1998 Missile Strikes on Bin Laden May Have Backfired »
Posted By jovial 1 year, 3 months ago in News
Washington D.C., August 20, 2008 - On the tenth anniversary of U.S. cruise missile strikes against al-Qaeda in response to deadly terrorist attacks on U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, newly-declassified government documents posted today by the National Security Archive ( www.nsarchive.org ) suggest the strikes not only failed to hurt Osama bin Laden but ultimately may have brought al-Qaeda and the Taliban closer politically and ideologically.
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jovial
Grew up In Brooklyn. Joined the Navy in 1976 stayed in 10 years. Aircraft Electronics tech. Worked for Major Govt. contractor then settled in California ...
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jovial1 year, 3 months ago
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This isn't so much a politcal story as it is a news item. Any conclusion you draw from this story is your opinion. The papers released from the Nation Archives merely provide information that the government had at the time. What was released (and it's not known if it is provided in it's entirety) may not show the entire picture of the events happening at that particular time. I just thought it would be good for informational purposes.
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highlndr1 year, 3 months ago
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I see the demogogues are out in force again today. I am fiscally and socially conservative.
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No, I do not blame Bill Clinton. Clinton did the right thing. It is a damn shame we didn't get the bastard at the time. Of course the attack drove the Taliban and Osama bin Laden together (the enemy of my enemy, is my friend). Should we have sat on our asses and done nothing in fear that these two murderous groups become allies? I think the answer is obvious. -
capecoralMComment removed: Retracted by user
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hyperbolaComment removed: Spam
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hyperbola1 year, 3 months ago
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Why would any american be surprised by this? The rest of the world regards us as tremendous hypocrites who regularly attack countries all around the world and kill millions of people. They are right.
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International Criminal Tribunal: The US lied about Yugoslavia
The former chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia in The Hague, Carla Del Ponte, this year published her memoir The Hunt: Me and War Criminals. There was no genocide in Kosovo. The "holocaust" was a lie. The Nato attack was fraudulent.
http://www.propeller.com/story/2008/08/18/international-criminal-tribunal-the-us-lied-about-yugoslavia/
Many Mushroom Clouds In Our Future
The success of the Bush Regime’s propaganda, lies, and deception with gullible and inattentive Americans since 9/11 has made it difficult for intelligent, aware people to be optimistic about the future of the United States. For almost 8 years the US media has served as Ministry of Propaganda for a war criminal regime. Americans incapable of thinking for themselves, reading between the lines, or accessing foreign media on the Internet have been brainwashed.
http://www.propeller.com/story/2008/08/18/many-mushroom-clouds-in-our-future/-
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hyperbola1 year, 3 months ago
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How To Conceal Massive Economic Collapse - Wag the Dog
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What to do? War and threats of war have been used historically to distract the population and deflect public scrutiny from economic calamity. this tactic is now rampant in the US.
http://www.propeller.com/story/2008/08/18/how-to-conceal-massive-economic-collapse-wag-the-dog/ -
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hyperbola1 year, 3 months ago
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US missile defence - magic pudding that will never run out
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Poland is just the latest fall guy for an American foreign policy dictated by military industrial lobbyists in Washington. The good news is, at the present rate of progress, reliable missile defence is only 50 years away. The bad news is it has been 50 years away for the past six decades - ever since 1946....
.. ...US politics, because of the failure by both Republicans and Democrats to deal with the problems of campaign finance, is rotten from head to toe. But under Bush, the corruption has acquired Nigerian qualities. Federal government is a vast corporate welfare programme, rewarding the industries that give millions of dollars in political donations with contracts worth billions. Missile defence is the biggest pork barrel of all, the magic pudding that won't run out, however much you eat. The funds channelled to defence, aerospace and other manufacturing and service companies will never run dry because the system will never work.
To keep the pudding flowing, the administration must exaggerate the threats from nations that have no means of nuking it - and ignore the likely responses of those that do. Russia is not without its own corrupting influences. You could see the grim delight of the Russian generals and defence officials last week, who have found in this new deployment an excuse to enhance their power and demand bigger budgets. Poor old Poland, like the Czech Republic and the UK, gets strongarmed into becoming America's groundbait.
If we seek to understand American foreign policy in terms of a rational engagement with international problems, or even as an effective means of projecting power, we are looking in the wrong place. The government's interests have always been provincial. It seeks to appease lobbyists, shift public opinion at crucial stages of the political cycle, accommodate crazy Christian fantasies and pander to television companies run by eccentric billionaires. The US does not really have a foreign policy. It has a series of domestic policies which it projects beyond its borders. That they threaten the world with 57 varieties of destruction is of no concern to the current administration. The only question of interest is who gets paid and what the political kickbacks will be.
http://www.propeller.com/story/2008/08/20/us-missile-defence-magic-pudding-that-will-never-run-out/ -
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hyperbola1 year, 3 months ago
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Rice goes deeper into the absurd
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It's hardly news the U.S. espouses standards that it routinely violates, but still, even in light of such routine hypocrisy, wouldn't you think that this , from Condoleezza Rice today, on an airplane to U.S. reporters while traveling to a NATO meeting, would be too brazen to utter....
... ...Whatever one's views are on the justifiability of each isolated instance, it's simply a fact that the U.S. invades, bombs, occupies, and interferes in the internal affairs of other countries far more than any other country on the planet. It's not even a close competition.
Just during the time Rice has served in the Bush administration, we bombed, invaded and occupied Afghanistan; did the same to Iraq; repeatedly bombed Somalia, killing all sorts of civilians; fed bombs to Israel as they invaded and bombed Lebanon; top political officials (led by John McCain and Joe Lieberman) have repeatedly threatened, and advocated, that the same be done to a whole host of other countries, including Iran and Syria. That's to say nothing of the virtually countless interventions and bombings in the pre-Bush, "peacetime" years -- from the Balkans and Panama to Somalia, Iraq, Libya, Sudan, and on and on and on.
The most enduring and predominant rule of American politics is that every national politician must demonstrate their willingness, even eagerness, to start wars. ...
http://www.propeller.com/story/2008/08/21/rice-goes-deeper-into-the-absurd/
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Georgia501 year, 3 months ago
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In hindsight, Paula Jones should never have happened, and Clinton should have had a freer hand to deal with al-Qaeda. I'm not absolving Clinton, but he had the right idea. We found out on 9/11 that political acrimony in the 1990s served no purpose.
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willottica1 year, 3 months ago
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Or another interpretation is that we found out on 9/11 that killing innocents to go after a "bad guy" just creates more "bad guys" and increased their animosity towards you.
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You claim that political acrimony in the 1990s served no purpose, as evidenced by 9/11, but I would say there's a much greater cause and effect relationship between missile strikes against the Taliban to get at Bin Laden in 1998, and the ensuing missile strikes (read, 747s) against the US in response.
The only logical way of arriving at the conclusion that political acrimony in the 1990s served no purpose would be to observe continued constant terrorist attacks during the 1990s when the US launched no controversial attacks of their own. -
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injest1 year, 3 months ago
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“In hindsight, Paula Jones should never have happened, and Clinton should have had a freer hand to deal with al-Qaeda. I'm not absolving Clinton, but he had the right idea. We found out on 9/11 that political acrimony in the 1990s served no purpose”
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If BJC hadn’t dropped trow in Arkansas asking for a BJ, Paula Jones never WOULD have happened.
If James Carville hadn’t said “Drag a hundred dollar bill through a trailer park and there's no telling what you'll get” had keep his mouth shut most of this would have never been known.
And
According to her story, in 1991 she was escorted to the hotel room of Bill Clinton, then governor of Arkansas, where he crudely propositioned her. She kept quiet about the incident until 1994, when a David Brock
(YES MEDIA MATTERS DAVID BROCK)
story in American Spectator told a story, often referred to by the right-wing as "Troopergate", about an Arkansas employee named "Paula" offering to be Clinton's girlfriend. Jones filed a sexual harassment suit against Clinton in May 1994.
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injest1 year, 3 months ago
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May have backfired?
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Not exactly, however the failure to follow up that attack with any real effort to “get bin laden” guaranteed retaliation.
The failed bombing attempt on the USS The Sullivans, January 3, 2000.
The bombing of the USS Cole, October 12, 2000
And 9/11 2001
May have backfired?
Without the follow up to actually GET OBL the 98 Missile Strikes are akin to a
gangbanger’s drive by! -
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cowboygrandpa1 year, 3 months ago
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I'm not a real big fan of the limited strike, on civilian populaces because they may be hiding terrorists.
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I wasn't a big fan of cut and run Ronnies lobbing shells after the attack on our Marine Barracks in Beirut then placing his tail between his legs and running like a scared dog. Nor am I a fan of Bushes war for oil. Clintons plan backfired. Wow what a surprise!!
There is only one way to deal with any terrorist. Eliminate them.
We coddle to many freaking nut cases, it encourages more nut cases. Take them out, hard fast and cleanly.
And I do mean all terrorists. This crap about being able to attack citizens living in this world, without punishment must end.
Why go to war when that is what they want? String them up for all to see.
Freedom cannot be had by terrorism, but slavery can.
We don't know how to deal with them because we try to be politically correct. Bull crap!!!!!
They have earned their extermination, give it to them.-
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willottica1 year, 3 months ago
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The difficult part of this is that the terrorists in the forefront, the ones you can identify easily and readily, are the ones who just blew themselves up and there's no-one alive to "get".
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Sure, you can try to figure out who put them up to it, who supplied the materials for the IED, who brainwashed them into thinking that dying a martyr's death is worth it. But unless you get all those who are pushing the message - a message that isn't that unlike the message spread by extreme radio pundits - they will still convince people to this sort of thing. They will still convince people to fund and supply "martyrs".
Anyone who thinks that these people recruit terrorists is much mistaken. They recruit martyrs, people willing to die to ensure freedom for their families. Isn't that the same motivation that gets people to sign up for the US army? The methods used are vastly different, but so is the suffering they've seen.
Most Americans have never known non-freedom, so it's kindof a fuzzy concept, yet still many are willing to sign up and face death to preserve it. Imagine how many more would sign up with a tangible invasive presence (US military) in place as a solid example of the "oppressors", with bombs exploding daily killing friends and loved ones that can be blamed (rightly or wrongly) on the "oppressors."
As long as US troops are in Iraq, it is easy for those who want to do so to point to them and say "it's their fault." If there were no US troops there, who would they point at? How could they convince impressionable youths that Americans are killing their friends and families when Americans are nowhere to be seen?
It would be like trying to convince Americans that the mad cow scares are caused by Aliens invaders. Or that it's a secret plot by Maori tribesmen to take over the country. One or two might buy it, but most would just laugh. Station a Maori tribesmen or an alien on every corner, and hundreds or thousands would buy into the paranoia. Even if the aliens are doing harmless observational research or the Maori are just fleeing as refugees because New Zealand is sinking. -
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lloydm651 year, 3 months ago
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hyperbolla,I hope your writing this comment from Cuba,or Iran. I hope your not sucking in clean american air,and puking out your vile stinking breath back into the air decent people have to breathe.As for the two bands of thugs coming togather,"SURPRISE, SUPRISE SARGENT CARTER"Whenever,and where ever theres people to murder, home and schools to bomb,this vermin will be there.I read just a few days ago these rugged fierce fighters rigged explosives on two retared children, sent them to the target and detonated them by remote control.They probably got got a standing ovation in Pakistan ,
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