• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

Trump Has a Point About Bush and 9/11

Jack Hays said:
I suggest you read the Beinart article rather than rant against Trump. I voted for GWB twice, but he and his administration failed to appreciate the gravity of the AQ threat despite repeated intelligence briefings.
Click to expand...

Your hindsight is 20/20 and laughable, well if I thought you was just being a partisan hack, but you truly believe this junk. I didn't vote for BushII- EVER and I call BS on this 'failed to appreciate'. fact is prior to 9/11 there wasn't much to appreciate. THOUSANDS of threats are passed through intel hands, put into bullet point memos and passed around. Key intel, like the pilots training never made it to the White House- others in a torrent of other information- like nerve gas attacks like the Red Army terrorists.

NO ONE from the airlines to the President thought a plane would be taken over by pilots and used as a bomb.

NO ONE from the Admirals to the President thought the Japanese could mass attack Pearl Harbor on a lazy Sunday morning.

Lots of missed clues and poor decisions by subordinates rob the President of facts, lots of 'expert' opinion color Presidential decisions.

I despise BushII, but not for 9/11.
 
notquiteright said:
Your hindsight is 20/20 and laughable, well if I thought you was just being a partisan hack, but you truly believe this junk. I didn't vote for BushII- EVER and I call BS on this 'failed to appreciate'. fact is prior to 9/11 there wasn't much to appreciate. THOUSANDS of threats are passed through intel hands, put into bullet point memos and passed around. Key intel, like the pilots training never made it to the White House- others in a torrent of other information- like nerve gas attacks like the Red Army terrorists.

NO ONE from the airlines to the President thought a plane would be taken over by pilots and used as a bomb.

NO ONE from the Admirals to the President thought the Japanese could mass attack Pearl Harbor on a lazy Sunday morning.

Lots of missed clues and poor decisions by subordinates rob the President of facts, lots of 'expert' opinion color Presidential decisions.

I despise BushII, but not for 9/11.
Click to expand...

The scenario using aircraft as weapons had been under discussion since the mid 1990's. There's no BS in anything I've posted.
 
Jack Hays said:
I'm not a fan of Donald Trump, but in the matter of GWB and 9/11 he makes a strong point. The GWB administration came into office believing that terrorism was a distraction from bigger, more important issues.

Donald Trump, George W. Bush, and Responsibility for 9/11 - The Atlantic

Donald Trump utters plenty of ugly untruths: that undocumented Mexican immigrants are “rapists,” that Syrian refugees are committing “all sorts of attacks” in Germany and represent a “Trojan Horse” for ISIS. But he tells ugly truths too: that “when you give [politicians money], they do whatever the hell you want them to do.” And that “the Middle East would be safer” if Saddam Hussein and Muammer Qaddafi were still in power.

His latest ugly truth came during a Bloomberg TV interview last Friday, when he said George W. Bush deserves responsibility for the fact that “the World Trade Center came down during his time.” Politicians and journalists erupted in indignation. Jeb Bush called Trump’s comments “pathetic.” Ben Carson dubbed them “ridiculous.”
Former Bush flack Ari Fleischer called Trump a 9/11 “truther.” Even Stephanie Ruhle, the Bloomberg anchor who asked the question, cried, “Hold on, you can’t blame George Bush for that.”
Oh yes, you can. There’s no way of knowing for sure if Bush could have stopped the September 11 attacks. But that’s not the right question. The right question is: Did Bush do everything he could reasonably have to stop them, given what he knew at the time? And he didn’t. It’s not even close. . . .
​
Click to expand...

No, sorry. Trump's a chump and this was a really stupid thing he had to say. He was trying to say if HE were President then the terrorist wouldn't get in because HE'D have a supoer secure immigration going on. W/E.
 
Renae said:
No, sorry. Trump's a chump and this was a really stupid thing he had to say. He was trying to say if HE were President then the terrorist wouldn't get in because HE'D have a supoer secure immigration going on. W/E.
Click to expand...

I suggest you leave Trump out of it and read the article.
 
notquiteright said:
Your hindsight is 20/20 and laughable, well if I thought you was just being a partisan hack, but you truly believe this junk. I didn't vote for BushII- EVER and I call BS on this 'failed to appreciate'. fact is prior to 9/11 there wasn't much to appreciate. THOUSANDS of threats are passed through intel hands, put into bullet point memos and passed around. Key intel, like the pilots training never made it to the White House- others in a torrent of other information- like nerve gas attacks like the Red Army terrorists.

NO ONE from the airlines to the President thought a plane would be taken over by pilots and used as a bomb.

NO ONE from the Admirals to the President thought the Japanese could mass attack Pearl Harbor on a lazy Sunday morning.

Lots of missed clues and poor decisions by subordinates rob the President of facts, lots of 'expert' opinion color Presidential decisions.

I despise BushII, but not for 9/11.
Click to expand...

The big point is that President Bush 2'a administration was thoroughly warned and elected to forego taking any action.
 
Absentglare said:
!?!?!What !?!!?!
Click to expand...

You show once again that facts perplex you.

"Our mission was clear -- to strike at the network of radical groups affiliated with, and funded by, Osama bin Laden, the pre-eminent organizer and financier of international terrorism in the world today." Those were the words of President Clinton on August 21, 1998, the day after he had ordered attacks in retaliation for Al Qaeda's bombing of our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania two weeks before. These attacks had killed 257 people, including 12 Americans.

Two targets were attacked with a total of more than 100 Tomahawk cruise missiles. One was six Al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan, where the planners hoped Bin Laden might be among the jihadists killed. The other was the al-Shifa pharmaceutical plant in Khartoum, Sudan, which Bin Laden was thought to have a large investment in, and which intelligence suggested Saddam Hussein might be using to make poison gases in secret. This raised the possibility that Iraq might furnish some of these chemical agents to Al Qaeda.

All this leaves no doubt that Clinton recognized Bin Laden and Al Qaeda as a serious threat. And yet not serious enough that either then, or during the almost two and one-half years of his presidency after that, did he take any really determined action to destroy them. When they bombed and almost sank the U.S. destroyer Cole in Aden harbor in October, 2000, Clinton did nothing at all to strike back. The idea, apparently, was to do something that used sophisticated weapons, looked impressive, and was not very risky--even if it did not seriously harm the enemy. Whether it significantly weakened Al Qaeda was far less important than whether it made Clinton look like he had everything under control.

Bin Laden watched this pattern of feckless response for several years, and he naturally took it as a sign of America's weakness. Eventually that encouraged him to give his blessing to a plan for a much larger and bolder terrorist operation, this time right on American soil. The fact Clinton had left office by the time of the 9/11 attack does not lessen his responsibility for the years of feckless, half-hearted action against Al Qaeda, which emboldened it enough to undertake that attack.
 
Jack Hays said:
I suggest you leave Trump out of it and read the article.
Click to expand...

Sorry Jack, the article is **** too. Blaming Bush for 9/11 is poppycock, he'd been in office merely 9 months, terrorist attacks like that were on NO ONES radar in any meaningful way, and to say the Bush Admin deserves blame is asinine.
 
Jack Hays said:
I'm not a fan of Donald Trump, but in the matter of GWB and 9/11 he makes a strong point. The GWB administration came into office believing that terrorism was a distraction from bigger, more important issues.

Donald Trump, George W. Bush, and Responsibility for 9/11 - The Atlantic

Donald Trump utters plenty of ugly untruths: that undocumented Mexican immigrants are “rapists,” that Syrian refugees are committing “all sorts of attacks” in Germany and represent a “Trojan Horse” for ISIS. But he tells ugly truths too: that “when you give [politicians money], they do whatever the hell you want them to do.” And that “the Middle East would be safer” if Saddam Hussein and Muammer Qaddafi were still in power.

His latest ugly truth came during a Bloomberg TV interview last Friday, when he said George W. Bush deserves responsibility for the fact that “the World Trade Center came down during his time.” Politicians and journalists erupted in indignation. Jeb Bush called Trump’s comments “pathetic.” Ben Carson dubbed them “ridiculous.”
Former Bush flack Ari Fleischer called Trump a 9/11 “truther.” Even Stephanie Ruhle, the Bloomberg anchor who asked the question, cried, “Hold on, you can’t blame George Bush for that.”
Oh yes, you can. There’s no way of knowing for sure if Bush could have stopped the September 11 attacks. But that’s not the right question. The right question is: Did Bush do everything he could reasonably have to stop them, given what he knew at the time? And he didn’t. It’s not even close. . . .
​
Click to expand...

LOL I have said the same thing for years but Trump says it and it suddenly makes sense? Bush was obsessed with overthrowing Saddam and felt the warnings he received before 911 were "distractions" to that goal so he tossed them in the trash. He even told members of his security team that he did not want to hear Bin Laden's name. It's all documented and true I'm afraid.
 
matchlight said:
You show once again that facts perplex you.

"Our mission was clear -- to strike at the network of radical groups affiliated with, and funded by, Osama bin Laden, the pre-eminent organizer and financier of international terrorism in the world today." Those were the words of President Clinton on August 21, 1998, the day after he had ordered attacks in retaliation for Al Qaeda's bombing of our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania two weeks before. These attacks had killed 257 people, including 12 Americans.

Two targets were attacked with a total of more than 100 Tomahawk cruise missiles. One was six Al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan, where the planners hoped Bin Laden might be among the jihadists killed. The other was the al-Shifa pharmaceutical plant in Khartoum, Sudan, which Bin Laden was thought to have a large investment in, and which intelligence suggested Saddam Hussein might be using to make poison gases in secret. This raised the possibility that Iraq might furnish some of these chemical agents to Al Qaeda.

All this leaves no doubt that Clinton recognized Bin Laden and Al Qaeda as a serious threat. And yet not serious enough that either then, or during the almost two and one-half years of his presidency after that, did he take any really determined action to destroy them. When they bombed and almost sank the U.S. destroyer Cole in Aden harbor in October, 2000, Clinton did nothing at all to strike back. The idea, apparently, was to do something that used sophisticated weapons, looked impressive, and was not very risky--even if it did not seriously harm the enemy. Whether it significantly weakened Al Qaeda was far less important than whether it made Clinton look like he had everything under control.

Bin Laden watched this pattern of feckless response for several years, and he naturally took it as a sign of America's weakness. Eventually that encouraged him to give his blessing to a plan for a much larger and bolder terrorist operation, this time right on American soil. The fact Clinton had left office by the time of the 9/11 attack does not lessen his responsibility for the years of feckless, half-hearted action against Al Qaeda, which emboldened it enough to undertake that attack.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure that you know what "facts" are.

Imaginative, partisan editorialization doesn't qualify.

All this proves is that President Clinton took Al Qaeda seriously, something we should all be able to agree that President Bush 2 did not.

Not only did President Bush 2 ignore the threat of Al Qaeda, once we were attacked, he retaliated against Saddam instead, at great expense to the American public.
 
Renae said:
Sorry Jack, the article is **** too. Blaming Bush for 9/11 is poppycock, he'd been in office merely 9 months, terrorist attacks like that were on NO ONES radar in any meaningful way, and to say the Bush Admin deserves blame is asinine.
Click to expand...

President Bush 2 doesn't receive blame for the attacks.

He can certainly be criticized for ignoring the repeated warnings, for doing absolutely nothing about them.
 
What he is attracted to Bush or something?

...

Oh...

nevermind.
 
Jack Hays said:
The scenario using aircraft as weapons had been under discussion since the mid 1990's. There's no BS in anything I've posted.
Click to expand...

Oh the BS fairly drips from your posts...

Since the Kamikazes of WWII the discussion as been ongoing. But again you point to a needle here and a needle there when the room is full of needles! Try and get that through your hack! A key 'dot' to upgrade the terrorists as pilots of suicide aircraft never made it out of an FBI field office.

Up until then truck bombs were the biggest threat as both foreign and domestic terrorists had used them. Next the overseas use of nerve agent in confined area. Then the dirty/nuke bomb as the former USSR's stockpile was neither well guarded and scientists were in poverty.

You spin miesters pretend there was no other threat, plenty of credible evidence the main threat was suicide pilots, and ignore the mountain of needles the threat analysis teams had to wade through...

Like I said, I despise BushII, but blaming him or his close team for failing to stop 9/11 is a hate too far... :peace
 
Trump says he will use federal government to 'control' the influx of undocumenteds into the US. Including overstayed visas. His implication: more so than W. Bush. This is the point he's making. Not some jab at Jeb through his brother's administration.
How many of the perpetrators and planners of 9/11 were either undocumented or overstayed their visas?
 
Last edited:
Jack Hays said:
The scenario using aircraft as weapons had been under discussion since the mid 1990's. There's no BS in anything I've posted.
Click to expand...

Jack,

Do you know how many threats and warnings go through the system on a daily basis?

Unless you're saying we need a USSR style total control Government with the FBI acting as KGB you cannot possibly stop all threats (And even THEY couldn't however...)

That's a MOST dishonest line of thinking you've embraced.
 
Renae said:
Jack,

Do you know how many threats and warnings go through the system on a daily basis?

Unless you're saying we need a USSR style total control Government with the FBI acting as KGB you cannot possibly stop all threats (And even THEY couldn't however...)

That's a MOST dishonest line of thinking you've embraced.
Click to expand...

It is called data mining. You won't get all the ore, but preventing a bomb downing 300 people would be pretty good. What you must, however, do is watch carefully over those that use the methods and hold power. One thing is certainly to make it a requirement for holding power in a job to record 24/7. You want the judge later to know every word she said.
 
notquiteright said:
Oh the BS fairly drips from your posts...

Since the Kamikazes of WWII the discussion as been ongoing. But again you point to a needle here and a needle there when the room is full of needles! Try and get that through your hack! A key 'dot' to upgrade the terrorists as pilots of suicide aircraft never made it out of an FBI field office.

Up until then truck bombs were the biggest threat as both foreign and domestic terrorists had used them. Next the overseas use of nerve agent in confined area. Then the dirty/nuke bomb as the former USSR's stockpile was neither well guarded and scientists were in poverty.

You spin miesters pretend there was no other threat, plenty of credible evidence the main threat was suicide pilots, and ignore the mountain of needles the threat analysis teams had to wade through...

Like I said, I despise BushII, but blaming him or his close team for failing to stop 9/11 is a hate too far... :peace
Click to expand...

Renae said:
Jack,

Do you know how many threats and warnings go through the system on a daily basis?

Unless you're saying we need a USSR style total control Government with the FBI acting as KGB you cannot possibly stop all threats (And even THEY couldn't however...)

That's a MOST dishonest line of thinking you've embraced.
Click to expand...

You're both conclusion seeking.

President Bush 2 took no action to secure our nation in spite of repeated and escalating warnings.

Let me guess, for Benghazi you give Clinton no such similar credit "Oh they get lots of requests for more security," even though it's been well established that embassies are targets of terrorist attacks in war torn countries for decades.
 
Absentglare said:
You're both conclusion seeking.

President Bush 2 took no action to secure our nation in spite of repeated and escalating warnings.

Let me guess, for Benghazi you give Clinton no such similar credit "Oh they get lots of requests for more security," even though it's been well established that embassies are targets of terrorist attacks in war torn countries for decades.
Click to expand...

Yeah, you're right, Bush should have acted ON EVERY THREAT that reached him, restricted travel, increased security, more check points. All because "A threat was seen... "


/boggle

How many warnings did the people on the ground, Amb. Stevens and his staff send? Direct, personal requests?

But fine, we'll play "your game" of "Bush's hands are clean then so is HILLARY'S!!!"

Great, Bush reacted immediately, swiftly and went after the threat.

Hillary lied to the families of the dead, to the American people and STILL repeats lies we have her own words ADMITTING were lies.



So we can play your game, they couldn't have seen it coming, aren't responsible. Then we're left with how they dealt with the aftermath. You really wanna go there?
 
Jack Hays said:
I never thought Iran-Contra was much of a scandal.
Click to expand...

Hm. I wonder what conservatives would do today if they found out that the Obama administration was selling missiles to Iran (in clear violation of the arms embargo) in order to fund a secret war in a Central American nation.

Jack, it doesn't take a genius to know how the Right would react. Given their history ever since Bill Clinton got elected, it would be disingenuous to claim otherwise.
 
Renae said:
Yeah, you're right, Bush should have acted ON EVERY THREAT that reached him, restricted travel, increased security, more check points. All because "A threat was seen... "


/boggle

How many warnings did the people on the ground, Amb. Stevens and his staff send? Direct, personal requests?

But fine, we'll play "your game" of "Bush's hands are clean then so is HILLARY'S!!!"

Great, Bush reacted immediately, swiftly and went after the threat.

Hillary lied to the families of the dead, to the American people and STILL repeats lies we have her own words ADMITTING were lies.



So we can play your game, they couldn't have seen it coming, aren't responsible. Then we're left with how they dealt with the aftermath. You really wanna go there?
Click to expand...

Actually, there was reason to believe that the attack on Benghazi was related to the video, which makes that claim not a lie.

Further, President Bush 2 lied to America to pull us into a 4,500+ American life $2TN war of aggression in Iraq.
 
Renae said:
Yeah, you're right, Bush should have acted ON EVERY THREAT that reached him, restricted travel, increased security, more check points. All because "A threat was seen... "
Click to expand...

It wasn't that he didn't act on a threat, it's that Bush and the Conservatives as a whole were completely disinterested and unconcerned about the threat at all. How many hearings did they hold on al Qaeda in the nine months prior to the attack? None. How many did they hold on the Bush Tax Cuts? Several. This comes despite at least nine clear warnings that Bush and his security team took no action on. Bush spent the 6 weeks leading up to 9/11 on freakin' vacation. Bush wasn't concerned about bin Laden prior to 9/11, nor was he concerned with bin Laden after 9/11. He literally said "bin Laden doesn't concern me."
 
Great, Bush reacted immediately, swiftly and went after the threat.
Click to expand...

No he didn't! He went after Iraq, which had nothing to do with 9/11. He also let bin Laden go and paid Pakistan $10B in his "security arrangement" starting in 2002, the same time bin Laden crossed the border into Pakistan. Funny that coincidence, yes? The same time Bush agrees to pay Pakistan billions, bin Laden arrives in Pakistan. Hmmm....
 
Renae said:
How many warnings did the people on the ground, Amb. Stevens and his staff send? Direct, personal requests?
Click to expand...

According to the testimony, Stevens preferred to rely on Libyan local security rather than security provided by State Department. Stevens knew the risks doing what he did. But it's hard to see how this incident is any different from the 13 or so embassy and consulate attacks that happened during Bush.
 
Renae said:
Sorry Jack, the article is **** too. Blaming Bush for 9/11 is poppycock, he'd been in office merely 9 months, terrorist attacks like that were on NO ONES radar in any meaningful way, and to say the Bush Admin deserves blame is asinine.
Click to expand...
It was on the CIA's radar. So much so that some agents were concerned about taking airline flights. The CIA didn't keep their concerns a secret. Bush read a memo titled "Bin Laden Determined To Attack The U.S." and then went on vaction.
 
Renae said:
Sorry Jack, the article is **** too. Blaming Bush for 9/11 is poppycock, he'd been in office merely 9 months, terrorist attacks like that were on NO ONES radar in any meaningful way, and to say the Bush Admin deserves blame is asinine.
Click to expand...

I do not blame GWB, but it is a fact that he did not recognize the gravity of the threat.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom