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2005-06-11 Home Front: Politix

Report spells out FBI's missed opportunities before Sept 11

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Posted by Fred 2005-06-11 00:00|| || Front Page|| [5 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 Besides, it's an easy way to keep the blame away from the beloved Clinton Administration.

Posted by 2b 2005-06-11 05:15|| 2005-06-11 05:15|| Front Page Top

#2 There's a deeper issue here which the Deep Throat/Felt story illustrates. The FBI became utterly warped under J. Edgar, especially in the latter years. A lot of the people who entered the Bureau under Hoover were still active in the early 90s. That organization has some very deep rot going on still in its culture. Another symptom of this was the faked lab analyses that started coming out of the FBI labs a while back.

I'm no fan of shoot the wounded. But there have been some really serious problems over there and now the word is that they are stonewalling on reforms and on working with the CIA and others effectively.

Cheney is right: we are in a long, bitter fight for our lives and our freedom. These guys have GOT to get on board and that means they have got to realize how much is at stake if they keep playing the games they played before 9/11.

Posted by too true 2005-06-11 08:49|| 2005-06-11 08:49|| Front Page Top

#3 btw - you bayonet the wounded....saves ammo

Posted by Frank G">Frank G 2005-06-11 10:32|| 2005-06-11 10:32|| Front Page Top

#4 I think that law enforcement should have prevented the death of Nicole Brown Simpson also. With all that evidence available allowing that woman to die so horribly is just shameful incompetence. {{ Cut to video of OJ going through airport security with Frank Gifford both wearing yellow blazers }} See how lax homeland security had an opportunity to arrest the killer.

Posted by Super Hose 2005-06-11 11:32|| 2005-06-11 11:32|| Front Page Top

#5 Fred, this reminds me of something I'd brought up at Wheelus and have been meaning to polish up for further explanation later.

About a week or two back I listened to a long interview with writer Peter Lance on the late-night-conspiracy-radio show Coast to Coast, performed by George Noury. And, no, although I found a lot of the individual facts interesting, I didn't agree with the vast framework they were putting together, where they mentioned all the "missed opportunities" along with other stuff involving Ramsi Yousef while George Noury tried to drag the interview into the direction of "these attacks were allowed to happen in order to expand the power of the federal government, enrich all the oil companies, etc.... you know, all the stuff the left is saying is happening, but really _isn't_ (I mean, think back to comparisons with WW2: if this were WW2, most of the people at Guantanamo would have been sentenced to death by a military tribunal by now, if they weren't shot to death by the frontline troops on the spot. And the "big oil companies" are really just resellers for OPEC these days. OPEC's made a lot of money off of the price instability caused by the war, but I don't think Shell or Valero have. And FDR would have found a way to drill in ANWR with or without Congress's approval in Oct. 2001. But I digress...)

In case you're wondering, I listen to the conspiracy junk that's going around here because it's going to move on from here and spread to the propaganda outlets run by the US's enemies elsewhere. A lot of the insinuations run by Al Jazeera and Pravda have their start in the loony left (although some days we should perhaps call it the loony center) _here_.

Anyway, getting back to the radio interview, a really strange and interesting and wonderful thing happened: someone called in and asked about the anthrax attacks.

Mr. Noury changed the subject SO FAST it would make your head spin. He just mumbled something about how they were sure it was someone domestic, it had nothing to do with international terrorism, nothing to see here, these aren't the droids we're looking for...

BUT without offering any references for anything like that.

The anthrax attacks don't fit into the conspiracy theorists' theories, or more importantly, their _agenda_. They _can't_ explain them, so they have to explain them away.

Their agenda, such as it is, is based on a double standard: If the FBI could have done 'X' (never mind that the evidence that 'X' needed to be done was lacking) the crimes would have been stopped or postponed, and since they weren't, the FBI obviously must have wanted them to happen.

(As Super Hose points out, this can be stretched to show that every murder that's happened in the US is something the FBI wanted to happen.)

One thing sticks out in the Daily Times article:

The head of the San Diego FBI office responded that the report greatly exaggerates the possibility that local agents could have prevented the attacks.
The two Saudis rented a room in the home of a longtime FBI terrorism informant, and also befriended a fellow Saudi who had drawn FBI scrutiny in the past.
The informant identified the two men to his FBI handler only by their first names, and the report criticizes the FBI handler as ânot particularly thorough or aggressiveâ in following up.
The two men also befriended Omar al-Bayoumi, a Saudi who had established himself in the area. The FBI briefly investigated him in 1998 when the manager of his apartment complex reported that al-Bayoumi had received a suspicious package, had strange wires in his bathroom and hosted frequent weekend gatherings of Middle Eastern men.

It occurs to me that if we did start arresting people for "being from the Middle East," attending meetings with others from SA or the ME, receiving suspicious packages, or similar things, there'd be the biggest outcry from the ACLU, CAIR, Amnesty International, etc., than you even have today because we've incarcerated at Guantanamo people who would in a proper rule of law be hung by the neck until they are dead.

BUT... that's precicely the sort of legal treatment Christians and Hindus (and depending on time and place, even the wrong sects of Moslems) get in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. They want to feed the thesis that 9/11 was "allowed to happen," so they postulate an FBI with the combined powers of the Vice Police in SA and Bangladesh's RAB.

Well, back to doing the dishes...

Posted by Phil Fraering 2005-06-11 12:27|| http://newsfromthefridge.typepad.com]">[http://newsfromthefridge.typepad.com] 2005-06-11 12:27|| Front Page Top

#6 Phil, my main point is that 2nd guessers work the problem back with the answer already in hand. Watching this blame dance is asinine. I picture a MSNBC anchor interviewing an "expert" explaining how Newton was actually incompetent for not theorizing E=MC2 because the equation is so simple, only having three terms and all. That is the level that the intelligence critics have reached. It is truly sad that our logically challenged society accepts such sophistry at face.

Posted by Super Hose 2005-06-11 14:23|| 2005-06-11 14:23|| Front Page Top

#7 My point was that they're more than just second-guessing: they're operating from a background that they assume we have as well as they do (i.e. foreigners not having any rights period) but that they'd use against us if we adopted (can you imagine their reaction if we started arresting people for "learning to fly while Arab?").

That, and they have a direction they're going in and want to insinuate. And the proponents here will cut off callers who bring up points that don't quite match the theory... they're not quite the anti-authoritarians they pretend to be.

Posted by Phil Fraering 2005-06-11 14:49|| http://newsfromthefridge.typepad.com]">[http://newsfromthefridge.typepad.com] 2005-06-11 14:49|| Front Page Top

#8 Phil, I have a conspiracy theorist that works for me. He demonstrates an incredible imagination that is willing to accept almost any possibility ... that is consistent with what he wants to believe. We often while away the day concocting ideas to torment him with. Some of my latest include:
1. The WTC was hit by an LA class Sub .... launched from the world's largest slingshot.
2. GM is cutting 25K jobs so that GMAC can forclose on their mortages so that their will be housing available for the UN troops imported to enforce the edicts of the global government. Prescott Bush formulated ...

Posted by Super Hose 2005-06-11 20:49|| 2005-06-11 20:49|| Front Page Top

#9 'Hose, that's mean. And funny as hell.

I mourned on 9/11...for my innocence. My understanding of the world changed forever that week, and I was MAD. I wanted to go back to my happy safe place, but knew I could not. The things that happened that day still seem to be the stuff of a very bad dream. Before that day, I doubt I would have approved of 'random' arrests of Arab men. I might even have believed they were being persecuted unfairly. But that's 20/20 hindsight for you...

Posted by Seafarious">Seafarious 2005-06-11 22:05|| 2005-06-11 22:05|| Front Page Top

#10 They missed alot. Courage is in not circling the wagons or defending budget over `effectiveness' incorrecly identified.....

Posted by Frank G">Frank G 2005-06-11 22:36|| 2005-06-11 22:36|| Front Page Top

#11 "My understanding of the world changed forever that week, and I was MAD. I wanted to go back to my happy safe place, but knew I could not..."

9/11 didn't change my understanding one iota: it was just one more attack in a long, low-level war Islam has been waging against America for years. My own awareness of this struggle began with the Palestinian airplane hijackings of the 1960s, and my awareness that it was in fact a full-fledged war-- a no-bullshit fight to the finish-- was solidified in November, 1979.

My first thought on learning of the atrocities on 9/11 was "Well, I wonder if we're going to start paying attention now and realize that those homicidal maniacs who've been yelling 'DEATH TO AMERICA!!!' really mean it."

Posted by Dave D. 2005-06-11 22:55|| 2005-06-11 22:55|| Front Page Top

#12 I try to insure that the guy becomes a laughingstock each time he opens his mouth concerning 9-11. I have some unfortunate experience with firefighting and don't think I shall ever recover from watching on television brave men run into that building knowing that it would probably come down. I'm sure that they knew as well. I don't appreciate when my pet kook makes a travesty of their sacrifice with ravings of blue beams and missiles.

Posted by Super Hose 2005-06-11 23:14|| 2005-06-11 23:14|| Front Page Top

00:01 3dc
23:44 Phil Fraering
23:30 Asedwich
23:14 Super Hose
22:55 Dave D.
22:36 Frank G
22:28 Captain Pedantic
22:12 Jackal
22:05 Seafarious
22:03 Jackal
22:02 Pappy
22:00 trailing wife
22:00 Jackal
21:58 Stephen
21:58 trailing wife
21:52 Pappy
21:45 49 pan
21:45 Jackal
21:41 Jackal
21:40 Laurence of the Rats
21:37 Jackal
21:31 Frank G
21:26 True German Ally
21:25 trailing wife