What Clinton Didn't Do...

 

What Clinton Didn't Do . . .
. . . .and when he didn't do it.

BY RICHARD MINITER, WSJ Opinion
Wednesday, September 27, 2006 12:01 a.m.
Bill Clinton's outburst on Fox News was something of a public service, launching a debate about the antiterror policies of his administration. This is important because every George W. Bush policy that arouses the ire of Democrats--the Patriot Act, extraordinary rendition, detention without trial, pre-emptive war--is a departure from his predecessor. Where policies overlap--air attacks on infrastructure, secret presidential orders to kill terrorists, intelligence sharing with allies, freezing bank accounts, using police to arrest terror suspects--there is little friction. The question, then, is whether America should return to Mr. Clinton's policies or soldier on with Mr. Bush's.

It is vital that this debate be honest, but so far this has not been the case. Both Mr. Clinton's outrage at Chris Wallace's questioning and the ABC docudrama "The Path to 9/11" are attempts to polarize the nation's memory. While this divisiveness may be good for Mr. Clinton's reputation, it is ultimately unhealthy for the country. What we need, instead, is a cold-eyed look at what works against terrorists and what does not. The policies of the Clinton and Bush administrations ought to be put to the same iron test.

With that in mind, let us examine Mr. Clinton's war on terror. Some 38 days after he was sworn in, al Qaeda attacked the World Trade Center. He did not visit the twin towers that year, even though four days after the attack he was just across the Hudson River in New Jersey, talking about job training. He made no attempt to rally the public against terrorism. His only public speech on the bombing was a few paragraphs inserted into a radio address mostly devoted an economic stimulus package. Those stray paragraphs were limited to reassuring the public and thanking the rescuers, the kinds of things governors say after hurricanes. He did not even vow to bring the bombers to justice. Instead, he turned the first terrorist attack on American soil over to the FBI.

In his Fox interview, Mr. Clinton said "no one knew that al Qaeda existed" in October 1993, during the tragic events in Somalia. But his national security adviser, Tony Lake, told me that he first learned of bin Laden "sometime in 1993," when he was thought of as a terror financier. U.S. Army Capt. James Francis Yacone, a black hawk squadron commander in Somalia, later testified that radio intercepts of enemy mortar crews firing at Americans were in Arabic, not Somali, suggesting the work of bin Laden's agents (who spoke Arabic), not warlord Farah Aideed's men (who did not). CIA and DIA reports also placed al Qaeda operatives in Somalia at the time.

By the end of Mr. Clinton's first year, al Qaeda had apparently attacked twice. The attacks would continue for every one of the Clinton years.

• In 1994, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (who would later plan the 9/11 attacks) launched "Operation Bojinka" to down 11 U.S. planes simultaneously over the Pacific. A sharp-eyed Filipina police officer foiled the plot. The sole American response: increased law-enforcement cooperation with the Philippines.

• In 1995, al Qaeda detonated a 220-pound car bomb outside the Office of Program Manager in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, killing five Americans and wounding 60 more. The FBI was sent in.

• In 1996, al Qaeda bombed the barracks of American pilots patrolling the "no-fly zones" over Iraq, killing 19. Again, the FBI responded.

• In 1997, al Qaeda consolidated its position in Afghanistan and bin Laden repeatedly declared war on the U.S. In February, bin Laden told an Arab TV network: "If someone can kill an American soldier, it is better than wasting time on other matters." No response from the Clinton administration.

• In 1998, al Qaeda simultaneously bombed U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killing 224, including 12 U.S. diplomats. Mr. Clinton ordered cruise-missile strikes on Afghanistan and Sudan in response. Here Mr. Clinton's critics are wrong: The president was right to retaliate when America was attacked, irrespective of the Monica Lewinsky case.

Still, "Operation Infinite Reach" was weakened by Clintonian compromise. The State Department feared that Pakistan might spot the American missiles in its air space and misinterpret it as an Indian attack. So Mr. Clinton told Gen. Joe Ralston, vice chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff, to notify Pakistan's army minutes before the Tomahawks passed over Pakistan. Given Pakistan's links to jihadis at the time, it is not surprising that bin Laden was tipped off, fleeing some 45 minutes before the missiles arrived.

• In 1999, the Clinton administration disrupted al Qaeda's Millennium plots, a series of bombings stretching from Amman to Los Angeles. This shining success was mostly the work of Richard Clarke, a NSC senior director who forced agencies to work together. But the Millennium approach was shortlived. Over Mr. Clarke's objections, policy reverted to the status quo.

• In January 2000, al Qaeda tried and failed to attack the U.S.S. The Sullivans off Yemen. (Their boat sank before they could reach their target.) But in October 2000, an al Qaeda bomb ripped a hole in the hull of the U.S.S. Cole, killing 17 sailors and wounding another 39.

When Mr. Clarke presented a plan to launch a massive cruise missile strike on al Qaeda and Taliban facilities in Afghanistan, the Clinton cabinet voted against it. After the meeting, a State Department counterterrorism official, Michael Sheehan, sought out Mr. Clarke. Both told me that they were stunned. Mr. Sheehan asked Mr. Clarke: "What's it going to take to get them to hit al Qaeda in Afghanistan? Does al Qaeda have to attack the Pentagon?"

There is much more to Mr. Clinton's record--how Predator drones, which spotted bin Laden three times in 1999 and 2000, were grounded by bureaucratic infighting; how a petty dispute with an Arizona senator stopped the CIA from hiring more Arabic translators. While it is easy to look back in hindsight and blame Bill Clinton, the full scale and nature of the terrorist threat was not widely appreciated until 9/11. Still: Bill Clinton did not fully grasp that he was at war. Nor did he intuit that war requires overcoming bureaucratic objections and a democracy's natural reluctance to use force. That is a hard lesson. But it is better to learn it from studying the Clinton years than reliving them.

Mr. Miniter, a fellow at the Hudson Institute, is author of "Disinformation: 22 Media Myths that Undermine the War on Terror" (Regnery, 2005).

Copyright © 2006 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

 

We Are In Deep Doo-Doo

From Michelle Malkin:

Not a word about the 1,400-year-plus history of Islamic hostility to the West or Islamic imperialism from time immemorial or the Koran-inspired war on infidels--long, long before there was a United States and "pervasive anti-US sentiment."

Remember what I said yesterday?

If our intelligence agencies are laboring under the moonbat illusion that Muslim hatred of the infidel West didn't really start bubbling until the year 2003, we are really in deep, deep doo-doo.

Well, it appears we are, in fact, in deep doo-doo.

----------------------------------------------------------------

...and from Glenn Reynolds:

THE NIE HAS BEEN DECLASSIFIED: Go here for the "Key Judgments."

Bill First comments here. And John Podhoretz has a question for the NYT editors now that we know what the NIE actually says.

It's late but I'll add one more thought: While we should fire the leakers on general principles, we should probably also fire whoever wrote this -- for producing a meaningless document full of empty bureaucratic twaddle. If the jihadists win, they'll have more prestige! And they will probably use the internets! Do tell. Jesus Christ, if this is the quality of intelligence we're getting, no wonder we haven't won yet.

----------------------------------------------------------------

Yep, - we're in deeeeeeeep doo-doo!

"Exterminate All Who Are Not Muslim"

 

From AP source:

The Mujahedeen Shura Council, an umbrella organization of Sunni Arab extremist groups that includes Al Qaeda in Iraq, issued a statement on a Web forum vowing to continue its holy war against the West. The authenticity of the statement could not be independently verified.

The group said Muslims would be victorious and addressed the pope as "the worshipper of the cross" saying "you and the West are doomed as you can see from the defeat in Iraq, Afghanistan, Chechnya and elsewhere. ... We will break up the cross, spill the liquor and impose head tax, then the only thing acceptable is a conversion (to Islam) or (killed by) the sword."

Islam forbids drinking alcohol and requires non-Muslims to pay a head tax to safeguard their lives if conquered by Muslims. They are exempt if they convert to Islam.

Hey CodePINK, why don't you'all get on a plane financed and piloted by John Kerry, and go over to the Middle East, and talk with these guys.  If you all went at the same time, they might listen to you!  I'm sure that once you tell your side, these nice guys will see the light and give the USA a pass.  Teach them about Christianity.

The Pope's Real Threat

By Captain Ed on War on Terror

Many people have written about the controversy over Pope Benedict's recent remarks at the University of Regensburg, where he quoted a medieval emperor about the barbarity of forced religious conversions. In a replay of the Prophet Cartoon madness, Muslims only escalated their rhetoric after the Vatican apologized for any offense the quotation may have given followers of Islam. Despite apologizing Wednesday for quoting Manuel II's words from 1391 (but not for its argument against violence in religion), Muslims burnt effigies of the Roman Catholic leader and staged demonstrations around the world:

Protesters took to the streets in a series of countries with large Muslim populations, including India and Iraq. The ruling party in Turkey likened Pope Benedict XVI to Hitler and Mussolini and accused him of reviving the mentality of the Crusades. In Kashmir, an effigy of the pontiff was burnt.

At Friday prayers in the Iranian capital, Teheran, a leading ayatollah described the Pope as "rude and weak-minded". Pakistan's parliament passed a motion condemning the head of the Roman Catholic Church. Ismail Haniya, the Palestinian prime minister, criticised him hours after a grenade attack on a church in the Gaza Strip. ...

The head of Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Mohammed Mahdi Akef, said the remarks "aroused the anger of the whole Islamic world".

Similar comments were made in other Muslim capitals, raising fears of a repetition of the anger that followed the publication of cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed in a Danish newspaper earlier this year.

All this has shown is that Muslims missed the point of the speech, and in fact have endeavored to fulfill Benedict's warnings rather than prove him wrong. If one reads the speech at Regensburg, the entire speech, one understands that the entire point was to reject violence in pursuing religion in any form, be it Islam, Christianity, Judaism, or Bahai. The focal point of the speech was not the recounting of the debate between Manuel II and the unnamed Persian, but rather the rejection of reason and of God that violence brings (emphasis mine):

The decisive statement in this argument against violent conversion is this: not to act in accordance with reason is contrary to God’s nature. The editor, Theodore Khoury, observes: For the emperor, as a Byzantine shaped by Greek philosophy, this statement is self-evident. But for Muslim teaching, God is absolutely transcendent. His will is not bound up with any of our categories, even that of rationality. Here Khoury quotes a work of the noted French Islamist R. Arnaldez, who points out that Ibn Hazn went so far as to state that God is not bound even by his own word, and that nothing would oblige him to reveal the truth to us. Were it God’s will, we would even have to practise idolatry.

This is really the crux of the argument, which is that argument, debate, and rhetoric are absolutely essential in forming any kind of philosophy, including religious doctrine. The words of sacred text do not cover all situations in the world, and therefore development of a solid philosophical body of thought is critical to growth and wisdom. That requires the ability to challenge and to criticize without fear of retribution, a difficulty that most faiths struggle to overcome.

Islam, on the other hand, doesn't bother to try. Benedict never says this explicitly, but Islam's demands that all criticism be silenced turns doctrine into dictatorship, which rejects God on a very basic level. A central tenet of most religions is that humans lack the divine perfection to claim knowledge of the totality of the Divine wisdom. Islam practices a form of supremacy that insists on unquestioned obedience or at least silence of all criticism, especially from outsiders, and creates a violent reaction against it when it occurs.

Islam bullies people into silence, and then obedience. We saw this with the Prophet Cartoons, a series of editorial criticisms that pale into insignificance when seen against similar cartoons from the Muslim media regarding Christians and especially Jews. It is precisely this impulse about which Benedict warns can occur in any religion, but modern Muslims show that they are by far the widest purveyors of this impulse.

Unfortunately, the Muslims are not the only people who missed the point. The New York Times editorial board joins Muslims in demanding an apology and an end to criticism of Islam:

There is more than enough religious anger in the world. So it is particularly disturbing that Pope Benedict XVI has insulted Muslims, quoting a 14th-century description of Islam as “evil and inhuman.” ...

Muslim leaders the world over have demanded apologies and threatened to recall their ambassadors from the Vatican, warning that the pope’s words dangerously reinforce a false and biased view of Islam. For many Muslims, holy war — jihad — is a spiritual struggle, and not a call to violence. And they denounce its perversion by extremists, who use jihad to justify murder and terrorism.

The Vatican issued a statement saying that Benedict meant no offense and in fact desired dialogue.

The Times missed the point, too. They aren't satisfied with the explanation offered by the Vatican. They want a "deep and persuasive apology" for Benedict's temerity in criticizing the use of violence and rejection of reason in religion, and specifically using a six-hundred-year-old quote that insulted people who regularly insult everyone else, including other Muslims. The Times counsels surrender to the threats and the violence.

Benedict opposes both. That's the real threat behind the Pope's speech, and don't think the radical Muslims don't understand it.

From CQ: Iraq War Forum: Opening Remarks

 

By Captain Ed on Iraq

As I announced earlier, I will take part in a Macalester College forum on the Iraq War this evening. I'm posting my opening remarks to the forum so that CQ readers who could not attend can read my speech and my arguments. I hope they inspire a healthy and rational debate here in the comments section. I'll let you know if they did the same at the forum.

The War In Iraq

Good evening, and thank you for your hospitality.

A few weeks ago, Grace Kelley e-mailed me asking if I knew anyone in the area that would defend the decision to invade Iraq for tonight’s forum. I think I surprised Grace when I volunteered to do it myself. She had been unable to get anyone to commit to speaking in this forum, and while I do not know the individual circumstances of those she approached before, I do know the heat and vitriol this topic sometimes inspires. I’m certain that some may have felt that this forum might generate too much of both to be useful in any rhetorical sense.

I feel differently. I do not believe that I will change minds here tonight, at least not about the topic at hand. I plan on offering my opinion on the war, honestly and forthrightly, and expect to be challenged on it. To me, the value of this forum comes not in the opportunity to “prove” myself right or to sway people from deeply-held beliefs. The value comes from meeting my fellow citizens and publicly airing our differences in a positive and rational manner so that we can make our choices freely and openly.

For this opportunity, I thank Democracy for America, my fellow panelists, and our moderator. I also thank the audience for their patience and forbearance, and at the least I hope to prove that all of us can disagree publicly without being disagreeable. At the very least, I’m hoping to emulate the scene from the movie “Patton” where George C. Scott says, “I thought I would stand here like this so you could see if I was really as big a son of a bitch as you think I am.”

So let me state some assumptions from which I’ve worked over the years that I have been writing on politics. People who oppose the war in Iraq are not unpatriotic. They are not cowards. The decision to invade Iraq was just that: a policy decision and a strategic wartime decision. It is possible to be on either side of that decision and still be a good American citizen. Vilifying those for disagreeing on this point in either direction does no one any good and only pollutes the political atmosphere.

Obviously, I do believe that invading Iraq and deposing Saddam Hussein was the right decision at the time, and I still believe we are better off for that decision. My support comes from a strategic look at the war on terror and the challenge we faced in fighting it with Saddam still in power.

We have to keep the pressure on the terrorists and radicals in their region in order to keep them from setting the battle to their own advantage. Was Iraq the correct place in which to do this? I believe it was. I say this for these reasons: Saddam continued to make war on the United States during the twelve-year cease fire, and we needed to fight and end that war to have any success in the war on terror. We had tried to engage the entire global community in that effort for twelve years and the community as a whole abdicated their responsibilities.

Saddam Made War on the United States

It’s impossible to overemphasize this. We had 40,000 men and women tied down in and around Iraq at the time of 9/11 enforcing a cease-fire agreement that Saddam Hussein continually violated. His forces fired repeatedly at American and British aircraft patrolling the no-fly zones. They “lit up” our planes with fire control radars on almost a daily basis, in defiance of the agreement that kept us out of Baghdad in 1991. And while it happened years prior, let’s not forget the attempted assassination of George H. W. Bush during Clinton’s first term of office.

Each one of these constituted an act of war.

Our failure to respond in kind not only emboldened Saddam Hussein towards even greater defiance, it sent a message through the region that we would not fight back.

The International Community Failed To Stand Firm

One of the most common criticisms of the decision to go into Iraq is that it was made “unilaterally”. The complaint originates from the failure of the United Nations Security Council to authorize our use of force against Saddam Hussein and to end twelve years of defiance by his regime. We spent twelve years and one month enforcing sanctions against Iraq, a regimen that we later found had been undermined by the same nations that opposed enforcing the sixteen Security Council resolutions that had been issued during that period.

In the weeks before 9/11, nations such as France and Russia were actively petitioning the UN to remove the sanctions against Iraq. Prior to that, they and others had corrupted the UN program designed to allow aid to ordinary Iraqis, instead putting billions of dollars into Saddam’s pockets and reinforcing his grip on power. The international community sent a clear signal that they would do nothing about Saddam’s wars and genocides even when his actions violated a signed cease-fire agreement, and that the only issue that mattered to them was the money they could make on Iraq’s oil.

The Need To Engage The Enemy

The US needs to engage the terrorists in their backyard and not ours. We cannot allow them to construct set-piece attacks as they did throughout the 1990s because we have no completely effective way to defend against them. In a way, this parallels the frustration that Abraham Lincoln felt with his commanders during the Civil War. Too many of them, especially George McLelland, felt that they should hold their fire until the Union had a massive numerical superiority against the Confederacy. This allowed Robert E. Lee to dictate the terms of the war in the first two years, forcing the North to react rather than to define the battle for themselves. In the end, Lincoln picked Ulysses S Grant not just because Grant was a much better general than the rest, but because Grant understood that the Union had to fight Lee to win, and had to fight Lee on his own ground. Grant beat Lee because he used the Union’s superior economic forces and reserves to grind the Confederacy down to defeat.

One of the unfortunate lessons we taught the radical Islamists over the past thirty years has been the lack of fortitude in American resolve. We did nothing while Islamists captured our embassy in Teheran and held dozens of Americans hostage for 444 days. Ronald Reagan retreated from Beirut in 1983 after a Hezbollah attack killed over 200 Marines, and then he negotiated with their Iranian sponsors for the release of hostages in the late 1980s. When the road to Baghdad was wide open in 1991, George H.W. Bush let Saddam stay in power. We retreated from Somalia in 1993 and failed to respond to a series of provocations in that decade, starting with the World Trade Center attack and culminating in the attack on our military – the USS Cole.

We taught the terrorists that we would not fight for our interests and we would retreat when provoked. And Saddam Hussein’s continued defiance reinforced that lesson on a daily basis.

The Results Of The Decision

What have been the results of this decision? The United States has benefited in material ways which has made the nation and the region safer.

1. We deposed a genocidal dictator that had murdered at least 300,000 of his own people, in at least one case using chemical weapons to do so. He had twice gone to war with his neighbors in the past twenty years, invading our trading partner and ally and threatening our oil supply, which forced us to go to war to expel him from Kuwait. With the sanctions regime collapsing and his power more secure than ever, Saddam would have been free to attack American interests around the world as he often threatened to do.

2. Although it had happened a few years earlier, Saddam had attempted to assassinate George H. W. Bush after his term in office, an act of war in itself. Bill Clinton responded with a series of missile strikes while enforcing the sanctions and cease-fire agreements. Had Saddam been freed from his international obligations, he could have tried assassinating American politicians in the future, with potentially greater success. Ending his regime eliminated that possibility.

3. Libya surrendered its nuclear program as a result of the deposing of Saddam. Moammar Gaddafi told Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi that he did not want to end up like Saddam Hussein, and reached agreement with the US and Britain within a month of Saddam’s capture to reveal and destroy its nuclear-weapons infrastructure. In doing so, we discovered that Libya had a more advanced program than previously thought, and also found more evidence of the AQ Khan nuclear-proliferation ring.

4. The presence of 140,000 American troops on Syria’s border had a demonstrable effect after the assassination of Rafik Hariri in 2005. When the Lebanese people demanded the expulsion of Syrian forces from their nation, the Syrians could easily have used their forces to quash the rebellion. Instead, they meekly withdrew without firing a shot, faced down by the US and France in a joint demand for withdrawal.

5. The same presence between Iran and Syria forces both terror-sponsoring nations to take into account our reaction to their actions. It places us in a strategic position to act in our defense or that of our allies if either nation decides to openly attack.

6. Fourteen million Iraqis have embraced the democratic process and elected the first representative democracy in the Arab world. If that democracy can survive, it will have the opportunity to transform the region.

Most of all, we have restored our reputation as a serious nation that will take action to defend itself and to transform the battlefield to our advantage. Terrorists understand that we will act to defend freedom and liberty and to pursue it in the heart of Islamist terrorism. On 9/11, they understandably questioned our resolve to prevail; they can no longer make that mistake. We took the steps necessary to end the long-running war with Iraq that kept Saddam in power and gave us a dangerous image as an impotent power in the region.

Again, I thank you for your time and hospitality. As long as we can meet in these forums and engage in spirited but rational debate, we know that American democracy and freedoms are secure indeed. Terrorists cannot take that away from us; only we can do that to ourselves.

"Please Stay In Your Seats"

 

(Picked up from the WEB)

Last week, while traveling to Chicago on business, I noticed a Marine sergeant traveling with a folded flag, but did not put two and two together.  After we boarded our flight, I turned to the sergeant, who'd been invited to sit in First Class (across from me), and inquired if he was heading home.

No, he responded.

Heading out I asked?

No. I'm escorting a soldier home.

Going to pick him up?

No. He is with me right now. He was killed in Iraq. I'm taking him home to his family.

The realization of what he had been asked to do hit me like a punch to the gut. It was an honor for him. He told me that, although he didn't know the soldier, he had delivered the news of his passing to the soldier's family and felt as if he knew them after many conversations in so few days. I turned back to him, extended my hand, and said, Thank you. Thank you for doing what you do so my family and I can do what we do.

Upon landing in Chicago the pilot stopped short of the gate and made the following announcement over the intercom.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to note that we have had the honor of having Sergeant Steeley of the United States Marine Corps join us on this flight. He is escorting a fallen comrade back home to his family. I ask that you please remain in your seats when we open the forward door to allow Sergeant Steeley to deplane and receive his fellow soldier. We will then turn off the seat belt sign."

Without a sound, all went as requested. I noticed the sergeant saluting the casket as it was brought off the plane, and his action made me realize that I am proud to be an American.

ABC - Altered By Clinton

I'm surprised that I'm mildly surprised that ABC caved. Shouldn't have bee any surprise at all. I'm NOT surprised that other than FOX, I'm hard pressed to find any HEADLINES, let alone the story.

...crap!

PowerLine wonders...

From PowerLine.com

Did the Dems Threaten ABC?

The Democrats have gone nuts over the ABC miniseries, The Path to 9/11. But it's a little hard to see why. Maybe it's because Disney and ABC have been reliably pro-Democrat in the past, so the Dems feel betrayed.

Looking at the big picture, though, it's a little hard to see what the Dems are complaining about. I haven't seen the miniseries, but I take it that it doesn't portray the Clinton administration as having taken very effective action against the growing threat from Islamic terrorists. What I don't understand is how the Democrats think they can rewrite history to challenge that characterization.

There is no doubt about the fact that the terrorist menace grew and became increasingly obvious during the Clinton administration. To note just a few highlights:

* January 25, 1993: Mir Aimal Kansi, a Pakistani, fired an AK-47 into cars waiting at a stoplight in front of the Central Intelligence Agency headquarters in Virginia, killing two CIA employees.

* February 26, 1993: Islamic terrorists try to bring down the World Trade Center with car bombs. They failed to destroy the buildings, but killed 6 and injured over 1000 people.

* March 12, 1993: Car bombings in Mumbai, India leave 257 dead and 1,400 others injured.

* July 18, 1994: Bombing of Jewish Center in Buenos Aires, Argentina, kills 86 and wounds 300. The bombing is generally attributed to Hezbollah acting on behalf of Iran.

* July 19, 1994: Alas Chiricanas Flight 00901 is bombed, killing 21. Generally attributed to Hezbollah.

* July 26, 1994: The Israeli Embassy is attacked in London, and a Jewish charity is also car-bombed, wounding 20. The attacks are attributed to Hezbollah.

* December 11, 1994: A bomb explodes on board Philippine Airlines Flight 434, killing a Japanese businessman. It develops that Ramzi Yousef planted the bomb to test it for the larger terrorist attack he is planning.

* December 24, 1994: In a preview of September 11, Air France Flight 8969 is hijacked by Islamic terrorists who planned to crash the plane in Paris.

* January 6, 1995: Operation Bojinka, an Islamist plot to bomb 11 U.S. airliners over the Pacific Ocean, is discovered on a laptop computer in a Manila, Philippines apartment by authorities after a fire occurred in the apartment. Noted terrorists including Ramzi Yousef and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed are involved in the plot.

* June 14-June 19, 1995: The Budyonnovsk hospital hostage crisis, in which 105 civilians and 25 Russian troops were killed following an attack by Chechan Islamists.

* July-October, 1995: Bombings in France by Islamic terrorists led by Khaled Kelkal kill eight and injure more than 100.

* November 13, 1995: Bombing of OPM-SANG building in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia kills 7

* November 19, 1995: Bombing of Egyptian Embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan kills 19.

* January 1996: In Kizlyar, 350 Chechen Islamists took 3,000 hostages in a hospital. The attempt to free them killed 65 civilians and soldiers.

* February 25 - March 4, 1996: A series of four suicide bombings in Israel leave 60 dead and 284 wounded within 10 days.

* June 11, 1996: A bomb explodes on a train traveling on the Serpukhovsko-Timiryazevskaya Line of the Moscow Metro, killing four and unjuring at least 12.

* June 25, 1996: The Khobar Towers bombing, carried out by Hezbollah with Iranian support. Nineteen U.S. servicemen were killed and 372 wounded.

* February 24, 1997: An armed man opens fire on tourists at an observation deck atop the Empire State Building in New York City, United States, killing a Danish national and wounding visitors from several countries. A handwritten note carried by the gunman claims this was a punishment attack against the "enemies of Palestine".

* November 17, 1997: Massacre in Luxor, Egypt, in which Islamist gunmen attack tourists, killing 62 people.

* January 1998: Wandhama Massacre - 24 Kashmiri Pandits are massacred by Pakistan-backed Islamists in the city of Wandhama in Indian-controlled Kashmir.

* February 14, 1998: Bombings by Islamic Jihadi groups at an election rally in the Indian city of Coimbatore kill about 60 people.

* August 7, 1998: Al Qaeda bombs U.S. embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and Nairobi, Kenya, killing 225 people and injuring more than 4,000.

* August 31 - September 22, 1998: Russian apartment bombings kill about 300 people, leading Russia into Second Chechen War.

* December 1998: Jordanian authorities foil a plot to bomb American and Israeli tourists in Jordan, and arrest 28 suspects as part of the 2000 millennium attack plots.

* December 14, 1998: Ahmed Ressam is arrested on the United States-Canada border in Port Angeles, Washington; he confessed to planning to bomb the Los Angeles International Airport as part of the 2000 millennium attack plots.

* December 24, 1998: Indian Airlines Flight 814 from Kathmandu, Nepal to Delhi, India is hijacked by Islamic terrorists. One passenger is killed and some hostages are released. After negotiations between the Taliban and the Indian government, the last of the remaining hostages on board Flight 814 are released in exchange for release of 4 terrorists.

* January 2000: The last of the 2000 millennium attack plots fails, as the boat meant to bomb USS The Sullivans sinks.

* August 8, 2000: A bomb exploded at an underpass in Pushkin Square in Moscow, killing 11 people and wounding more than 90.

* August 17, 2000: Two bombs exploded in a shopping center in Riga, Latvia, injuring 35 people.

* October 12, 2000: AL Qaeda bombs USS Cole with explosive-laden speedboat, killing 17 US sailors and wounding 40, off the port coast of Aden, Yemen.

Between 1993 and 2000, everyone who was paying any attention knew that the threat from Islamic terrorism was grave and getting worse. The catastrophic losses that occurred on Septimeber 11, 2001, could just as easily have happened in 1993, when the first plot to destroy the World Trade Center was carried off successfully, but the terrorists had miscalculated the effect of their explosives, or in 1995, when the plot to destroy eleven American airplanes in flight was thwarted by counter-intelligence work in the Philippines. What did the Clinton administration do in response to this grave threat? Essentially nothing. Worse, Clinton tried to sweep the problem under the rug, lest it disrupt the surface calm and prosperity for which he was eager to claim credit.

However Path to 9/11 portrays the Clinton administration, it can be no worse than the reality.

Now top Democrats have written a letter to ABC that can reasonably be read as a threat to pull the network's broadcast license if it shows Path to 9/11:

Presenting such deeply flawed and factually inaccurate misinformation to the American public and to children would be a gross miscarriage of your corporate and civic responsibility to the law, to your shareholders, and to the nation.

The Communications Act of 1934 provides your network with a free broadcast license predicated on the fundamental understanding of your principle obligation to act as a trustee of the public airwaves in serving the public interest. Nowhere is this public interest obligation more apparent than in the duty of broadcasters to serve the civic needs of a democracy by promoting an open and accurate discussion of political ideas and events. ***

We urge you, after full consideration of the facts, to uphold your responsibilities as a respected member of American society and as a beneficiary of the free use of the public airwaves to cancel this factually inaccurate and deeply misguided program.

Blue Crab Boulevard calls this letter an "enormous miscalculation." Blog of the Week Riehl World View agrees that the Democrats will pay a political price for their heavy-handedness:

[T]he ramifications of the current move by Dems to pressure ABC are going to have consequences far beyond a docu-drama. Americans don't like people, especially politicians, messing with their TV. And the other big issue facing Republicans in the run up to the coming elections besides Iraq was firing up their base. I say was because the Dems have just saved the Republicans from having to go to the trouble.

The Democrats' shameless maneuvering now going on on behalf of Clinton brings back, not only the animus Republicans have always felt for Clinton, while drawing attention to their general weakness in foreign affairs, it also reminds everyone of the scandal ridden side show that was Democrat Clinton's presidency.

Well, one can always hope. But it's hard to think of an instance of bully-boy tactics by the Democrats causing them any serious problems.

UPDATE: ABC says that it is still making changes in the program, evidently in response to the Democrats' attacks, so we won't know how effective the Democrats' tactics have been until the program airs.

Michelle says, "It's NEVER Miller-Time!"

Michelle Malkin does a pretty good Hot-Air piece on the Miller Beer funding Illegal immigrants' protests.  Click here.

ABC's Gonna Cave...

ABC spokesman Jonathan Hogan defended the miniseries, telling the Post, it is a "dramatization, not a documentary, drawn from a variety of sources, including the 9/11 commission report, other published materials and personal interviews."

"Many of the people who have expressed opinions about the film have yet to see it in its entirety or in its final broadcast form, " Hogan said. "We hope the viewers will watch the entire broadcast before forming their own opinion."

The Times reported that ABC was considering last-minute changes to the film.

“It is common practice to continue to make edits to strengthen a project right up to the broadcast date,” Hope Hartman, an ABC spokeswoman, told the Times.

 

Yep, they're gonna cave...  too bad - just when I thought ONE of the MSM guys was growing some stones...

...guess I won't waste the TiVo space after all...

Hey ABC! Have You'all Lost Your Minds?

Following my normal morning routine, I opened Drudge and read something about "ABC Terrorist Drama Stirs Controversy...."

No big deal I thought, hell, if Drudge overhears 2 folks discussing last night's 50-yard line call at the water fountain , it's a "controversy".

3rd line down, "Clinton demanding network 'pull the drama' if no changes..."

Hillary or Bill?  Does it matter?  Better click & follow...

Holy shit!  Bill's pissed at MSM!  O.k., Bills people are pissed, but they're using his name so that's just as good. 

...didn't go after bin Laden because he was getting blown by Monica in the oval office and couldn't be disturbed!!!!!!!!  Oh, alright, the "blowjobs in the oval office" thing was distracting him.

They probably should have kept quiet and bitched afterward.  Now, they're drawing more attention to it.  (I'm going to TiVo it just because of the controversy!)

Think ABC will pull it? Nah!  Think they'll edit it? Maybe, but probably not.

 

In any event - can this in any way help Hillary?  Jeez, I hope not!

...from "The Bullwinkle Blog"

Time Asks, I Answer.

Who Can Replace Kofi?

Tony Soprano. He’d steal less. He wouldn’t take any shit from anybody and a UN Resolution would be enforced, or else. They’d need a new sign though…

Invasion USA

 

 

Boycott over illegals: Dump Miller Beer
Groups say American brewery giant supports unlawful immigrants, amnesty

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Posted: September 5, 2006
1:00 a.m. Eastern

© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com

Illegal crossing fence

American patriots first dumped tea over taxes; now it could be beer over lax immigration enforcement.

More than 100 groups are being organized to support a national boycott of Miller Brewing Co. and parent company SABMiller plc, because of what is viewed as the corporation's support for illegal immigrants and amnesty for them.

"The boycott message is simple. Miller Brewing Company supports illegal immigration by giving money to groups that support amnesty, marches, and benefits for illegal aliens," the announcement on Monday said. "Citizens are encouraged to 'Dump the beer! Dump the stock.'"

Consumers should avoid Miller Lite, ICE House, Miller Genuine Draft and Milwaukee's Best, according to organizers who have posted their documentation and petition plans at MillerBoycott.com.

"It is time for these large corporations that are using their financial influence to open America's borders to be punished!" said William Gheen, of Americans for Legal Immigration PAC. "It is time for the immigration enforcement movement to show these unscrupulous corporations what we can do when we all work together."

The coalition is pursuing the boycott under the auspices of the National Illegal Immigration Boycott Coalition, and will be headed up by Gheen and Jason Mrocheck of WeHireAliens.com and FIRE Coalition, officials said.

FIRE is the Federal Immigration Reform and Enforcement coalition.

"Miller Brewing Company is giving money to groups that support amnesty and citizenship for illegal aliens that have broken many of our laws," said Mrocheck. "The last thing we need is more illegal aliens driving drunk and killing American citizens."

The two lead organizations provide an online database of companies accused of hiring illegal aliens and encourage the securing of America's borders and enforcement of existing immigration laws.

Now their efforts are expanding, because, they said, of a report that shows 13 Americans are being killed by "uninsured drunk driving illegal aliens" each day.

The Chicago Tribune recently had reported Miller paid more than $30,000 for planning, materials and advertising for the "Immigrant Workers Justice Walk" over the holiday weekend.

Miller officials denied it.

"The money supported a recent convention on immigration issues in Chicago, which provided attendees with information on how to become legally naturalized citizens of the U.S.," said Miller spokesman Peter Marino.

Walk organizers said they wanted officials to pay attention to the "contributions of undocumented immigrants," and change laws so that all immigrants can be legalized.

Miller company officials could not be reached over the holiday weekend, but information from the ALIPAC website indicated the situation developed when a group of immigrant advocacy organizations in Chicago discovered the company contributed $2,000 to the political campaign of Sen. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis.

One of the senator's projects has been HR4437, which calls for strengthening the anti-immigration laws of the United States, including a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

The company, which also hired three ad agencies to work with its reach into the Hispanic population, then took out a one-page ad in a Chicago newspaper confirming that it opposes the "Anti-Immigration Legislation."