Craig

Exactly. Not to mention the Taliban is hardly an upstanding group of guys that keep their word. This is the same group that had (and sponsored) terrorist camps with the specific goal of attacking Western nations.

They were trying to save their own asses, that's all.

King Rat

I hated how histrionic everybody got over Clinton's Hummer. So I'm trying to err on the side of caution concerning Bush's Folly. I can easily believe that a president could lie about getting a BJ, I'm having a harder time with the concept that a president could knowingly send troops to their death based on a document known by him to be false.

It's illogical that I feel betrayed by someone who I never trusted anyway. I guess I hoped he would rise to the office, not bring it down to the gutter.

King Rat

Anyway, this is drifting off topic.

The only data I have found so far linking OBL to 911 is that OBL was informed by the hijackers that the event was going to occur. I'm sure you are all aware that the hijackers were mostly Saudi, not Afghani. This doesn't imply much, it's just interesting.

Loren Pechtel

Or he knew it was a red herring. The result would be compromising intelligence sources for no gain--the Taliban wasn't about to hand him over.

Loren Pechtel

In one tape he said the result was better than expected. That implies having an expectation--foreknowledge of the event. Since normal operational security means as few people as possible know it's reasonable to suppose he was in the chain of command that ordered it.

Ab_Normal

I'd be much happier if the administration wasn't stonewalling the special commission set up to investigate the 911 attacks.

King Rat

Yeah, I watched that clip. The interesting thing is the some of the various interpretations. Some other versions I've read were:

"Better than hoped."

"Better than anyone expected."

"Greater than expected."

"Greater than anyone expected."

A little different meaning in each. Granted, it's splitting hairs, but nowhere do I find a quote where OBL says something to the effect of "yes 911 was an Al-Qaeda production."

I'll keep looking.

Please don't misunderstand, I don't want come across as an OBL sympathizer, I'm just wondering if he was a convenient bogeyman for Bush. I would have never brought this up, but in light of recent developments, it makes you wonder.

Arken

I think, King Rat, that it would have benefitted Bush far more to implicate Saddam directly, especially since he was beating war drums against him even before the 2000 election.

Also, I think there would be little point of committing such an act without claiming responsibility. Without the claim of responsibility, the act is mostly meaningless.

Monkeybot

Well, also keep in mind that bin Laden himself is Saudi, so the connection isn't that much of a stretch, theoretically at least. I don't know enough to make any claims either way, though.

I think at the very least the Bush administration should be held accountable for extreme incompetance. The FBI file on the bin Laden family was re-opened on September 12, 2001 -- meaning that prior to the attacks, it had been closed.

That negligence may have killed 3000 people.

Grumpy

IIRC, it was "better" than calculations they had done on the structural integrity of the towers. I think they had bets as to whether they would collapse or not.

Boy, you "revisionist historians" never miss a lick, do you? Yeah, that sounds about right. Luckily for us, the Taliban really had it coming.