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Clinton's Legacy: A Vulnerable America
FORGET THE UNITED NATIONS:
AMERICA MUST ACT - AND ACT ALONE
The devastating terrorist attack on America proves that we can't rely on the United Nations or U.N. treaties to protect our national security. The U.N. is, in fact, a major threat to America because it is a sanctuary and platform for America's enemies. The attack makes it imperative that our national sovereignty and security be restored and protected.
The U.S. Government failed to prevent the worst terrorist attack in American and world history. Taxpayers spend $30 billion a year on the intelligence community and yet we were caught unprepared. This Pearl Harbor became a state of siege, in which President Bush himself sought refuge in an underground bunker and avoided the White House because of its potential for being a terrorist target.
Liberals will be arguing for an "international response" to the problem. They will be pressing President Bush to work through the U.N. and enlist the world body in a "global campaign" against terrorism. In this case, however, America alone must mount a major response against Iraq, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Afghanistan, the PLO or any other sponsor of this deadly terrorist attack. Osama Bin Laden, a reported suspect, must not be regarded as a lone actor. He thrives because of Arab-Muslim protection - and not just from Afghanistan.
It is now absolutely clear that Bill Clinton sent thousands of our troops abroad to protect the borders of other nations but didn't protect our own. This was an impeachable offense -- more scandalous than his affair with an intern. Now we are paying the price -- in tremendous loss of life. These terrorists, who may have entered the U.S. through Mexico, had undoubtedly been planning this elaborate and precise attack for many months. Planning began when the Clinton Administration was in power. It is important to note that, after the attack, the U.S. border with Mexico was temporarily closed -- recognition that, in addition to illegal aliens and drug smugglers, terrorists are coming across our southern border.
This attack should be blamed not only on the terrorists themselves and their state sponsors, but also on Bill Clinton and his corrupt administration. Clinton failed to avenge the Khobar Towers bombing, carried out by agents of Iran; he ignored the Iraqi connection to the Oklahoma City bombing; his administration made a deal through the United Nations with Libyan terrorist leader Moammar Gadhafi; and his administration covered-up evidence that a missile brought down TWA 800. In retaliation for the U.S. embassy bombings in Africa, blamed on Bin Laden, Clinton ordered a completely ineffective missile strike on a few tents in Afghanistan and an aspirin factory in Sudan. The deadly attack on the USS Cole also occurred under Clinton. It, too, was linked to Iraq.
Millions of taxpayer dollars were spent on a so-called National Commission on Terrorism, a bipartisan group which officially released its report on June 5, 2000. The chairman was Paul Bremer of Kissinger Associates, who appeared before Congress and on TV programs such as Meet the Press. The commission wanted more taxpayer dollars spent on terrorism, and it said that the CIA and the FBI needed more power.
The media controversy was that giving the government more power would provoke the opposition of civil libertarians. This is a legitimate concern. But the real story was why the commission failed to subject the Clinton Administration's policy on terrorism to serious scrutiny. It's true that the commission was critical of the Administration's handling of Iran and Libya, but it failed to explain why a policy of appeasement was being implemented toward Libya in particular. This is a matter that our group, America's Survival, Inc. tackled head on when we exposed the United Nations role in brokering a deal with the terrorists who run Libya.
The Bremer report suggested that the Pan Am 103 terrorism trial, set in motion by Clinton and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, was a sham. The 1988 bombing of this American airliner killed 270 people, including 189 Americans. Two Libyans went on trial for the crime and one was eventually convicted. The report said that "prosecuting and punishing two-level operatives for an act almost certainly directed by [Libyan dictator Moammar] Gadhafi is a hollow victory, particularly if the trial results in his implicit exoneration." However, the report failed to explain that a deal was brokered by the U.N. to let Gadhafi off the hook for the bombing if he turned over those two low-level operatives. America's Survival exposed this dirty deal.
Ed Badolato, executive director of the International Association of Counterterrorism and Security Professionals, told a Capitol Hill luncheon that the pro-Libya policy was being driven by oil companies desperate to get back into Libya and make oil deals with Gadhafi. The commission didn't talk about this, and the media didn't ask why.
Another issue ignored by the commission and the media is why the Clinton Administration failed to pursue a foreign connection to the Oklahoma City bombing. Convicted bomber Terry Nichols had connections to the Philippines, where Muslim terrorists are very active. Middle East analyst Laurie Mylroie believes the government of Iraq was behind the Oklahoma City bombing, as well as the first terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in 1993. Stephen Jones, lawyer for the other convicted bomber, Timothy McVeigh, also believes Iraq was behind the plot.
Still another matter is what caused the explosion that brought down TWA 800. More than 200 eyewitnesses saw a missile hit the plane. Was this because of terrorists? The Clinton Administration wanted the public to believe that a mysterious fuel tank explosion caused the crash. America's Survival sponsored a 1999 conference showing how Clinton used executive orders to manipulate the investigation of TWA 800 and cover-up the truth about what happened to that aircraft.
Terrorism is a serious issue, but it hasn't been handled seriously. In the aftermath of the attack on the USS Cole, the CBS program 60 Minutes aired an interview with Clinton's "terrorism czar" Richard Clarke, who was responsible for counter-terrorism at the National Security Council. He said the U.S. was trying to determine who staged that attack, and he suggested it may have been committed by Osama bin Laden. He also warned that terrorists have infiltrated the U.S. and that it was just a matter of time before American territory was the site of a nuclear, biological or chemical attack. He took correspondent Lesley Stahl on a visit to one of eight secret pharmaceutical stockpiles the U.S. maintains in case of a terrorist attack.
If this was true, it was because Clinton had allowed such a situation to develop.
The presidential commission on terrorism said that 4 million persons reside illegally in this country and that "Almost half of them entered the country without inspection, meaning they crossed U.S. borders between inspection stations or entered by small boat or aircraft." The report said that only a "miniscule portion of all foreigners in the United States attempt to harm the country in any way," but it didn't explain how many this was. Could it be several hundred or several thousand?
At the same time that Richard Clarke was on 60 Minutes warning of terrorists on American soil, his Administration was trying to get Congress to pass another amnesty for illegal aliens. The last amnesty in 1986 increased illegal immigration in the years that followed. So while Clarke was suggesting that U.S. borders are too porous, his administration was encouraging more illegal immigration.
In his book, Sellout, on the Clinton impeachment, David Schippers examines how the Clinton Administration opened the country to criminals and potential terrorists. He examined the 1996 "Citizenship USA" program to grant citizenship to thousands of aliens the Administration thought would vote Democratic. Under the law, only qualified immigrants with no significant criminal history may be admitted. But Schippers found more than 75,000 new citizens had arrest records when they applied for citizenship. Another 176,000 citizens did not have their fingerprints checked for criminal records.
The momentum in favor of terminating the Clinton presidency was temporarily halted when dramatic cruise missile strikes against installations said to be linked to terrorists responsible for bombing U.S. embassies in Africa were suddenly carried out. The national debate immediately changed from getting rid of the president to going after terrorists. Yet the strikes appear to have been aimed at the wrong targets, ignoring state sponsors of terrorism such as Iran, Iraq and Libya. What's more, they were ineffective in Afghanistan and Sudan.
At first, some senators questioned the timing of the attacks, and some reporters openly wondered whether we weren't witnessing a "Wag the Dog" phenomenon, the name of a movie about an administration which diverts attention from a presidential sex scandal by concocting a phony conflict abroad. But the Clinton administration carried the day, creating the appearance that Clinton was acting presidential again and rallying support behind him under the banner "America Strikes Back."
Little was accomplished. What Secretary of Defense William Cohen called a "terrorist university" in Afghanistan and what Clinton called "one of the most active terrorist bases in the world" was exposed as a primitive facility comprised of tents, boot camps, obstacle courses and a few buildings that could be easily replaced, and the so-called chemical weapons plant in Sudan appeared to be nothing but a pharmaceutical factory.
In the wake of those U.S. military strikes on facilities allegedly linked to Osama bin Laden, Rowan Scarborough of the Washington Times was one of the few journalists drawing attention to the reluctance of the Clinton Administration to avenge the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia. Scarborough noted that bin Laden was suspected of bankrolling this terrorist incident, which left 19 American servicemen dead and scores injured, and which was reportedly carried out with Iranian government support.
The evidence connecting Iran to this terrorist incident was the subject of a report by John McWethy of ABC World News Tonight, who cited overwhelming evidence of Iranian involvement in the Khobar attack. He said the evidence included U.S. intercepts of Iranian communications and admissions of Iranian involvement by the bombers themselves. McWethy said the bombers were recruited by Iran during a trip to an Islamic meeting in Syria, took religious training in Iran, and terrorist training in Lebanon.
Journalist Kenneth R. Timmerman not only noted evidence of an Iranian link to the Khobar Towers bombing but suggested an Iranian link to the destruction of TWA Flight 800. He reported, "On three separate occasions before TWA flight 800 went down off the Long Island coast in July 1996, the FBI and the Federal Aviation Administration received explicit warnings that Iran was planning an attack against a U.S. airliner 'originating in Athens, Greece.' TWA 800 arrived in New York from Athens, before being refueled for its fight to Paris on July 17. Timmerman went on to note that U.S. Navy Commander William Donaldson had issued a report on the TWA crash pointing to a foreign terrorist attack. Donaldson spoke at our 1999 conference on this matter.
Instead, of course, the so-called "independent" or renegade terrorist, Osama bin Laden, was blamed by the Clinton Administration for the attacks. This was convenient for an administration that tried to avoid confronting state sponsors of terrorism, including Iran, Iraq and Libya.
While the satellite photographs of the alleged terrorist facilities in Afghanistan seemed impressive, similar photographs exist of more such camps in Iran. In fact, the August 2, 1996 USA Today identified a network of 11 different terrorist-training facilities in Iran, citing classified U.S. intelligence documents. Yet no U.S. action was ever been taken by Clinton against the Iranian camps.
President Bush will be given the "appearance" of bipartisan support as he orders a response to the terrorist attack on America. At the same time, liberals such as Senator Joe Biden will be arguing for an "international response" from the "international community" on the "global problem" of terrorism. Nonsense. America is their target. America is their enemy. America must strike back.
This is a special report prepared and distributed by America's Survival, Inc.
Cliff Kincaid, President
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