Clinton in a finger-jabbbing tirade over why he let Bin Laden go

[Broken Glass Can]

I saw this interview. Unquestionably, Clinton ambushed Wallace.

It's no surprise that Clinton knew that sooner or later someone would ask him why he let Bin Laden off the hook, so he used a tactic he has used before, the ambush.

Borrowing from Hillary, he would have us believe that there is a great right wing conspiracy to accuse him of failing to do his job.

He actually wants us to believe that a simple question of "Why didn't you do more?" is a great attack upon him. Instead of answering this simple question, he has finangled a great distraction, a phony finger pointing tirade.

And it worked. The gullible people, even here in this thread, are going on about how a simple question "Why didn't you do more?" is somehow a great conspiracy. And he artfully avoided telling us why he didn't do more?

We need to keep asking him the question until he answers us honestly. What a snake!

[bruceypants]

[ QUOTE ]
He actually wants us to believe that a simple question of "Why didn't you do more?" is a great attack upon him. Instead of answering this simple question, he has finangled a great distraction, a phony finger pointing tirade.

And it worked. The gullible people, even here in this thread, are going on about how a simple question "Why didn't you do more?" is somehow a great conspiracy. And he artfully avoided telling us why he didn't do more?

We need to keep asking him the question until he answers us honestly. What a snake!

[/ QUOTE ]

Did you read the post which is two posts above yours? I think Clinton answers your question clearly and completely. To assist you, I've re-quoted that post below and have bolded the parts which clearly address your question:

[ QUOTE ]
Question from LIA President Matthew Crosson:
CROSSON: In hindsight, would you have handled the issue of terrorism, and al-Qaeda specifically, in a different way during your administration?

CLINTON: Well, it's interesting now, you know, that I would be asked that question because, at the time, a lot of people thought I was too obsessed with Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda.

And when I bombed his training camp and tried to kill him and his high command in 1998 after the African embassy bombings, some people criticized me for doing it. We just barely missed him by a couple of hours.

I think whoever told us he was going to be there told somebody who told him that our missiles might be there. I think we were ratted out.

We also bombed a chemical facility in Sudan where we were criticized, even in this country, for overreaching. But in the trial in New York City of the al-Qaeda people who bombed the African embassy, they testified in the trial that the Sudanese facility was, in fact, a part of their attempt to stockpile chemical weapons.

So we tried to be quite aggressive with them. We got - uh - well, Mr. bin Laden used to live in Sudan. He was expelled from Saudi Arabia in 1991, then he went to Sudan.

And we'd been hearing that the Sudanese wanted America to start dealing with them again.

They released him. At the time, 1996, he had committed no crime against America so I did not bring him here because we had no basis on which to hold him, though we knew he wanted to commit crimes against America.

So I pleaded with the Saudis to take him, 'cause they could have. But they thought it was a hot potato and they didn't and that's how he wound up in Afghanistan.

We then put a lot of sanctions on the Afghan government and - but they inter-married, Mullah Omar and bin Laden. So that essentially the Taliban didn't care what we did to them.

Now, if you look back - in the hindsight of history, everybody's got 20/20 vision - the real issue is should we have attacked the al-Qaeda network in 1999 or in 2000 in Afghanistan.

Here's the problem. Before September 11 we would have had no support for it - no allied support and no basing rights. So we actually trained to do this. I actually trained people to do this. We trained people.

But in order to do it, we would have had to take them in on attack helicopters 900 miles from the nearest boat - maybe illegally violating the airspace of people if they wouldn't give us approval. And we would have had to do a refueling stop.

And we would have had to make the decision in advance that's the reverse of what President Bush made - and I agreed with what he did. They basically decided - this may be frustrating to you now that we don't have bin Laden. But the president had to decide after Sept. 11, which am I going to do first? Just go after bin Laden or get rid of the Taliban?

He decided to get rid of the Taliban. I personally agree with that decision, even though it may or may not have delayed the capture of bin Laden. Why?

Because, first of all the Taliban was the most reactionary government on earth and there was an inherent value in getting rid of them.

Secondly, they supported terrorism and we'd send a good signal to governments that if you support terrorism and they attack us in America, we will hold you responsible.

Thirdly, it enabled our soldiers and Marines and others to operate more safely in-country as they look for bin Laden and the other senior leadership, because if we'd have had to have gone in there to just sort of clean out one area, try to establish a base camp and operate.

So for all those reasons the military recommended against it. There was a high probability that it wouldn't succeed.

Now I had one other option. I could have bombed or sent more missiles in. As far as we knew he never went back to his training camp. So the only place bin Laden ever went that we knew was occasionally he went to Khandahar where he always spent the night in a compound that had 200 women and children.

So I could have, on any given night, ordered an attack that I knew would kill 200 women and children that had less than a 50 percent chance of getting him.

Now, after he murdered 3,100 of our people and others who came to our country seeking their livelihood you may say, "Well, Mr. President, you should have killed those 200 women and children."

But at the time we didn't think he had the capacity to do that. And no one thought that I should do that. Although I take full responsibility for it. You need to know that those are the two options I had. And there was less than a 50/50 chance that the intelligence was right that on this particular night he was in Afghanistan.

Now, we did do a lot of things. We tried to get the Pakistanis to go get him. They could have done it and they wouldn't. They changed governments at the time from Mr. Sharif to President Musharraf. And we tried to get others to do it. We had a standing contract between the CIA and some groups in Afghanistan authorizing them and paying them if they should be successful in arresting and/or killing him.

So I tried hard to - I always thought this guy was a big problem. And apparently the options I had were the options that the President and Vice President Cheney and Secretary Powell and all the people that were involved in the Gulf War thought that they had, too, during the first eight months that they were there - until Sept. 11 changed everything.

But I did the best I could with it and I do not believe, based on what options were available to me, that I could have done much more than I did. Obviously, I wish I'd been successful. I tried a lot of different ways to get bin Laden 'cause I always thought he was a very dangerous man. He's smart, he's bold and committed.

But I think it's very important that the Bush administration do what they're doing to keep the soldiers over there to keep chasing him. But I know - like I said - I know it might be frustrating to you. But it's still better for bin Laden to worry every day more about whether he's going to see the sun come up in the morning than whether he's going to drop a bomb, another bomb somewhere in the U.S. or in Europe or on some other innocent civilians. (END OF TRANSCRIPT)

[/ QUOTE ]

Now, why didn't Bush kill Bin Laden in the 8 months he had before 9/11? Why hasn't Bush been able to find and kill Bin Laden in the years since 9/11? You are a ridiculous goofball and it does not surprise me in the least that you are a Republican.

[Copernicus]

"Now, why didn't Bush kill Bin Laden in the 8 months he had before 9/11? Why hasn't Bush been able to find and kill Bin Laden in the years since 9/11? You are a ridiculous goofball and it does not surprise me in the least that you are a Republican. "

Uhhh...maybe because he had gone to ground in those 8 months and didnt make himself an easy target, knowing that Bush would actually do something, instead of a President who cared more for his legacy than fighting terrorism?

since then? he was rendered largely ineffective and could not have been killed without leveling the entire landscape or sending ground troops through a gantlet at great loss of life.

Youre a kool-aid drinking liberal so it doesnt surprise me you dont have a bit of common sense.

[PantherZ]

[ QUOTE ]
Uhhh...maybe because he had gone to ground in those 8 months and didnt make himself an easy target, knowing that Bush would actually do something, instead of a President who cared more for his legacy than fighting terrorism?

[/ QUOTE ]

In Bush's first eight months in office, he held exactly zero meetings on terrorism at the cabinet level.

[TMTTR]

[ QUOTE ]
So, his justification of his acknowledged failure is, "Well gosh golly we sure did give it the ole college try and we tried much harder than the guy after us"?????


[/ QUOTE ]

That's a complete mischaracterization of what he said. But that just means you are a regular FoxNews watcher...

[jokerthief]

I'm watching fox new sunday right now for the first time. I gotta say, Clinton absolutely owned Wallace. That said, I also think he kinda overreacted to being asked the question. Wallace has every right to ask the question. Clinton acted like Wallace tried to kick him in the balls.

[Copernicus]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm watching fox new sunday right now for the first time. I gotta say, Clinton absolutely owned Wallace. That said, I also think he kinda overreacted to being asked the question. Wallace has every right to ask the question. Clinton acted like Wallace tried to kick him in the balls.

[/ QUOTE ]

He should have expected the question, and "ambush" is a ridiculous characterization. However, for someone who was lobbed softballs by the mainstream media for 8 year, Im not surprised.

I havent watched/read anything but clips yet, but an assessment of "owning" Wallace is likely to be a stretch, since he clearly was taken out of his comfort zone and to Clinton, who is all surface and no depth, being out of his comfort zone is a very big deal.

[warlockjd]

Clinton owned him pretty badly. Way more owning than Jon Stewart's alleged owning of Tucker Carlson when he was on Crossfire....

Also, to clear up the 'ambush' issue, for those of you who didn't watch the video (check Youtube), Clinton asserts that he granted Wallace the interview for a different topic, and that once Wallace got him there under those false pretenses, he blindsided him with this.

I thought Clinton's responsee was appropriate.

Ironically, the interview topic was supposed to be on Clinton and Rupert Murdoch raising $11 billion for environmental causes, which shocked the hell out of me, as I had no knowledge of this.

[warlockjd]

video in question

[Copernicus]

[ QUOTE ]

In Bush's first eight months in office, he held exactly zero meetings on terrorism at the cabinet level.

[/ QUOTE ]

And then in your next post you'll accuse him and the Cabinet of ignoring the infamous August memo. Mustve been discussed in the bathroom.

there were daily briefings, but I guess they dont count as "meeting" in your book.

The quality of this forum has gone way down. At least some of the personal attacks were fairly clever, unlike this kind of drivel.