From 1999, Disgruntled Ninja Silently Kills 12 Co-Workers:
Sales supervisor Irene Young, whose cubicle was directly across from Tenchumaru’s and who on several occasions had questioned the wisdom of having an office ninja, was the next victim, killed instantly when a single thrust from a razor-sharp ninjato-katana sword pierced her cubicle wall, sheared through her computer monitor, and plunged through her heart.
Via Kottke, we find this list from Blender magazine of The 50 worst things to ever happen to music. Our favorites: 46, 45, 42, 35 through 32, 24, 20 (hi, Mike), 17, 14, 13, 10, 9, 8, 7, and of course 1.
Enjoy.
We do. From our 2003 entry:
Maher Arar is a Syrian-born Canadian. Returning to Canada from vacation in Tunis last September, he flew from there to Zurich to New York, intending to continue on to Montreal. US officials detained him in New York, refused his requests for an attorney, would not tell him what charges or allegations resulted in his arrest, and eventually deported him — to SYRIA, where they knew he would be tortured or killed. He was held for over a year in total — ten months in Syria — before finally being released on October 5, thanks to the efforts of his wife and Canadian authorities.
A Canadian government commission officially exonerated Arar today, 3 years later. He was arrested and sent to Syria to be tortured with no due process, no trial, no jury, no judge, no charge, no nothing. He was essentially abducted and sent to Syria by our government despite the fact that he’s not a US citizen, does not live here, and did nothing wrong. The Canadians gave the U.S. people bad intel, and based on this intel people acting in our name had him tortured. He had no chance to avoid it.
From the NYT story:
Mr. Arar, speaking at a news conference, praised the findings. “Today Justice O’Connor has cleared my name and restored my reputation,” he said. “I call on the government of Canada to accept the findings of this report and hold these people responsible.”
His lawyer, Marlys Edwardh, said the report affirmed that Mr. Arar, who has been unemployed since his return to Canada, was deported and tortured because of “a breathtakingly incompetent investigation.”
[…]
However, the commission found that the designation [on a “terrorist lookout list”] should have only been applied to people who are members or associates of terrorist networks. Neither the police nor customs had any such evidence of that concerning Mr. Arar or his wife, an economist.
[…]
Evidence presented to the commission, said Paul J. J. Cavalluzzo, its lead counsel, showed that the F.B.I. continued to keep its Canadian counterparts in the dark even while an American jet was carrying Mr. Arar to Jordan. The panel found that American officials “believed — quite correctly — that, if informed, the Canadians would have serious concerns about the plan to remove Mr. Arar to Syria.”
Mr. Arar arrived in Syria on Oct. 9, 2002, and was imprisoned there until Oct. 5, 2003. [Dates differ based on presumably more up-to-date info – Ed.] It took Canadian officials, however, until Oct. 21 to locate him in Syria. The commission concludes that Syrian officials at first denied knowing Mr. Arar’s whereabouts to hide the fact that he was being tortured. It says that, among other things, he was beaten with a shredded electrical cable until he was disoriented.
American officials have not discussed the case publicly. But in an interview last year, a former official said on condition of anonymity that the decision to send Mr. Arar to Syria had been based chiefly on the desire to get more information about him and the threat he might pose. The official said Canada did not intend to hold him if he returned home.
This is why it’s not about “torturing terrorists” or “imprisoning bad guys” — it’s about preserving due process. It’s about making sure that innocent people aren’t imprisoned, and it’s about continuing to the the U.S.A., and not becoming a tin-pot dictatorship in the name of preserving the freedoms we’ve denies people like Arar.
(Oil on canvas by Dave Wong. Found here. Lots of Shag, too.)
It surprised no one that the new Microsoft media player (“Zune”) is incompatible with music purchased from Apple’s iTunes Music Store. Apple won’t license others to unlock their files, and they have little reason to — with 80%+ of the player market and an online store that currently ranks FIFTH of all music retailers, digital or otherwise (just behind Amazon), Apple would gain little by letting even someone like Creative play their files; playing nice with a serious competitor like Microsoft would be stupid.
So already, Redmond is entering a market with a significant disadvantage about which they can do little. Still, they’ve got bags and bags of cash, so as long as they’re smart they can succeed here, right?
Well, we’ll never now, as they’ve opted for Stupid. It turns out that the Zune will be incompatible with music protected with Microsoft’s “PlaysForSure” DRM scheme, which they developed in partnership with several online music vendors in an effort to compete with iTMS.
Outside of Zune’s own store, it looks like the only stuff you’ll be able to put on a Zune will come from unprotected digital files like ripped CDs or tracks purchased from vendors who don’t do DRM, like eMusic. Zune will represent a parallel music ecosystem in the Microsoft world; if you bought protected Windows Media music at Rhapsody, there’s no way to unlock the files to put ’em on your Zune. Sorry. Buy it again.
Wow.
In 2005, cops set a new record for marijuana arrests, which we’re sure made us much, much safer.
All these people are cooler than you, especially Zorn and Gawande.
Prof. Felton has released a security analysis of the Diebold AccuVote-TS machine showing it can be compromised in as little as one minute. Here’s Prof. Felton demonstrating the hack on Fox (of all places). Also, it turns out that the cabinet on these things can be opened with a standard minibar key, which makes it pretty clear how serious Diebold is about security.
Diebold, of course, is once again blowing off researcher concerns, insisting there’s no problem with the machines.
The Douchebag of Liberty himself, Bob Novak, insists he’s never seen Jon Stewart’s show, but still feels free to call him a “self righteous comedian taking on airs of grandeur.”
Rrrrrrriiiiiiight, Douchebag.
It cost a cool four hundred large, but it’s got hippos on it. Nuff said.
Based on actual American mortality figures since 1995, this chart shows how dangerous terrorism really is. All of the following are more likely to kill you than Al Qaida: Falling, accidental poisoning, drowning, the flu, a hernia, or being shot by law enforcement.
Think on that last one a bit.
(Via BB.)
Polls are out. Ohio is still on top, but number 2 with a bullet is Auburn (on the AP; USA Today has ’em at 3, which is where AP puts USC).
Notre Dame is still overrated at 12 (AP)/13 (USAToday). The Hurricanes are out of the top 25 on both polls.
(Before anyone whines: yes, we went to Alabama (22 on USAToday, unranked on the AP; this is soft, since they’ve not played a real game yet), but we did it on money our dad earned on an Auburn D.V.M., so we win either way.)
The original line-up reunited briefly at a benefit at the 40 Watt in Athens on the 12th.
We know there’s a whole generation who think they really started at “Monster” — like this writer — but for us the key material ends at “Document.” The performances linked above reflect that reality, as does the new I.R.S. years retrospective and companion DVD we’re awful close to one-clicking at Amazon.
(Via MeFi, which has more relevant links.)
(Found here, where there’s more on the same theme.)
Atrios points us to a new book describing how absurd and incompetent the CPA was in immediate postinvasion Iraq; the primary qualification was party affiliation, not area of expertise. We’re adding the book to our to-read list post haste.
Alabama had a creampuff (41-7 over Louisiana-Monroe) this weekend, but these results are worth a cocktail or two:
Honestly, we have no idea why ND always gets rated so highly in the late summer, only to get smacked when they bother to play real teams. They squeaked by unranked Ga. Tech (14-10) in the first week, legitimately beat Penn State (another poll darling), and then got their asses handed to them today. And they don’t play another ranked team until USC in late November. Between now and then, they’ll entertain such powerhouses as Purdue, Stanford, UCLA, and the Armed Forces Trifecta. W.T.F? If they stay ranked, it’s only because Lou Holtz has some deal with the devil.
The tickets to “Pretender Island” are ready for the Irish and the Miami Hurricanes, as ESPN put it. (The Canes dropped to Louisville, of all people, 31-7.)
The FCC ordered a taxpayer-funded study suggesting greater media ownership consolidation would be damaging to local news coverage destroyed in 2004. It surfaced recently as part of Kevin Martin’s confirmation hearings; someone forwarded a copy of Sen. Boxer, who is now demanding that the FCC address the report and its coverup.
Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot.
Did you know it was still possible to rent telephones from Ma Bell? And that it costs $29 a month per set to do so? And that some 750,000 Americans still do? How much do you want to bet they’re all retirees like this woman?
Do the telco folks just not have grandmothers?
We don’t mean to say it’s evil that they offer this service. Obviously, that’s not the point. The point is that you can buy a phone in any given month for less than thirty bucks, and they know this, and they further must know that nobody renting phones has given this any thought at all, and that they’re probably all pensioners who just don’t know any better. This is known as “fucking your customer,” and it’s the sort of thing telcos can get away with because, historically, they have no competition to whom you can take your business if they piss you off.
It was no idle threat; he followed through and made good, much to the delight of the net at large, which then of course produced fan fiction (on which Scalzi comments, but only after learning an important lesson).
Sparklehorse r00lz. Which is sad for you, unless you live in Austin, as he’s taking his tour elsewhere after 3 US dates: two in Austin, and the one we saw last night here in lovely, crime-free Houston, TX.
The opening act? Daniel Johnston.
This is rich. The Senate committee has passed Arlen Specter’s bill on to the Senate. Said bill addresses the illegal wiretapping this Administration is so fond of by redefining it as “not surveillance,” presumably operating on the theory that we’re all morons. It also manages to completely gut FISA, the law that Bush is continuing to violate as we speak. More here and here.
Here’s their take on what an actually truthful preflight announcement would sound like. We particularly like the part about the water landing. Enjoy.
GOOD morning, ladies and gentlemen. We are delighted to welcome you aboard Veritas Airways, the airline that tells it like it is. Please ensure that your seat belt is fastened, your seat back is upright and your tray-table is stowed. At Veritas Airways, your safety is our first priority. Actually, that is not quite true: if it were, our seats would be rear-facing, like those in military aircraft, since they are safer in the event of an emergency landing. But then hardly anybody would buy our tickets and we would go bust.
The flight attendants are now pointing out the emergency exits. This is the part of the announcement that you might want to pay attention to. So stop your sudoku for a minute and listen: knowing in advance where the exits are makes a dramatic difference to your chances of survival if we have to evacuate the aircraft. Also, please keep your seat belt fastened when seated, even if the seat-belt light is not illuminated. This is to protect you from the risk of clear-air turbulence, a rare but extremely nasty form of disturbance that can cause severe injury. Imagine the heavy food trolleys jumping into the air and bashing into the overhead lockers, and you will have some idea of how nasty it can be. We don’t want to scare you. Still, keep that seat belt fastened all the same.
Your life-jacket can be found under your seat, but please do not remove it now. In fact, do not bother to look for it at all. In the event of a landing on water, an unprecedented miracle will have occurred, because in the history of aviation the number of wide-bodied aircraft that have made successful landings on water is zero. This aircraft is equipped with inflatable slides that detach to form life rafts, not that it makes any difference. Please remove high-heeled shoes before using the slides. We might as well add that space helmets and anti-gravity belts should also be removed, since even to mention the use of the slides as rafts is to enter the realm of science fiction.
Please switch off all mobile phones, since they can interfere with the aircraft’s navigation systems. At least, that’s what you’ve always been told. The real reason to switch them off is because they interfere with mobile networks on the ground, but somehow that doesn’t sound quite so good. On most flights a few mobile phones are left on by mistake, so if they were really dangerous we would not allow them on board at all, if you think about it. We will have to come clean about this next year, when we introduce in-flight calling across the Veritas fleet. At that point the prospect of taking a cut of the sky-high calling charges will miraculously cause our safety concerns about mobile phones to evaporate.
On channel 11 of our in-flight entertainment system you will find a video consisting of abstract imagery and a new-age soundtrack, with a voice-over explaining some exercises you can do to reduce the risk of deep-vein thrombosis. We are aware that this video is tedious, but it is not meant to be fun. It is meant to limit our liability in the event of lawsuits.
Once we have reached cruising altitude you will be offered a light meal and a choice of beverages—a word that sounds so much better than just saying “drinks”, don’t you think? The purpose of these refreshments is partly to keep you in your seats where you cannot do yourselves or anyone else any harm. Please consume alcohol in moderate quantities so that you become mildly sedated but not rowdy. That said, we can always turn the cabin air-quality down a notch or two to help ensure that you are sufficiently drowsy.
After take-off, the most dangerous part of the flight, the captain will say a few words that will either be so quiet that you will not be able to hear them, or so loud that they could wake the dead. So please sit back, relax and enjoy the flight. We appreciate that you have a choice of airlines and we thank you for choosing Veritas, a member of an incomprehensible alliance of obscure foreign outfits, most of which you have never heard of. Cabin crew, please make sure we have remembered to close the doors. Sorry, I mean: “Doors to automatic and cross-check”. Thank you for flying Veritas.
The second night of ABC’s 9/11 fan fiction included falsified scenes bolstering Bush, whereas the first night’s segment’s major falsehoods came at the expense of the prior administration.
This is propaganda, pure and simple.
That’s pretty much the case:
George W. Bush’s speech on September 6 amounted to a public confession to criminal violations of the 1996 War Crimes Act. He implicitly admitted authorizing disappearances, extrajudicial imprisonment, torture, transporting prisoners between countries and denying the International Committee of the Red Cross access to prisoners.
These are all serious violations of the Geneva Conventions. The War Crimes Act makes grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions and all violations of Common Article 3 punishable by fines, imprisonment or, if death results to the victim, the death penalty.
But, just to be safe, Bush is trying to cover his ass. Guilty much, George?
At the same time, Bush asked Congress to amend the War Crimes Act in order to retroactively protect him and other U.S. officials from prosecution for these crimes, and from civil lawsuits arising from them. He justified this on the basis that “our military and intelligence personnel involved in capturing and questioning terrorists could now be at risk of prosecution under the War Crimes Act . . . ,” and insisted that “passing this legislation ought to be the top priority” for Congress between now and the election in November.
His profession of concern for military and intelligence personnel was utterly misleading. Military personnel charged with war crimes have always been, and continue to be, prosecuted under the Universal Code of Military Justice rather than the War Crimes Act; and the likelihood of CIA interrogators being identified and prosecuted under the act is remote — they are protected by the secrecy that surrounds all CIA operations.
The only real beneficiaries of such amendments to the War Crimes Act would be Bush himself and other civilian officials who have assisted him in these crimes — Rumsfeld, Cheney, Gonzales, Rice, Cambone, Tenet, Goss, Negroponte and an unfortunately long list of their deputies and advisors.
Where is the outrage?
As someone who was directly involved in almost every event depicted in the fictionalized docudrama, “The Path to 9-11,” I believe it is an egregious distortion that does a deep disservice both to history and to those in both the Clinton and Bush administrations who are depicted.
Sadly, ABC’s Entertainment Division hired a production company and screen writer who were apparently unqualified to deal with this historically important subject matter. That error appears to have been compounded by the failure of some of the docudrama’s consultants to insure that the account was accurate. Some of the most outrageous scenes were removed after a recent senior level review. What remains, however, is not the true story as told by the 9-11 Commission.
We’re glad you asked.
“Time for Us to Go,” 7 articles by prominent conservatives on why the GOP deserves to be shown the door come election day.
Media Matters discusses one of the more egregious fabrications of ABC’s 9/11 fan fiction.
We’ve seen bits of the satirical short “Truth in Advertising” before, but today Consumerist has what appears to be the entire first 12-minute chapter. We know there’s additional footage with another, perhaps subsequent storyline, but we’ve seen samples of that far less often than this one.
Keith weighs in on the Anniversary, and holds nothing back. Watch or read the whole thing.
If you’re in Japan, do not go on a game show.
As usual, Bruce Schneier is all over it.
Pro-torture, Imperial-presidency fan and one-time administration attorney John Yoo is apparently opposed to separation of powers.
We’ll just port Ms Lemay’s title straight over: “Mommy, there’s a clown in my sandwich.”
Atrios points us to this excerpt from Al Franken’s book. Al’s a leftie, but everything in this summary is verifiable as far as I can tell. The bullet points:
The Clinton administration was becoming more and more convinced that AQ and OBL were going to be a big problem, so they created a far-reaching plan for their destruction. This plan was completed after the election, but before GWB’s inaugural.
Rather than hand Bush a fait accompli war, they instead passed on the plan.
The outgoing Clinton people put together multiple briefings for the incoming Bush people, including some comprehensive discussions of terror, OBL, and AQ. Said Sandy Berger, “I believe that the Bush administration will spend more time on terrorism in general, and on al Qaeda specifically, than any other subject.”
Impressed by his antiterror knowledge and bona fides, the Bush administration asked key counterterror bulldog Richard Clarke to stay on. Still, the impression the outgoing Clinton people had seems to have been that the Bush people thought they were obsessed with terrorism, and didn’t take the warnings seriously.
It gets worse. Of course, you knew that already.
I remember shaving.
I remember I was naked, hunched over my sink (the left one), still damp from the shower, face half covered in Barbasol. Craning, probably, to mow the recalcitrant part of my neck.
I remember getting half done and absently turning off the bathroom fan so I could hear Bob Edwards on the clock radio. I remember thinking his voice sounded funny. I remember realizing he was saying words that didn’t make sense, or at least words that I didn’t want to make sense. Some planes had crashed. Into a building, maybe? I kept shaving. Then, in the midst of discussing Bush’s first remarks on the attacks, he started stumbling over his words. Bob Edwards never stops; he’s a radio pro.
[That was] President Bush speaking this morning in Florida; he is on his way back to Washington now cutting short his visit to Florida where he was to promote his education programs this morning reading to elementary schoolchildren. The President may be the only one in the air at this hour; the Federal Aviation Administration has grounded air traffic in the United States because of reports that these planes that crashed into the World Trade Center (pause) today (pause) reports that these, uh, these planes were hijacked so the FAA has grounded these, ah, air traffic.
One of the Towers of the World Trade Center appears to have completely collapsed.
I stopped shaving and went downstairs to the TV, the absurd boom TV I won in an employee referral raffle scam before my firm started circling the drain sometime in summer 2001 (fuck you, Texaco). The story was set by then, and the only plot point yet to fire was the collapse of the second tower. I watched for a while before heading back upstairs to finish getting ready for work.
Which is weird. I guess the scale of the thing hadn’t really sunk in. It never occurred to me to stay home. At some level, I guess I wanted to be with my friends in the office — drain-circler or no, I still worked with a great group of people (this would last only another month, before bankruptcy and purchase and layoffs and office closure came in October).
About half the office was in; those with families and children and commutes were staying at home, but plenty of us were huddled around the TV in the break room, or perpetually reloading Cnn.com. The phones got lots of use; we had an office in downtown Manhattan, and wanted to make sure our friends were safe, too. We got lots of email. Rumors flew. Most were bullshit.
Midmorning, I got a call from Rob, one of my oldest friends. He’d been en route from Austin to visit our mutual friend Jack in Hawaii when the grounding order came, and was therefore stuck in Houston. “I’m in a cab; what’s the address of your house?” I had him come to my office instead, where I gave him the keys to my Porsche and instructions to come back in an hour. For some reason, I couldn’t leave yet.
Nothing happened in that hour. Rob came back. I left work — nobody was working — and we went for food. It was a beautiful day, cloudless and cool and dry. Chinese Cafe was open, bless them. After lunch, somewhat desperate for something to do, we went over to Rice, Rob’s alma mater, hoping for cheap alcohol. It felt like that kind of day. Neither campus pub was open yet, but there was no shortage of shell-shocked students. We went back to my house and caught Branagh’s “Henry V” on cable just in time for the St. Crispin’s Day speech. Nobody had any more interest in cable news, especially since it was already clear there’d be no new information. The girl I’d been kind of dating drove in, unwilling to spend the day alone in her apartment. My roommate came home; his girlfriend Lindsey came over. The five of us went to eat at a bar and grill around dinnertime, and we saw Carl. He looked somewhat worse for wear; an analyst for Merrill-Lynch, he knew the building, and I’m sure knew people who worked there. We drank. We went back home. We watched another movie (“Withnail and I”). Lauren went home. We all went to bed.
Rob stayed most of the week, sleeping on the couch, until his girlfriend could drive over and pick him up. Nobody I knew did any real work for a while after, but I’ll be damned if I can remember anything much else from that week.
Weirdly (or not, depending on how you look at these things), soon after 9/11 I started long-distance dating Mrs Heathen, who was living in DC at the time. We’d been emailing all summer, reconnecting (we’d been friends in college, but lost touch) and when I got busy at work and took too long to reply, she chastised me. I wrote her an actual physical letter as sort of a joke apology and mailed it during the first week of September. When she finally got back to her house after dealing with the Washington of September 11, my letter was the only item in her mailbox.
So here we are. Tell me what you remember, if you want.
Turns out Rummy didn’t just fail to plan for postvictory Iraq; he actively refused to do so. From an interview with Brigadier General Mark Scheid, chief of the Logistics War Plans Division:
“The secretary of defense continued to push on us … that everything we write in our plan has to be the idea that we are going to go in, we’re going to take out the regime, and then we’re going to leave,” Scheid said. “We won’t stay.”
Scheid said the planners continued to try “to write what was called Phase 4,” or the piece of the plan that included post-invasion operations like occupation.
Even if the troops didn’t stay, “at least we have to plan for it,” Scheid said.
“I remember the secretary of defense saying that he would fire the next person that said that,” Scheid said. “We would not do planning for Phase 4 operations, which would require all those additional troops that people talk about today.
The Army knew better. Rummy ignored them. Look where we are.
Back in the run-up to the absurd Iraqi war, we pointed out repeatedly that at the end of the day, Al Qaeda didn’t think any more of Saddam than they did of us, and that the feeling was probably mutual. We figured Hussein was a secular, neo-Stalinist dictator. He had no more patience with theocracy than do we, but for starkly different reasons.
Turns out, we were right.
A Senate report released today says that Saddam Hussein had a hostile relationship with al-Qaida and that the Iraqi dictator viewed the terrorist organization as a threat to his regime. In fact, according to the report, Hussein even tried to kill al-Zarqawi. The report also says that the US government was warned by several intelligence agencies that the Chalabi’s Iraqi National Congress, the US’s only source of WMD allegations, was unreliable.
There’s more, of course.
Omnibus Morning Post:
ABC may be backing off and has stated they’ll make some changes to the 9/11 movie to remove some of the “inaccuracies” (i.e. “lies”). It remains to be seen how much they can actually polish this turd, though. We expect it’ll still amount to GOP propaganda.
The Senate has, at long last, passed the pork database bill. This, at least, is good news.
Some attorneys and prominent GOP leaders are a bit upset about Bush’s proposal to try detainees in “tribunals” without allowing the accused to see the evidence against them. The unspoken bit in this move by Bush is that he’s obliquely admitted that he’s maintained secret CIA prisons to avoid US laws and jurisdiction. That’s illegal, and there ought to be repurcussions.
Bush’s bill attempting to retroactively legalize his warrantless wiretapping has stalled in the Senate due to insufficient support.
From that fishwrapper we call a paper:
We don’t usually cotton to the jokers over at Vanity Fair, but this little stunt may cause us to re-evaluate our stance.
Scholastic has dropped its planned teaching aides for the 9/11 “docudrama” and replaced them with materials stressing critical thinking and media literacy.
9/11 commission member Richard Ben-Veniste slams ABC over their falsehood-filled docudrama; there’s video.
Also, Kos has more on how far Disney is in bed with RoveCo. There’s an ongoing pattern of ABC kowtowing to right-wing interests and ignoring progressive concerns. Once again: What Liberal Media?
Taken. (Flash animation. Enjoy.)
They’re assuring the right-wing blogosphere that the film will run as-is, and that “the message of the Clinton administration failures remains fully intact.” They’ve also refused to allow those maligned by the film — President Clinton, Madeleine Albright, etc. — to see advance copies of the work despite their clear willingness to share it with any right-winger with a domain name (or Oxy addiction).
Oh, and it gets worse. MediaMatters notes that the ABC-sponsored teaching materials accompanying this box of tripe falsely suggest that Iraq had WMD, and link Iraq to 9/11. Yeah, you read that right: ABC is lying to schoolkids about actual history.
UPS just delivered what we believe is probably our final wedding present. Mmmm, copper cookware!
Via ThinkProgress:
Last night on MSNBC’s Scarborough Country, Roger Cressey — a top counterterrorism official to Bush II and Clinton — blasted ABC’s docudrama “The Path to 9/11.” Cressy said “it’s amazing . . . how much they’ve gotten wrong. They got the small stuff wrong” and “then they got the big stuff wrong.” He added that a scene where the Clinton administration passes on a surefire opportunity to take out bin Laden is “something straight out of Disney and fantasyland. It’s factually wrong. And that’s shameful.” (emph. added.)
They’ve got video. If you haven’t already, go tell ABC what you think of this crap.
TruthOut has a couple pieces in their archives noting Clinton’s actual antiterror steps. The Right loves to assert he didn’t do anything, or didn’t do enough, when it came to bin Laden, but the facts disagree.
Starting in 1995, Clinton took actions against terrorism that were unprecedented in American history. He poured billions and billions of dollars into counterterrorism activities across the entire spectrum of the intelligence community. He poured billions more into the protection of critical infrastructure. He ordered massive federal stockpiling of antidotes and vaccines to prepare for a possible bioterror attack. He order a reorganization of the intelligence community itself, ramming through reforms and new procedures to address the demonstrable threat. Within the National Security Council, “threat meetings” were held three times a week to assess looming conspiracies. His National Security Advisor, Sandy Berger, prepared a voluminous dossier on al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, actively tracking them across the planet. Clinton raised the issue of terrorism in virtually every important speech he gave in the last three years of his tenure. In 1996, Clinton delivered a major address to the United Nations on the matter of international terrorism, calling it “The enemy of our generation.”
Also, from a rundown of specific steps taken by the Clinton administration:
Roger Cressy, National Security Council senior director for counterterrorism in the period 1999-2001, responded to these allegations in an article for the Washington Times in 2003. “Mr. Clinton approved every request made of him by the CIA and the U.S. military involving using force against bin Laden and al-Qaeda,” wrote Cressy. “As President Bush well knows, bin Laden was and remains very good at staying hidden. The current administration faces many of the same challenges. Confusing the American people with misinformation and distortions will not generate the support we need to come together as a nation and defeat our terrorist enemies.”
Measures taken by the Clinton administration to thwart international terrorism and bin Laden’s network were historic, unprecedented and, sadly, not followed up on. Consider the steps offered by Clinton’s 1996 omnibus anti-terror legislation, the pricetag for which stood at $1.097 billion.
Now, could he have done more? Sure. Probably so. But the idea that he did nothing, or acted contrary to our interests, or was somehow derelict in his duty on this point is pure fantasy.