Tony Bennett's opinion on who caused 9-11, and George Bush's revelation

[cpwm17]

Source: ABC News

Tony Bennett on Howard Stern: “To start a war in Iraq was a tremendous, tremendous mistake internationally,” he said.

(later on, refering to 9-11) “They flew the plane in, but we caused it,” Bennett responded. “Because we were bombing them and they told us to stop.”

Before leaving, Bennett recalled an evening in 2005 when he was honored at the Kennedy Center. Meeting President George W. Bush at the event, the singer said that the commander-in-chief shared his opinion about the Iraq War.

“He told me personally that night that, he said, ‘I think I made a mistake,’” Bennett said.

Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2011/09/tony-bennett-on-911-attacks-they-flew-the-plane-in-but-we-caused-it/?rss=rss-wabc-snippet-7091254


The comment section is pretty rough on Tony Bennett. I very much agree with him: we provoked 9-11. It's indisputable.

Here's Osama Bin Laden giving his reasons for attacking the US on 9-11 (toward the end), preceded by Ron Paul's condemnation of Bill Clinton's warmongering (1998, during the stupid impeachment fiasco), and Madeline Albright's support of mass murder against Iraqi children (1996): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxfkYG09vCg&list=FLcCDUbqXhpWBTMiyKefTWXg&index=4

In the video Ron Paul was prophetic about a future terrorist attack due to our war mongering and abusive behavior. ME terrorists that attack us are consistent in their reasons - it's our foreign policy.

Bill Clinton not only bombed Iraq in 1998, he bombed Iraq every few days throughout the 1990's, all from Saudi Arabia. All of this plus the US was (and is) arming and protecting Israel while Israel brutalized the Palestinians and it Lebanese neighbors. Also the US supports the worst ME dictators, etc. The US treats the people of the ME like shit, and it's been going on since the 1940's. 9-11 was payback.

[ocpagu]

1. If you intend to buy the official government crap...

...please, buy the entire crap.

"They hate you for your freedoms".

[zappaman]

3. Why must you believe EVERYTHING the government says?

You should be skeptical until you look into it.
In your case, you should watch some edited, biased youtube videos and listen to faux-experts like Gage and Griffin to come to your wonderful and impeachable conclusions!
:rofl:

[Ohio Joe]

2. Blame Dems... Check... Support Ron Paul... Check

hmmmm, whats missing?

[cpwm17]

4. I wouldn't vote for Ron Paul

That's a nice bit of deflecting. Ron Paul made my point. If more Democrats would say and do the right thing on foreign policy, I would be perfectly happy to post their videos.

As you should know, Bill Clinton was the president before George W Bush. That was less than a year before 9-11, 2001.

Both Democratic and Republican politicians are war mongers. Are you one of those types that only oppose war when a Republican does it? Do you defend Bill Clinton's behavior? If so, then you aren't anything close to what I would call a liberal.

It's so childish to think that the US should be able to go around the world behaving as it pleases with no thoughts of the consequences of its actions and no care of all the lives it ruins. It's seems to be a faith-based religious-like feeling or sense of entitlement to believe that the US has a right to behave like this, and that the world should accept it.

Perhaps the last paragraph is a bit of a straw man, but I really don't think so.

[Ohio Joe]

5. A bit?

:rofl:

Keep pumping Ron Paul though... Sheesh.

[cpwm17]

8. Once again: do you defend Bill Clinton's behavior?

And what do you think people in the ME should think about our foreign policy? Why wouldn't our behavior be a motive for 9-11? What would Americans do if faced with what many people in the ME are face with? Would we be passive?

Hey, the US attacked Iraq, and they did absolutely nothing to us at all.

I just gave both the motive and a confession for 9-11. Here's a more complete confession by Osama: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qloshSGAJ1s

Compare this to what the right-wing claims - we were minding our own business and the terrorists attacked for no real reason at all. And also compare this to what the Truthers claim was the motive (and who did it), and the elaborate scheme required to pull it off.

[Ohio Joe]

9. Do you excuse bush and support Ron Paul?

Putting all the blame on clinton is as stupid as saying I claim "we were minding our own business and the terrorists attacked for no real reason at all". I've said no such thing, I simply put the blame where it belongs, on the guy in charge at the time. I also, under no circumstances give any credit for anything to that racist douchebag Ron Paul. He deserves not a single kind word from any progressive.

[cpwm17]

11. I thought I made myself clear already

I wouldn't vote for Ron Paul. Libertarianism is close to a religious dogma. I do support his anti-war stance and I appreciate his willingness to express it publicly. I much prefer Dennis Kucinich, though I'm skeptical of any politician.

Ron Paul is not the point of this thread. Plus, I suspect that Ron Paul's libertarian dogma would actually backfire because the corruption that causes war would probably increase. He would also destroy our economy (and civil rights laws, etc). I couldn't support that. It's funny watching Ron Paul argue economics, he paints himself into corners really quickly.

[Ohio Joe]

12. Could have fooled me

In fact... You did fool me. I see a post that puts all the blame for 9/11 on Clinton and supports Ron Paul. Again, a man who deserves no good words from and liberal. It is no different then a post praising hitler for keeping the trains running on time. A douchebag having one good thing about them is not cause to admire them for that one thing, they are still a douchebag.

[cpwm17]

14. There's an alleged liberal that is frequently praised on liberal websites

Including on DU. He's openly extremely bigoted (something Ron Paul isn't), and I can't stand him. I won't mention his name because I don't want to get off topic. But sometimes I do respond negatively when I see posts praising him.

So I can see why you may get upset when Ron Paul gets positive attention and you've seen his actual bigotry. I've never seen it, though I'm not a fan (outside his anti-war stance), so I have not studied his background. His Libertarian views themselves are not reasons to avoid posting videos when he gets it right.

I had no intention of singling out Bill Clinton, per se. And I did mention that our bad foreign policy goes back a long ways. But Bill Clinton was President not long before 9-11, and his policies did a lot to provoke it.

Here's the reasoning I've seen for why 9-11 may have happened on Bush's watch, not long after he took office (beyond Bush's incompetence in allowing 9-11 to happen). Osama, or one of the other terrorists, realized that Clinton was too smart to be provoked into a serious war. Bill Clinton considered the first attempt at blowing up one of the Twin Towers - and other terrorist attacks - as criminal offenses. Bill Clinton went no further than shooting off a few missiles. But the terrorists figured President Bush could be goaded into a serious war. They were right. And we've paid a big price for George Bush's stupidity. :-)

[Ohio Joe]

15. You keep promoting Paul, I'll keep calling him a racist douchebag

You are promoting a racist douchebag.

[zappaman]

16. as well you should

http://www.tnr.com/blog/jonathan-chait/88421/ron-pauls-racism

Paul’s alliance with neo-Confederates helps explain the views his newsletters have long espoused on race. Take, for instance, a special issue of the Ron Paul Political Report,published in June 1992, dedicated to explaining the Los Angeles riots of that year. “Order was only restored in L.A. when it came time for the blacks to pick up their welfare checks three days after rioting began,” read one typical passage. According to the newsletter, the looting was a natural byproduct of government indulging the black community with “‘civil rights,’ quotas, mandated hiring preferences, set-asides for government contracts, gerrymandered voting districts, black bureaucracies, black mayors, black curricula in schools, black tv shows, black tv anchors, hate crime laws, and public humiliation for anyone who dares question the black agenda.” It also denounced “the media” for believing that “America’s number one need is an unlimited white checking account for underclass blacks.”...


...more at link...

[cpwm17]

18. Shame on Ron Paul for promoting that crap

:(

[cpwm17]

17. I'm not promoting Ron Paul

I'm anti-war and anti-truther. I'm trying to bring the discussion here back to the real issues of 9-11. We were attack for a reason, and not by invisible ninja teams using silent explosions.

[OnTheOtherHand]

19. FWIW, here's a response that doesn't mention... that man

I think Tony Bennett is pretty far off base when he says, "They flew the plane in, but we caused it. Because we were bombing them and they told us to stop." The people who attacked on 9/11 aren't people we were bombing.

That said, I think it's generally true that the United States has done a lot more to cultivate enemies than most Americans realize or want to realize. So I'm at least somewhat sympathetic with his point as I understand it.

I'll leave it there, at least for tonight.

[cpwm17]

20. Thanks, you have the first completely on-topic comment

What the US has done, and still is doing, in the ME is so many orders of magnitude worse than the crap (I've never heard of) that someone wrote on some obscure news letter. We really need to feel the appropriate outrage when the US so badly abuses foreigners - including mass murder on a huge scale. (I'm not saying that YOU don't)

The "them" that Tony Bennett was referring to (I assume), are the Arabs or Muslims that the US has so badly abused over the last decades. They do care about each other and often feel as one (well sometimes).

Saudis and Egyptians, who were most of the 9-11 terrorists, are victims of oppressive US supported regimes, though not the bombings. Our support of these regimes are among the terrorist's (and non-terrorist) grievances. This is probably not news to you.

[OnTheOtherHand]

22. there's more to it than that

al-Qaeda has viewed U.S. actions in the Middle East through a very particular lens, which perhaps is neatly summarized by a phrase in the 1998 fatwa: "crusader-Zionist alliance."

I'm not down with that. I don't want to turn this into the I/P forum sorting out all the details -- especially since the I/P forum demonstrates that it is impossible to sort out all the details.

[cpwm17]

23. I'm most concerned about our behavior (meaning the US Government and its war supporters)

It's our behavior that we have most control over. The I/P issue is central to so much of the conflict in the ME, much of it due to how easily our corrupt government is bought off. But then it leads right back to us and our behavior.

Al-Qaeda could exist without the US, but it is our behavior that puts a target on us. If we continue to profit off of supporting oppressive governments, and if we also continue to support any phony ally because their supporters in the US can scream the loudest, we'll continue to suffer the consequences of our actions. Unfortunately, we learn nothing. The terrorists just give our government more dragons to slay and more profit$ to be made - the MIC loves it, and our politicians love it as they receive more cash for their reelection and job prospects for post government work.

Here's a quote attributed to Osama bin Laden: "We treat them in the same way. Those who kill our women and innocent, we kill their women and innocent, until they refrain." Al-Qaeda has a great recruiting tool: loads of Muslims unhappy about our evil behavior - and the cycle of violence continues, most of it is us against them. Our bad behavior is central to 9-11, and our behavior is what we can control.

But, by far, the most important reason that we need to quit so badly abusing the people in the ME and elsewhere: it's the right thing to do.

[CJCRANE]

6. _

[jakeXT]

7. What's Howard Stern's take on 9/11 ?

He had people like Ventura on and Rosie O'Donnell is on Sirius I believe. Maybe he just likes the free speech concept.



I remember watching the Dixie Chicks from a Howard TV clip, where he admitted being wrong about Iraq.

Howard admitted he was one of the many people who criticized the women for the anti-President Bush remarks Natalie made at a concert overseas following the start of the war in Iraq. Natalie told Howard she’s been a listener of his for years and remembered that he not only spoke out against the band at the time, but also said some things about her as well. Howard replied by acknowledging he was wrong on all counts when he made his remarks, so he apologized and took back what he had said.

http://howardstern.com/rundown.hs?d=1148529600#jumpup

[cpwm17]

10. Good for Howard Stern

He admitted that he was wrong about the Dixie Chicks. I do remember he became rather right-winged concerning our response to 9-11. I'm not sure what his opinions are now about 9-11.

[zappaman]

13. Stern was for the war, but changed his mind after reading an Al Franken book.

Now, and for awhile now, wants the troops home and end these stupid fucking wars.

[Flatulo]

21. al Qaeda's beef with America started long before 9/11. The first

major attack was the 1992 WTC bombing, but bin Laden was advocating 'war' with the US long before that. He later stated that 9/11 was in retaliation for placing US troops on 'sacred' Saudi soil during the Gulf War 1. Our lackluster response to a decade of increasingly violent attacks, including the Somalia debacle, convinced him that we were paper tigers and ready to be pushed out of the Middle East.

Yeah, he accepted our weapons to resist the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the '80s, but once the Soviets were routed, he was emboldened and turned his sights on the last superpower, America.

The roots of al Qaeda go back to the 1920s and the rise of Salifism in Saudi Arabia. It's pretty complicated, but I got a good education reading Lawrence Wright's 'The Looming Tower' a few years ago. Wright won a Pulitzer for this work.

Tony Bennett is vastly oversimplifying the problem. In my opinion, there is no way that the liberal Western mind can fully understand the radical Islamist mindset, but in no way do I think we had 9/11 'coming' to us. This type of apologist thinking gives the religious lunatics far too much respect.

If we left the ME tomorrow, our problems wouldn't end. The Salifist mindset simply can't tolerate the existence of infidels. If you want to conflate this with GWBs 'they hate us for our freedoms' then feel free, but they surely do not want to be left alone to live in peace. This is why there are thousands of madrassas in Pakistan (funded with Saudi oil $$$) that teach only the Koran and hatred of the West and death to the infidels.