To talk about Bush's pre 9/11 knowledge...


sorabji.com: What do you want?: To talk about Bush's pre 9/11 knowledge...
THIS IS A READ-ONLY ARCHIVE FROM THE SORABJI.COM MESSAGE BOARDS (1995-2016).

By Antigone on Friday, May 17, 2002 - 05:20 pm:

    ...of al-Quaida hijacking plots.

    Come on...I know everybody has an opinion. It's time to pony up and have Eschelon record them for posterity.


By patrick on Friday, May 17, 2002 - 05:47 pm:

    there is no way we will ever know the truth. if they had knowledge that this could happen... when, where, and who all being uncertain, what exactly could they have done? its no surprise at all they had these kinds of briefings. i recall hearing about terrorist warnings fromt he state department over the 4th of july of last year.

    Can you imagine all the anti-American shit they hear through the intelligence grapevine, all the threats. Trying to determine which is legitimate and which isnt seems near impossible.


By Dougie on Friday, May 17, 2002 - 05:49 pm:

    I loved Bush's quote in the Rose Garden in front of a bunch of Airforce cadets: "I want the troops here to know that I take my job as commander in chief very seriously..." As opposed to what, playing Doom all day?

    I'm sure they get innundated every day with all kinds of warnings, 99.9999% of which never come true. Plus, how could anyone ever imagine anyone using hijacked planes as missiles into tall buildings. Assuming the White House even saw the report, the thought was probably, OK, if we do get a hijacking situation such as the one reported, we scramble on them, and escort them down or shoot them down before they have a chance to divebomb into the Pentagon or CIA. Apart from the rage and hate I felt on 9/11, I couldn't help myself from thinking how brilliant the plan was and how brilliantly it was executed.

    This time, I'm siding with Cheney who warned against the Democrats playing politics with this issue. Now's not the time. Sure, the ball was dropped, but that was most likely because of the compartmentilization of departments and bureaucracies, and turf wars, keeping information for one's self.


By patrick on Friday, May 17, 2002 - 05:55 pm:

    its election time.

    the cocksuckers will politicize anything right now.



By dave. on Friday, May 17, 2002 - 06:01 pm:

    yup. there'd have been impeachment hearings right now if this had happened on clinton's watch. bush and co. is getting off easy.


By patrick on Friday, May 17, 2002 - 06:06 pm:

    they must be saving the best for last, we still have a good 5 months + to go.


By dave. on Friday, May 17, 2002 - 06:10 pm:

    unfortunately, this is probably the best they can do. team democrat sucks this season.


By patrick on Friday, May 17, 2002 - 06:20 pm:

    probably.

    which means the senate goes back to the repubs, which means Bush & Co. get what they want.


By Antigone on Friday, May 17, 2002 - 07:14 pm:


By spunky on Friday, May 17, 2002 - 09:15 pm:

    "yup. there'd have been impeachment hearings right now if this had happened on clinton's watch. bush and co. is getting off easy."

    Umm, not really since Gringbitch and Star are out of the picture. The current repubs are, for the most part whimps.


    And Dougie had it right on the nose.
    I KNOW that the gov't is always receiving warnings.
    Somebody with their nose out of joint somewhere pops off a threat and promises to fight to the last breath at least once a week.


    Common sense says drop this one, boys.


    And, that _Salon_ article was dated in 1999. Why is bush even mentioned in it? He was still govenor of texas then, and Clinton was in the white house.

    What we should be really looking at is how in the hell someone on the "watch list" was able to get on that plane with weapons and fly into the world trade center?

    Why do the NSA and CIA and FBI not talk to eachother?
    I can tell you. Classified information. You do not share it with anyone in even another office, let alone AGENCY.


By Christopher on Saturday, May 18, 2002 - 12:10 pm:

    Why did it take an hour and a half to scramble the defense jets?


By spunky on Sunday, May 19, 2002 - 01:45 pm:

    One of the biggest problems that the Air Force was talking about pre 911 was readiness. They said that the decrease in funding hurt their ability to be ready in a moment's notice.
    Everyone whines about defense spending. Until they need it.


By patrick on Tuesday, May 21, 2002 - 12:07 pm:

    oh please. don't go back to the readiness bullshit....that the right loves to wack Clinton on the ass for. Our jets were ready. Our jets were at least 30 minutes readym if not sooner. Don't let the right scare you for a second to think that our military isnt pretty damn ready. They just do that for more defense funding. Look at the bullshit over the Crusader. Complete crap.

    Spunk, the article was written on May 17, 2002 citing a 1999 study.

    Whats bullshit about this issue is that Dems are politicizing it at all. Especially Hillary. You know she has a bone to pick.

    There was clearly a redtape/bureauocratic break down here. There is no one man or agency to blame for 9/11.


By Antigone on Tuesday, May 21, 2002 - 06:23 pm:


By dave. on Tuesday, May 21, 2002 - 06:28 pm:

    totally.


By Antigone on Tuesday, May 21, 2002 - 06:49 pm:

    Liberal? Yes. True? Yep.


By sarah on Wednesday, May 22, 2002 - 11:04 am:


    does anyone honestly think that Bush knew that terrorists were fixin to use two US jets to try to burn the twin towers to the ground and whack the pentagon? and that he just let it happen?

    i mean, i'm no republican, but i give the man a little more credit than that.

    i think US intelligence knew for sure that something was going to happen, maybe they even knew it was going to happen on Sept. 11th, but that they didn't know exactly what or how. certainly they didn't have enough information to do something preventative... and what could they have done?

    let's say they did know. perhaps some sort of warning should have been issued. what exactly would you have liked to have known about what the government was speculating would happen? how many days notice would you liked to have had? a day? a week? a month? what would you have done with this knowledge? not traveled on a plane? not go to work or school? cancel your golf game? start building a bomb shelter?

    have you taken a moment to contemplate the pros and cons of the entire world being warned that great acts of terrorism were about to be committed against the US on US soil? if so, please share some of them here. i'd be interested in hearing that kind speculation.


    and what should the US military have done? shoot down four hijacked US jets *before* they crashed into anything? jeeezis, could you imagine what all sorts of hell would have resulted from that outcome?


    the President of the United States commanding the US Military to shoot down US jets with US citizens in them...?


    think about the implications of that. sure, in retrospect, we can say it would have been better than what actually happened, but then who would have been the enemy? the US military or the hijackers?


    again, even if US intelligence did have enough information, what the hell should the government and military have done?


    the government is fallible, yes. they make huge fucking mistakes, yes. our governors need to be made accountable for their action, yes.

    sometimes government officials learn from their mistakes. we've offically been issued a warning by Cheney to expect more acts of terrorism on our soil before the end of the year, and to expect suicide bombers walking among us. as far as i'm concerned, i really can't be bothered to wonder how much Bush knew about what happened on Sept. 11th. what's done is done. i assert that while the issue does need to be examined and addressed, in the case of this war i do not consider our government to be the enemy. al-Quaida and other terrorist groups around the world are the enemy.


    this coming from someone who asserts that:

    a) global capitalist colonization is an act of cultural and economic terrorism, and

    b) our government always acts first in the best interest of its own economy and second in the best interest of the overall well-being of its constituency.





By patrick on Wednesday, May 22, 2002 - 11:28 am:

    yeah what is your point tiggy? you keep posting these fuckwit items and then saying nothing.

    im with sarah 100% on this matter.

    I also believe they are engaged in scare tactics cover their ass. I believed we'd be subjected to more terrorist attacks well before Cheney mumbled that crap on MSNBC this weekend. This is not news people.

    I think its a scare campaign to keep us interested and distracted at the same time. The media has become an evil tool. Just last night, flipping channels, I came across some show on CBS i think it was, some show about the US military, Navy etc. Wings maybe? I dunno, one of those patriotic bullshit doomsday scenario shows that old people love to watch. Anyway, the episode taking place was of a Chechnyan terrorist who bought a Russian sub from Iran, armed it with a stolen US cruise missle loaded with radioactive materials. the sub was headed for the Persian gulf to bomb a carrier group. Simultaneously there were scenes of the US in Afghanistan fighing al Qaida there. What struck me is that this is so god damn real time. The immediacy seems unprecendented. When M*A*S*H came out, it was years after the Korean war. China Beach, years after Vietnam etc.. All the TV shows of American wartime were made well after the fact. This one is real time almost. Remember when the media moguls got together with the Bush administration almost a month after 9/11? Well it seems the agreed to take the position that 'hey we can't show you the REAL footage of the bloodshed going on around the world, so we'll show you this made up stuff created in the SoCal desert just 4 weeks ago.'

    Does anyone else find this scenario disturbing?











    I had another Sorabji dream. I distinctly remember sarah in my dream, at this place, a beach front or something. Then my creepy uncle who likes to say inappropriate things showed up. I dont remember much more, other than sarah didnt necessarily look like sarah, but it was her. thank you goodnight.


By sarah on Wednesday, May 22, 2002 - 11:57 am:

    for some reason i'm reminded of the attack on Pearl Harbor.

    the US military had plenty of intelligence information well beforehand that Japanese fighter planes were getting ready to be dispatched for attack on the US.

    but

    at 6 a.m. (hawaiian time) on december 7, 1941, the first Japanese attack fleet of 183 planes took off from aircraft carriers 230 miles north of Oahu. at 7:02 a.m., two army operators at a radar station on Oahu's north shore picked up Japanese fighters approaching on radar. they contacted a junior officer who **disregarded** their sighting, thinking that it was the US B-17 bombers which were expected to arrive that day from the west coast.

    whoooooops. yet another huge fucking mistake.


    wonder if those guys made it out of the radar tower alive.




By eri on Wednesday, May 22, 2002 - 12:06 pm:

    Wow, I am amazed. I have been thinking exactly the same way as Sarah on this thing. If we went back in time and changed it, how would that have effected our world, because we did not know then what we know now.

    I always thought that our time would be better spent, not pointing fingers (although I do want the truth known) but rather figuring out the best way to prevent this from happening in the future (as much as possible). Then again, that's just me.


By Nate on Wednesday, May 22, 2002 - 12:13 pm:

    the best interest of our economy is the best interest of the overall wellbeing of our population.


By semillama on Wednesday, May 22, 2002 - 12:19 pm:

    side note: while MASH was technically set in
    Korea, it was in subtext a commentary on
    Vietnam.


By sarah on Wednesday, May 22, 2002 - 12:33 pm:


    i did not say population. i said constituency.

    our government always acts first in the best interest of its own economy and second in the best interest of the overall well-being of the people in this country who vote (and/or who bribe).



By Nate on Wednesday, May 22, 2002 - 01:24 pm:

    constituency is a subset of the population. i'd say the benefit extends to children and felons, too, but whatever.

    because of our strong, capitalist economy, the constituency of the US government has better well-being than any other country on earth.

    the best interest of our economy is the best interest of the constituency.


By No One on Wednesday, May 22, 2002 - 02:10 pm:

    Constitute my population, baby


By Antigone on Wednesday, May 22, 2002 - 03:27 pm:

    Patrick, you just love to insult people, don't you? In your post you basically agree with the articles I've posted.

    I started this thread so we could talk about the issue, not to make a point.

    Anyway...

    sarah:
    "again, even if US intelligence did have enough information, what the hell should the government and military have done?"

    They could have arrested the terrorists before they did the deed, much like Zacarias Moussaoui was arrested. If the FBI had listened to the agent in Phoenix, it wouldn't have been too difficult. At least they could have tried.

    "i assert that while the issue does need to be examined and addressed, in the case of this war i do not consider our government to be the enemy."

    What if the government is so incompetent that they do not protect us? What are they then?


By Antigone on Wednesday, May 22, 2002 - 03:38 pm:


By patrick on Wednesday, May 22, 2002 - 03:40 pm:

    "What if the government is so incompetent that they do not protect us? What are they then?"

    incompetent.


    no i dont gain any kind of satisfcation from insulting people.

    I just want to know what you propose. just take the obvious democrat witchhunt out of play.


By patrick on Wednesday, May 22, 2002 - 03:40 pm:

    and yes i want discussion but ive seen more yellow text than white text from you. less yellow text more white text.


By Antigone on Wednesday, May 22, 2002 - 03:55 pm:

    Yeah, I guess there's no point posting links. Hardly anyone here would actually read them. Ignorance is bliss.


By Antigone on Wednesday, May 22, 2002 - 04:09 pm:

    Also, why "just take the obvious democrat witchhunt out of play"? I'd have to say that a witch hunt about why Sept 11th happened is much better than a witch hunt about why a blow job happened.


By Nate on Wednesday, May 22, 2002 - 04:17 pm:

    "What if the government is so incompetent that they do not protect us? What are they then? "

    providers of social programs.

    duh.


By patrick on Wednesday, May 22, 2002 - 06:02 pm:

    i read the links tiggy but its just the same shit i read anyway, maybe not on MSNBC but maybe on yahoo. Im a news junkie like the some of you, so i mean , you know, its not necessarily news to me.


    "I'd have to say that a witch hunt about why Sept 11th happened is much better than a witch hunt about why a blow job happened."

    maybe but its a withhunt all the same. its pretty much a given that the right did everything they could to get Clinton out, or at least distract him enough to be an ineffective president. Lets not continue the cycle huh? Sure, lets get to the bottom of things but lets not politicize it. Thats petty.


By Antigone on Wednesday, May 22, 2002 - 06:15 pm:

    The hunt is not petty when the stakes are not petty.


By patrick on Wednesday, May 22, 2002 - 06:21 pm:

    the politicized hunt is totally petty in the face of what happened. sure the stakes are high so lets stick to business and ditch the smear campaign against the other party members.


By eri on Wednesday, May 22, 2002 - 07:37 pm:

    Patrick, are we agreeing on something political? I am totally in shock. A witch hunt is not going to help the situation in any way, but take the emphasis off of what we need to do as a nation and as a world to move on from what has already happened. Having a witch hunt will not change the past, and right now we have too much going on as a nation to spend our energies on all of this crap. It won't change what has already happened.

    As much as I am NOT a fan of Clinton, I didn't agree with that witch hunt either. In the end we wound up a wounded nation, and a laughing stock to the world.

    If we continue to waste energy pointing fingers it will be the same. We will be a laughing stock and we will be a wounded nation, as if we aren't wounded enough already.

    There are many more important things for us to focus on right now.

    Should the truth be known? Yes. Should it be some major witch hunt taking up our time, our energy, and possibly incumbering the work of the president? No.

    Even if it was proven that he had total knowlege of every single aspect of this attack (which I highly doubt) and he is "impeached" he will still be in office, just as Clinton was.

    It is time to do better work with our time, and work to heal our nation and correct problems we have worldwide.


By sarah on Wednesday, May 22, 2002 - 09:51 pm:


    Antigone, i totally agree that mistakes were made and people did not take actions they should have taken. they should have arrested the terrorists before the deed, but do we know if the FBI or other agencies had enough evidence to do so? they arrested Moussaoui because they had hard evidence that he broke a law - learning how to navigate a plane without learning to take off or land. perhaps they did have enough evidence to arrest the others, or maybe they didn't. i honestly don't know.

    i'm also not against examining the issue of why Bush chose to withhold whatever amount of information he had regarding what was to happen on sept. 11th. i think it's important to ask questions. but i think the most important question to ask is "why", and not assume by withholding whatever it was that he knew that Bush did something wrong politically, philosophically, or morally. we also cannot assume that it would be in best interest of national security that the whole world know whatever he knew ahead of time.

    unfortunately the general public knows jack shit about national security, and i'd argue that in most cases it's in our overall well-being not to know. could public knowledge of the possibility or inevitability of terrorism in some way prevented what happened? or lessened the damage and lives lost? or should we know just because we're americans and dammit we have the constitutional right to know?


    just some thoughts...



By Ophelia on Wednesday, May 22, 2002 - 10:09 pm:

    I dont know what our knowing would do for national security. thats a big what if, without a lot of facts. however, it would have been a self esteem boost. americans are nosy by nature, and no one likes to be left in the dark. whether, as a matter of strategy, we should be trusted is a totally different question. i like to know as much as anyone.


By Fester on Wednesday, May 22, 2002 - 11:06 pm:

    fuck you, you ass


By Daniel ssss on Thursday, May 23, 2002 - 12:59 am:

    As much as I like copulating the constitutional rights of our duly but likely illegally elected officials, I'd suggest the bottom of this is about 77 feet below street level ... in effect burying the truth so far from the public, demo or repub or faascist or communist ... we'll never know.

    I normally don't venture out of my online agoraphobia but here goes:

    My original contention was that the Whole Thing was a carefully orchestrated political scheme to ensure the public and political sanction and desecration of the Alaskan Wilderness and the safety of an oil pipeline through Afganistan ... all the while hoping a little military action might stimulate an otherwise dead economic picture... all of which obviously backfired, and by which the public, the politicians, and terrorist and patriot alike were momentarily horrified at the incredible mistake and outcome.

    I say momentarily unless of course you lost someone on those flights or in those buildings or lost your job this week at Boeing because of the aftermath.


    The situation and its reverberating aftermath are Much, Much worse than LBJ and Vietnam, the largest political backfire and coverup of the second half of the 20th century, I might add. But then again, I wasn't around during the first half, Pearl Harbor and WWII or WWI... but no one back then possessed the technology, the intelligence gathering network, and the computer simulations we have today.

    What happened should not have happened given the technology available, given the warnings heeded or not, and given the World Climate of Terrorism... against which the continental US has largely insulated itself. Again, the failure of technological culture, or rather the result of bureaucratic apathies and a deluded populace, both lulled into complacency, thinking technology would prevent this sort of thing, that It Will Never Happen Here.

    But it did. It may again. Ask anybody from Belfast NI. We Americans have been so smug and secure; still the former in our ignorance and denial, nevermore the latter in this harsh 21st C reality. Our man Bush is a stooge, and stands wondering just what the hell he's got himself into. A continuation of the Bushism corruption of his daddy's administration?

    Nonetheless. The people and the organizations and the corporations behind him ... knew a lot more than will ever be told.

    Just my opinion. Whoops, the men in black are at my door again.


By Joe on Thursday, May 23, 2002 - 02:35 am:

    the fbi doesn't tell the cia who doesn't tell the nsa who doesn't tell the fbi. why do we have three fucking agencies anyway? oh, and let us not forget the dod. they hate each other and refuse to share information. no wonder the trade towers fell. fucking assholes.


By Reese on Thursday, May 23, 2002 - 10:32 am:

    "Also, why "just take the obvious democrat witchhunt out of play"? I'd have to say that a witch hunt about why Sept 11th happened is much better than a witch hunt about why a blow job happened."

    That was not about sex.
    It was about getting on camera and wagging a finger and lying to the American Public.
    Intentionally. Repeatedly.
    And twisting meanings of phrases such as "sexual relations" does not include oral sex and "is".
    It was about him thinking we were so dumb we would believe his lie about not inhaling.
    Oh, and perjury.

    Who cares who the creep slept with.
    I could not blame him for not wanting Hillary.


By Dougie on Thursday, May 23, 2002 - 10:44 am:

    I wonder if Monica inhaled.

    I hate to admit it, but I watched Celebrity Boxing last night -- I saw Manute Bol "fight" William the Fridge Perry, and Joey Buttafucker fight China. Surely, that show signals the death knell for civilization as we know it. What is it about these freaks like Buttafuoco and Darva Conger who will do anything to keep their names and faces in the media? And on the same token, what does it say about me watching this crap? (Retract your claws kids, no need to answer -- that was rhetorical.)


By semillama on Thursday, May 23, 2002 - 11:32 am:

    Do I smell a hint of misogyny, reese?


By patrick on Thursday, May 23, 2002 - 11:36 am:

    Lewinsky-gate was about ruining the Clinton presidency and getting him out of office at all costs. It was a deliberate and intentional effort of the right to smear him and his presidency and if not get him impeached, render him ineffective.


By Nate on Thursday, May 23, 2002 - 12:11 pm:

    that makes a lot of sense, patty, until you look at all clinton accomplished under the table while the public was focusing on his dress staining power.


By semillama on Thursday, May 23, 2002 - 12:22 pm:

    god i'm bored.


By patrick on Thursday, May 23, 2002 - 12:29 pm:

    i didnt say anything about the success of the right's intent.

    was it under the table because the right was forcing it under the table while the fucko media was lapping it up like a pussy and cream?

    You imply Clinton had something to do with the media field day, allowing him to squirm under the table with more ease.


By sarah on Thursday, May 23, 2002 - 12:31 pm:


By agatha on Thursday, May 23, 2002 - 08:26 pm:

    inhaled?

    i believe you're looking for another word.


By sarah on Friday, May 24, 2002 - 11:00 am:


bbs.sorabji.com
 

The Stalking Post: General goddam chit-chat Every 3 seconds: Sex . Can men and women just be friends? . Dreamland . Insomnia . Are you stoned? . What are you eating? I need advice: Can you help? . Reasons to be cheerful . Days and nights . Words . Are there any news? Wishful thinking: Have you ever... . I wish you were... . Why I oughta... Is it art?: This question seems to come up quite often around here. Weeds: Things that, if erased from our cultural memory forever, would be no great loss Surfwatch: Where did you go on the 'net today? What are you listening to?: Worst music you've ever heard . What song or tune is going through your head right now? . Obscure composers . Obscure Jazz, 1890-1950 . Whatever, whenever General Questions: Do you have any regrets? . Who are you? . Where are you? . What are you doing here? . What have you done? . Why did you do it? . What have you failed to do? . What are you wearing? . What do you want? . How do you do? . What do you want to do today? . Are you stupid? Specific Questions: What is the cruelest thing you ever did? . Have you ever been lonely? . Have you ever gone hungry? . Are you pissed off? . When is the last time you had sex? . What does it look like where you are? . What are you afraid of? . Do you love me? . What is your definition of Heaven? . What is your definition of Hell? Movies: Last movie you saw . Worst movie you ever saw . Best movie you ever saw Reading: Best book you've ever read . Worst book you've ever read . Last book you read Drunken ramblings: uiphgy8 hxbjf.bklf ghw789- bncgjkvhnqwb=8[ . Payphones: Payphone Project BBS
 

sorabji.com . torturechamber . px.sorabji.com . receipts . contact