Best and worst president?

[Mechagodzilla]

So why did I fire a bunch of tomahawk missles into Afghanistan targeting Bin Laden when Clinton was President? Was Clinton just a cold blooded murderer or did he know Osama was an evil terrorist then?

Exactly. Clinton put a whole pile of emphasis on stopping al-queda. He was even criticised by his detractors for it, because they didn't think al-queda warranted the attention.

 

[Korgoth]

No, ugh you would have to read the article, and if what clinton said in the article was true then you weren't firing them becuase of the cole bombing, maybe the embassies...
And if you recall, clinton became rather unpopular after that, and the republicans were out for blood on him. And I never gave clinton a free ride there, read it again. Neither clinton or bush stopped bin laden. But how about we go back several years and talk about who was in office when we were arming bin laden and the taliban armies to fight the soviets in afghanistan?

 

[Mechagodzilla]

No, ugh you would have to read the article, and if what clinton said in the article was true then you weren't firing them becuase of the cole bombing, maybe the embassies...
And if you recall, clinton became rather unpopular after that, and the republicans were out for blood on him. And I never gave clinton a free ride there, read it again. Neither clinton or bush stopped bin laden. But how about we go back several years and talk about who was in office when we were arming bin laden and the taliban armies to fight the soviets in afghanistan?

There's the point right there. Before queda was seen as a major threat, Clinton still used a lot of force to take them out because he saw them as a danger to the US, even in spite of much criticism. He went above the amount of force that would have been seen as necessary at the time.

Also, it was Carter who gave al-queda the support, right?
Especially when he gave them John Rambo in RAMBO II. :O

 

[Sgt_Shellback]

Osama was known at the time to be the biggest danger to the world. We hit a few camels in the butt with million dollar missles...

 

[OCybrManO]

Clinton didn't have to worry about reelection. He was at the end of his second term. There just wasn't a big enough threat in time for Clinton to do much about it. He didn't have support when he tried to do something.

A few months after the G-Dub's appointment (not election) to the office of President, more and more evidence in support of Clinton's efforts starts popping up. Something big is going to happen. The national security people left over from Clinton's administration doggedly try to get ol' G-Dub and his crew to do something about Osama even up until the evening of September 10th. The whole time, they were either ignored or not taken seriously. A month before the attacks, there were arrests made of suspicious people at flight schools that "seemed to have little interest in learning to take off or land" and the arresting agent wrote that they seemed like "the type of person who could fly something into the World Trade Center." At about the same time, a Minneapolis FBI agent wrote that a 747 loaded with fuel could be used as a weapon. Perhaps someone at the Homeland Security Agency that the leftovers from Clinton's adimistration were pushing for (to coordinate the efforts of intelligence agencies with the Customs Service, the Border Patrol, the Coast Guard, etc) could have put those two statements together with the known threat posed by Osama and said "Hey, that reminds me of the the Clinton-thwarted 1996 al Qaeda plot to hijack an American commercial plane and crash it into CIA Headquarters."

We'll never know if it could have been stopped. We'll never know if Gore would have done any better. Anyway, it's too late. We just have to go forward with the knowledge that terrorism should not be ignored and try our best to keep it from happening again.

Now, the thing that really annoys me is that Dick Cheney is saying switching from Bush to Kerry will cause us to be attacked again. That was possibly true of the Clinton to Bush transfer but I highly doubt that John Kerry would be retarded enough to go back to ignoring terrorist threats. I doubt that anyone would after only a single term since an attack of that magnitude. We know that terrorism is a threat now because we have cold, hard proof. John Kerry will not discredit the possibility of future attacks because if he did, and we got attacked, it would be political suicide. Saying otherwise is, frankly, stupid.

 

[Sgt_Shellback]

It would be nice to hear from Kerry on what he would do about terrorism if he were elected. His Vietnam medals are pretty and all but besides saying he will raise taxes, and that he will legalize gay marriage we've got nothing to go on...

Edit: Whoa... I thought I was in the Kerry thread... My bad.

 

[Rico]

That was possibly true of the Clinton to Bush transfer but I highly doubt that John Kerry would be retarded enough to go back to ignoring terrorist threats. I doubt that anyone would after only a single term since an attack of that magnitude. We know that terrorism is a threat now because we have cold, hard proof. John Kerry will not discredit the possibility of future attacks because if he did, and we got attacked, it would be political suicide. Saying otherwise is, frankly, stupid.

Never underestimate the stupidity of a human being. An Einstein quote comes to mind...