“We may be safer, but where’s the tall guy from Afghanistan?”
President Bush spoke of thwarted terrorist attacks by al-Qaeda in 2002 and 2003 planned for both west and east coasts in America today.
Three targets cited were in the United States, including plans to use hijacked airplanes to attack the West Coast in mid-2002 and the East Coast in mid-2003. The White House said at least one planner of the West Coast attack was a key figure behind the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001. The President said in his speech:
“Since September the 11th, the United States and our coalition partners have disrupted a number of serious al Qaeda terrorist plots  including plots to attack targets inside the United States. Let me give you an example. In the weeks after September the 11th, while Americans were still recovering from an unprecedented strike on our homeland, al Qaeda was already busy planning its next attack. We now know that in October 2001, Khalid Shaykh Muhammad  the mastermind of the September the 11th attacks  had already set in motion a plan to have terrorist operatives hijack an airplane using shoe bombs to breach the cockpit door, and fly the plane into the tallest building on the West Coast. We believe the intended target was Library Tower in Los Angeles, California…..”
(Follow this link to read the entire text of the speech.)
“As the West Coast plot shows, in the war on terror we face a relentless and determined enemy that operates in many nations  so protecting our citizens requires unprecedented cooperation from many nations as well. It took the combined efforts of several countries to break up this plot. By working together, we took dangerous terrorists off the streets; by working together we stopped a catastrophic attack on our homeland.”
Just before the speech by the President, Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) made some hostile comments at the United Auto Workers Convention, saying:
“We’ve lost two elections and we lost them on the issue of security. Republicans are doing it to us again. Two weeks ago, Karl Rove … was telling the National Republican Committee ‘Here’s your game plan, folks, here’s how you’re gonna win  we’re gonna win by getting everybody scared again.’ On one hand we had Franklin Roosevelt saying, ‘We have nothing to fear but fear itself.’ This crowd [Republicans] keeps saying, ‘All we’ve got is fear and we are going to keep playing the fear card.’ I take backseat to nobody when it comes to fighting terrorism. You cannot explain to me why we have not captured or killed the tallest man in Afghanistan.”
Even if “you” could explain it to her, she still wouldn’t get it. Mrs. Clinton’s comments were indirectly aimed at US troops in Afghanistan. They are the ones fighting al-Qaeda and hunting Bin Laden.
Mrs. Clinton neglected to mention that Pres. Clinton was responsible for letting Bin Laden slip through his fingers several times during his presidency. Bill Clinton justified himself in a 2002 speech saying:
“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.”
In reality, Osama Bin Laden orchestrated the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center in NYC that killed 6 Americans. He also ordered a truck bombing targeting Americans in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia at a U.S.-run military training center for the Saudi National Guard. Several Americans were killed. Then in March of 1996, Bin Laden was residing in the Sudan. The Sudanese contacted the United States and offered to hand over Osama, but Pres. Clinton declined (perhaps preoccupied with other things).
It would appear hypocritical to blame Pres. Bush (the troops) for not capturing Bin Laden while Bill Clinton didn’t capture him when he was presented on a silver platter.
The January 7, 2006 edition of Newsweek Magazine theorized that perhaps there have been no terrorist attacks in the United States since 9/11/01 because the “terror threat” has been exaggerated. Wishful thinking. The United States has a strong and resolute President who decided passing the torch of terror to another generation isn’t acceptable. Los Angeles, California should be very grateful that John Kerry didn’t win the 2004 Presidential election.
Cross-posted at Amy’s Blog
February 10th, 2006 at 8:56 am
Perhaps if Senator Clinton’s “loved one” had been more concerned about his duties as president than he was about the location of a cigar or the use of a certain part of his body, he could have had the time and interest to have captured or killed the man already responsible for several attacks on Americans.
Who is more to blame? bin Laden was doing what he perceived as his job. Was Clinton? And if Senator Clinton was as wrapped up in the day-to-days of the White House as she would have us believe, how much of the blame can also be laid at her feet, or blood on her hands?