“I really am convinced we’re in danger of the sort of terrorist attacks that will make the bombing of the Trade Center look like kids playing with firecrackers... No sensible analyst rejects this possibility, and plenty of them, like me, are not wondering if but when it will happen... One day we’re told that a shadowy figure with no fixed address named Osama bin-Laden is public enemy number one, and U.S. jetfighters lay waste to his camp in Afghanistan... He escapes back under some rock, and a few news cycles later it’s on to a new enemy and new crisis.... I may be making waves, but that’s all right.... Making waves is usually what you need to do to rock the boat, and our national-security boat definitely needs rocking. Let’s point fingers. The biggest threat to our security is ourselves, because we’ve become arrogant. Dangerously arrogant. It’s time for a realistic view of the world and our place in it. Do we truly understand the threats we face? And let me give a warning: You won’t hear a lot of what follows from candidates in this campaign, because what I’ve got to say is definitely not happy talk. There are forces to be worried about, people and programs to take action against. Now.... We face a different problem when we talk about the individual fanatics who want to harm us... We can kid ourselves all we want by mocking their references to the Great Satan, but also keep in mind that there is no greater destiny for many people than to deal the Great Satan a major kick in the teeth... Our teenage boys fantasize about Cindy Crawford; young terrorists fantasize about turning an American city (and themselves) into charcoal... Yet it’s time to get down to the hard business of preparing for what I believe is the real possibility that somewhere, sometime, a weapon of mass destruction will be carried into a major American city and detonated.... Whatever their motives — fanaticism, revenge — suffice it to say that plenty of people would stand in line for a crack at a suicide mission within America... In fact the number of potential attackers grows every day. Our various military adventures — some of which are justified, some not — create new legions of people who would like to avenge the deaths of family members or fellow citizens.... It is one cost of peacekeeping we should keep in mind. I am not a hard-core isolationist. While I agree that we stick our noses into too many problems not of our making and that we can’t do much about, I strongly disagree with the idea that we can pull up the drawbridge to hide from rogue nations or individual fanatics.”This material puts a foundation under Trump's recent criticism of George W. Bush.
October 20, 2015
"Over A Year Before 9/11, Trump Wrote Of Terror Threat With Remarkable Clarity."
Andrew Kaczynski (at Buzzfeed) is reading from Trump's 2000 book "The America We Deserve." This is all Trump, writing in 2000:
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26 comments:
Trump should be the Republican nominee. No doubt about it.
Cindy Crawford was 1990. Britney Spears would have been more topical
I'm starting to change my mind
Trump spotted the Bish Dynasty "happy talk" for what it is...mush. The Donald is the Bush antidote. He knows brains count, and Bush grade pols are short in that department.
While this certainly shows Trump was concerned about a major terrorist attack, he did not predict the type of attack, and there is no reason to assume that any efforts he took to prevent a WMD attack would have caught the type of attack that did happen.
This works better as a criticism of the Clinton administration ( no surprise, since that was the administration that existed at the time this was written. )
I'm assured by my intellectual better that we have nothing to worry about. That everyone in the middle east deserves their fate.
That , we instead, should put all our blood and treasure into voting ourselves more free stuff.
If only we do that.
Vote ourselves more free stuff.
The world will like us again.
I have the assurance of some very brilliant minds on this.
betters
What this shows is that a thinking leader can analyze the facts and predict the enemy's moves and create an alertness from the top down...if he cares. The Generals around General Patton would ridicule his abilities as all bombastic show not to be taken seriously. All that showed was how little historical study and analysis they were capable of themselves.
The Germans understood that Patton was the only American General they feared. Because he always figured them out and beat them to the punch.
Yes! Saw this article yesterday and Trump gets luckier and luckier.
Trump said it would have been better if Sadaam was still in power. He doesn't get that such dictators are the natural allies of terrorist groups and often give them funding and weapons. And that was one of the true fears of Iraq being contained. The threat that, because Al Qaeda wanted WMD's and because Sadaam wanted to hide/move his so he could be shown to not have them and thus get containment lifted. Plus, he could strike at the US through terrorism without having his fingerprint on it.
So, Trump saying its better to keep the dicators in power undermines the very argument. Was it better to keep the Taliban in power? The Taliban hosted Al Qaeda? Is it better to keep IRan in power? Iran funds Hezbollah and Hamas.
I certainly agree that closing the border, would be helpful. But he goes for the easy answer every time. He is quick to place the blame but reluctant to view his own policy ideas with any degree of depth.
"Yet it’s time to get down to the hard business of preparing for what I believe is the real possibility that somewhere, sometime, a weapon of mass destruction will be carried into a major American city and detonated"
And who was the country we were containing because of WMD's who was not containing? Where did Trump think they'd get the WMD's? The AQ Khan network, but also IRAQ.
Trump needs to realize that you can't just lob a few bombs, you can't just close the border. You have to dismantle the organization. and sometimes even the regimes that back them. TI requires war and actual nation building after the war.
It simply does.
Only Bush was willing to treat it like the war it is. And if you are going to fight a war you better be prepared for a long slog. They, by the way are willing to fight the war. We, sadly, are not.
"Our various military adventures — some of which are justified, some not — create new legions of people who would like to avenge the deaths of family members or fellow citizens.... It is one cost of peacekeeping we should keep in mind. I am not a hard-core isolationist. While I agree that we stick our noses into too many problems not of our making and that we can’t do much about, I strongly disagree with the idea that we can pull up the drawbridge to hide from rogue nations or individual fanatics.”
aL Qaeda was preparing to strike us long before Bush took office. One of the reasons for the Fatwah was us containing Iraq. We sent troops into Saudi Arabia when we repelled Sadaam's forces and OBL had a big problem with that. So, before Bush ever set foot in office, they were determined to attack us. They are determined to attack us because we support Israel. There is therefore a whole laundry list and history behind why they would want to attack us.
And suppose we didn't contain Iraq. Because that was the alternative. Trump is supposedly worried that terrorists might use WMD's. But there is no doubt that, left to his own devices, Sadaam would procure more and more. When Syria uses chemical weapons, we put down a red line, naturally, because if we dont' we get more chemical weapons used in war. But now we've conceded the point. If our putting our heads in the sand leads to a nuclear arms race and chemical arms race in the middle east its not exactly going to be neutral for us. Because we have open travel around the world. What happens in one place bleeds out into another place.
For example, the refugee crisis that's hitting Europe.
Yea well, woo-fucking-pee. George Bush isn't running for president.
TO paraphrase Glenn Reynolds: NOTICE THAT THE WORLD IS ON FIRE, EUROPE IS FLOODED WITH INVADING MIGRANTS, WE’VE LOST IN IRAQ, LIBYA, SYRIA, AND ARE LOSING IN AFGHANISTAN, and Althouse is talking about George W. Bush and September 11.
"TO paraphrase Glenn Reynolds: NOTICE THAT THE WORLD IS ON FIRE, EUROPE IS FLOODED WITH INVADING MIGRANTS, WE’VE LOST IN IRAQ, LIBYA, SYRIA, AND ARE LOSING IN AFGHANISTAN, and Althouse is talking about George W. Bush and September 11."
Well, that's because Trump essentially engaged in soft trutherism to blame Bush. If he's going to do it, why do you think the dems who agree with him wouldn't chime in?
Thanks, then Trump, for making this be a referendum about Bush, and not Obama.
well there were reasons why things happened the way they did,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A58615-2004Jul17.html
And you don't approve of Trump, yet you post this information.
Which puts a foundation under your reputation for searching for truth and real meaning.
Or maybe I'm wrong in assuming that you don't like Trump. I don't like him in a rather deep way. Reading this post batters away at some of my instinctive desire to think the worst of him, which I have been trying to deal with.
Businessmen have to think about adverse possibilities as well as beneficial possibilities. Trump has historically shown a pretty good instinct for seeing and moving quickly to preserve himself from bad situations early in their development. Generally, he acts and dumps the bill on someone else as far as possible.
He was entirely right about the arrogance.
Although I don't like Trump and never will, I do concede that he cares about the country and its people.
Its not as if W. Bush called out for relaxed airport scrutiny of Muslims 11 months before 9/11...oh, wait.
"Although I don't like Trump and never will, I do concede that he cares about the country and its people."
His love for this country and its people, and his concern for the next generation, is authentic.
And while a Cruz or Carson may be my preferred candidate, there is not a chance they can beat the D machine. Trump can get enough of the crossover vote to win, ergo our Country wins and the march towards authoritarianism and socialism is stemmed.
(And I despise this GOP, starting with Reince. My ideal would be a third party ticket of Rice/Trump.)
Sounds like an apprentice!
What I like about Trump is his ability to manage big projects, make right decisions, and actually do good. He's got a compass, he knows his own mind, he's very organized, forward thinking. His personal style is the least interesting aspect of him for me. He's blunt but doesn't appear to have hidden agendas and vendettas and at least he's entertaining. What you see is what you get.
Jeb has stepped in it also, as he wrote in his book essentially the same criticism Trump voiced recently that Jeb took issue with. Trump has outplayed Jeb something serious.
What is noticeably absent and not requiring of a lot clairvoyance at the time was Bill Clinton's abdication of responsibility. The 93 WTC bombing, the 1996 Khobar Towers, the 1998 Embassy bombings, the aborted hijacking plots and USS Cole attack among other things. Bush was CiC on 9/11 but the government he presided over on that date was Clinton's. If Bush deserves blame for 9/11 more so does Clinton. Clinton had the opportunity to kill Bin laden and blew it. Yet Bush is the bad guy but not Clinton who had eight years to deal with the incipient disaster. Obama snatched defeat out of the jaws of victory in Iraq and Afghanistan and could have kept Iran curbed and Libya tranquil but he went ahead and effed it all up and the ground work was done Madam Secretary Clinton.
Trump is running against the Clinton, Bush, and Obama foreign policies. Isn't that the perfect message? And he positioned himself to do it in 2000!
I'd be more impressed if Donny had given us a hint of what he would do to prepare to meet such threats. He didn't because he didn't have a clue. I'd be more impressed if today, right now, he would tell us what he would do as president to prepare and meet the threat of some terrorist group setting off WMD in an American city. Does he think the US government should troll the internets for data that can be pieced together to point to terrorists (what used to be called "connecting the dots")? Or would he dismantle the Patriot Act?
Personally, I wouldn't trust Donny with a garden shear in his hands, let alone the code to the US nuclear arsenal. Comparing him to Patton is amusing at best. Patton combined great will with great strategic understanding. Donny has the petulance down pat but not the rest of it.
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