The Briefing Room
General Category => Politics/Government => Topic started by: happyg on December 15, 2013, 09:35:51 pm
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Oliver Darcy
Reps. Walter Jones (R-NC) and Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.) introduced a House resolution earlier this month urging President Barack Obama to declassify a portion of a government report that they say could provide evidence the 9/11 hijackers had outside help.
“[T]he information contained in the redacted pages is critical to our foreign policy moving forward and should thus be available to the American public,” Jones said in a press release. “If the 9/11 hijackers had outside help – particularly from one or more foreign governments – the press and the public have a right to know what our government has or has not done to bring justice to all of the perpetrators.”
“[T]he information contained in the redacted pages is critical to our foreign policy…”
H.R. 428 — titled “Urging the president to release information regarding the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks upon the United States” — would release to the public 28 pages of the Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Activities Before and After the Terrorist Attacks of September 2001, originally classified by President George W. Bush.
Congressmen Move to Declassify Key Part of 9/11 Report That Could Indicate Hijackers Had Outside Help
In this Sunday, Sept. 22, 2013 photo, a US flag is placed at the north reflecting pool of the 9/11 Memorial at the site of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis)
“Twelve years after the horrific September 11 attacks, unanswered questions still remain,” Lynch said in a press release. “These pages contain information that is vital to a full understanding of the events and circumstances surrounding this tragedy.”
On Sunday, the New York Post published a report titled, “Inside the 9/11 Coverup.” Their report mentions the efforts to declassify the 28 pages that they say “isn’t just blacked out here and there” but are “completely blank.”
According to The Post, Jones and Lynch were “absolutely shocked” at the level of foreign state involvement in the attacks after reading the redacted portions.
But, the pair of congressmen can’t reveal what they read without breaking federal law, The Post reported.
Leaked information, however, reportedly found “incontrovertible evidence” that Saudi Arabia, a supposed ally of the U.S., may have had a role in the attacks, according to The Post.
“The intelligence files cited in the report directly implicate the Saudi embassy in Washington and consulate in Los Angeles in the attacks, making 9/11 not just an act of terrorism, but an act of war,” The Post added in their report.
The resolution to declassify the 28 portion of the report was referred to the House Committee on Intelligence on Dec. 2nd.
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/12/15/congressmen-move-to-declassify-key-part-of-911-report-that-they-say-could-indicate-hijackers-had-outside-help/ (http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/12/15/congressmen-move-to-declassify-key-part-of-911-report-that-they-say-could-indicate-hijackers-had-outside-help/)
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I'm surprised everyone ignored this article today.... guess 911 is in the rearview mirrors for more than congress.
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I'm surprised everyone ignored this article today.... guess 911 is in the rearview mirrors for more than congress.
I thought it was interesting.
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I thought it was interesting.
More than interesting.. to me....
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I'm surprised everyone ignored this article today.... guess 911 is in the rearview mirrors for more than congress.
I'm still waiting on the actual story. All of this is speculation at this point. It is redacted, we don't know what is in it nor do the press commenting on it. This has been a lot of could statements (as the title indicates).
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I'm surprised everyone ignored this article today.... guess 911 is in the rearview mirrors for more than congress.
Most normal people don't hang on every word that comes out of Glen Beck or his mouthpiece.
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I'm surprised everyone ignored this article today.... guess 911 is in the rearview mirrors for more than congress.
Nope....with me it's just that when your house is on fire, it's not the time to give a hoot what happened a dozen years ago. And secondly....what's going to come of it?
We have a POTUS that allies the US with Al-f**king Qaeda for God's sake.
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Most normal people don't hang on every word that comes out of Glen Beck or his mouthpiece.
Do you have to be a jerk when you post, or is it Rapunzel you like to pick at? Rap is normal. I am normal. You??? Glen Beck gives thinking people a lot to think about. You trashed Rush, Cruz, and now, Beck, along with criticizing Rap. What's your point? You certainly don't have much pull here.
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Nope....with me it's just that when your house is on fire, it's not the time to give a hoot what happened a dozen years ago. And secondly....what's going to come of it?
We have a POTUS that allies the US with Al-f**king Qaeda for God's sake.
Exactly. And the Saudis have been our most reliable allies on the Arab side, up until Obammy decided to double-cross them on Syria.
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Exactly. And the Saudis have been our most reliable allies on the Arab side, up until Obammy decided to double-cross them on Syria.
Is this being leaked now so that maybe Obama could justify military action of some type against Saudi Arabia?....when we all know it's to punish them for assisting Israel deal with Iran.
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Do you have to be a jerk when you post, or is it Rapunzel you like to pick at? Rap is normal. I am normal. You??? Glen Beck gives thinking people a lot to think about. You trashed Rush, Cruz, and now, Beck, along with criticizing Rap. What's your point? You certainly don't have much pull here.
Beck is a whining, mentally unstable cry-baby. He buys into every half-baked conspiracy that comes along, then ignores them when they're proven to be phony. He has many endearing qualities, but his gullibility is not one of them.
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Most normal people don't hang on every word that comes out of Glen Beck or his mouthpiece.
That was a little uncalled for.
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I'm still waiting on the actual story. All of this is speculation at this point. It is redacted, we don't know what is in it nor do the press commenting on it. This has been a lot of could statements (as the title indicates).
Exactly.
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Is this being leaked now so that maybe Obama could justify military action of some type against Saudi Arabia?....when we all know it's to punish them for assisting Israel deal with Iran.
LOL!! Obammy's idea of military action is a cap gun.
The Saudis are pursuing their own self-interests because they cannot trust the United States with Obammy in office. They were our most loyal Arab friends when Bush was in office.
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That was a little uncalled for.
Oh come on now.....let's not make something out of nothing.
Please? For me? Let's discuss the topic of the thread for once?
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Beck is a whining, mentally unstable cry-baby. He buys into every half-baked conspiracy that comes along, then ignores them when they're proven to be phony. He has many endearing qualities, but his gullibility is not one of them.
Just because this was reported among SEVERAL other places today by Beck and The Blaze of course you would dismiss it. And I'd say it is not Beck who is mentally unstable.
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That was a little uncalled for.
Has Beck changed? I stopped listening to him when he decided that George W. Bush was the equivalent of Woodrow Wilson.
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Oh come on now.....let's not make something out of nothing.
Please? For me? Let's discuss the topic of the thread for once?
Umm, gee, that's what I did when I responded to Abaraxas' post. It's never a choice of either making a substantive post or calling an ungenerous comment an ungenerous comment - like walking and chewing gum, both types of posting can in fact be done at the same time.
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Oh come on now.....let's not make something out of nothing.
Please? For me? Let's discuss the topic of the thread for once?
It was on topic until Sink took a dig at Rap. I don't normally get into squabbles, but his insults are becoming tiresome.
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Has Beck changed? I stopped listening to him when he decided that George W. Bush was the equivalent of Woodrow Wilson.
Whether he has or not is irrelevant to the fact that you gratuitously slighted someone else as being "not normal." And it wasn't even a particularly heated conversation, where passions are expected to fly, so I still think it was uncalled for.
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LOL!! Obammy's idea of military action is a cap gun.
The Saudis are pursuing their own self-interests because they cannot trust the United States with Obammy in office. They were our most loyal Arab friends when Bush was in office.
I truly believe that Obama meant what he said....that if the Middle East heated up, he'd side with the Muslims.
I believe that he's purposely humiliating and embarrassing Netanyahu because Bibi showed him up back in Washington during that photo op in the winged chairs.
He and Jarrett hate the Jews and dream of being instrumental in changing the Middle East map.
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Just because this was reported among SEVERAL other places today by Beck and The Blaze of course you would dismiss it. And I'd say it is not Beck who is mentally unstable.
Of course you'd say that.
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Do you have to be a jerk when you post, or is it Rapunzel you like to pick at? Rap is normal. I am normal. You??? Glen Beck gives thinking people a lot to think about. You trashed Rush, Cruz, and now, Beck, along with criticizing Rap. What's your point? You certainly don't have much pull here.
Just to be fair - or unfair - all around, your comment was just as uncalled for. Throwing gasoline on the fire doesn't really help calm things down.
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Whether he has or not is irrelevant to the fact that you gratuitously slighted someone else as being "not normal." And it wasn't even a particularly heated conversation, where passions are expected to fly, so I still think it was uncalled for.
Nope. It is a fact that most normal people do not listen to Glen Beck.
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I truly believe that Obama meant what he said....that if the Middle East heated up, he'd side with the Muslims.
I believe that he's purposely humiliating and embarrassing Netanyahu because Bibi showed him up back in Washington during that photo op in the winged chairs.
He and Jarrett hate the Jews and dream of being instrumental in changing the Middle East map.
How is Obama humiliating Bibi?
Bibi can't be humiliated by this narcissistic coward in the White House. Obama knows nothing about Middle East dynamics; just witness his willingness to believe the Iranian mullahs.
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It was on topic until Sink took a dig at Rap. I don't normally get into squabbles, but his insults are becoming tiresome.
I disagree that it was a dig at Rap.
We've all had firsthand experience with Glenn Beck about to break 'game changing' news or stories.
Lucy, Linus, Football........
Rap wondered why the forum didn't reply about the event......Sinkspur noted that it was a Beck story....and told her in so many words that a lot of us on the forum have seen that movie.
It's a stretch to read that he was accusing Rap of hanging on Beck's every word.
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HERE is another source - The NEW YORK POST - or are they mentally unstable too!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Perhaps Sinkspur can provide Mystery a list of approved sources for this site...........
http://nypost.com/2013/12/15/inside-the-saudi-911-coverup/
Inside the Saudi 9/11 coverup
By Paul Sperry
December 15, 2013 | 5:13am
After the 9/11 attacks, the public was told al Qaeda acted alone, with no state sponsors.
But the White House never let it see an entire section of Congress’ investigative report on 9/11 dealing with “specific sources of foreign support” for the 19 hijackers, 15 of whom were Saudi nationals.
It was kept secret and remains so today.
President Bush inexplicably censored 28 full pages of the 800-page report. Text isn’t just blacked-out here and there in this critical-yet-missing middle section. The pages are completely blank, except for dotted lines where an estimated 7,200 words once stood (this story by comparison is about 1,000 words).
A pair of lawmakers who recently read the redacted portion say they are “absolutely shocked” at the level of foreign state involvement in the attacks.
Reps. Walter Jones (R-NC) and Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.) can’t reveal the nation identified by it without violating federal law. So they’ve proposed Congress pass a resolution asking President Obama to declassify the entire 2002 report, “Joint Inquiry Into Intelligence Community Activities Before and After the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001.”
Some information already has leaked from the classified section, which is based on both CIA and FBI documents, and it points back to Saudi Arabia, a presumed ally.
The Saudis deny any role in 9/11, but the CIA in one memo reportedly found “incontrovertible evidence” that Saudi government officials — not just wealthy Saudi hardliners, but high-level diplomats and intelligence officers employed by the kingdom — helped the hijackers both financially and logistically. The intelligence files cited in the report directly implicate the Saudi embassy in Washington and consulate in Los Angeles in the attacks, making 9/11 not just an act of terrorism, but an act of war.
Modal Trigger
The findings, if confirmed, would back up open-source reporting showing the hijackers had, at a minimum, ties to several Saudi officials and agents while they were preparing for their attacks inside the United States. In fact, they got help from Saudi VIPs from coast to coast:
LOS ANGELES: Saudi consulate official Fahad al-Thumairy allegedly arranged for an advance team to receive two of the Saudi hijackers — Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi — as they arrived at LAX in 2000. One of the advance men, Omar al-Bayoumi, a suspected Saudi intelligence agent, left the LA consulate and met the hijackers at a local restaurant. (Bayoumi left the United States two months before the attacks, while Thumairy was deported back to Saudi Arabia after 9/11.)
SAN DIEGO: Bayoumi and another suspected Saudi agent, Osama Bassnan, set up essentially a forward operating base in San Diego for the hijackers after leaving LA. They were provided rooms, rent and phones, as well as private meetings with an American al Qaeda cleric who would later become notorious, Anwar al-Awlaki, at a Saudi-funded mosque he ran in a nearby suburb. They were also feted at a welcoming party. (Bassnan also fled the United States just before the attacks.)
WASHINGTON: Then-Saudi Ambassador Prince Bandar and his wife sent checks totaling some $130,000 to Bassnan while he was handling the hijackers. Though the Bandars claim the checks were “welfare” for Bassnan’s supposedly ill wife, the money nonetheless made its way into the hijackers’ hands.
Other al Qaeda funding was traced back to Bandar and his embassy — so much so that by 2004 Riggs Bank of Washington had dropped the Saudis as a client.
The next year, as a number of embassy employees popped up in terror probes, Riyadh recalled Bandar.
“Our investigations contributed to the ambassador’s departure,” an investigator who worked with the Joint Terrorism Task Force in Washington told me, though Bandar says he left for “personal reasons.”
FALLS CHURCH, VA.: In 2001, Awlaki and the San Diego hijackers turned up together again — this time at the Dar al-Hijrah Islamic Center, a Pentagon-area mosque built with funds from the Saudi Embassy. Awlaki was recruited 3,000 miles away to head the mosque. As its imam, Awlaki helped the hijackers, who showed up at his doorstep as if on cue. He tasked a handler to help them acquire apartments and IDs before they attacked the Pentagon.
Awlaki worked closely with the Saudi Embassy. He lectured at a Saudi Islamic think tank in Merrifield, Va., chaired by Bandar. Saudi travel itinerary documents I’ve obtained show he also served as the official imam on Saudi Embassy-sponsored trips to Mecca and tours of Saudi holy sites.
Most suspiciously, though, Awlaki fled the United States on a Saudi jet about a year after 9/11.
As I first reported in my book, “Infiltration,” quoting from classified US documents, the Saudi-sponsored cleric was briefly detained at JFK before being released into the custody of a “Saudi representative.” A federal warrant for Awlaki’s arrest had mysteriously been withdrawn the previous day. A US drone killed Awlaki in Yemen in 2011.
HERNDON, VA.: On the eve of the attacks, top Saudi government official Saleh Hussayen checked into the same Marriott Residence Inn near Dulles Airport as three of the Saudi hijackers who targeted the Pentagon. Hussayen had left a nearby hotel to move into the hijackers’ hotel. Did he meet with them? The FBI never found out. They let him go after he “feigned a seizure,” one agent recalled. (Hussayen’s name doesn’t appear in the separate 9/11 Commission Report, which clears the Saudis.)
SARASOTA, FLA.: 9/11 ringleader Mohamed Atta and other hijackers visited a home owned by Esam Ghazzawi, a Saudi adviser to the nephew of King Fahd. FBI agents investigating the connection in 2002 found that visitor logs for the gated community and photos of license tags matched vehicles driven by the hijackers. Just two weeks before the 9/11 attacks, the Saudi luxury home was abandoned. Three cars, including a new Chrysler PT Cruiser, were left in the driveway. Inside, opulent furniture was untouched.
Democrat Bob Graham, the former Florida senator who chaired the Joint Inquiry, has asked the FBI for the Sarasota case files, but can’t get a single, even heavily redacted, page released. He says it’s a “coverup.”
Is the federal government protecting the Saudis? Case agents tell me they were repeatedly called off pursuing 9/11 leads back to the Saudi Embassy, which had curious sway over White House and FBI responses to the attacks.
Just days after Bush met with the Saudi ambassador in the White House, the FBI evacuated from the United States dozens of Saudi officials, as well as Osama bin Laden family members. Bandar made the request for escorts directly to FBI headquarters on Sept. 13, 2001 — just hours after he met with the president. The two old family friends shared cigars on the Truman Balcony while discussing the attacks.
Bill Doyle, who lost his son in the World Trade Center attacks and heads the Coalition of 9/11 Families, calls the suppression of Saudi evidence a “coverup beyond belief.” Last week, he sent out an e-mail to relatives urging them to phone their representatives in Congress to support the resolution and read for themselves the censored 28 pages.
Astonishing as that sounds, few lawmakers in fact have bothered to read the classified section of arguably the most important investigation in US history.
Granted, it’s not easy to do. It took a monthlong letter-writing campaign by Jones and Lynch to convince the House intelligence panel to give them access to the material.
But it’s critical they take the time to read it and pressure the White House to let all Americans read it. This isn’t water under the bridge. The information is still relevant today. Pursuing leads further, getting to the bottom of the foreign support, could help head off another 9/11.
As the frustrated Joint Inquiry authors warned, in an overlooked addendum to their heavily redacted 2002 report, “State-sponsored terrorism substantially increases the likelihood of successful and more lethal attacks within the United States.”
Their findings must be released, even if they forever change US-Saudi relations. If an oil-rich foreign power was capable of orchestrating simultaneous bulls-eye hits on our centers of commerce and defense a dozen years ago, it may be able to pull off similarly devastating attacks today.
Members of Congress reluctant to read the full report ought to remember that the 9/11 assault missed its fourth target: them.
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Nope. It is a fact that most normal people do not listen to Glen Beck.
/snicker
Sorry sink, but that's about all the response you deserve for a comment like that.
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Way to go, Rap! :patriot:
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I disagree that it was a dig at Rap.
We've all had firsthand experience with Glenn Beck about to break 'game changing' news or stories.
Lucy, Linus, Football........
Rap wondered why the forum didn't reply about the event......Sinkspur noted that it was a Beck story....and told her in so many words that a lot of us on the forum have seen that movie.
It's a stretch to read that he was accusing Rap of hanging on Beck's every word.
Well then perhaps he could have taken two seconds to find the ORIGINAL source of the article - but of course he couldn't resist taking his usual digs and Beck and at me... and of course you have to jump in ....
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I disagree that it was a dig at Rap.
We've all had firsthand experience with Glenn Beck about to break 'game changing' news or stories.
Lucy, Linus, Football........
Rap wondered why the forum didn't reply about the event......Sinkspur noted that it was a Beck story....and told her in so many words that a lot of us on the forum have seen that movie.
It's a stretch to read that he was accusing Rap of hanging on Beck's every word.
It's not a stretch at all, particularly when put into the context of some of the long-running spats here.
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It's not a stretch at all, particularly when put into the context of some of the long-running spats here.
And you know what, O?
Sometimes, my mental picture of Rap is a woman who might smoke Camels and has a rose tattoo :laugh:
IOW....she can handle herself.
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In order to believe the provably goofy Walter Jones, you'd have to believe that George W. Bush intentionally covered up direct Saudi involvement in 9/11.
I don't believe that.
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Back to the topic at hand... IF (emphasis on IF) all the speculation is true, it just shows the world is a lot more complex than the reactionaries usually want.
1. We know elements inside Saudi Arabia have funded radical islamic terrorism for decades. They practically created Al Qaeda and started the tribal civil war in Afghanistan in the 80s after the Soviets pulled out that led to the Taliban taking over from the Mujahidin.
2. The 'royal family' is massive, but just because someone is in the family doesn't mean they rule. They just have big pocket books.
3. After 9/11, it was obvious to all something had to be done. I am sure King Fahd knew there were elements high up funding and supporting Islamists but I doubt he would expect something this audacious to be successful. Fahd has a vested interest in just enough instability to keep oil prices high but not so much that it threatens his interest
4. The US also has a major vested interest in the entire Middle East not blowing up into conflict. Afghanistan was an obvious first target choice due to it being AQs base of operations. That is the 'hot' war. Other interests that have to do with funding and ties to Saudi Arabia would be fought in a more clandestine way.
5. Not tipping our hat to the Saudi players in an overt way would give them a false sense of security. Leaving open tracks for our clandestine services to follow and seize financing and take more control of the entire jihadist networks through their pocketbooks.
6. Fahd had an opportunity to then clean a lot of radical elements out of his own country by 'encouraging' them to go fight in Afghanistan where they would be picked off.
7. We keep a somewhat stable Middle East (in comparison to how it could have been) and we play turkey shoot with jihadis in Afghanistan.
8. All of this was working somewhat OK until 0 changed the rules and decided to encourage the jihadis in their own countries by praising the Arab spring. Instead of the jihadis focusing outward towards Afghanistan, they all started focusing inward on their own countries.....
...that's just my off the cuff speculation...
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And you know what, O?
Sometimes, my mental picture of Rap is a woman who might smoke Camels and has a rose tattoo :laugh:
IOW....she can handle herself.
Did I ever say she couldn't? Sometimes I get tired of reading the crap that gets flung around here - and that includes crap flung by Rapunzel as well as crap that gets flung at her - and cheerleaders don't always help.
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Excellent, AB!
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Did I ever say she couldn't? Sometimes I get tired of reading the crap that gets flung around here - and that includes crap flung by Rapunzel as well as crap that gets flung at her - and cheerleaders don't always help.
That's where I was coming from, O.
Let the two of them deal with each other.
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The Obama administration along with the entire Democratic Party in going down in flames. There is nothing good in their future. They're going to have to run against Obamacare in 2014 and from the looks of it, things are going to go from bad to worse as the next set of cancellations kick in.
What will they do to combat all that?
Attack the GOP through Bush because that was their last winning tactic.
Whoever said that for this to be true it would have to mean that GWB and his administration, or someone within the Bush administration engaged in a cover up is absolutely correct.
If anything about this is true, or if anything about this can be spun to give it a semblance of truth, or if anything about this can be crafted into a lie that will tilt even a small percentage of the population against the GOP in 2014, this will be their campaign theme.
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That's where I was coming from, O.
Let the two of them deal with each other.
Generally I do, but as I said, sometimes even I get tired of the crap. Partisan cheerleading doesn't help, either.
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The Obama administration along with the entire Democratic Party in going down in flames. There is nothing good in their future. They're going to have to run against Obamacare in 2014 and from the looks of it, things are going to go from bad to worse as the next set of cancellations kick in.
What will they do to combat all that?
Attack the GOP through Bush because that was their last winning tactic.
Whoever said that for this to be true it would have to mean that GWB and his administration, or someone within the Bush administration engaged in a cover up is absolutely correct.
If anything about this is true, or if anything about this can be spun to give it a semblance of truth, or if anything about this can be crafted into a lie that will tilt even a small percentage of the population against the GOP in 2014, this will be their campaign theme.
I still say this has to do with current foreign policy rather than a domestic political calculation.
I'm convinced that Obama wants to be a significant player in any Israeli-Iranian conflict. Valerie Jarrett is Iranian and has close ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.
If Obama can 'punish' those responsible...it's be "I killed Osama bin Laden!" all over again.
Plus, he's been engaged in "secret negotiations" with Iran for months.
That should make Bibi very nervous. To have Obama bomb Saudi Arabian military targets....or conveniently destroy runways and fuel depots....well, his favorables would spike.
....which makes sure the crisis doesn't go to waste.
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I still say this has to do with current foreign policy rather than a domestic political calculation.
I'm convinced that Obama wants to be a significant player in any Israeli-Iranian conflict. Valerie Jarrett is Iranian and has close ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.
If Obama can 'punish' those responsible...it's be "I killed Osama bin Laden!" all over again.
Plus, he's been engaged in "secret negotiations" with Iran for months.
That should make Bibi very nervous. To have Obama bomb Saudi Arabian military targets....or conveniently destroy runways and fuel depots....well, his favorables would spike.
....which makes sure the crisis doesn't go to waste.
I'd be very surprise if Obama's strategy was to start a war at this time.
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I'd be very surprise if Obama's strategy was to start a war at this time.
Why would a punitive laser-guided missile attack in retaliation for 9-11 start a war? It could be over in minutes.
But objective reached, because it castrates Israel, yet still allows Obama to claim that "we have your back" for public consumption.