Richard Ben-Veniste: Lying Partisan Hack
Richard Ben-Veniste was on with Wolf Blitzer earlier this evening and he brought up the point that the Clinton Administration had warned the Taliban regime in Afghanistan on “at least three separate occasions” that if Osama bin Laden ever attacked us —you know, again— we would hold them responsible.
So when were these warnings made? Surely one of those occasions came in the aftermath of the October 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya. Madeleine Albright told the Kean Commission that herself. Another time was in December 1999 after the discovery that al-Qaeda-trained terrorists were plotting to bomb sites in Amman, Jordan —and after another al-Qaedist, the Algerian Ahmed Ressam, was busted trying to bring explosives into Washington state from Canada.
So when was the third occasion? Who knows? It may have been years before the East African embassy bombings or the thwarted 1999 plots. In March of 1996, when the Taliban permitted Osama into Afghanistan after his flight from the Sudan, the Clinton Administration did nothing to stop him —even though they already knew that he was a major terrorist leader and financier. And they turned down the Sudanese government when they offered him up? It’s criminal negligence.
When he finally got to Afghanistan, Osama continued with his plots and fatwas against the United States. In September 1996 —a month after Osama had formally declared war on the United States— a State Department official met with a representative of the Taliban in Pakistan, asking him to see to it that Osama bin Laden be made “unwelcome” in Afghanistan. What was the Taliban’s response? That they weren’t sheltering him. Right. He was just a friendly tourist.
Anyway, Ben-Veniste pulled a sleight of hand in his little chat with Blitzer tonight that must be addressed. Ben-Veniste, who has never been anything more than a Democratic partisan hack, revealed that, during the Kean Commission’s interview with President Bush, he asked the President why he hadn’t attacked the Taliban itself in his first eight months in office —”now that it was established” that Osama had been responsible for the attack on the USS Cole. After all, attacking the Taliban in retaliation against Osama was Clinton’s policy —even though the glowering old finger-wagger never enforced it himself.
Well! The Cole was attacked on 12 October 2000. Is this partisan hack actually claiming that Clinton didn’t know who was behind it before he left office? That’s an absolute lie. Of course he knew! Of course his counterterrorism people knew! Here’s two of Clinton’s top people, Dick Clarke talking to Mike Sheehan, right after the attack:
“What’s it gonna take, Dick? Who the shit do they think attacked the Cole, fuckin’ Martians? . . . Does al Qaeda have to attack the Pentagon to get their attention?”
Clinton had more than three months to bomb the Taliban before he left office — justified by years of warnings to that regime that he would hold them responsible for al-Qaeda’s terrorism. Why didn’t he do it?
Ben-Veniste’s excuse, which is his primary work product, was that making the decision to bomb a foreign country when poor old Clinton was so soon to leave office, was just something that needed to be left to his successor. Seriously. That was the gist of Ben-Veniste’s argument. Of course, it was just terrible that Bush didn’t seem to have much interest in pursuing the matter, even though it’s an established fact that the Bush Administration continued to pressure the Taliban into giving up Osama bin Laden, but was continually rebuffed.
Why are the Democrats and Clinton apologists so dishonorable? Clinton had a policy in place to retaliate against the Taliban for many years prior to the attack on the Cole. But Clinton never followed through on his threats. Not even once. And now he and his goons are trying to rewrite —and, in the case of Sandy Berger, steal and destroy— History?
These people are clowns. And Richard Ben-Veniste is a lying partisan hack.
