A Strange Eulogy

Sandy Berger, the former National Security Advisor to Bill Clinton, has passed away. He died of cancer at 70 on Wednesday, ironically the same day America was attacked again by Islamic terrorists. Ironic, because he will be remembered more for his role in terrorism than anything else he accomplished in his career.

Here's a eulogy of sorts by the Politico, which contains some rather strange comments. First, from the current president:

"From his service in President Carter's State Department to President Clinton's National Security Advisor, Sandy devoted himself to strengthening American leadership in an uncertain world," Obama said. "Today, his legacy can be seen in a peaceful Balkans, our strong alliance with Japan, our deeper relationships with India and China."

First, was our relationship with Japan broken before Clinton came in? Second, you'll notice there's no mention of his legacy regarding Islamic terrorism (well, mainly because to the White House, it doesn't exist).  Here's how his former bosses remembered their old co-worker:

"Nobody was more knowledgeable about policy or smarter about how to formulate it," Bill and Hillary Clinton said in a statement Wednesday. "He was great both in analyzing a situation and figuring out what to do about it. His gifts proved invaluable time and time again, in Latin America, the Balkans, Northern Ireland and the Middle East."

The "Middle East"? Hmm, what did Berger do to improve it leading up to 9/11? But he was apparently an important outside advisor to Hillary2016!

As secretary of state, Clinton consulted Berger on topics from how to handle Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to how to "gain leverage over the Pakistanis" and persuade them to go after al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, her emails show.

Wonder what he thought of the private server debacle, considering the fact he was once described as "sloppy" with regards to national security?  Or maybe that was the advice.  Anyway, he persuaded the Pakistanis to go after bin Laden? That didn't really work out too well, unless somebody just slipped something out (some believe they were involved).  But of course the Politico saved the most prolific part of Berger's legacy for last:

Berger's legacy was marred, however, when he pleaded guilty in 2005 to removing highly classified documents from the National Archives in Washington the previous year. The inspector general of the National Archives said that a staff member had witnessed the former NSA adviser wrapping the classified documents around his socks and under his pants.

And have we ever discovered exactly what he removed and/or destroyed from that esteemed repository, or why? Media at the time speculated it had to do only with the Millennium bombing plot (LAX) after-action reports he had access to, but that never made sense because it was a victory of sorts for Clinton.  Remember, he was prepping for interviews from the 9/11 Commission. 

Others were more conspiratorial, figuring it had something to do with TWA 800. Others theorized it had to do with the hunt, or lack thereof, for bin Laden before 9/11.   Remember how apoplectic Clinton got when anyone suggested he didn't go hard after weird beard? 

Or maybe it was to do with the attacks on Khartoum in 1998 following the AQ attack on the African embassies--Berger made the case Saddam Hussein was helping bin Laden cook up VX nerve gas. After a pharmaceutical plant specializing in manufacturing aspirin was bombed in response to his guidance--and no links were found-- Berger apologized. Wait, no, he never apologized or came down off that advice, at least publicly.  After the Bush invasion of Iraq it was odd the media never went back and revisited that mission, since the Clintons were basically bombing a country due to a link between Saddan and AQ.  Ok, just kidding there, it's not at all strange they wanted nothing to do with that history.  After all, they were involved.  

Actually it was all just another example of the vast right wing conspiracy.   Media Matters explained it all back in 2005, nothing to see move along wing nuts.

I always wondered about the risk/reward of stealing the docs and never completely bought the bumbler Oscar Madison meme, none of which seem supported by the linked accolades.  So, what would prompt such a risk? If it was protecting national security at large somebody else could have done it.  Makes more sense for it to have been more of a personal mission. With Hillary representing the future of the Clinton political machine at the time it made more sense as an attempt to get something very incriminating and legacy toppling out of the way before the 9/11 Commission, or politicians thereon, found it.  That he wasn't locked away by a Republican administration also begged a lot--a lot--of questions.

Unfortunately for the sake of transparency and the American public's right to know, he has taken some of that information to the grave. Based on all the good he did for the poor and hungry around the world let's hope it was one of those "you can't handle the truth" things rather than merely a secret mission from team Little Rock.   We probably stand more of a chance of seeing the Khalidi going away party video than we do ever getting closure here. 

Perusing the latest Clinton Library Docs

It's Friday before the Columbus Day weekend, so what better time than to release more required documents from the Clinton Library?!   A lot of stuff, but here are some snippets from the section on "African Embassy Bombings":

later in the same doc..

Notice what the White House was crossing out in this talking point outline--any mention of AQ and the likelihood they would attack again.  Their first draft, just like the first guess on Benghazi, seemed correct.  Then politics appears to have taken over. 

The WaPo took interest in an exchange of a Clinton staffer dissing Jimmy Carter for penning an negative op-ed on the retaliatory bombing of the al-Shifa pharmaceutical plant in Khartoum, Sudan in 1998, thought by the administration to have been a plant producing VX nerve gas for bin Laden (with help from Iraqi scientists).   But check out this verbiage...

Ah, the 'full information'.  At some point during the late 90s everyone pretty much agreed the al-Shifa bombing was a big mistake, ie, "Clinton bombed an aspirin factory and killed the night watchman based on false information" to 'wag the dog'.  Everybody, that is, but Sandy Berger and Dan Benjamin, who had recommended it and who've never come off their decision.

And from the looks of this memo there were others in the administration who appeared to know more than was being publicly stated, to the point that if Jimmy Carter knew everything he wouldn't have written the op-ed.  So, what was that information?  And why has the mainstream media never tried to pry it out of these guys? 

Clinton to Berger on bin Laden

Gotta watch the stuff trickling out of the Bubba R Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock.  On a Friday doc dump the library released a handwritten note from the first black president to Sandy 'socks' Berger, his national security advisor at the time, expressing doubt about some intelligence on bin Laden.

The note was written several months after Clinton bombed some tents in Khost Afghanistan and an aspirin factory in the Sudan (1998), which prompted charges he was 'wagging the dog' to remove attention from Monicagate. 

For those who've forgotten, Clinton bombed the plant based on CIA evidence of traces of EMPTA in the ground outside the plant, a substance related to the processing of VX nerve gas.  What most of the mainstream press reports are conveniently ignoring is that the Clinton crew thought Saddam's WMD scientists were involved in helping bin Laden produce this chemical.

So here's the note:

What does it suggest?  And why were they unafraid to release it?  At the same time, they were afraid to release any part of the internal communications between Berger and colleagues Dan Benjamin and Richard Clarke in response--national security.

Well, since Clinton was referencing a NY Times article in 1999 it's useful to understand what Times writer Tim Weiner was saying:

The interviews also raise questions about key assertions that have been made by the Government about Mr. bin Laden. Senior intelligence officials concede that their knowledge of him is sketchy. ''We can't say for sure what was going on'' with him from 1991 to 1996 -- most of the years covered in the indictment -- one senior official said.

His Affluence Seems Overstated Present and former American officials and former business associates of Mr. bin Laden say he appears to control only a fraction of the $250 million fortune that the American Government says he possesses. ''Clearly, his money's running out,'' said Frank Anderson, a former senior Central Intelligence Agency official who maintains close Middle Eastern contacts.

Larry Johnson, the State Department deputy counterterrorism director from 1988 to 1993, said Administration officials had ''tended to make Osama bin Laden sort of a Superman in Muslim garb -- he's 10 feet tall, he's everywhere, he knows everything, he's got lots of money and he can't be challenged.''

Milton Bearden, a retired senior C.I.A. official who ran the agency's war in Afghanistan and retired in 1995, said the Government had ''created a North Star'' in Mr. bin Laden. ''He is public enemy No. 1,'' Mr. Bearden said. ''We've got a $5 million reward out for his head. And now we have, with I'm not sure what evidence, linked him to all of the terrorist acts of this year -- of this decade, perhaps.''

In other words, anonymous CIA and Justice people were telling the Times the legal case against UBL wasn't solid while former high profile intelligence people were downplaying his role.  At the same time Vince Cannistraro, another former intel guy, was telling ABC News that bin Laden might be teaming up with Saddam, while also allegedly telling lawyer Stephen Jones of Oklahoma City bombing fame that the government didn't want any foreign suspects in that case.  Richard Clarke, who was part of the communication with Berger on this event, once famously said UBL might 'boogie to Baghdad' if they missed getting him in Afghanistan.  No wonder Slick was confused.

The key phrase is obviously, "..the CIA sure overstated its case to me..".  So what 'case' does he suspect was being overstated?  This was after a PDB in December 1998 warning of al Qaeda hijacking an airplane to secure the release of members of the 1993 WTC attack and after the embassy attacks, so it's not like terrorism itself was being overstated, just the role of the players involved.

Reporters are assuming he meant CIA was overstating the importance of bin Laden but it's valid to wonder whether Clinton might have been asking a broader question--if UBL is not the 'north star' the CIA claims, who is?   It's hard to imagine how one New York Times article could prompt doubt about terrorism in general, Clinton seemed to be confused on the role of one guy in the nexus--bin Laden.

And that goes directly to the response, which was completely redacted. Keep in mind Clarke and Benjamin have never come off the intelligence that led them to recommend bombing al-Shifa and few if any in the press have grilled them about it.  Returning to Tom Joscelyn's link above..

"The consistent stream of intelligence at that time said it wasn't just al-Shifa. There were three different structures in the Sudan. There was the hiring of Iraqis. There was no question that the Iraqis were there. Some of the Clinton people seem to forget that they did make the Iraqi connection."

So Clinton was questioning the CIA's assessment of UBL, at least in private, while his own team was indicting UBL and making links between him and Saddam Hussein.  As late as 1999. 

Yet when Clinton gave Fox an interview in 2006 (where he wagged his finger at Chris Matthews), he seemed to be saying he did more than anyone to stop bin Laden:

CLINTON: All I'm saying is, you falsely accused me of giving aid and comfort to bin Laden because of what happened in Somalia. No one knew Al Qaeda existed then. And ...

WALLACE: But did they know in 1996 when he declared war on the U.S.? Did they know in 1998 ...

CLINTON: Absolutely, they did.

WALLACE: ... when he bombed the two embassies?

CLINTON: And who talked about ...

WALLACE: Did they know in 2000 when he hit the Cole?

CLINTON: What did I do? What did I do? I worked hard to try to kill him. I authorized a finding for the CIA to kill him. We contracted with people to kill him. I got closer to killing him than anybody has gotten since. And if I were still president, we'd have more than 20,000 troops there trying to kill him.

Now, I've never criticized President Bush, and I don't think this is useful. But you know we do have a government that thinks Afghanistan is only one-seventh as important as Iraq.

Pretty feisty, but he admits his counterterrorism team knew about the threat from bin Laden in 1996, three years prior to the note.  Evidently he was still wavering in 1999.

But in the same interview he also told Wallace that neither the CIA nor FBI would 'cerfify' that UBL was behind the attacks, which supports the wishy-washy narrative and provides him some cover despite the CIA setting up a special office in 1996 to track UBL headed by Michael Scheuer (who has been very critical of the Clinton team on apprehending or killing bin Laden in the late 90s).  

It also ignores the aforementioned indictment of UBL in 1998 (mentioning a tie to Iraq then updated to remove ties) and KSM.  Yet here's Slick still questioning the CIA's assessment of UBL's role in global terror in 1999.  Strange.

Could it impact Hillary! 2016?  Only if anyone asks.  Clintonistas might reply that it shows Bill was solidly focused on terrorism but wasn't sure about the intelligence on UBL due to some wishy-washyness at the CIA. Here's a comedic example of how an international news site handled it:

In one file referencing bin Laden, Clinton urgently asked his top national security aide whether the CIA overstated the involvement of the terrorist leader in the August 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

Yes that's it, an 'urgent' Clinton was seeking 'extra' information in his quest for the terror leader. By the way, the indictment was in 1998 as indicated above in this post, not after April 1999 as in the story.  Now here's a biased domestic site:

...

Wait, there's very little coverage in the mainstream press other than a stock AP story.   Which by the way is the one quoted above in the international news site.  The Washington Post ran that stock AP story.  The New York Times, itself mentioned in the release, ran an in-house version of the story that said less than AP.  Did the AP intentionally report the indictment as after the note?   Moving it makes it appear Slick was more engaged or even indicted UBL based on the redacted reply from Berger.  Reality makes him look confused and less engaged.  Josh Gerstein explains as well.   

Aides, if anyone asks, may also argue the note explains his cruise missile flop in 1998, ie, it wasn't wagging the dog, it was the CIA overstating the case--or in other words, he was wondering if he was on the right target or whether someone else was running the terror show.   Those goofballs at CIA!   They could then claim that the response from Berger to Clinton, which nobody in public is allowed to see but they know, but can only summarize in general, was that no, the CIA did not overstate the status of UBL, he was still the top dog.  And Clinton, with his question answered, strapped on his cape and pressed forward in his relentless war against bin Laden, unlike Bush who "ignored" his own August 2001 PDB (heavily covered by the press for some reason) that led to 9/11.  They always have a ready answer that satisfies the baby bird press.

Perhaps more interesting than all the finger pointing and blame shifting is the reminder in the 1999 Times story of anniversaries.  The African embassy bombings of 1998 occurred exactly 8 years to the day after US forces entered Saudi Arabia to begin Operation Desert Shield to protect that country from Saddam's forces in Kuwait.  Add to that, in February 1993 the World Trade Center was bombed on the anniversary of the day celebrated in Kuwait as 'liberation day' (2/26/91) from Saddam's forces, and September 11, 1990 was the day when president George HW Bush first called for a "New World Order" in a speech declaring that Saddam's invasion of Kuwait would not stand.  Even this past week the shoot-down of MH17 occurred on the 18th anniversary of TWA800, although the CIA said there was "not a missile" involved in that one. Terrorists do love their anniversaries.   And yes, this post is too long. Nobody cares anymore. 

On the Ropes

The White House has finally released a picture of Obama in the Situation Room controlling the Benghazi response..

Seriously, the foreign policy resume the administration was likely trying to protect with their tepid response and silly movie meme--that UBL is dead and AQ is on the ropes--is still alive but damaged.  Axelrod probably planned a coordinated attack down the stretch to bolster foreign policy, beginning with Biden at the DNC, expanding to the campaign trail while bolstered by a bin Laden movie by Harvey Weinstein and several killing UBL books by the likes of Peter Bergen and Mark Bowden.  They never figured on Benghazi.

Reading the Bowden book now; he tells the story in a fairly straightforward way while weaving in political and personal narratives about the players.  It's not overly partisan and he certainly didn't begin his story on 9/11 like Bergen (to protect the Clintons) but the book was surely Obama-approved, especially the parts about O refocusing the hunt, then commanding this, ordering this and that, showing off his commander guy skilz.  You all know how it ends. 

Curiously there was one reference that won't get any play except from eccentric weirdos doing blogs like this one.  On page 43 Bowden begins talking about one of the sons of the original Mujaheddin commander-guy Abdullah Azzam, himself assassinated in Afghanistan in 1989 (presumably due to a power struggle between himself, bin Laden and Zawahiri or others unknown).  Bowden apparently interviewed Azzam's son Huthaifa, who told a story about a meeting between Ramzi Yousef, KSM, and Shiekh UBL in 1995 at some kind of terrorist conference in the Sudan:

The younger Azzam was attending a conference in the Sudan in 1995 when he dropped in to see bin Laden. During his visit, he recalls, he met Khalid Sheik Mohammed, who had brought his notorious nephew, Ramzi Yousef, a Sunni extremist who was at that time a fugitive sought by the United States for the first attack on the World Trade Center, two years earlier. Azzam described Yousef as a scrawny man whose bearded face had been scarred in a bomb-making accident. Both he and his uncle would later be characterized in The 9/11 Commission Report as "rootless but experienced operatives."

Yousef would be captured in Pakistan later that year. According to Azzam, the Sheik listened as Yousef outlined a plan to attack targets in the United States again, including the World Trade Center towers, this time by hijacking commercial airliners and flying them into buildings. He wanted al Qaeda to help with recruiting martyrs and raise money for them to travel to the United States for flight training. As Azzam recalls it, the Sheik said, "We have nothing to do with the United States, why should we attack them?"

Emphasis added to show the important stuff.  If this is true....

One, the window for Yousef to attend a conference in the Sudan in 1995 was tiny.  He had been in the Philippines in December 1994 to place a micro-seat bomb on Philippine Airlines flight 434 (a Boeing 747 that barely escaped crashing) and was involved in the chemical mixture explosion with Murad in the Doña Josefa Apartments on January 6, 1995.  He reportedly fled to Pakistan, then flew to Thailand in late January to meet an operative who was to place rigged explosive suitcases on two US flights. The operative chickened out then turned in Yousef, who was captured back in Pakistan on Feburary 7, 1995.

It could have been a conference hosted in November 1994 by Sudanese Islamist leader Hasan al-Turabi, whose claim to fame was holding such conferences to bring all the terror factions of Islam together to fight the west. By the way, here's a Rolling Stone interview with Turabi--and bin Laden--during that same time frame, perhaps the same conference, where the former predicts future events of the Arab Spring:

America is so arrogant, he says. Your government feels it can buy anything it wants.... A bit later, he notes — and correctly so — that a free election in Egypt would install fundamentalist allies of his into power. The United States stands in the way of the truth. Don't you see that?

What a prophet.  The New York Times reported about another Islamic conference in Sudan featuring many terror kingpins but that one was held on April 3, 1995, at which point Yousef was already sitting in a correctional facility in lower Manhattan.

Two, Bowden handles the obvious dichotomy of UBL poo-poo'ing the idea of attacking America in 1995 by saying he was BS'ing for Azzam's benefit, thinking he might be on the payroll of some western intelligence service.  Otherwise such an admission would be extremely odd since the likes of Bergen, Wright, and others have been scribbling for years that bin Laden's America-hating really took root when Saudi Arabia rebuffed his offer to allow muj fighters to take out Saddam in 1991 instead of the US Military. America's lingering presence in the Kingdom was supposedly infuriating to Binny.  A year later he would declare war on the US,  followed by another declaration in 1998.

So Bowden is probably correct--assuming the meeting ever occurred.  And to that should go a heavy dose of skepticism, especially since he didn't include any attributes or even an index in the book.

But let's say it did.  Notice the way Azzam described Yousef's plea for UBL to help finance the movement of men to hatch this planes plot, as if they two were separate entities.  Neither KSM nor Yousef were working for AQ, especially since the meeting was described as their first encounter, which calls into question any narratives about AQ pulling off the first WTC attack.  They clearly didn't, which is why bin Laden was never indicted for it.  

Again, we're left puzzled at why a Baluchi native born in Kuwait would be so mad at the United States--even after we liberated Kuwait from the infidel Saddam--that he would come to New York using an Iraqi passport, with help of another Iraqi, and attempt to knock down the towers and kill 250,000 people two years before ever meeting bin Laden.

Chances are he and uncle KSM were freelancing for the Blind Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman (Yousef was purportedly summoned to New York later in the plot, along with Iraqi Abdul Yasin).  Yes, that would be the same Abdel-Rahman stuffed in jail forever for plotting to do worse damage to New York than did Hurricane Sandy, and whose release was at the center of the Cairo protest riots on 9/11, orchestrated in part by Ayman Zawahiri's brother Mohammed, which the administration blamed for causing Benghazi except they used a movie clip as a foil.

But OK, the extremists are "on the ropes". Well, we can always hope.

Another Mysterious Plant Bombed in Khartoum

Speculation is of course centered on Israel:

"Four planes coming from the east bombed the Yarmouk industrial complex," Belal told a press conference. "They used sophisticated technology … We believe that Israel is behind it."

Israel has alleged that Sudan was making weapons for Hamas.  No word about how Sudan will attack back, perhaps they have some horses and bayonets available. 

Odd coincidence since the US once bombed a facility in Khartoum after accusing Sudan of hosting a pharmaceutical plant allegedly tied to bin Laden that was allegedly making VX nerve gas via the expertise of Iraqi scientists:

In 1998 Human Rights Watch said a coalition of Sudanese opposition groups had alleged that Sudan stored chemical weapons for Iraq at the Yarmouk facility but government officials strenuously denied the charges. In August of that year United States cruise missiles struck the Al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory in North Khartoum, which the US said was linked to chemical weapons production. Evidence for that claim later proved questionable.

That was back when calling Saddam a threat to the world was cool. One of the perpetrators of that attack was Clinton NSA Sandy Socks Berger...

Under-Secretary of State Thomas Pickering claimed to have sufficient evidence against Sudan, including contacts between officials at Al-Shifa plant and Iraqi chemical weapons experts, with the Iraq chemical weapons program the only one identified with using EMPTA for VX production. The National Democratic Alliance (NDA), a Sudanese opposition in Cairo led by Mubarak Al-Mahdi, also insisted that the plant was producing ingredients for chemical weapons.[5]

Former Clinton administration counter terrorism advisor Richard Clarke and former national security advisor Sandy Berger also noted the facilities alleged ties with the former Iraqi government. Clarke also cited Iraq's $199,000 contract with al Shifa for veterinary medicine under the UN's Oil for Food Program. David Kay, a former UN weapons inspector also said that Iraq may have assisted in the construction of the Al-Shifa plant, noting that Sudan would be unlikely to have the technical knowledge to produce VX.[6]

Here's more, from CNN:

But U.S. National Security Advisor Sandy Berger said Sunday that the United States has "physical evidence" that the factory was manufacturing a chemical used to make deadly VX nerve gas. "The evidence, obviously, is highly classified," Berger said on CNN's "Late Edition." "We're not going to release it, but I can say that I have no question and the intelligence community has no questions." The United States claims Osama bin Laden, an exiled Saudi militant, was using the factory for chemical weapons production. Sudanese officials have denied that claim.

What a warmonger, that Bill Clinton!  As far as anyone knows Berger still hasn't backed off the attack rationale.  Actually, according to Timothy Noah, nobody from that team has backed off: 

George Tenet, director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and Sandy Berger, who was national security adviser at the time, "still believe they made the right recommendation." Indeed, the authors of the report say they are not aware of any top Clinton advisers who will concede that the Al-Shifa bombing was a screw-up.

Most were never grilled on it, especially after 9/11.

OK, but...

Thomas Joscelyn points to a US court ruling this past week where a judge ruled that Iran was complicit in helping AQ pull off the African embassy bombings in the late 90s by offering bomb-making assistance through their Hizballah franchise...

Support from Iran and Hezbollah was critical to al Qaeda's execution of the 1998 embassy bombings. See Tr. Vol. II at 181. Prior to its meetings with Iranian officials and agents, al Qaeda did not possess the technical expertise required to carry out the embassy bombings. In the 1990s, al Qaeda received training in Iran and Lebanon on how to destroy large buildings with sophisticated and powerful explosives. Id. at 188; Tr. Vol. III at 314-15. The government of Iran was aware of and authorized this training and assistance.

Fine and dandy--as Joscelyn says, this isn't news. Yossef Bodansky wrote about Hasan al-Turabi's goal to bring together Shia and Sunni Arabs/Persians to fight the west before 9/11.  This little Sudan consortium also included Saddam and Iraq, who sent emissaries to Khartoum around the same time.  In the same year of the embassy bombings president Clinton retaliated by bombing a chemical plant in Khartoum, which was thought to be making VX with help of Iraqi scientists.  And yes, similar suits have been filed against Iraq for their alleged complicity.  But we must never go there, the conventional wisdom cement has dried. 

The timing of this story is certainly interesting based on the happenings with Iran and Syria, but there's seemingly an unanswered question left by the judgment:  the judge concluded that AQ didn't have the knowledge to create massive, shaped charge truck bombs before getting trained by Hizballah/Iran, so if true, where does that leave Ramzi Yousef?

Yousef's Ryder truck bomb in 1993 did massive damage to the innards of the World Trade Center and he was apparently not part of the Turabi group-hug, at one point even setting off a bomb inside Iran against a Shia mosque.  So where did Yousef learn his trade?   And if, as some believe, Murrah bomb planner Terry Nichols got truck bomb-making assistance from AQ during his trips to the Philippines in 1994, who was he talking to, and why couldn't UBL have tapped the same source thereby staying within the Sunni realm?  Besides, wasn't Yousef part of AQ?  Former terror czar Richard Clarke told the 9/11 Commission he was:

But the investigation, both the CIA investigation and the FBI investigation, made it very clear in '95 and '96 as they got more information, that the Iraqi government was in no way involved in the attack. And the fact that one of the 12 people involved in the attack was Iraqi hardly seems to me as evidence that the Iraqi government was involved in the attack. The attack was al-Qaida; not Iraq.

Of course this same guy told the Clinton bigwigs (during the time period of the embassy bombings) that UBL might "boogie to Baghdad" if they missed getting him in Afghanistan so take that Wiki page with the appropriate salt.  In reality it's likely that neither Yousef nor uncle KSM were associated with UBL in the early 90s when they were effectively blowing stuff up, so again, if they weren't associated with the apostate Shias and were "stateless" terrorists as the government contends, where did they get that truck bomb knowledge?  From this guy? 

Not to say the judge was wrong in deciding that AQ couldn't have created the truck bombs without Iran's help, but perhaps the confabs between AQ and Iran/Hizballah (and the Iraqi Mukhabarat) were more of a "we won't attack you and you don't attack us and we'll all attack the west" sort of thing than a bomb-making school.

Takeways from the Hamdan Trial

Not many bombshells so far, other than learning that even drivers for bin Laden know McDonalds fries don't taste good cold. Hey, Saddam liked Doritos, perhaps we should adjust our interrogation methods by withholding fast food. Or would that be called torture, too?

The only thing approaching a serious headline has been the already-known impressions bin Laden had about America (paper tiger). But this is an important point and something even relevant to decision 08.

Andrew McCarthy, the government prosecutor who tried the Blind Sheikh for planning the "Landmarks" plot in New York City in the mid 90s, has a new book called Willful Blindness that deals with exactly what Hamdan reportedly attributed to UBL. But does he remain blind on the blindness? Some think so.

McCarthy wasn't very kind to private researcher/writer Peter Lance and he hasn't been much nicer to another critic, former Clinton Iraq adviser and writer Laurie Mylroie. Her book review sparked the followed retort:

Sometime in 1993 or 1994, a briefing at the Manhattan district attorney’s office was arranged for me and a few other federal prosecutors involved in the World Trade Center bombing cases. The briefer was Mylroie, then (if memory serves) a professor at Harvard, where she’d earned her doctorate in government. She was spouting a theory that the attack had been the work of Saddam Hussein and that we ignoramuses were completely missing the boat by charging Islamic terrorists, notwithstanding the overwhelming evidence that they had carried out the atrocity.

He continues the same snarl throughout the piece but his overall rebuttal isn't nearly as biting.

Mylroie has long been known for asserting that 93 WTC bomber Ramzi Yousef was an Iraqi agent--McCarthy basically thinks she's a nut. She defends:

Indeed, as Judge Mukasey stated, there was "no evidence" any defendant knew Ramzi Yousef, the plot's mastermind, let alone joined him in bombing the building.

Yep, that's the same Mukasey. Anyway, McCarthy actually supports this line of thought by depicting Yousef and several others as mysterious people "called in" from the outside without going into much detail about who they were and why they came (Mylroie essentially claims that was because they were tied to state intelligence apparatuses).

He talks extensively about 93 WTC participant Mohammed Salameh but completely ignores the following:

In June 1992, Salameh's phone bill went through the roof, rising from $128.41 in May to $1,401.00 in June. Indeed, on June 10, Salameh made the first of forty-six calls to Iraq, before his phone service was cut-off on July 9 for non-payment.8 The vast majority of these calls to Iraq were to his maternal uncle, Kadri Abu Bakr. Abu Bakr had been number two in the "Western Sector," a terrorist unit established within the PLO after the 1967 war, when the PLO was based in Jordan. It operated in the area west of the Jordan River. Abu Bakr was arrested by Israeli authorities for terrorism in 1968 and sentenced to twenty years in prison. He was released in 1986 and deported from the West Bank, whence he made his way to Iraq, where he came to work at the PLO office in Baghdad.

Yousef was a known Palestinian sympathizer, as was Saddam. Personally I found these omissions a little puzzling when reading the book as well.

Perhaps McCarthy thinks Mylroie is insinuating he was a dupe for U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White (and ergo, the administration) to allow the Blind Sheikh to be set up as a bogeyman to divert public attention off any state sponsorship, specifically from Sudan. As a political appointee White could hardly go after Sudanese diplomats without coordination from the top. That never happened. Instead, a higher wall went up.

But in supporting his "willful blindness" theory McCarthy didn't shy away from tying the Sudanese government officials to the Landmarks plot, mentioning their former jihadi-loving leader Hassan al-Turabi as perhaps linked to an assassination plot against Egypt's Mubarak. Yet this actually brings Saddam and others into the picture since according to Yossef Bodansky, al-Turabi was working hard in the 90s to bring Arab countries together to give jihad a chance against the west. McCarthy seems of the opinion these jihadies were acting as cliques without much state help, at least without Iraq's help, while admitting Sudan's involvement. Keep in mind Iraq sent Farouk Hijazi to meet bin Laden in Sudan during 1993, where an office in Baghdad was apparently discussed.

We do know that after the Gulf War Saddam reduced his love for Mubarak and we know from the recent Joint Forces report on Iraq that he was dabbling with Zawahiri's Egyptian Islamic Jihad group (all largely ignored by the MSM). These things favor Mylroie's view of state involvement.

It's notable the FBI's agent provocateur inside the Brooklyn Cell, Egyptian Emad Salem, was once affiliated with Egyptian intelligence. Mubarak had previously persecuted Zawahiri and other Islamists. Saddam had issues with Mubarak and was dabbling with terrorists along the Nile. Perhaps an "enemy of my enemy" thing?

We know Bill Clinton sent cruise missiles to Iraq and Sudan during his tenure, the former officially in reaction to the aborted hit on Bush 41 in Kuwait and the latter on a presumed pharmaceutical plant thought to be making VX gas for bin Laden with help from Iraqi scientists (another fact never mentioned by the MSM). Was the Khartoum attack actually more about revenge for the failed Landmarks plot (along with a message to Saddam) than anything else? If so, it didn't work. Hamdan's paper tiger was in full force and the rest is history.

So if the Jihadists took the US military as dressed up foo-foo dogs with bark but no bite, what did the states think? Scooter Libby once opined on that back in 2001, as relayed by Bob Woodward in "Bush at War":

"If we say it's al Qaeda, a state sponsor may feel safe and then hit us thinking they will have a bye because we'll blame it on al Qaeda."

The 9/11 Commission would later call al Qaeda a bunch of "rootless, non-state actors" yet it's indisputable that a state sponsor was involved in the Landmarks plot in 1993, using proxy terrorists, who probably also thought we were toothless. This seems to be lost on McCarthy.

As Mylroie says, had Americans been fully aware of the state involvement in the Landmarks plot they'd have surely demanded a pound of flesh in retribution, forcing Clinton into a war if he had any hope of regaining the White House. Clearly he wanted to spend the "peace dividend" instead, gained only by downsizing the loathsome military--which is hard to do while at war. He didn't know 9/11 would come, though.

The history of diversion actually goes back even further. The FBI characterized Meir Kahane's murderer Sayyid Nossair as a "lone wolf" in 1990 while knowing of his involvement with the Brooklyn Cell. Bush 41 was in office at the time, so it seems Clinton simply took up the baton.

Bottom line, while Mylroie might be an obstinate debater and probably dead wrong about Ramzi Yousef's identity she's unequivocally correct on this:

When it comes to the Shiites, we recognize Iran's role, but we refuse to consider that Sunni extremists might also receive crucial assistance from states.

McCarthy's discomfort in acknowledging the level of involvement from states despite his knowledge of Sudan's involvement gives Mylroie a win by technical knockout regards the book fight. Meanwhile down in the trenches, Bush has been working for years to change America's tiger image, unleashing the military to prove the point, which is something McCain seems eager to continue and preserve. Obama? Well, he's got his team for change in place.