From GQ via Susie Madrak, Al Gore talks about Bush and 9/11:
Q. Really? How about all the warnings?
A. That’s a separate question. And it’s almost too easy to say, “I would have heeded the warnings.” In fact, I think I would have, I know I would have. We had several instances when the CIA’s alarm bells went off, and what we did when that happened was, we had emergency meetings and called everybody together and made sure that all systems were go and every agency was hitting on all cylinders, and we made them bring more information, and go into the second and third and fourth level of detail. And made suggestions on how we could respond in a more coordinated, more effective way. It is inconceivable to me that Bush would read a warning as stark and as clear [voice angry now] as the one he received on August 6th of 2001, and, according to some of the new histories, he turned to the briefer and said, “Well, you’ve covered your ass.” And never called a follow up meeting. Never made an inquiry. Never asked a single question. To this day, I don’t understand it. And, I think it’s fair to say that he personally does in fact bear a measure of blame for not doing his job at a time when we really needed him to do his job. And now the Woodward book has this episode that has been confirmed by the record that George Tenet, who was much abused by this administration, went over to the White House for the purpose of calling an emergency meeting and warning as clearly as possible about the extremely dangerous situation with Osama bin Laden, and was brushed off!
And I don’t know why—honestly—I mean, I understand how horrible this Congressman Foley situation with the instant messaging is, okay? I understand that. But, why didn’t these kinds of things produce a similar outrage? And you know, I’m even reluctant to talk about it in these terms because it’s so easy for people to hear this or read this as sort of cheap political game-playing. I understand how it could sound that way. [Practically screaming now] But dammit, whatever happened to the concept of accountability for catastrophic failure? This administration has been by far the most incompetent, inept, and with more moral cowardice, and obsequiousness to their wealthy contributors, and obliviousness to the public interest of any administration in modern history, and probably in the entire history of the country!
Word.
a copy of that GQ issue — not only for the feature with Gore, but they’ve got a piece on my imaginary 2nd husband, Keith Olbermann (yum…). 🙂 Bill Orally’s mad enough to boycott them…that’s good enough for me…
What? Someone must be making this stuff up! Everyone ‘knows’ that Al Gore has no ‘fire in the belly’, right? I mean, imagine Al Gore raising his voice in anger! It must be faux anger, not the real kind, you know, just done for political effect and all…. </snark>
Gore is right. We just need to scream louder as Gore did in this interview. A lot of us screamed about Bush’s un-accountability during the 9-11 hearing and finally started screaming about the Iraq invasion and occupation. Our screaming encouraged by the likes of Ned Lamont and others did make a good number of fellow citizens join the Democratic voters for an historic win.
I hope Gore continues to scream and make great speeches, such as he did on Martin Luther King’s birthday. I will never forget that speech and its huge attendance.
Here’s an interview with Al Gore done on November 16. Check it out at:
http://www.soxfirst.com/50226711/interview_with_al_gore.php
Draft Gore NOW.
I’ve got to say I’m leaning Al now that Russ is not running.
[Practically screaming now]
Really. It’s a little hard to scream and make whole, intelligent sentences. I’m willing to bet a more accurate description would be [shouting passionately] or [angrily bellowing]. But, that sounds too manly. Screaming is the better word choice if your intention is to make the speaker sound shrill, unbalanced, hysterical even. <heavy sigh>
The accumulated weight of what ifs make me alternately very very sad and very very angry. To contemplate the full measure of the rolling disaster of the past six years in comparison with what might have been is almost too much to bear.
Easy for Gore to say now. But he was part of the administration that, instead of shutting down resources to stateless terrorist armies, gave them aid and comfort every bit as much as the Bush administration has since 2001.
Clinton and Bush failed war on terror
This is a letter that I have sent to Sen. Joe Biden-D Del. who is the incoming chairman of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
“Our drug policy grants huge subsidies to our enemies”
“I do not believe that the Democrats are any more interested in actually confronting and reducing the proliferation of stateless terrorism than are the Republicans.”
I did not vote for Gore in 2000 because he was and is a drug warrior. As such he is responsible for the growth of stateless terrorism in the past three dozen years of the drug war. Never again will I vote for any Democrats or Republicans who support the terrorist funding crime fostering drug war.
Tell it, Brother Al!
That did my heart good.
that the bad guys are the Arabs and that Bush regarding to 9/11 is mostly just incredibly incompetent. Here is a long list of comments by ‘respectable’ people who see that 9/11 is a very competently executed plan blessed by BushCo.
that’s a great compilation. But only a couple of them are saying what you allege they are saying. What they mostly are alleging is that the official story is incomplete and wrong in important respects.
Even the Commission acknowledges that, as Hamilton says they were set up to fail and that the administration didn’t want a finger pointed at them in an election year.
I still believe that the government, at the very least, decided that they had to coverup the financing because it pointed to either or both Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.
But that doesn’t necessarily mean anything more than that.
When you look at the JFK assassination, you can read transcripts of LBJ talking in the days afterwards about how he needed a commission to tell the American people that the Russians and Cubans didn’t do it or we might have a nuclear war. Was that wrong, or was it the responsible thing to do? Remember, also, that early reporting was that someone impersonating Oswald had been down in Mexico City and that he might have met with a known KGB operative. Where do you think that line of inquiry might have led?
There could be good reasons to hide the facts about 9/11 from the American people that do not involve complicity. They vary from avoiding diplomatic fall-out, or calls for war with our allies, to covering up gross incompetence.
All we know for sure is that the truth is hidden from us.
There could be good reasons to hide the facts…
I don’t believe that there are ever good reasons to hide facts. This assumes that the American people are idiot children who must be supervised by the old white men who know best, doesn’t it? How patronizing and arrogant.
I doubt that if the true facts, assuming they are true, about Saudi funding would have led to war with Saudi Arabia, and I also doubt that if the truth were known about that we would be in Iraq. The same people who withheld the facts are the same people who made up shit to replace the facts with lies that got in us worse shit than the facts would have.
And as far as the JFK assassination is concerned, I think that if the people had known the real truth back then when it was still possible to get the facts, we would be much better off today. Squelching info about a supposed Oswald impersonator meeting with a supposed KGB agent in Mexico city would only have done harm if it were used like the supposed meeting of Atta with Al Qaeda in some European city (I forget which city was), where the PTB used it as disinfo to start a war of aggression.
LBJ’s immediate concern was not to find out the facts but to calm the nation. And his biggest concern was to stifle speculation that the Russians, the Cubans, or a right-wing nut job had offed the President.
We can quibble or reject LBJ’s decision making but that was his thinking. The result was a farce of a commission and a major cover-up.
I believe something similar happened early on in the 9/11 investigation. And I believe that is why there are so many holes, as well as why they were able to get certain Dems to go along with the official line.
Perhaps in the IMMEDIATE aftermath, LBJ could have made a speech that said something to the effect that “Speculation is unhelpful at this time, please calm down, the rumors of Soviet involvement are just rumors at this point and do not deserve to be acted upon. I promise a full and complete investigation, including these rumors, and we will get to the bottom of who did this.”
That seems like a better course of action to me than covering it up and hiding it. Perhaps he did make such a statement, I’m no great historian of the 60’s. But if we aren’t going to “quibble” with the cover-ups and decision-making in the past, how will we ever prevent it in the future? Since the same thing happened with 9/11, I think you made my point for me that hiding the facts and rumors does nobody any good.
And it still seems arrogant and patronizing to squelch any leads, whether they turn out to be unsubstantiated or not. Let the facts be known and let’s deal with the truth. If the truth is that we can’t get the killers without destroying the planet with nuclear weapons, then I would think we would let the killers stay in hiding forever, that being the better outcome. To suppose otherwise is to ASS-U-ME that the PTB really have our best interests at heart and that we, the people, are too stupid to make a good collective judgment based on facts.
I interviewed Al Gore on the climate change issue on Thursday. Check it out at:
http://www.soxfirst.com/50226711/interview_with_al_gore.php
I want that whole quote as a signature.