I know that we’ve intermittently talked about this before, but now seems to be a perfect time to discuss our wars with Iraq (our troops are coming home, finally) and Afghanistan. Make no mistake, we were definitely attacked on September 11, 2001. A group of 19 terrorists with the aid of Osama bin Laden, Al Qaeda and the Taliban took down the World Trade Center, tore a huge hole in the Pentagon and crashed an airliner into a rural portion of Pennsylvania. We now know that these acts of terrorism set in motion a cascade of events which have cost the American people well over $1.5 trillion. 6200 American soldiers have died. Tens of thousands of American soldiers have been wounded. What did we get in return?
When you invest blood and sweat into a project, you should at least hope to get something out of it. Stability in the Middle East? A thriving economy in Afghanistan? At the time of the Iraq invasion, many Americans believed that we were invading Iraq in order to secure their oil. Do we have secure oil agreements in place? Did we, at least, improve our relationships with other governments in the Middle East?
Some of these questions don’t really have answers. Others of these questions do have answers and the answers, unfortunately, are depressing. We spent a lot of time and effort and nearly destroyed our military in the process. We have simply the death of Osama bin Laden and several of his lieutenants to show for our efforts. Questions like whether we madr terrorism worse still linger. Now is the time for us to figure out what we did wrong. We should also assess what we did right. We need to make sure that we do not repeat the same mistakes which led to the disastrous decisions to invade both of those countries. I would submit that we could have infiltrated Afghanistan with a couple hundred to a couple of thousand troops with appropriate air support and eliminated Osama bin Laden and most of Al Qaeda within a matter of weeks or months. I don’t know. What I do know is that spending $1.5 trillion and losing over 6000 troops, breaking our military and getting almost nothing in return is unacceptable.
When you think about the job that intelligence officials have to do in order to keep us safe, it is somewhat mind-boggling. You need to find people who are plotting to attack America, either here at home or abroad, and then you need to intervene in that attack. Hopefully, you’re able to intervene early enough to prevent any loss of life. You can’t intervene too early or you would be arresting people for thinking. Yesterday, Jose Pimentel was arrested and charged with plotting to detonate bombs in New York City. This alleged terrorist supposedly sympathized with Anwar al-Awlaki, a Muslim militant killed in a predator strike several months ago.
American born terrorist was killed in Yemen. Details of how he died and who killed him are unclear at this time. Anwar al-Awlaki was the Qaeda leader who inspired Major Nidal Malik Hasan to shoot up an Army base in Foot Hood, Tx.
Regulatory uncertainty leads to hiring stalemate. Not so much.
Our GDP is slightly better than we thought it was.
I talked about this case earlier, but I think there’s a real question as to whether Rick Perry, who stated that he sleeps well, allowed an innocent man to be executed.
It’s important to remember that it is still extremely early in the political season. Eight years ago Wesley Clark was leading the Democratic field with 22% of the support, followed by Howard Dean at 13%, John Kerry with 11%, and Dick Gephardt and Joe Lieverman with 11% and 10 %, respectively.
The Senate has filibustered a huge number of Obama’s appointments to the federal bench. It appears that Harry Reid has figured out how to get some of these nominees through the Senate.
In the category of the world gone crazy, “actress” and model Holly Madisonhas insured her breasts for $1 million.
There’s no better example of how things have changed since 9/11 than the latest terrorist threat warning tonight. Before September 11th we, the American people, never heard such a warning. Spokesmen for Department of Homeland Security stated that there has been a “specific, credible but unconfirmed” threat against the United States. President Obama was briefed about the threat early this morning. Now, in the post-9/11 era, we know that Al Qaeda likes these important dates. Everybody in Homeland Security is keenly aware that Al Qaeda would like to try to attack inside the United States on the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.
I would like to take you to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in early January of 2000. Through various means, the intelligence community became aware of a high-level terrorist/Al Qaeda meeting in Malaysia. Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar (together these terrorists retrained passengers on Flight 77 which was thrown into the Pentagon) were two of the participants of this meeting. The NSA and the CIA were already aware of the existence of both men. Both participated in the holy war in Bosnia. Both pledged allegiance to Osama bin Laden sometime in 1998. For reasons that I’ve never been able to understand, our intelligence services allowed the Malaysian intelligence service to monitor this meeting. The Malaysian intelligence service was unable to place a listening device in the meeting. We were able to get pictures that were relayed to us from the Malaysian intelligence service. It is now known that the bombing of the USS Cole was discussed at this Malaysian meeting. Had we had a listening device in the meeting, it is possible that we could have thwarted that terrorist plot. It is also reasonable to assume that the attacks of 9/11 were also discussed, although I have not been able to collaborate this in any of my reading.
So the CIA has this information on al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar. Somehow, when this meeting in Kuala Lumpur breaks up, the US intelligence service loses all track of al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar. It’s never been clearly explained what the CIA did with the photographs of al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar. It is clear that the CIA knew that they were terrorists. But the CIA did not alert the Immigration and Naturalization Service (responsible for border security at that time) and they did not alert the State Department, who had the largest active list of terrorist suspects. As far as I can tell, they didn’t share this information with anyone. Furthermore, one would figure that the CIA, after finding out that they missed out on this once-in-a-lifetime terrorist summit, would have gotten some agents over to Kuala Lumpur to watch the condominium where the meetings had taken place. Had they done so, they would’ve found Zacharias Moussaoui, who was arrested prior to the 9/11 attacks and was thought to be the 20th hijacker.
In late January of 2000, al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar turn up in Los Angeles. More on this later.
We have been told that a lot of the errors that occurred before 9/11 have been fixed. We have been told that there is increased communication between our security agencies. So, with 9/11 looming, I truly hope that they have fixed these things.
No other document, in my opinion, reveals how clueless the Bush administration truly was prior to 9/11. This document is little over a page long, yet it holds some alarming information. First, read the memo. Now, re-read the memo and imagine that you are the President of the United States in August 2001. You are responsible for the well being of over 275 million people. Secondly, focus on the title – Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US. Now, in August of 2001, this was not common knowledge. In 1993, the World Trade Center was bombed, but it is not clear to me that the Bush White House (well, I’m really talking about Bush, Cheney and Rice) clearly understood the connection between Ramzi Yousef, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Osama bin Laden. US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya are bombed in 1998. Hundreds of Africans were killed. A third Embassy was targeted but the attack was thwarted by the Ugandan police. October 12, 2000, the USS Cole was bombed. 17 sailors were killed. We cannot forget the Millennium Day Bomber who intended to bomb the LA airport. Just because he was caught does not mean that he isn’t part of the picture. As a matter fact, the Millennium Day Bomber is probably the most vivid example of Al Qaeda (he trained with Al Qaeda) trying to come into the United States. It was due to nothing but a lot of luck and some skill that this plot was thwarted. The US Customs agent said that the Millennium Day Bomber was acting hinky.
This should be the most superficial knowledge that the president should have as he was reading the August sixth daily brief.
The seventh paragraph of the PDB should have sent chills up and down the spine of any American who read it.
Al Qaeda members – including some who are US citizens – have resided in or traveled to the US for years, and the group apparently maintains a support structure that could aid attacks. Two Al Qaeda members found guilty in the conspiracy to bomb our embassies in East Africa were US citizens, and a senior EIJ member lived in California in the mid-’90s.
Never before have I seen any evidence that the FBI or the CIA thought that Al Qaeda had members here in United States. If I were president, I would want the FBI director to explain how come we haven’t located these Al Qaeda members. Where are they? What are they doing? Who are they with? Can we arrest them? I would pepper the FBI director with questions until he had answers.
The first paragraph of the second page reads:
Nevertheless, FBI information since that time indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York.
This paragraph should elicit one of two responses. First, if you’re not taking Al Qaeda seriously, there’s nothing specific in this paragraph, so you can just ignore it. Let the FBI and CIA and other agencies do their jobs at their usual pace. On the other hand, you can remember that you’re responsible for the safety of millions of Americans. You can ask the FBI what kind of suspicious activities they have been seeing. You can ask your national security advisor to alert the FAA. You can also call the governor/mayor of New York and inform them of suspicious activities. You can ask them to have their state and local authorities look for suspicious activities.
Now, if President Bush was truly on the ball and had really studied all the information he been given, he would’ve known about not one but several different plans to hijack planes and use them as missiles. What if President Bush had called the head of the FAA and his national security advisor and the heads of the FBI and CIA down to Crawford after his August sixth daily brief? What if he told the head of the FAA that the FBI has information that suggested that Al Qaeda was preparing for hijacking of one or more planes here in the United States. Could that warning have saved lives? Could the FAA have done enough to have prevented the hijackings?
I know that it is far-fetched to think that President Bush would have been this in charge and on the ball that early in his presidency. I fault him for being so complacent, so nonchalant. On August sixth, we needed a president that was engaged, cerebral, who studied information that he’d been given and who took his job as president as seriously as he did after the September 11 attacks. (If you are interested in reading the spin that the Bush White House put on the PDB check this out.)
What your thoughts? Is the August sixth presidential daily brief as big a deal as I’m making it?
I’ve spent most of today reading and reflecting on my education over the last decade. I don’t remember the first time I heard the word Al Qaeda. I don’t remember the first time I ever heard the name Osama bin Laden. I do remember where I was on September 11, 2001. I had been up most of the night taking care of trauma patients and I was sleeping in the morning. The phone rang and it was my mother-in-law. She is and was the Sentinel. She was always scanning the news. She called to tell us to turn on the TV. She said something terrible happened in New York. I thought she was crazy and misunderstood what she had seen. I handed the phone to my wife as I grabbed the remote control and turned on the television.
I’m sure over the next several days that there’s going to be lots of blogs and television shows which are going to reflect on what has happened in the last 10 years. The New York Times is already started the series on 9/11. I just want to revisit some of the information and data that we’ve learned over the last 10 years. I’m not going to spend much time talking about the Patriot Act and how it has been abused over the last decade. I’m not going to talk about civil liberties and how Republicans have taken advantage of 9/11. I’m sure that these topics will be adequately covered by many others in the blogosphere.
In my opinion, the key to understanding the failure of 9/11 lies in the arrest and interrogation of Ramzi Yousef. Ramzi Yousef was the mastermind behind the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. Once he was captured, authorities began to see into the mind of a Muslim extremist. Ramzi Yousef was associated with Osama bin Laden. The uncle of Ramzi Yousef was Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. After escaping the country in 1993, Ramzi Yousef attempted an assassination of Benazir Bhutto in the summer of 1993. He then attempted to bomb an Israeli embassy in Bangkok, Thailand. These attempts failed. Yousef, a Sunni Muslim, bombed a Shiite holy site in Iran in June of 1994. He then made his way to Malaysia, where he began to plot the Bojinka plan (also known as the Manila plot). He and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed planned to blow up 12 US airliners as they flew over the Pacific Ocean. As they were preparing their 12 bombs, a fire broke out in Yousef’s apartment. One thing led to another and authorities got a treasure’s trove of information from his apartment.
At the very least, authorities have an opportunity to see what one man was capable of doing around the world. The mistake that was made was that everyone assumed that this was just one man and not a movement. Only a few in the intelligence community understood that he was one of many. It wasn’t until 1998, the embassy bombings, that many in the United States began to take notice that this was a serious threat. For some, it took until 2000, the USS Cole bombing before they believed that Al Qaeda would stop at nothing.
Ramzi Yoursef is currently in a maximum-security prison in Colorado.
How did you first become aware of Al Qaeda or Bin Laden or the fact that we were a serious target? Where were you 10 years ago?
Another Al Qaeda operative has been killed in Pakistan. I hate to type that he is Al Qaeda’s number two, since we’ve been told that multiple times before only to find out that the guy was some Al Qaeda flunky. There’s not much detail on exactly how this guy was killed.
Germany is looking to shut down all of its nuclear reactors and is looking for alternative energy sources. Greece just so happens to have some expertise in solar power. It appears that some agreement has been reached between Greece and Germany. This could be good for both economies. Now, I wonder if the US could invest billions in solar power and… what am I thinking? Sorry, I forgot about the political environment. We’re not to spend money on anything as a government. It just isn’t going to happen.
There seems to be a new Tea Party bus tour. A chairwoman for the Tea Party Express stated, “We want Washington to live within its means, just like we do.” Let me just take a moment to say there’s almost nothing in this short sentence that is correct. American families have not been living within our means. American families have taken on more and more debt over the last 15 years. Currently, US household debt is a staggering $13.4 trillion. We owe a whopping 116% of disposable income. So, it is a lie to say that we live within our means. Also, this chairwoman is using the same stupid analogy that many conservatives have been using for decades. They’ve been using the analogy that the United States economy works exactly the same as our household budget. Nothing can be further from the truth. I don’t know about your household but I do not have the ability to borrow nearly unlimited sums of money. The US government has that ability. Secondly, as we’ve seen in the last eight recessions since World War II, we have had the ability to spend our way out of the economic doldrums. No household can spend its way out of economic problems. Simply put, spending puts people back to work. More people working equals more tax revenue. More people working equals more people spending money at businesses and this increases business revenue. This also equals more tax revenue. It is the simple concept of putting Americans back to work which seems to elude conservatives.
Rebels in Tripoli have found the charred remains of over 50 bodies.
Gizmodo has put together the most amazing products that Apple has developed under Steve Jobs.
As I mentioned almost two weeks ago, we needed to wait until more of the facts were available before coming to a definitive conclusion concerning the role of “enhanced interrogation techniques” in the eventual killing of Osama bin Laden. On one hand, you have Donald Rumsfeld, Vice President Cheney and former Attorney General Michael Mukasey stating that the trail to bin Laden started with the waterboarding of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. On the other hand, you have a recent Washington Post op-ed by former POW Senator John McCain, in which states, “I asked CIA Director Leon Panetta for the facts, and he told me the following: The trail to bin Laden did not begin with a disclosure from Khalid Sheik Mohammed, who was waterboarded 183 times. The first mention of Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti — the nickname of the al-Qaeda courier who ultimately led us to bin Laden — as well as a description of him as an important member of al-Qaeda, came from a detainee held in another country, who we believe was not tortured. None of the three detainees who were waterboarded provided Abu Ahmed’s real name, his whereabouts or an accurate description of his role in al-Qaeda.”
Both sides of this torture debate are probably wrong. Intelligence and torture are not parts of an all-or-nothing proposal. There are multiple shades of gray. Was everything that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed spewed out under torture wrong? I doubt it. I think that he probably did give us some valuable information. On the other hand, could we have possibly gathered information from Khalid Shaikh Mohammed through other methods? Probably. Our interrogators seem to be very skilled at garnering information over a period of time.
Our moral compass seems to have been broken for some time. We’ve adopted a “win at any cost” type of mentality. It is as if we were prominently playing some sort of reality game. Whether it is reelecting Senator David Vitter or Representative William “cash in my freezer” Jefferson because he is a senior politician and will bring more money to the state, it is simply wrong. Why the good people of Arizona are putting up with the craziness of Senator John Ensign who has proven himself to be unfit to represent anyone is beyond me. In the name of laissez-faire capitalism and open markets, we allowed the American people to get ripped off for over $13 trillion in which Wall Street banks got rich and the rest of us got to see our housing nest eggs depreciate in value.
Torture is wrong. Wherever you want to draw that line in the sand (on one side there’s torture and the other side there is no torture), I want to be far away from that dividing line. Now, conservatives always come up with the 24-hour scenario (based on the Kiefer Sutherland series 24 hours). What if you detain a terrorist who you “know” has information about an impending terrorist attack? Getting that information will save hundreds, if not thousands, of American lives. What you do? In my opinion, you get special permission from Congress to use your enhanced interrogation techniques on this specific terrorist at this specific point in time. I’m hoping that we can find our moral compass before it is too late.
President Obama honored those who died at Ground Zero. “When we say we will never forget, we mean what we say.”
Corporations continue to pay some of the lowest taxes they’ve seen in over 50 years.
As a government, our lack of revenue is the problem. The middle class is ponying up their share. It is corporations and the top 1% who are taking home more and paying less.
Pakistan plays the Sergeant Schultz card. (See the video below.) They knew nothing about Bin Laden chillin’ in their country.
The world is an extremely complex place, filled with lots of nuance. Neither the right nor the left really has the correct narrative. One side wants to give President Barack Obama all the credit for tracking down Osama bin Laden. The other side wants to give President Bush all the credit. Neither narrative is true. One side wants to tell us that torture was completely vindicated by the death of Osama bin Laden. The other side wants us to know that torture had nothing whatsoever to do with the intelligence that led to the death of Osama bin Laden. In reality, the answer is probably somewhere in the middle. There is probably some shred of truth that some information came from torture or “enhanced interrogation techniques.” On the other hand, it is not clear if we’ve could’ve gotten that information in other ways. The same thing holds true for President Bush and President Obama. It is probably true that the changes that took place in the intelligence community laid the groundwork for the cooperation that we saw between special forces, the military, the FBI and the CIA. It is also true that President Barack Obama chose a team that can work together and get the job done. He was the one that authorized the team to go and get Osama bin Laden. He decided not to use predator drone strikes or a B-52 bombing raid. (I do not understand a spontaneous party outside of the former president’s house at one in the morning.)
While I believe in the rule of law, I also understand that Osama bin Laden is/was a killer. I understand that he murdered thousands of Americans and Muslims. I understand that, like Bonnie and Clyde or Pablo Escobar, he was not going to be taken quietly. He was not going to recite his own Miranda rights. I am completely comfortable with the president’s decision to kill Osama bin Laden. I also endorse the scrutiny and the questions about the legality of the president’s actions. I think this is a healthy debate. In the end, it doesn’t matter what other people decide. I know that if I were president, I would’ve authorized a strike on Osama bin Laden. Any president who wants to protect the American people would’ve made that decision. I understand. I think the American people understand. Now, let the lawyers figure it out.
Marcy Wheeler has a wonderful post on the trail of evidence that led to the killing of Osama bin Laden:
The AP has confirmed that intelligence leading to the courier that in turn led to Osama bin Laden came from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and–as I surmised earlier–Abu Faraj al-Libi while in CIA custody. But partly because of the language AP uses to describe this–and partly because the wingnuts love torture–many are drawing the wrong conclusion about it. Here’s what the AP says:
Current and former U.S. officials say that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, provided the nom de guerre of one of bin Laden’s most trusted aides. The CIA got similar information from Mohammed’s successor, Abu Faraj al-Libi. Both were subjected to harsh interrogation tactics inside CIA prisons in Poland and Romania.
Note what AP says: KSM provided the courier’s nom de guerre. The CIA got similar information from al-Libi. And they were tortured. The AP does not say torture led to this information.
Here’s what a senior administration official said last night about when they got the intelligence on the courier.
Detainees gave us his nom de guerre or his nickname and identified him as both a protégé of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of September 11th, and a trusted assistant of Abu Faraj al-Libbi, the former number three of al Qaeda who was captured in 2005.
Detainees also identified this man as one of the few al Qaeda couriers trusted by bin Laden. They indicated he might be living with and protecting bin Laden. But for years, we were unable to identify his true name or his location.
Four years ago, we uncovered his identity, and for operational reasons, I can’t go into details about his name or how we identified him, but about two years ago, after months of persistent effort, we identified areas in Pakistan where the courier and his brother operated. [my emphasis]
In other words, while the CIA may have learned the courier’s nickname earlier, they didn’t learn his true name until “four years ago”–so late 2006 at the earliest. And they didn’t learn where the courier operated until around 2009. (more…)
As one conservative put it, “How did we find the Couriers? That info was gotten at Guantanamo Bay. Info that never would have been obtained had the detainees been treated as US criminals. This, in my view, vindicates the decision to sequester the detainees at Gitmo and ALL of their interrogation methods. It worked.” While there are many accounts of exactly what happened, some conservatives are focusing on the online magazine Slate. White House reporter John Dickerson wrote, “detainees being held at Guantánamo provided some of the strongest information about those who were trusted by bin Laden. They identified a courier and his brother who lived in Abbottabad, Pakistan, an affluent suburb where a lot of retired Pakistani military officers live.”
This single report goes much further than any other report with regards to the role of Guantánamo detainees in the assassination of Osama bin Laden. In a separate report by the Associated Press, they specifically point the finger at Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. I have a problem with this. It just doesn’t seem to make sense.
Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was captured in 2003. According to reports, it was 2005 before the CIA began to get information about a courier that was working for Osama bin Laden. The dates don’t seem to match. Did the CIA sit on information for two years? Separate reports state that the CIA was given a pseudonym for the courier. The CIA needed to do more leg work in order to find out the courier’s real name and where the courier was located. Again, this doesn’t quite add up. If, for example, I tell you that Popeye the Sailor is a close confidant of Osama bin Laden I’m not sure that’s going to help you much. On the other hand, if I can give you a courier’s real name and where he actually lives in Pakistan, that would probably be helpful.
On the Last Word last night, Michael Isikoff, veteran reporter from Newsweek, mentions there are clearly some questions about whether these enhanced interrogations (torture) really gleaned valuable information. Watch the video:
In other words, while the CIA may have learned the courier’s nickname earlier, they didn’t learn his true name until “four years ago”–so late 2006 at the earliest. And they didn’t learn where the courier operated until around 2009.
From these dates we can conclude that either KSM shielded the courier’s identity entirely until close to 2007, or he told his interrogators that there was a courier who might be protecting bin Laden early in his detention but they were never able to force him to give the courier’s true name or his location, at least not until three or four years after the waterboarding of KSM ended. That’s either a sign of the rank incompetence of KSM’s interrogators (that is, that they missed the significance of a courier protecting OBL), or a sign he was able to withstand whatever treatment they used with him.
With al-Libi, the connection between whatever torture he experienced and this intelligence is less clear (since he was first detained in 2005), but even with al-Libi, it appears clear he either never revealed the courier’s real name or only did so after he had been in custody for a year, and almost certainly until after he arrived in Gitmo.
Update: Putting the AP’s reporting here together with the DAB, it seems like al-Libi did give up the name, perhaps earlier than reported. Still no waterboarding.
Either these men didn’t know the true name of their protégé and assistant (which is highly unlikely), or they managed to withhold that information even under torture.
In fact, two people who normally would be crowing about the success of torture are not now doing it. Donald Rumsfeld suggests the discovery of OBL came from intelligence gained at Gitmo (therefore, not in Poland or Romania). And while Cheney assumes enhanced interrogation, aka torture, led to OBL, he admits he doesn’t know where the intelligence came from. That he was ordering up propaganda reports along the way to justify his torture program, yet can’t claim definitively that the intelligence came from it, is a pretty good tell that he can’t say it did.
If KSM and al-Libi revealed details about the courier (and al-Libi’s Gitmo file suggests he did; KSM’s, which is dated two years earlier, does not), they shielded the most important information about him for years.
Donald Rumsfeld, who I think is trying to stay out of jail, said,“The United States Department of Defense did not do waterboarding for interrogation purposes to anyone. It is true that some information that came from normal interrogation approaches at Guantanamo did lead to information that was beneficial in this instance. But it was not harsh treatment and it was not waterboarding.”
One thing is clear. We need more information before declaring that Guantánamo Bay, enhanced interrogations, torture, forced renditions, black sites or any of that other Bush administration quasilegal stuff was effective, needed or proven. We need more data.
THE PRESIDENT: Good evening. Tonight, I can report to the American people and to the world that the United States has conducted an operation that killed Osama bin Laden, the leader of al Qaeda, and a terrorist who’s responsible for the murder of thousands of innocent men, women, and children.
It was nearly 10 years ago that a bright September day was darkened by the worst attack on the American people in our history. The images of 9/11 are seared into our national memory — hijacked planes cutting through a cloudless September sky; the Twin Towers collapsing to the ground; black smoke billowing up from the Pentagon; the wreckage of Flight 93 in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, where the actions of heroic citizens saved even more heartbreak and destruction.
And yet we know that the worst images are those that were unseen to the world. The empty seat at the dinner table. Children who were forced to grow up without their mother or their father. Parents who would never know the feeling of their child’s embrace. Nearly 3,000 citizens taken from us, leaving a gaping hole in our hearts.
On September 11, 2001, in our time of grief, the American people came together. We offered our neighbors a hand, and we offered the wounded our blood. We reaffirmed our ties to each other, and our love of community and country. On that day, no matter where we came from, what God we prayed to, or what race or ethnicity we were, we were united as one American family.
We were also united in our resolve to protect our nation and to bring those who committed this vicious attack to justice. We quickly learned that the 9/11 attacks were carried out by al Qaeda — an organization headed by Osama bin Laden, which had openly declared war on the United States and was committed to killing innocents in our country and around the globe. And so we went to war against al Qaeda to protect our citizens, our friends, and our allies.
Over the last 10 years, thanks to the tireless and heroic work of our military and our counterterrorism professionals, we’ve made great strides in that effort. We’ve disrupted terrorist attacks and strengthened our homeland defense. In Afghanistan, we removed the Taliban government, which had given bin Laden and al Qaeda safe haven and support. And around the globe, we worked with our friends and allies to capture or kill scores of al Qaeda terrorists, including several who were a part of the 9/11 plot. [Read more →]
Awaiting President Obama’s announcement. This is what we know…or think we know. It has been nine years since 9/11. It has been eight years since George W. Bush declared Mission Accomplished.
I have called for the death of Osama Bin Laden for years. We took the fight to Bin Laden. We focused. We got the resources necessary and accomplished the task. This is how America works. I can’t let this topic go without mentioning how Bush failed. There are going to be many bloggers who are going to rub Bush’s face in his failure. I will say that we had the tools to get Bin Laden when Bush was in the White House. I will not say any more on this at this time.
Information on the city that Bin Laden was found in – Abbottabad.
Earlier this evening, President Obama called to inform me that American forces killed Osama bin Laden, the leader of the al Qaeda network that attacked America on September 11, 2001. I congratulated him and the men and women of our military and intelligence communities who devoted their lives to this mission. They have our everlasting gratitude. This momentous achievement marks a victory for America, for people who seek peace around the world, and for all those who lost loved ones on September 11, 2001. The fight against terror goes on, but tonight America has sent an unmistakable message: No matter how long it takes, justice will be done.
A CIA-led operation has killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan and recovered his body after a tortuous decadelong hunt for the elusive militant leader who commanded the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, U.S. government officials said Sunday night.
CIA Director Leon Panetta called key members of Congress late Sunday to describe the killing of the Al Qaeda leader, and President Obama is expected to make the announcement on national TV.
Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden is dead and the U.S. has his body, according to U.S. and Pakistani officials.
U.S. President Barack Obama was to make the announcement shortly that after searching in vain for bin Laden since he disappeared in Afghanistan in late 2001, the Saudi-born extremist is dead, the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Details of the death were sparse. A senior U.S. counterterrorism official, who spoke with the Associated Press on condition of anonymity, said bin Laden was killed in a ground operation in Pakistan, not by a Predator drone. The official said it happened last week.
CNN and Reuters reported that the al-Qaida leader was killed in a mansion outside Islamabad, the Pakistani capital.
It is a major accomplishment for Obama and his national security team, having fulfilled the goal once voiced by Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush, to bring to justice the mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
I’ve seen this Mark Twain line dug up by a number of people: “I’ve never wished a man dead, but I have read some obituaries with great pleasure.”
Seems about right.
Finally, I must wonder how we did this. How did we kill Osama bin Laden? Yes we’ve all heard about the intelligence tip. We’ve heard about the compound. We’ve heard about the helicopter and how one of them crashed. We’ve heard about the firefight. But what was different? What did we do different this time that we didn’t do last year or five years ago or even 10 years ago? I really can’t count President Clinton’s effort to kill Osama bin Laden. Yes, President Clinton understood the risk that Osama bin Laden posed but he did not go after Osama bin Laden with the full force of our military. He couldn’t. He was politically hamstrung. You can make other excuses for President Clinton but this is the reality. Monica Lewinsky and Newt Gingrich made it impossible for him to fully go after Osama bin Laden. President Bush, on the other hand, told us that he wanted Osama bin Laden “dead or alive.” President Bush told us that he was throwing the full resources of the American government behind getting this terrorist. Yet, we came up empty. Why? Was the difference truly the president’s resolve and focus? Did the CIA make the difference? Was Leon Panetta a better manager of the CIA than George tenet? Did he make the difference? In the coming weeks and months we will hear more details about how this was actually accomplished. We hear a lot about the military personnel that were involved. We will hear more about the presidential decisions and Barack Obama’s role in directing the CIA and the military. In my mind, the bottom line is that in spite of all of the criticism that President Barack Obama has had to endure, he has risen to the task and gotten the job done. Whether it was turning the economy around or passing health-care legislation or winding down the Iraq war, Barack Obama has figured out a way to get the task accomplished.
A 20-year-old Saudi man was arrested on Thursday. He was plotting to blow up multiple targets in the United States. This guy seems to have, “I’m an obvious terrorist” written all over his dossier. He is young. He comes from the Middle East, specifically Saudi Arabia. He doesn’t make friends and United States. He writes a blog with extremist statements. This guy seems to be a no-brainer. My question is how to we detect those that aren’t so obvious? How do we detect those terrorist that do fit into society? How do we detect those terrorist that don’t come from Saudi Arabia but instead come from somewhere like London or Paris or Germany? How do we detect terrorist that don’t send up these multiple red flags?
A 20-year-old Saudi man living in Texas was arrested Wednesday and charged with the attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction in connection with his alleged purchase of chemicals and equipment used to make an improvised explosive device (IED).
Federal authorities say that Khalid Ali-M Aldawsari wrote an e-mail to himself listing the Dallas address of former President George W. Bush as the “Tyrant’s House” and considered used infant dolls to conceal explosives and targeting of a nightclub with an explosive device concealed in a backpack.
(Above–Smoke as observed from space in the aftermath of the 9/11 attack.)
Republicans have said they are concerned that the bill would add to the deficit, yet adding to the deficit did not seem to be a concern for Republicans when it came to protecting tax cuts for the most wealthy Americans.
Republicans care that the wealthy become more powerful and wealthy.
How is it that tax cuts for the rich are okay with many Republicans, but assistance for those who risked their health to help after the destruction of the World Trade Center is not okay?
“There are people who need medical care right now, and frankly, the clock is running out on them. Their lives are fading away, even as we sit here talking about it,”
The FBI just arrested a Somali born teenager who wanted to detonate a bomb in Portland, Oregon. I’m kind of surprised at how much we know about the plot already. This young man contacted somebody in Pakistan who put him in touch with another man. This second man, an FBI informant/agent, was supposed to have information on how to make a bomb. The FBI sting was elaborate. The FBI proved the bomb was real. They took the young man to some deserted portion of Oregon and detonated a similar device.
If you listen to the mainstream media, they would have us convinced that Barack Obama loves terrorists. It appears that nothing could be further from the truth. The Obama administration has been outstanding, so far, at combating these terrorist threats. I’m still worried about the guys that we haven’t caught. They guys that aren’t stupid. The guys that are trying to stay under the radar.
Kudos, congratulations and a high five to the FBI. The FBI has been much maligned about their counterterrorism prowess. They’ve dropped the ball on the number of occasions. They seem to be getting their act together.
The terrorism attempt was the latest is a string of plots since last year involving Americans or immigrants who had become radicalized, often through exposure to extremist Web sites. In May, a Pakistani-born American was arrested in the plotting of a car bomb attack in Times Square, and later pleaded guilty.
But in contrast to that plan, which the authorities learned about only at the last minute, the F.B.I. had been tracking Mr. Mohamud since 2009 and his planning unfolded under the scrutiny and even assistance of undercover agents, officials said.
The F.B.I.’s surveillance started in August 2009 after agents intercepted his e-mails with a man he had met in Oregon who had returned to the Middle East, according to a law enforcement official who described the man as a recruiter for terrorism. According to the affidavit, the man had moved to Yemen and then northwest Pakistan, a center of terrorism activity. (more…)
There has been an attempt by Al Qaeda to ship explosives in cargo jets. The exact details of the plot have not been revealed. The exact variety of explosives has not been revealed. Exactly how the explosives were to be detonated has also not been revealed. Update: From LAT – “One of the packages was found aboard a cargo plane in Dubai, the other in England. Preliminary tests indicated the packages contained the powerful industrial explosive PETN, the same chemical used in the Christmas attack, U.S. officials said. The tests had not been confirmed.“
The GDP did rise in the third quarter although the economy is still sluggish.
The Democratic candidate for Senate in Florida, Kendrick Meek, has made headlines because he staying in the race. Polling clearly shows that he’s about to get trounced in Tuesday’s election. Rumors began to fly that former president Bill Clinton asked him to drop out of the race. Both he and Clinton denied this. All I know is Kendrick Meek has not run a very good campaign. If he could solidify the Democratic base, he should be able to easily win as the moderate Republican, Charlie Crist and the ultraconservative, Marco Rubio, would split the conservative vote.
The owner of a McDonald’s franchise in Canton, Ohio, told his employees that unless the Republicans win, the employees can’t get raises.
Verizonhas been ordered to pay an additional $25 million on top of a $52 million refund to its customers for overcharging. This is the largest fine in FCC’s history. Ripping off Americans seems to have become a sport to American big business.
It looks as if we’ve spent $18 billion to reconstruct Afghanistan. That’s the good news. The bad news is we really don’t have a good way to track reconstruction dollars and have no way of knowing whether the money went to pay off Afghan warlords or to build bridges and schools, according to a new report. (More on this here and full report here.)
It was only a couple weeks ago when Bill O’Reilly was on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Bill was promoting his new book. He and Stewart sparred but there was no meaningful exchanges. It was only a week earlier when Jon Stewart was on the O’Reilly Factor. Stewart mentioned that O’Reilly had become “the reasonable one.” This was true. Over the last two or three years, Glenn Beck is become the wild and crazy face of right-wing politics. Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly have become reasonable. O’Reilly doesn’t want reasonable. Reasonable does not sell books. So, O’Reilly goes on The View.
Now this was vintage Bill O’Reilly. Edgy, combative, condescending, demeaning were all traits that Bill O’Reilly exhibited over his career and brought to the forefront for this interview. He did not want to Jon Stewart detente type of interview. He wanted more. He wanted something that America could talk about. He wanted something that would fire up those right wing extremists to run out and buy his book. That’s exactly what he got.
In some ways, I agree with Barbara Walters. We should be able to discuss issues without leaving the room. In other ways, this is a throwback to Leave It to Beaver type mentality. We should be able to discuss issues. We should not let conversations deteriorate into shouting matches. These women, on The View, had to know that Bill O’Reilly wanted to start something. They had to know that their show was the perfect venue for him to “misspeak” then apologize. If they didn’t know it, why didn’t they?
Bill O’Reilly, never to let an opportunity go to waste, spent all of his talking points commentary on defending himself. He’s right and they (liberals) are wrong. He basically stated that he said what he said because he was right. The problem, as he sees it, is that America’s fighting Muslims in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. He doesn’t see that were fighting Muslim extremists. He then expands his argument by noting many in the Muslim world hate the United States. He states the polls clearly show this. Therefore, he concludes that we’re actually fighting all Muslims since they support the extremists. The most interesting thing of O’Reilly’s diatribe is that he doesn’t note that most Muslims do not support extremists. This is key. This is the flaw in the O’Reilly logic. (There are actually many flaws but this is the most glaring.)
Bill O’Reilly ends his rant with one of the most unsubstantiated statements in his whole commentary. But this is an O’Reilly classic. This is one of those statements that most Americans would agree with on the surface. At first glance it sounds great. “If most moderate Muslims would ally themselves with the United States, the jihad would not exist.” What? What kind of blather is that? If most moderate Muslims would align themselves with the United States… Most moderate Muslims do not support violence. There’s a reason that Osama bin Laden is not sipping tea in Kabul, Islamabad or Istanbul. It is because he is not accepted there. There’s a reason that he’s hiding in the mountains in Western Pakistan. There’s a reason that he will not show his face in any major city. Moderate Muslims will not protect him. There’s a reason that we were able to find Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. We got information from moderate Muslims.
Finally, and most glaringly, Bill O’Reilly is distorting the facts, as usual. He puts forth the facts that support his point of view but won’t paint the whole picture. Sure, in multiple polls, Muslims are not in love with the United States. But these polls go further. The majority of Muslims want better relations with the West. They also show that majority of Muslims, the same 70% that Bill O’Reilly quotes, do not support violence against civilians. Let me say that again, the vast majority of Muslims polled in countries like Morocco, Egypt, Pakistan and Indonesia do not support violence against civilians. Bill O’Reilly remains a controversial figure that will not go away. For reasons that are unclear, thoughtful, intelligent conservative Americans continue to embrace this guy. He distorts the facts. He promotes himself relentlessly. He simply wants to sell more books which by the way, will also distort facts.
It seems that everyone knows this now except for our president and vice president. They continue to suggest (and, in Cheney’s case, outright state) that there were links between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein.
I guess I could’ve titled this post, “What is Old is New Again.” (I originally posted the above paragraphs back in 2007.) One of my commenters has made a full throated defense of our invasion of Iraq. I think that everybody’s entitled to their opinion. Everybody is not entitled to their own facts. We did not invade Iraq based on Saddam Hussein’s violations of UN sanctions. The American people would not invade a sovereign country based on Saddam Hussein playing hide and seek with UN weapons inspectors. Nor did we invade Iraq based on some continuum of the first Gulf War – going back to complete the mission. The Bush administration knew that the American people wouldn’t buy this. Yes, Saddam Hussein did fire at our jets patrolling the no-fly zones both in the north and the south. The Bush administration tried to make a lot out of this but the American people were not moved. They needed more. The Bush administration knew that the American people would defend themselves if we were directly threatened. Therefore, this is exactly what the Bush administration cooked up – a direct threat. They looked for not one thing but a combination of things that would frighten the American people into action.
The Bush administration came up with a unique combination of threats to attack the American psyche. Probably the most creative was the bombshell that Cheney dropped on Tim Russert. It was the connection between 9/11 hijacker and Iraqi government and a fictitious meeting in Prague. We can’t forget the aluminum tubes. These “proved” beyond a shadow of a doubt that Saddam Hussein was trying to build nuclear weapons. These aluminum tubes “could not be used for anything else” but for centrifuges used to concentrate uranium. Tony Blair (former British Prime Minister) was a great help when he talked about mobile biological labs which could strike England with less than 30 minutes’ notice. (We can thank Curveball for this.) Don’t forget the Yellowcake from Niger. These are the reasons that were sold to the American people. Whether there are other reasons, like protecting our oil supply and/or stabilizing the Middle East, those were minor reasons. The major reasons that were put forth by the Bush administration are listed above.
All of these reasons fell apart and were found to be untrue. To rewrite history and say that Saddam Hussein had links to terrorists and that’s why we went to war is simply not true. We, the American People, didn’t care that he had links to terrorists. Instead, what the Bush administration sold to the American people was that Saddam Hussein had specific links to Al Qaeda. There was a report that was commissioned by the Department of Defense which looked at thousands of Iraqi documents and found some minor communications between Saddam Hussein and some terrorist organizations. Saddam Hussein was not a state sponsor of terrorism. At least not in 2003 when we invaded. Finally, it should be restated that Saddam Hussein was not an imminent threat to the United States or any of our major interests throughout the world.
I remember taking calculus as a senior in high school. I would like to say that it was all Greek to me, but I think that Greek would be much easier to understand. I simply didn’t get it. Calculus did not resemble any of the math I had learned up until that point. In spite of the fact that it used some algebra and geometry and elementary functions, I was drowning in the abstract concepts.
The “controversy” over this mosque is hitting me the same way. I don’t get it. Al Qaeda brought down the Twin Towers and Al Qaeda is a radial offshoot of the Islamic faith. Therefore, a mosque should not be built within two blocks of the Ground Zero? Really? I understand that emotions are running high. All Americans feel an emotional attachment to the Twin Towers, Ground Zero and 9/11. For several months in late 2001, we were all New Yorkers. Everyone was glued to their TVs.
Policy should not be made based on emotional feelings. Policy should be made based on sound fundamental principles. We can find many of those principles within our Constitution. We know that our forefathers fled Europe in order to practice religion the way they wanted to practice it. Because religious freedom is important to all Americans, it is written into our constitution. The Constitution clearly says — freedom of religion. We also have the right to own property. So a religious group would like to place a religious structure on private land. What’s the big deal?
I’ve been told that various factions both inside and outside of New York don’t think that building a mosque that close to Ground Zero is a good idea. So? Unless the mosque is going to be built with federal, state or local funds, it is a private enterprise. To my way of thinking, if you really don’t want a mosque there, then you need to buy the property. Maybe you should ask Rupert Murdoch to lend you the money.
I’ve also been told that Hamas supports building a mosque. I don’t care what Hamas thinks. They are terrorist organization that does not influence policy here in the United States. We should follow our rules and our laws. (Oh, and Governor Paterson should stay out of this. Nothing good can come from jumping in the middle of this insanity. Howard Dean, what happened?!?!? Did you get hit on the head? Can we revoke his liberal license?)
Finally, how close to Ground Zero can you build a mosque without this controversy? If two blocks is too close, how ’bout five blocks? If five blocks is too close, how about 10 blocks? Where is the line? Should we put it to a vote? I find this whole controversy a complete and total distraction from the important issues that grip our country. We need jobs. Those of us who have jobs need a living wage. We need clean energy. We need the economy to get better. We need to bring our troops home from two ineffectual wars. Yet, here we are, fixated on a mosque being built on private land two blocks from Ground Zero. This whole argument makes just as much sense as calculus did back in high school.
BTW, I’ll be on Local Edge Radio at 4 pm EST, today! Check me out.
Errington C. Thompson, MD, is a surgeon, scholar, full-time sports fan and part-time political activist. He is active in a number of community projects and initiatives. Through medicine, he strives to improve the physical health of all he treats...
I know that we’ve intermittently talked about this before, but now seems to be a perfect time to discuss our wars with Iraq (our troops are coming home, finally) and Afghanistan. Make no mistake, we were definitely attacked on September 11, 2001. A group of 19 terrorists with the aid of Osama bin Laden, Al Qaeda and the Taliban took down the World Trade Center, tore a huge hole in the Pentagon and crashed an airliner into a rural portion of Pennsylvania. We now know that these acts of terrorism set in motion a cascade of events which have cost the American people well over $1.5 trillion. 6200 American soldiers have died. Tens of thousands of American soldiers have been wounded. What did we get in return?
When you invest blood and sweat into a project, you should at least hope to get something out of it. Stability in the Middle East? A thriving economy in Afghanistan? At the time of the Iraq invasion, many Americans believed that we were invading Iraq in order to secure their oil. Do we have secure oil agreements in place? Did we, at least, improve our relationships with other governments in the Middle East?
