Aware perhaps that the next turn in this story will be a thorough examination of how American intelligence failed so badly to avoid the September 11 Massacre, the Clinton administration uses its favorite paper, the New York Times, for spin control. One major leak about past efforts to get bin Laden killed must have come from someone. Who? Sandy Berger? Does this leak in any way imperil intelligence today? Key ass-covering quotes from Berger and Albright follow. “It was something that we focused on on a daily basis, and pursued with vigor, and I think we accomplished quite a lot,” said former Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright. “‘I think we took it as far as was possible to go at the time, and I think what we did has provided the basis for things the Bush administration is trying to do now.'” Yeah, right. And here’s Berger: “‘This was a top priority for us over the past several years, and not a day went by when we didn’t press as hard as we could,” said Samuel R. Berger, national security adviser in the Clinton administration. “But this is a tough, tough problem. I think we were pushing it as hard as we could. And I think the Bush administration is handling it in a smart way.'” The Times is forced to concede “mixed results” and it notably doesn’t finger Robert Rubin as the main obstacle for shutting down al Qaeda’s financial network. How could they when they spent major front-page space puffing Rubin earlier this week? No critic is quoted in the article. I’d say this piece is the first sign that the Clintonites are rattled. They know they bear the bulk of responsibility for this – although, of course, not alone. I’m not absolving any of us from some responsibility – including the two Bush administrations, and pundits who didn’t sound the alarm loudly enough. But all signs point to the Clinton administration as the major source of responsibility. No surprise that the Times would be out in front trying to exculpate them.
MUST READ: I was struck by the following sentences in a piece by Gustav Neibuhr in Saturday’s New York Times. A scholar was asked to comment on the extraordinarily pious notes found in the possession of the murderers of September 11. “Some of the letter invokes prayers and uses ‘very mainstream religious language,’ John L. Esposito, director of the Center for Muslim- Christian Understanding at Georgetown University, said, referring to excerpts published on Friday. But, he said, ‘all of a sudden, after you’ve read through 90 percent of it, then you get to that set of lines that this is being wrapped around that militant action – You get your ID’s, you’re carrying your knives.'” Now what does that tell you? What it tells me is that perhaps the extremist version of Islam is not that different from the mainstream version of Islam in the eyes of the hijackers. Maybe the links between “good Islam” and “bad Islam” are actually closer than you might think. This is not politically correct; but it may be true. You don’t need a whole new religion to do what these fanatics did; you just need to believe in your creed with greater zeal and fanaticism. This is about religion – or rather about the evil things that fundamentalism can do in any faith. Here are the hijacker’s notes. See what you think.
SONTAG AWARD NOMINEE: “But who is Osama bin Laden really? Let me rephrase that. What is Osama bin Laden? He’s America’s family secret. He is the American president’s dark doppelgänger. The savage twin of all that purports to be beautiful and civilised. He has been sculpted from the spare rib of a world laid to waste by America’s foreign policy: its gunboat diplomacy, its nuclear arsenal, its vulgarly stated policy of “full-spectrum dominance”, its chilling disregard for non-American lives, its barbarous military interventions, its support for despotic and dictatorial regimes, its merciless economic agenda that has munched through the economies of poor countries like a cloud of locusts. Its marauding multinationals who are taking over the air we breathe, the ground we stand on, the water we drink, the thoughts we think. Now that the family secret has been spilled, the twins are blurring into one another and gradually becoming interchangeable.” – Arundhati Roy, The Guardian. I have seen no more eloquent statement of the fusion of anti-globalization and Islamo-fascism that is now resurgent. This is what the far left is becoming. And this is what so many in the mainstream left refuse to take on.
The Dish 