victims sued.
There are probably laws that protect the Federal government from those types of lawsuits, but I bet we'd end up paying out some sort of reparations to the victims. Which means that all of the rest of the nation would be paying off the victims because our leaders did not take sufficient heed of the warning signs.
Still, even with warning that Al Qaeda wanted to hijack planes and wanted to make massive terrorist attacks against major U.S. targets, I still don't know how anyone could have anticipated what actually happened. It was unprecedented-who'd have imagined intentionally flying planes into all those buildings? I guess after Pearl Harbor we shouldn't be so shocked.
Peggy C at November 22, 2003 12:38 AM
Sadly, it wasn't unknown to the FBI:
ìThe FBI was warned six years ago of a terrorist plot to hijack commercial planes and slam them into the Pentagon, the CIA headquarters and other buildings, Philippine investigators told CNN."
http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/09/18/inv.hijacking.philippines/index.html
Here's my friend Dan Pulcrano's assessment of intelligence failures:
http://www.alternet.org/mobile/story_mobile.html?StoryID=11781
What I don't like is being spun by the government.
Amy Alkon at November 22, 2003 1:13 AM
Here's more -- the "Phoenix memo," which advises that FBI headquarters investigate flight schools.
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/phoenixmemo1.html
Amy Alkon at November 22, 2003 1:15 AM
Here's another piece by Michael Isikoff, entitled "Unheeded Warnings": http://www.why-war.com/news/2002/05/13/unheeded.html
Amy Alkon at November 22, 2003 1:18 AM
I have to admit that I wasn't able to read through all of David Corn's piece. I heard him on the radio this morning and found him not particularly interesting as a speaker either. Maybe it's just the alcohol (mine, not his). Still, I think I got the jist by glancing through it.
I'd just like to know if the kind of intellegence that Bush may have gotten about the potential attack was so out of the ordinary. Is it possible that this is just some variation on "the boy cried wolf"? Maybe one way to answer that would be to compare the information on the impending 9/11 attacks with information on other potential attacks that surfaced before Bush was in office. Was this so remarkably different and alarming?
Like Peggy said:
"[...] even with warning that Al Qaeda wanted to hijack planes and wanted to make massive terrorist attacks against major U.S. targets, I still don't know how anyone could have anticipated what actually happened."
I don't find it hard to imagine that previous administrations shrugged off similar warnings in the past. But maybe that's just the Smirnoff talking....
Lena from the black lagoon at November 22, 2003 1:34 AM
Nor do I (find it hard to imagine that previous administrations shrugged off warnings). I'm actually not partisan. Loathe all lying slimebag politicians -- which is probably most of them, Democrat and Republican.
Amy Alkon at November 22, 2003 1:47 AM
I saw Bill Clinton on David Letterman about a year ago, and he talked about some of the things that he was aware of about Osama while he was in office, and how they wanted to get him and knew he was behind a lot of bad stuff. I think it is a bit of 'overload'--there are always so many possibilities, that it has to be hard to determine which ones are imminent and which are just brewing. But I thoroughly expect the politicians to be covering up as much as they can to save their careers.
Peggy C at November 22, 2003 4:05 PM
Clinton's great mistake, in my opinion, was not saying "none of your damn business" when asked about his sex life. It was a travesty -- how much of his time in office --and I can only imagine how much -- was devoted to the Monica Lewinsky issue. And quite frankly, you're the leader of the free world and somebody offers you a blow job under the desk -- whatever! In short, his stupidity was answering the question as it was asked -- not telling the questioners to fuck off. Arnold did it right during his campaign - with the attitude, "yeah, I did some shit -- and now about governing California..." I'm pretty shocked now that Arnold's hired a private investigator to go digging on the groping issue. Nobody was concerned with that anymore -- now it'll be a central issues again -- when we really need and fulltime (and then-some) governor of California.
Amy Alkon, godless harlot at November 22, 2003 4:15 PM
Yeah, David Corn is a pretty turgid writer and disorganized thinker ... yes, there is a point to be made that the Administration should avoid even the appearance of cover up, beyond that people need to remember that we also had a lot of intelligence that Pearl Harbor was coming. It was only after the attack that the intelligence could be pieced together into anything like a road map pointing to the attack. In intelligence, the signal to noise ratio is stunning. Often, it's only after an event that what was real is clear from what was bogus.
Howard Owens at November 23, 2003 12:09 PM
Amy, I'm totally with you on the whole Bill Clinton/Lewinsky thing. He should have just told them to mind their own damned business.
I had a little trouble slogging through the Corn piece, but what I found most unsettling was "The White House had refused to turn over this material to the House and Senate intelligence committees when they were conducting a joint investigation of 9/11..." Excuse me? Where does Bush get off refusing to turn over ANYTHING pertaining to an investigation of 9/11. And what's this garbage about a compromise? Go ahead with the subpoena and accept nothing less than those documents and full disclosure to the public.
Patrick at November 27, 2003 1:31 AM
He's back! Lena and I were both missing you. Yeah - Corn is rough reading, but the point is good.
Amy Alkon at November 27, 2003 6:45 AM
"Excuse me? Where does Bush get off refusing to turn over ANYTHING pertaining to an investigation of 9/11."
I think the administration claims that turning over the documents will threaten their ability to conduct the war on terror effectively. And anyone who takes issue with that is, according to Ashcroft and pals, effectively taking sides with the terrorists.
Lena at November 28, 2003 5:53 PM
I'm so sick of everything that doesn't reflect on this administration in the most positive light being spun as "siding with the terrorists."
Amy Alkon at November 28, 2003 6:06 PM