Dammit...Donald Trump is right again!!
By Thom Hartmann A...
It pains me every time I have to say it, but Donald Trump is right.When he called for a 35% tariff on imported goods, he was right, when he said that every other Republican candidate was owned by a billionaire or a bank, he was right, and now, dammit, now we’re going to have to say that he's right about George W. Bush and 9/11.
During an interview last week on Bloomberg TV night, Trump, who’s still the 2016 Republican frontrunner, did something that’s pretty much unforgivable in Republican circles.
He blamed former George W. Bush for failing to stop 9/11.
The Republican reaction to these comments has been swift and predictable.
Jeb Bush, who apparently thinks defending his brother will win him the White House, said Trump's comments were “pathetic.” Ben Carson called them “ridiculous.” Congressman Peter King, meanwhile, said they “sound[ed] like a Michael Moore talking point.”
But here’s the thing: Donald Trump is right. George W. Bush didn’t do enough to stop 9/11.
It’s not like this is some “truther” conspiracy theory, either.
It’s well-documented fact.
As Peter Beinart points out over at The Atlantic, the George W. Bush administration was warned time and time again that Bin Laden was trying to attack American and, inexplicably, did nothing to stop him.
Over the first 9 months of 2001, the CIA sent the Bush administration no fewer than 36 different warnings about a potential Al-Qaeda attack on American soil.
The most explicit of these was a Presidential Daily intelligence Briefing, or PDB, that came on August 6, 2001 - one month before 9/11.
The CIA told Bush in very plain language that Bin Laden was ready to strike in the US and “follow the example of World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef and ‘bring the fighting to America.’"
Former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice was later asked about this very PDB at a hearing of the 9/11 Commission. Her answer was as shocking as it was damning.
So what exactly was the Bush administration doing while the CIA warned it that Osama Bin Laden, the world’s number one terrorist, was planning to attack us here in America?
Bush did nothing, nothing at all.
President Bush spent all of August, 2001 pretending to be a cowboy at his ranch in Texas, and it wasn’t until September 4, 2001- one week before 9/11 - that the White House finally approved the CIA’s counterterrorism plan.
And even then Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld apparently spent most of the time arguing that Iraq - not Al-Qaeda - was the biggest threat to America.
But go ahead, Jeb. Keep telling us how your brother “kept us safe.”
George W. Bush’s total failure to stop 9/11 should be common knowledge, but thanks to the right-wing’s capture of our political discourse, it’s gone down the memory hole.
And so now people are freaking out about Donald Trump saying something that’s so factual it shouldn’t be controversial at all: that the towers came down on George W. Bush’s watch and that he could have done more to stop the worst terrorist attack in American history.
The irony, of course, is that these Republicans who are furious at Trump for speaking the truth about 9/11 and are the same Republicans who’ve spent the past three years exploiting another national tragedy - the Benghazi attacks - to sabotage Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.
If the media had spent even half as much time talking about Bush’s failure to stop 9/11 as it has boosting the Republicans’ Benghazi smears, then this country would be a very different place.
Who knows, we might never even have invaded Iraq.
But that’s all hypothetical - we’ll never really know how different things would have been if the media did its job and held Bush accountable for 9/11.
That being said, the American people still deserve an honest conversation about what went wrong that awful day and what the Bush administration could - and should - have done to stop it.
So whatever you think about Donald Trump, I'm thankful that he has the media talking about something it should have been talking about a long, long time ago.
Comments
#2
Bush didn't do enough to STOP the 9/11 attacks?!? He was an active participant!!! He didn't just let it happen, he helped it along, as did other government officials.
Over the last 14 years there has been so much evidence uncovered that we were lied to about the events before, during and after the attacks.
For those who want to learn more, google "Loose Change", then follow the trails.
The events of 9/11, as told by the government, we're a BIG FAT LIE! And it's time WE THE PEOPLE stopped ignoring this ballroom-sized elephant.
#3
Bush's administration didn't do nothing. They allowed this false flag event to occur to cement support for the Patriot Act. The steel could not have melted like it did without nitrites positioned strategically, survivors in the basement heard deafening explosions before the collapse and the steel was scooped up & shipped to Scandinavia for melting as soon as humanly possible. Also there was steel photographed which had been blown outward; that can't be from a collapse.
#4
I remember hearing the news in July 2001 with my own ears and the story read: SAUDI NATIONALS LEARNING TO FLY JET PLANES IN A FLORIDA FLYING SCHOOL, AND NOT INTERESTED IN LEARNING TO LAND!!! I wish more people would be aware of this fact, it is just so incriminating for the Bush presidency!!!
#5
"ballroom-sized elephant"
agreed.
"It's not like this is some "truther" conspiracy theory."
Love your work, Thom, but...
Since when is being a "truther" about anything a bad thing? (and, some say that the term "conspiracy theory" was coined by the CIA to marginalize and ridicule those who were reluctant to accept the official JFK assassination narrative.
#6
Trump was 100% right. Chimp was entirely complicit in the 9/11 screwup. He had loads of actionable intelligence on the plot, but refused to do anything about it. Trump should have gone much further in his statements and Jeb Bush is an idiot & a blowhard for claiming "nobody believes my brother was responsible". Yep, Bush many people not only believe but bloody well know your brother was responsible. Interesting how Chimp was another Skull & Bones recruit who had to masturbate in a coffin in front of his father as part of his initiation into the secretive cult of plutocracy candidates at Yale.
George W. Bush, The Skull & Bones and the New World Order:
http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopolitica/esp_sociopol_skullbones0...
Abby Martin, Big Brother Watching You Naked, Secret Societies, Hope For Cuban 5, & Police Sate Round Up:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyqXNV-yzKw&feature=em-subs_digest-vrecs
America Betrayed: Bush Administration And FBI Complicity In
The 911 Terror Attacks On America:
http://www.rense.com/general25/fb.htm
"...The FBI, CIA, and Bush administration, not only had advanced and detailed information and then did nothing to prevent the 9/11 assault and murder of 3000 Americans, they tried to cover it up and then lied about it..."
"...Other top officials in the FBI, CIA, and Bush administration, including President George W. Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney, echoed these claims of ignorance. Bush and Cheney were lying. They had received detailed briefings in August 2001..."
"...In the months, weeks, and days before 9/11, top officials in the FBI, CIA, and in the Bush administration knew with 100% certainty that over a dozen men with links to Osama bin Laden and his organization were in the United States and attending U.S. flight schools. And government and Bush administration officials knew that these men were being trained to hijack commercial jetliners in order to use them as guided missiles that would be fired at major U.S. cities including New York and Washington. And, by August 2001, they knew with 100% certainty that a horrific attack would soon take place and that the primary targets would be the Pentagon and the World Trade Center..."
"..."Everybody knew about a heightened alert, and knew that bin Laden was preparing a big attack," admitted an administration official on conditions of anonymity. In fact, George W. Bush and other security officials had received a memorandum in August which explicitly stated that bin Laden and al-Qaeda were about to launch an attack. Bush responded to this threat by leaving Washington and returning to his ranch in Texas where he hid out for the next four weeks. Bush repeated this performance on 9/11, abandoning Washington for Florida prior to the attack,..."
"...When informed that the warrant request had been altered and then denied, FBI agents in the Minneapolis field office were shocked and outraged as they were convinced an attack was about to take place and that Moussaoui was the key to preventing it. In fact, given the widespread knowledge that the U.S. was about to be attacked and that commercial jets would be employed, the roadblocks erected by FBI headquarters seem incredibly suspicious to these agents. Some of the Minneapolis field agents even began to suggest that top FBI officials were acting as "accomplices" to al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden..."
And furthermore the criminal & Bankster crony, George "Chimp" Bush, ordered the coverup of major Saudi involvement in the 9/11 attacks. And information on that remains redacted to this day.
#7
I can't add much to the above comments but want to thank Thom for getting this conversation going. There are many of us who believe that 9/11 was the New Pearl Harbor the neocons were waiting for and that is why it was allowed to happen, etc. This is the least contraversal remark I could make. Thanks again.
#8
George W. was too busy entertaining Saudi Royalty at his Crawford Ranch to worry about what their assassins were doing on the East Coast ! Then he tried to blame it all on Saddam Hussein who had no connection with 9/11, in fact he had actually worked with the Reagan Administration to mount attacks on Iran, the same Iran that the Republicans have been attacking since the 1979 revolution that ended the regime of their brutal dictator the Shah ! The same Iran where the John Foster Dulles led CIA arranged an overthrow of Iran's Democratically elected leader Dr. Mohammad Mossadeq, replacing him with a U.S. backed brutal dictator known as the Shah, as they grabbed Iran's state owned oil company and handed it over to British Petroleum in 1953 ! Sixty two years is a long time for the GOP to hold a grudge but, like a dog with a bone, you can't accuse them of not being doggedly single minded !
#9
Here is the petition to try George W. Bush for murder and the conspiracy to commit murder. The argument was formed by renowned prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi and the petition is to be delivered to the NY Attorney General:
https://www.change.org/p/new-york-state-attorney-general-eric-t-schneide...
#10
Donald Trump is a washington outsider. He never got or listened to the message that there are some things you don't say or talk about as a republican. Weather you like Trump or not you have to admit when you hear him telling the truth and in this case he is telling the truth. Trump is not the republican party's man. Trump is his own man and although I admire that about him I still wouldn't vote for him.
#11
My b-i-l was frequently questioned on his airplane flights before 9-ll (he had a beard).
Why does Hillary have a Saudi assistant?
#12
Mellow guy, if you mean Huma Abedin, first of all she's American, born in Kalamazoo. Second, her heritage is Indian and Pakistani, which 70 years ago would have just been Indian.
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