fly at night

Does anybody really know what the truth is? We only get to see the world of terrorism through rose colored eyes of people with an agenda.
Yesterday I watched the much advertised interview with President Bill Clinton. I guess I have been around too long as not long ago politics was politics and reality was reality. This interview brought nothing but dismay.

Once a president leaves office they generally undertake an issue that will be the cap to their years of public service. You can support their programs or not but the work is done absent the political process. Historically former presidents did not travel overseas and make negative comments about their country. President Carter has changed that history and Clinton has followed suit.

Back to the interview. What I took from the interview is that President Bill Clinton is no longer a serious political player on the world stage. His attempt to deflect criticism of his handling of Usama bin Laden was poorly handled. He started of in the right direction

OK, now let’s look at all the criticisms: Black Hawk down, Somalia. There is not a living soul in the world who thought that Usama bin Laden had anything to do with Black Hawk down or was paying any attention to it or even knew Al Qaeda was a growing concern in October of ’93.

Did Clinton know that there were a number of extremists groups in the world? You bet. However, you can’t use hindsight to evaluate what was going on in the present. Clinton complains that is what is going on today but he fails to condemn his party for doing the same today. Anyway, AQ was not a known world player in ’93 as we see them today.

Clinton addresses the 9/11 Commission report

I’m being asked this on the FOX network. ABC just had a right- wing conservative run in their little “Pathway to 9/11,” falsely claiming it was based on the 9/11 Commission report, with three things asserted against me directly contradicted by the 9/11 Commission report.

But then immediately ignores it and goes to Richard Clarke as the authority

He has a variety of opinion and loyalties now, but let’s look at the facts: He worked for Ronald Reagan; he was loyal to him. He worked for George H. W. Bush; he was loyal to him. He worked for me, and he was loyal to me. He worked for President Bush; he was loyal to him.

They downgraded him and the terrorist operation.

Now, look what he said, read his book and read his factual assertions — not opinions — assertions. He said we took vigorous action after the African embassies. We probably nearly got bin Laden.

What Mr. Clinton fails to note is that his administration developed a wall between intelligence and other agencies thus making the fight against extremists a legal issue and not a national defense issue.

Mr. Clarke’s book really doesn’t paint the same opinion that Mr. Clinton claims. Byron York reports this from page 225

Because of the intensity of the political opposition that Clinton engendered, he had been heavily criticized for bombing al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan, for engaging in ‘Wag the Dog’ tactics to divert attention from a scandal about his personal life. For similar reasons, he could not fire the recalcitrant FBI Director who had failed to fix the Bureau or to uncover terrorists in the United States. He had given the CIA unprecedented authority to go after bin Laden personally and al Qaeda, but had not taken steps when they did little or nothing. Because Clinton was criticized as a Vietnam War opponent without a military record, he was limited in his ability to direct the military to engage in anti-terrorist commando operations they did not want to conduct. He had tried that in Somalia, and the military had made mistakes and blamed him. In the absence of a bigger provocation from al Qaeda to silence his critics, Clinton thought he could do no more.

Where was his leadership? This is Clarke’s view, not the Republicans making the statement.

Then he makes a set of confusing statements

No, no. I authorized the CIA to get groups together to try to kill him.

The CIA, which was run by George Tenet, that President Bush gave the Medal of Freedom to, he said, “He did a good job setting up all these counterterrorism things.”

The country never had a comprehensive anti-terror operation until I came there.

In today’s verbiage, Clinton ordered an assassination. In fact, Usama bin Laden was not a head of state so this would not be an assassination. Actually, Clinton simply said that it would be alright with him if bin Laden were killed. Not really a leadership quality statement.

The comment about Tenet was simply a distracter with no value.

Clinton is right that we did not have a comprehensive anti-terror operation until he arrived. Terrorism escalated in the ‘90s because the extremists believed that we were weak. They remembered President Carter and Iran. Clinton was a known anti-Viet Nam leader.

Clinton had moved himself into a position that he didn’t like so he blamed Chris Wallace

You set this meeting up because you were going to get a lot of criticism from your viewers because Rupert Murdoch’s supporting my work on climate change.

And you came here under false pretenses and said that you’d spend half the time talking about — you said you’d spend half the time talking about what we did out there to raise $7-billion-plus in three days from 215 different commitments. And you don’t care.

And this has what to do with today’s discussion? Mr. Clinton and his supporters made a big stink over the contents of The Path to 9/11 thus the questions of today are valid.

Taking it deeper, Mr. Clinton attempted to blame the interviewer

And you’ve got that little smirk on your face and you think you’re so clever. But I had responsibility for trying to protect this country. I tried and I failed to get bin Laden. I regret it. But I did try. And I did everything I thought I responsibly could.

The problem is that CNN has never asked Mr. Clinton these questions so he strikes out. He did not look good in this exchange. In fact, if the likely voter was watching, Clinton did nothing to make the Dems looks like they could actually lead the military or have a grasp on world affairs. Victimhood is not leadership.

Mr. Clinton and the current Democratic leadership are missing the point. Bin Laden is NOT leading the Islamic extremist movement. He is simply a figure head. Afghanistan is important but winning there will not end terrorism. Yet, that is what they are telling Americans. Walking out on Iraq today will not make us safer. Making Iraq our next Viet Nam will put America in a dangerous position. The cards have been dealt, play the hand that we have not the hand that we wish we had.

I know from my education is Psy Ops that when you hand people a steady diet of negative information the people will become negative. The MSM has a responsibility, no a duty to put all of the facts on the table so that the American people will have the complete picture. Have you ever read anything like this from Done With Mirrors in the MSM? Doubtful as it doesn’t play into the progressive playbook.

With the midterm elections but 44 days away reality is setting in. The landslide predicted in July is simply not going to happen. Mr. Clinton’s interview did not help. The Hugo Chavez rant hit too close to home. It is the time that people tune in to the elections and they are watching.

Failures in the war on terror have been made. Those failures, if you will, started with President Carter and are going on today and will continue tomorrow. If we left the middle-east and abandoned Israel today the war would continue because that will be a win for the extremists. Europe would be next because they have a passive approach to those who represent a threat. The domino theory moves on.

The only thing that makes sense for America is to keep the extremists busy elsewhere in the world so they can’t marshal the forces to fight us here.

UPDATE 8:24 a.m.

The legal team at Power Line have an interesting update on Richard Clarke, in his own words – Play it as it lies – did Clarke actually demote himself?