ABC's 9-11 special not anti-Clinton.

ABC’s Movie on 9-11 gained much attention for bitch-slapping the Clinton Administration’s weak response to terrorism but after watching the first few hours of the program this evening I found other impressively pro-progressive messages.
1.Terrorists do hate us for our polices…they thought that if they killed enough Americans we would “change” our “policies”. Bush and other conservatives continue to argue that they kill us for “who we are, not for what we do.” This is a great lie.
2.Islam is not a violent religion. There are several Muslims who were key in helping stop attacks or to capture mass murders after the act. It was a Muslim working with the US embassy in Pakistan in 1995 who turned in Ramsey Yusef. He was Ramsey’s assistant who sometimes guarded Ramsey’s new laptop (after his other one was captured.) Ramsey’s assistant was anti-Israel and hated US policies but he didn’t believe in killing innocent Americans.
Making friends with Muslims works far better than war at stopping attacks.
(see Iraq)
3.In the mid 1990s one Al Qaeda terrorist didn’t want to ‘bomb the UN’
because it would turn people against Al Qaeda. He insisted on attacking US military targets. Most Republicans still haven’t gotten the message that if America destroys the UN, most people won’t turn against the terrorists.
4.Al Qaeda first attacked only military targets (Black Hawks, Embassies,USS
Cole…) but saw that this wasn’t getting enough attention. In 1998 OBL finally justified killing innocent American men, women and children…because US policies were killing innocent Muslim men, women and children (see Gulf War 1, US Sanctions against Iraq, Military aid to Israel used for killing Palestinians and Lebanese).
5.During the court prosecution of Ramsey Yusef he admitted he was a terrorist and “proud of it” but that it was the US who “invented terrorism”
and was the biggest terrorist in the world.
6.Clinton hesitated using military means to get Bin Laden for fear of collateral damage AND a lack of intelligence certainty. Bush accepts collateral damage as the cost of killing terrorists and then cherry picks conflicting intelligence reports to launch military pre-emptive war that kills innocents by the tens of thousands.
7.Looking for “appeasement” leading to more terrorism? Look no further than Bush Administration’s continuing appeasement of repressive (and torturous) rulers in Egypt, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the overpaid CEOs of US auto
manufacturers and oil producers. This continues to annoy Muslims and
generate anti-American sentiments in addition to war’s killing of innocents.
Hypocrisy’s a real bitch.
8.In the mid 90’s Al Qaeda used an improvised liquid explosive and a Casio watch as a detonator to bomb an airliner in the Philippines. At that time US intelligence determined it was a test for future operations. Only after Pakistan and UK police operations recently uncovered a similar “lotion/potion” airline bombing plan on a large scale were airline security measures instituted in the US. Again, good intelligence ignored. Bad intelligence engorged… 9.It was Philippine POLICE operations (that captured a computer…in a burned out bomb making apartment in the late 1990s,,,that led to the capture of an Al Qaeda leader and short circuiting a plot to kill thousands of people by blowing up a dozen aircraft heading to US. They also found a communication suggesting Al Qaeda would fly an airliner into the CIA building as a suicide mission. Again, good police work and intelligence ignored. It was US border POLICE efforts that stopped a 1999/2000 new years plot (again a female officer doing her job). Her attentiveness led to taking down additional cells without collateral damage.
10. Ronald Reagan didn’t defeat the Soviet Union. Osama Bin Laden did.
Actually it was the Marshall Plan, NATO and Helsinki accords and every US President after world war II that helped defeat the Soviets. But Reagan and OBL certainly deserve respectable assists. Others might argue that the Communist Soviets fell because of the inherent flaws in their system…and Capitalism will be next.
11. Clinton’s efforts to get OBL using military force after simultaneous
attacks on US embassies was seen as ‘wag the dog’ (Remove attention from Monica affair) and not a ‘credible’ act. The war like bombing of the pharmaceutical factory (again, an act using faulty intelligence – generated enormous hatred for US –and resulted in innocent civilian deaths for lack of drugs produced by the factory.
12. Republicans defend Bush’s lack of pre 9-11 response to OBL by
accusing liberals of “hind sight” yet don’t believe the same defense applies to Clinton. But then again use the defense to defend Bush’s failures in Iraq.

Summary: To whatever degree Clinton is guilty for weakly responding to the threat of OBL, Al Qaeda and terrorism, Bush is doubly guilty. And, even more responsible for taking wrong approaches defeating terrorism, waging war poorly, and providing for the future defense of our nation even less.

Use law not war to stop terrorists.
Don’t rely on intelligence. Try wisdom.
War makes enemies. Defeating terrorism will take friends.
Prevention…not Pre-emption.