Even IF Bin Laden had been killed prior to Bush

[Generator]

It probably wouldn't have stopped a terrorist attack on Bush's watch. The Bushies were not interested in terrorism. It wasn't their thing. Look at the actions and quotes of Ms. Rice. Research what Richard Clark said about that. She wasn't concerned with this Al Queda thing. Look at the famous memo in August that Bush ignored while on vacation.

Bin Laden wouldn't have been the end of Al Queda or Muslim fundamentalism.

Bill Clinton for all his numerous faults, made terrorism a huge priority. He was the only one that actually DID try to go after Bin Laden, and yes, failed. Obviously that failure is a part of 9/11 but it certainly isn't the only thing. Bush did nothing for nine months and ignored dire warnings and went on vacation for a month after only being on the job for eight.

Bush has also FAILED after a major terrorist attack to capture Bin Laden for FIVE YEARS. Five YEARS of failure. Bin Laden should have been the ultimate priority since then, doncha think?

I see some blame that should fall heavily on THIS president. I see some blame that might question what he actually DID or more importantly-did not do on 9/11-which is absolutely nothing as far as I can see to stop those NUMEROUS attacks once they started. Instead, we have some passengers on flight 93 that were the only heroes that day (beside the numerous rescue workers that paid the ultimate price and many that continue to pay and pay with deteriorating health) and we have to hear about Bush's "brave" bullhorn moment.

Days after the attack he was brave enough to stand on rubble. And what did he say? We will go after those that brought down these towers. OH REALLY-has he done that? No, and he certainly fought every inquiry that might lead to the truth about everyone and all the money connections that brought down the towers.

Nothing done before, during, and after-and the Taliban is in business again big-time in Afghanistan. Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 and we are stuck there spending billions and once again some other REAL heroes are paying the ultimate price.

The only price Bush is ever concerned with his is own political future.

Yes, the day that changed America forever-for the worst.

[MadMaddie]

1. You are probably right....but the one thing that could have

happened is the spread of this OBL syndrome around the world...if OBL and his major associates would have been taken out....the spread of their vile hatred would have been stalled....long enough for the world to figure out a way to deal with them....that moment is lost....

[BootinUp]

2. Yep. Thats the kind of logic

our democratic candidates need to learn.

[vssmith]

3. Bush does not want to capture Bin Laden

Bush relies on fear to govern this country. Osama Bin Laden is the personification and embodiment of that fear. I do not believe Bush ever wishes to capture this man. Without OBL to focus Americans fear on Bush would lose his lever on power.

[Generator]

4. You are certainly not alone in thinking that

or certainly wondering it.

[MrPrax]

5. Here's a screwball theory...

They never intended to catch him because he has been an asset along...

Starting with the GOP:

Pre-WTC 1993

1980s
Sheik Omar Abdul-Rahman (later convicted to life imprisonment for his central role in the bombing) is enlisted by the CIA as a "valuable asset" in covert operations involving the Afghan mujahideen, during which time he befriends Osama bin Laden.

Ramzi Yousef, the eventual mastermind of the bombing, is thought to have gained his explosives expertise on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border in al Qaeda training camps during this period, and is also known to have close ties to Osama bin Laden.

1987
Emad Salem, another former Mujaheddin fighter, enters the US.

May 1990

Sheik Omar Abdul-Rahman is granted a one-year visa from a CIA agent posing as an official at the US Consulate in Khartoum, Sudan. He arrives in New York in July 1990 despite being on the US State Department's "watch list" of non-Americans believed to be involved in terrorism since 1987.

Forgotten History

Bin Laden: the former CIA 'client' obsessed with training pilots

The transcript ran to millions of words (a number of pages are sealed), and includes many parallels to Tuesday's terrible events - including sophisticated planning, coordination across locations and, above all, the question of negligent security.

At one point, considering a disregard of warnings to American authorities in 1998, Judge Sand prefigured the latest attacks in a chance remark: "By example, if this court receives information that there is an airplane coming at the city of New York, there are 213 innocents aboard and a number of terrorists, and on board is a nuke device, and they're going to crash it into New York, and they're going to kill a million people, do you risk the death of those 213 or is that reckless disregard?"

...

No less shocking were the details of America's deep and insidious connection with this man, whose status as an alleged former "client" of the CIA became an issue for the defence.

As Jeremy Schneider, attorney for one defendant, put it in his opening: "And you know what? You know who backed the Arab freedom fighters? United States. United States. We supported the Arab resistance in 1984 in Afghanistan. We, the United States, supported the training in Afghanistan. We gave them guns."

Guardian

Assets from the Afghani-Russian conflict...US strategic interests

Note the pattern and ignore the anti-Clinton administration stuff...

Al Qaeda´s Balkan Links

For the past 10 years, the most senior leaders of al Qaeda have visited the Balkans, including bin Laden himself on three occasions between 1994 and 1996. The Egyptian surgeon turned terrorist leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri has operated terrorist training camps, weapons of mass destruction factories and money-laundering and drug-trading networks throughout Albania, Kosovo, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Turkey and Bosnia. This has gone on for a decade. Many recruits to the Balkan wars came originally from Chechnya, a jihad in which Al Qaeda has also played a part.

...

The overnight rise of heroin trafficking through Kosovo -- now the most important Balkan route between Southeast Asia and Europe after Turkey -- helped also to fund terrorist activity directly associated with al Qaeda and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. Opium poppies, which barely existed in the Balkans before 1995, have become the No. 1 drug cultivated in the Balkans after marijuana. Operatives of two al Qaeda-sponsored Islamist cells who were arrested in Bosnia on Oct. 23 were linked to the heroin trade, underscoring the narco-jihad culture of today´s post-war Balkans.

These drug rings in turn form part of an estimated $8 billion a year Taliban annual income from global drug trafficking, predominantly in heroin. According to Mr. Bodansky, the terrorism expert, bin Laden administers much of that trade through Russian mafia groups for a commission of 10% to 15% -- or around $1 billion annually.

The settling of Afghan-trained mujahideen in the Balkans began around 1992, when recruits were brought into Bosnia by the ruling Islamic party of Bosnia, the Party of Democratic Action, from Chechnya, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Pakistan, as well as Italy, Germany and Turkey. They were all given journalists´ credentials to avoid explicit detection by the West. Others were married immediately to Bosnian Muslim women and incorporated into regular army ranks.


...

Intelligence services of the Nordic-Polish SFOR (previously IFOR) sector alerted the U.S. of their presence in 1992 while the number of mujahideen operating in Bosnia alone continued to grow from a few hundred to around 6,000 in 1995. Though the Clinton administration had been briefed extensively by the State Department in 1993 on the growing Islamist threat in former Yugoslavia, little was done to follow through.

(wonder why?)

...

Islamist infiltration of the Kosovo Liberation Army advanced, meanwhile. Bin Laden is said to have visited Albania in 1996 and 1997, according to the murder-trial testimony of an Algerian-born French national, Claude Kader, himself an Afghanistan-trained mujahideen fronting at the Albanian-Arab Islamic Bank. He recruited some Albanians to fight with the KLA in Kosovo, according to the Paris-based Observatoire Geopolitique des Drogues.

Wall Street International ...lots of good links at the bottom of the page.

Well another missed opportunity...but again a US strategic interests (vs. Yugoslavia) (vs.Chechnya)



But then we enter the Bush Adminstration:


Links: Le Figaro Reports CIA, bin Laden Contacts

Banner headline: "July 2001: Bin Laden meets the CIA in Dubai"

"Suffering from a kidney disorder, Osama Bin Laden stayed at the American hospital in Dubai, from July 4-14, where he reportedly met an official of the CIA, according to a witness, a professional partner of the administrative management of the hospital.

"Coming from the airport in Quetta, Pakistan, the man who since the Sept. 11 attacks has become public enemy number one, was immediately transferred on arrival at the Dubai airport. He was accompanied by his personal physician and loyal lieutenant, who could be the Egyptian Ayman al-Zawahari, four bodyguards, as well as an Algerian nurse.

"Already in March 2000, the weekly Asia Week, published in Hong Kong, was concerned about Bin Laden's health, talking about of a serious physical problem, specifiying that his days were in danger, due to a 'kidney infection which is spreading to the liver, and requires special treatment.' According to authorized sources, Bin Laden had a mobile dialysis machine delivered to his hideout in Kandahar in the first half of 2000.
le Figaro via Scoop
another link: The Democrats



Ansar Al-Islam: Iraq's Al-Qaeda Connection

Ansar al-Islam, an al-Qaeda affiliate active in Iraqi Kurdistan since September 2001, is a prototype of America's enemies in the "war on terror." The group serves as a testament to the global spread of al-Qaeda affiliates, achieved through exploitation of weak central authorities and a utilitarian willingness to work with seemingly differing ideologies for a common cause. Lengthy reports on Ansar have appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times, and Kurdish leaders have given Washington a plethora of intelligence on the group. Nevertheless, Ansar has yet to appear on official U.S. terrorism lists. Meanwhile, political complexities would make military action against the group difficult, at best. Hence, this small force of 650 fighters is a textbook example of the ongoing challenges posed by the war on terror.

...

Today, Ansar operates in fortified mountain positions along the Iran-Iraq border known as "Little Tora Bora" (after the Taliban stronghold in Afghanistan). There, the group's Kurdish, Iraqi, Lebanese, Jordanian, Moroccan, Syrian, Palestinian, and Afghan members train in a wide array of guerrilla tactics. Approximately 30 al-Qaeda members reportedly joined Ansar upon the group's inception in 2001; that number is now as high as 120. Armed with heavy machine guns, mortars, and antiaircraft weaponry, the group fulfills al-Qaeda lieutenant Ayman al-Zawahiri's vision of a global jihad. Ansar's goal is to disrupt civil society and create a Taliban-like regime in northern Iraq. To that end, it has already banned music, alcohol, photographs, and advertising in its stronghold. Girls are prevented from studying; men must grow beards and pray five times daily.

...

That same month, Jordan's prime minister announced that al-Qaeda operative Fazel Inzal al-Khalayleh (a.k.a. Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi) had sought refuge with Ansar. Khalayleh had ordered the spring 2002 attack on Salih as well as the October 2002 murder of U.S. Agency for International Development officer Laurence Foley in Amman. Khalayleh's deputy, Nur ad-Din ash-Shami (a.k.a. Abu Abdullah), was killed in a battle with Kurdish fighters less than two weeks ago. Currently, more than thirty Ansar militants (about twenty of whom are Arab) are incarcerated in Sulaymaniyah. Their testimony has provided clues about the group's ties to Saddam Husayn, al-Qaeda, Iran, and weapons of mass destruction.

Front Page mag

Again US strategic interests vis a vis Iraq...

The program has been ging on awhile...my personal feeling? OBL and his Saudi pals were being groomed for power in Afghanistan. Osama was to be Our Man In Afghanistan...

But someone didn't like that idea and ergo 9/11...

[Nikki Stone 1]

6. kick

:kick: