Can we blame 9-11 on Bill Clinton?

Question

Clinton began his Presidency with the first WTC bombings in '93. He was "commander and chief" during the numerous terrorist acts from Al Qaeda and didn't do much. He watched as Al Qaeda grew from a small organization into an international organization. Can we blame him and his inaction for 9-11?

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/knew/etc/cron.html

Answer 1

In a word, yes. Radical Islamic Terrorists have a proven track record of being encouraged when their targets do not retaliate. Due to his lack of action, it encouraged them to strengthen their resolve and come back en force.

Answer 2

You do realize that the facts are against you on every one of your points. Clinton inherited an economy that was in a shambles thanks to Reagan and Bush. If you aren't old enough to remember, the failing economy was the major reason Clinton defeated Bush. Clinton then helped not only turn the economy around, but presided over the longest economic expansion in our history, with an unprecedented period of both low unemployment and low inflation. There is no way at all anyone can say that Bush's deficit is Clinton's fault. Bush's deficit is due to the spending policies of the administration and the Republican congress that was in power for the first six years GWB was in office. As to 9/11, the record shows that Clinton did quite a bit to combat terrorism. Certainly more than Bush before 9/11, as he did not consider it a priority. So, the reason Bush is blamed for these things rather than Clinton is because they are clearly not Clinton's fault, as anyone can see. However, I do not blame Bush for 9/11. I doubt it could have been avoided even if he had cared, thanks to the juvenile provincialism that prevailed in our intelligence agencies.

Answer 3

No. I love the part suggesting that Clinton was responsible for the 1993 bombing. It was a month after he took office. Republicans like to play the "no attacks on American soil in 5 years" game. If you point out that there were no attacks after the 1993 bombing under Clinton, a period of nearly 8 years, they change the rules to throw in embassy bombings in Africa and the Cole. Well we've had attacks on our embassy in Greece, our embassy in Syria. The attacks on our troops are by definition terrorist attacks.

Am I saying that Clinton didn't make mistakes or miss opportunities? No. I wish the right would stop pretending that Bush hasn't made any mistakes or missed any opportunities.

Answer 4

Have you bothered to read the 9-11 report? They said that the Clinton Administration made many mistakes in regards to 9-11 but they also put the bulk of the blame on the Bush Administration and on Condi Rice.



To me it seems everybody screwed up, But to continue this partisan blame game is to forget that the ultimate responsibility for 9-11 is on Osman Bin Linden and El Quida

Answer 5

Read the 9-11 Commission Report. I am no fan of Clinton but reading about actions taken, planned and such, he was doing all he could do politically and diplomatically. The critics of it are blinded by events that happened later. If Clinton had a clean shot at him in 1998 or so, Osama would have been killed then. some of Clinton's people wanted him to stand trial, but I think slick Willie would have had him killed.

Answer 6

It is Bush's fualt. This is what Bush did:



Backed off Clinton administration's anti-terrorism efforts.

Shelved the Hart-Rudman report.



Appointed new anti-terrorism task force under Dick Cheney. Group did not even meet before 9/11.



Called for cuts in anti-terrorism efforts by the Department of Defense.



Gave no priority to anti-terrorism efforts by Justice Department.



Ignored warnings from Sandy Berger, Louis Freeh, George Tennant, Paul Bremer, and Richard Clarke about the urgency of terrorist threats.



Halted Predator drone tracking of Osama bin Laden.



Did nothing in wake of August 6 C.I.A. report to president saying Al Qaeda attack by hijack of an airliner almost certain.



Bush - knowing about the terrorists' plans to attack in America, warned that terrorists were in flight schools in the US - took a four week vacation.



Bush WAS the commander in Chief at the time of 9-11!!

Answer 7

why does everyone want to blame somebody other than the ones who did it? sometimes an enemy comes up with a surprise plan that works. afterall only half the planes they planned on taking actual hit a target. we live (or we used to) in a free society, that means that kind of thing may happen. I'll trade living free with the remote chance of being killed in a terrorist attack then trying to blame the current of past presidents. Let's move on; fear is the weapon of the terrorist

Answer 8

Clinton began his Presidency with the first WTC bombings in '93 -- in fact the bombing happened only TWO MONTHS into his presidency -- So was the 93 bombing Bush 1's fault?

Answer 9

I honestly don'r think you caould blame that event on someone, or atleast not on one specific person. These are people that are extremest. People that in all actuality don't care about anyone, not even themselves. Bill Clinton did have his faults just like every other president. I do believe that he did leaave a lot of things undone for the next president to end up having it fall on his lap for him to deal with.



I think that something possibly could have been done to possibly avoid this tragedy to have happend.

Answer 10

no. what's the point of blaming someone? i could say Bush ignored a memo called "Bin Laden determined to strike U.S." but what's the point? we should leave counter terrorism operations to the experts. i'm sure we could find out what the FBI and CIA was doing about al qaeda under Clinton and Bush, but why blame 1 man for 9-11, unless it is bin Laden. the 9-11 commission reported that the blame lies with our inability to imagine an attack like that one.

Answer 11

There's plenty of blame to go around but blame isn't going to get us anywhere. We can go all the way back to when Jimmy Earl Carter jerked all the support out from under the Shah of Iran and insisted that the Ayatollah be allowed to come back from France because he though Iran would be so much better under the rule of a religious man than under the guy who was keeping the peace.



The thing is, what are we going to do about it now?

Answer 12

Well if you look at who were the major heads of departments when 9-11 occurred, then you will see that many of them were still Clinton appointees. George Tenet comes to mind first off.



The better question should be was 9-11 a government conspiracy conceived by Clinton supporters that was supposed to happen under Clinton for his legacy?



For all those who believe that 9-11 was done by the government, then the best possible suggestion would be that it was in fact carried out by Clinton supporters still in office after the election. That makes as much logical sense as your initial premise.

Answer 13

No, the events of 9-11 are solely to be blamed on the terrorists.



However, one could say that Bill Clinton certainly did not do enough in reaction to the repeated terrorist attacks on the US.

Answer 14

No, because even if he had done something what is to say that what is happening now (increase in terrorist activity, recruiting, ...) would not have just started then?



That is the main problem with fight terrorists, it provides creditability to the idea that they are martyrs and can gain support.



I do not support terrorism, it is a serious problem and too often is the only way that the world seems to want to try and get anything done

Answer 15

Yeah he only bombed them and destroyed many of their training camps, but he did nothing. Unlike what Bush and his great appointee Rice did when they were warned time and time again of an upcoming attack almost to the detail and did nothing about it. Well Bush couldn't do much because he was on vacation.

Answer 16

No.

In the attack of '93 the terrorists were captured and jailed. President Clinton kept us safe ever since.



In the '01 attack. Bush had all of Binladen's family flown out of the county before that could be questioned, never really went after Osama, and attacked Iraq, even thought the '01 attackers were from Saudi Arabia.

Answer 17

Instead of looking for who to blame...look for who choreographed the actions of that day. Al Qaeda. It never hurts to blame Clinton because we all know what he didn't do in his tenure ;)

Answer 18

No, we should blame the terrorist. We can criticise Clinton but the truth is no one expected the type of attack they did.

Answer 19

And the reason for your concern is,,,what? People have a tendency to point their finger eagerly not realizing that there are three pointing back at the accuser's inadequacies.

Answer 20

The old blame Clinton game is still going strong!

Read my Print.........."NO you can't blame Clinton!"

Answer 21

No. Bill Clinton can only be blamed for having a budget surplus when he left office. -RKO- 06/11/07

Answer 22

I blame Bin Laden. Odd how you don't seem to want to do that.

Answer 23

Maybe we can expand this theory of yous to include Pearl Harbor and the sinking of the Maine, or maybe AIDS and the great depression.

Answer 24

He had many opportunities to actually catch Bin laden, but since it was not in his best interest, nor did he at those times need a distraction from his personal scandals, he let him go.



That and he was too busy selling our secrets and weapons to other countries (mainly those that do not like us)

Answer 25

he could have taken Bin Laden out, but didnt, face it the government failed on 9/11 .. live and learn

Answer 26

No. We should in fact blame Reagan for training and providing weapons to the Taliban and thus providing terrorist training grounds.

Answer 27

Boring.

Answer 28

in fact we can because he had the chance to stop him and failed.