Saw a story on NBC's Nightly News last night detailing video of what many believe was Osama bin Laden running around a training camp in Afghanistan pre 9/11 during the Clinton era. Ouch, we had our chances. We all know the stories, but to see it on video hurt.
They will continue the report tonight and show how the current administration also had their chances. I'm really surprised at how many negative reports NBC News is airing regarding Bush. Compared to ABC which offers very little criticism of the administration (remember Jenning's comment during the debates on M. Moore's "deserter" title for Bush?).
That was before predators had hellfires on 'em, and the video was the reason behind the push for hellfires on predators. Yeah, we missed him, but it wasn't like Clinton didn't pull the trigger. Aside from driving the drone directly into OBL, there wasn't a lot else to do except call in the tomahawks and hope OBL was constipated for a few hours and hung around...
Re: Re: video of bin Laden? on NBC Unfortunately, these are little facts that will go over the heads of most viewers.
Re: Re: video of bin Laden? on NBC NBC also mentioned that at the time this video was taken, Clinton didn't exactly have the strongest position. He had just been impeached, he was a lame duck, and although it may be debatable as to whether our government knew about the 9/11 plot, I doubt anyone anticipated such a watershed event that would lead to the worldwide war on terror. Given Clinton's other problems, an attack on Bin-Laden, similar to the one in Sudan would have looked like wagging the dog. It would have been a tougher decision to make given that at the time, 9/11 was yet to happen. It's regrettable they let him get away though. Apparently, tonight's version of the NBC tapes disclose more regarding the Bush Administration's knowledge of where Bin-Laden was although I don't know if that is pre or post 9/11.
I have no doubt Bush probably had similar "chances" with bin Laden. It seems to me that before 9/11, most ALL of us (politicians included) thought we were a lt safer than we were. Still hurts.
I don't know if he had similar chances. Bush did shut down the Predator overflights as well as the stationing of cruise-missile carrying ships off shore.
Re: Re: Re: video of bin Laden? on NBC So wait, if it wasn't for the BS attempt to impeach Clinton distrcting him from his important duties, then we mighta nipped this in the bud??? the republicans are responsible for 9/11 after all...
dawgpound's a little craftier than your typical bigsoccer rightwing nutjob, I'll give him that. He follows the MO of saying the exact opposite of the truth, but he does it in a much subtler-than-usual way.
Re: Re: video of bin Laden? on NBC Good luck doing that (flying the drone into him). The damn thing is a glider with a snowmobile engine in it. Not terribly manuverable or fast. It does what it was designed to do quite well, but you can't really expect much more than that.
Re: Re: Re: video of bin Laden? on NBC For all you Simpson's fans, I have a picture of Sideshow Bob trying to kill Krusty with the Wright brother's plane, only to have it bounce off the building that Krusty was broadcasting the only TV signal from. Bin-Laden could have probably beaten the Predator off with a stick.
Re: Re: Re: Re: video of bin Laden? on NBC How about the fighter pilots trying to intercept the Wright Flyer only to be going so fast that they decide to land and chase it on foot with butterfly nets? I work at the old Wright Field here in Dayton, and that episode is an all-time favorite here. He probably could have then. Not now, but then.
the best part about the report last night... they said that soon after the predator took that video of BL and Al.Q training at their little "grounds of terror" the damn thing crashed in to a mountain-side. the video was pretty damn amazing. i look forward to seeing more of the report tonight. can you imagine being some guy sitting in some cubicle on some base in florida flying that thing around via remote control around the terrain of afghanistan and pakistan? what a damn boring job until you see something good...
NBC: A secret CIA videotape shows that the Clinton administration had pinpointed the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden a year before the 9/11 attacks, but declined to kill him because of White House orders that he should be taken alive. The video, obtained and broadcast by NBC News, "illustrates an enormous opportunity the Clinton administration had to kill or capture bin Laden," the network reported Tuesday. "It’s dynamite. It’s putting together all of the pieces, and that doesn’t happen every day," said William Arkin, a former intelligence officer and now military analyst for NBC. Though President Clinton has boasted repeatedly that he issued orders to kill bin Laden, no action was taken when the White House finally got its chance. Why not? Gary Schroen, a former CIA station chief in Pakistan, told NBC that the White House had in fact ordered the CIA to do just the opposite - take bin Laden alive or not at all. The directive effectively killed the plan and, along with it, the U.S.'s best chance to prevent the 9/11 attacks.
It's not unreasonable to assume that it might have. That said, at least the Clinton administration was keeping and eye on him and recognized that something needed to be done. In contrast, the Bushies were too worried about the man who threatened Junior's daddy.
It's also not unreasonable to assume that Ian's quote came from Newsmax, given the fact that no link to any news story was provided. Which, after a quick Google search of "Gary Schroen", determines that in fact it did come from Newsmax and leaves out a critical part of the NBC story, which is: Newsmax also leaves out part 2, shown yesterday, which has more info like: That, everyone, is accountability for you. How convenient. Anyone can play the game of not sourcing news articles. It's kinda fun, actually. Fox News: A confidential report leaked to Fox by insider sources confirms that the BigSoccer poster known as "Ian McCracken" likes to spread peanut butter on himself and have his dog lick it off. Why, you ask? Because Ian's a sad, sick man.
Hah! I'll just say - because this is public knowledge - that these things are difficult to employ. My work is based a lot on the "boring job" (your words) that operating unmanned vehicles entails. I have hours upon hours upon hours of flight time in a simulator for one of these. I'll also say that I've been to virtually every place in the US that these things exist at - including where they are built - and it's still cool to see 'em in action.
It's kinda spoiled me, tho. I'll probably never accept doing web software work for, say, a large insurance company (which I've done before). In a tight job market, when your wife wants to move to Columbus, wanting to continue to do such work limits your options to mostly Battelle. Which is way cool - I'd love to work there - but it's tough to land a job. Funny thing is, I nearly turned this job down to work for a Large Aerospace Firm at Goddard Space Center in Maryland. Would've been doing something even more exciting - real EE work on satellite systems. Less money, but the real deal-breaker is that they wouldn't offer a college kid a relocation package! It's not expensive to move a college grad - but without any assistance I could only afford to move what I could fit in a '91 Geo Prism. Anyway, there are vigilance issues with operating autonomous systems. If all systems are nominal, and there is nothing interesting in the enviroment, then things could get very boring.
Vote for me. If I was running things, you'd be able to compile a library of predator tapes from nudist camps all over the world.