Britcoin Faucets: Politically Incorrect With Bill Maher-Discussing 9/11 in 2001

Source: This piece was originally posted at The Daily Review

To blame Bill Clinton for 9/11 after the Clinton national security team warned the Bush Administration about Al-Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden before the Bush team came into office, is like blaming the Pittsburgh Steelers for the lack of success that the Cleveland Browns have had in the last twenty years. “Hey, if only the Steelers hadn’t been so good and beat us over and over, maybe the we the Browns wouldn’t have had lost so much. It’s all Pittsburgh’s fault for our lack of success.” The Clinton Administration went after Osama Bin Laden, at least since 1996 when Al-Qaeda attacked one of our ships in the Middle East. America was at peace when the Clinton Administration came into power in 1993 and we were still at peace when they left office in January, 2001. The economy was still booming and the Bush’s inherited a budget surplus of two-hundred-billion-dollars and twenty-three-million net jobs.

Before 9/11, the Bush Administration was focused on trying to jump start the economy was starting to slow and worrying about what to do with the record budget surplus they just inherited and thinking they could be allies with Vladimir Putin’s Russia and education reform. Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda, wasn’t a huge priority for them. It wasn’t until 9/11 that they became neoconservative defense hawks, thinking that our civil liberties and constitutional rights, might be threatening our national security. And coming up with indefinite detention without arrest, the Patriot Act, that spies on who Americans associate with and what we read even. Where we could become potential suspects and even detained, for what we might read or who we might know. The Bush Administration, didn’t have much of a national security or foreign policy, pre-911. The so-called War on Terror, wasn’t part of our national language yet.

Did Bill Clinton eliminate Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda as President, of course not. But to say they weren’t paying attention to him and not trying to do that when they actually tried to assassinate him both in Sudan and Afghanistan in 1998, is nonsense. George W. Bush and company, obviously didn’t eliminate Osama and Al-Qaeda as well. But President Barack Obama, had Osama assassinated in his third year in office in 2011. And the Obama Administration has come damn close to eliminating Al-Qaeda the last eight years. And have destroyed a lot of ISIS in Syria and Iraq in the last two years. George W. Bush, obviously didn’t create Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda either, but they got off to a late start to the threat of that organization. Especially since the previous administration were already going after them. And that the Clinton national security team warned the incoming Bush Administration about the threat in late 2000. According to Clinton counter-terrorism director Richard Clark.

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Foreign Policy Journal: Opinion: Paul Craig Roberts: The Neoconservative Threat to International Order

Foreign Policy Journal: Opinion: Paul Craig Roberts: The Neoconservative Threat to International Order

This post was originally posted at The New Democrat on WordPress

This is going to sound somewhat partisan at least from a Neoconservative’s perspective and if that is the case you’re more than welcome to way in on this and attempt to contradict me. But then I’ll get to Europe where I believe there is a lot of common ground on both the Left and Right when it comes to foreign policy and national security.

The reason why we are dealing with all of these independent terrorists groups now that are free to flow everywhere in Africa, the Middle East and Eurasia is because of the 2003 War in Iraq. ISIS didn’t exist pre-Iraq and yes the War in Afghanistan was something we had to do because the Taliban in Afghanistan were subsidizing and protecting the terrorists who were responsible for 9/11. And even though it has taken a long time thanks to the War in Iraq and Afghan corruption that mission is starting to finally pay off. As that country is finally stabilizing and their economy is finally moving.

The Middle East was a fairly stable area pre-War in Iraq. And as horrible as the Saddam Regime was there and most people including myself are glad he’s no longer running that country and even dead, you didn’t have terrorists in Iraq killing Americans before the war. And you didn’t have terrorists occupying Northern Iraq and Northern Syria. Which would be ISIS today because the central government’s in both countries were strong enough to secure their countries even if they were horrible to their people.

You also didn’t have a jealous Vladimir Putin as President of Russia thinking who needed to make his own power play because of what America was doing to countries that were close to Russia. Part of President Putin’s justification for invading Ukraine has been that he doesn’t believe America should be the sole power in the world that can act unilaterally even in their own interests. The world was a much safer place in 2002 pre-Iraq when our main security threat was Al-Qaeda, a nuclear armed North Korea that still can’t even feed its people. And a potential terrorist state in Iran getting nuclear weapons.

Now where there I believe there is bipartisan agreement, lets look at Europe. Part of the rise of Russia has to do with the fall, or at least steep decline in Europe. Where only Germany as far as a large country in Europe has a healthy economy. But Europe is falling in population and young people and gaining in older people. Because they don’t take in many immigrants each year unlike America and as a result their social democratic economic systems are collapsing. Britain, France, Spain, Italy and Greece all drowning in high debt, and deficits, unemployment. Greece having to take a bailout package that is actually larger than their national economy to stay afloat. And have just elected a new socialist government that’s against austerity.

But if that is not bad enough for Europe, as their populations and economies continue to decline, so does their militaries. Where NATO is essentially just made up of America now as far as real military threat. And to a certain degree Britain, France and Germany to some extent. Europe is more than capable of responding to Russia in any way themselves at least as far as resources, but has chosen not to. Wouldn’t be great to go back to 2002 and far as the security situations for the Western world, but subtract George W. Bush for Al Gore and only be dealing with Afghanistan right now. But we of course can’t go back in time.

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BBC News: HardTalk- Abdul Mawgoud Dardery: Freedom and Justice Party

Source:BBC News– Abdul Mawgoud Dardery from Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood.

“What now for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and its political wing the Freedom and Justice Party? Rarely has the fall from power of a party been so quick, dramatic and violent. Since President Morsi’s removal by the army, thousands of the Brotherhood’s members and supporters have been arrested, including most of its senior leaders. Hardtalk speaks to Abdul Mawgoud Dardery, a member of the now suspended parliament. What is the Brotherhood’s next move?”

From BBC News

There doesn’t seem to be a big or strong enough liberal or even conservative democratic movement in Egypt that is big enough to take on the Islamic-Theocrats and the military authoritarians in Egypt. Leaving Egypt stuck between two forms of authoritarianism:

People in favor of the current police state and never moving away from that. And people who want to impose an Islamic-Theocracy on Egypt.

What Egypt needs for democracy to have any shot at becoming real in a big Arab country with no history of democracy, is for Center-Right democrats (liberal or conservative) and a Center-Left to emerge in Egypt, so Egyptians who want it, can not only push and vote for democracy, but have choices in what type of democracy that they want in Egypt.

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