Originally posted by drjayphd

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Wait, someone actually believes that besides the writer of The Path to 9/11? Wooooooow. (poke)

(Psst: A consultant with the movie who had firsthand knowledge of what was going on then said Clinton told his advisors to ignore the whole Lewinsky thing. Thanks for playing. )

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Originally posted by emcee

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I see some Republicans saying "We treat terrorists as combatants, while the Clinton Administration treated them as criminals, thats why Bin Laden got away", and maybe if Clinton had treated Bin Laden as a combatant he would have had authority to detain him. But he didn't, because that's not the way things were done then. But did the Bush Administration rush to change that when they took power? Did they immediately formulate a plan to capture Bin Laden? Did they even try?

It's real easy with the benefit of hindsight to say Bin Laden was big threat. But before September 11th, nobody was even talking about terrorism. Not the Democrats or the Republicans. A speech from a politician about terrorism would have been recieved like a speech about the environment, nobody cared because it didn't seem like something that effected them right at that moment.

So yeah, some neocons can go on about all the terrorists that have been caught because they're "Tough on Terror". But it only took 3000 dead Americans to kick them into action.

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Originally posted by Croxadon

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"The guy did nothing great, but he didn't really do anything bad either."

He appointed incompetant people to fill positions. His entire administration has been fear mongering, he has been trying to scare the sense out of the American people. (Or at least, he did it, intentional or not.)

I think this qualifies as a bad president.

What did Clinton do? Well, during his presidency the debt was getting paid back and we had a pretty low unemployment rate, compared to today at least. Things were running smoother during his presidency. I doubt it was his direct influence, but the fact is that it was better when he was around.

By the way, you're pissed at him for getting a blow job? A lot of poloticians and people do that. That doesn't make someone a good person or a bad person, it just makes them horny.

He didn't technically lie either, he didn't have sex with that woman.

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Originally posted by SourceWatch

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Bin Laden & Sudan

Commencing in 1996, Ijaz had a series of meetings with Sudan's president, Lt. Gen. Omar Hassan Bashir and the Islamic leader, Hassan Turabi and with Clinton administration officials including Sandy Berger. Both the United Nations and the U.S. Congress had imposed sanctions against the Sudanese government over the continued operation of terrorist groups on it soil. In February 1996 the U.S. government ordered the withdrawal of all its Embassy staff based on concerns about their security. (There were differences of opinion on how real the security threat was). [17] (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A61251-2001Oct2)

Ijaz argued the U.S. should adopt a policy of "constructive engagement" [18] (http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/1997_hr/h970610i.htm) with Sudan and, in return for providing intelligence data on the terrorist groups and deporting Osama bin Laden to Saudi Arabia, ease the sanctions. Saudi Arabia refused to accept bin Laden. The U.S. government believed there were no legal grounds under which he could be indicted in U.S. courts at the time. On May 18 1996, under pressure from the U.S. government, the government of Sudan deported bin Laden. He then made his way to Afghanistan. [19] (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A61251-2001Oct2)

Subsequently, Sudan made further overtures via Ijaz in July 1996 and April 1997 to the U.S. offering counter-terrorism assistance and access to intelligence data. In September 1997 the Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright announced she was sending a team of U.S diplomats back to Sudan, a decision reversed a few days later.

In the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon Ijaz and others accused the Clinton administration of having bungled an opportunity to catch bin Laden. [20] (http://www.benadorassociates.com/article/568) The accusations have been rejected by Clinton administration officials including Sandy Berger and Susan Rice.

The following year, others, such as the conservative website NewsMax and Fox News's Sean Hannity, went further than Ijaz and claimed that Sudan had offered to extradite bin Laden direct to the United States. [21] (http://www.newsmax.com/cgi-bin/showinside.pl?a=2002/8/10/230919) [22] (http://mediamatters.org/items/200406220008) [23] (http://mediamatters.org/items/200407230005) The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (also known as the 9/11 Commission), stated that "former Sudanese officials claim that Sudan offered to expel Bin Ladin to the United States. Clinton administration officials deny ever receiving such an offer. We have not found any reliable evidence to support the Sudanese claim." [24]

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Originally posted by Arwon

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Funny, I always thought September 11 was bin Laden's fault.

Honestly, I don't think there's much to blame anyone in America for it. It was unprecedented and the way it was executed, there wasn't much chance of stopping it.

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