konane's Blog

The old adage  "Bush was holding it when it broke on 9-11" isn't working anymore now that dates, times, events and documented facts are spilling out.   

Blaming Clinton .......  It's placing responsibility on the correct shoulders. 

"Clinton’s Loss? How the previous administration fumbled on bin Laden. A Q&A by Kathryn Jean Lopez Source National Review Online

Richard Miniter is a Brussels-based investigative journalist. His new book, has just been released by Regnery. He spoke to NRO early today about the run-up to the war on terror.

Kathryn Jean Lopez: What did the Clinton administration know about Osama bin Laden and when did they know it?

Richard Miniter: One of the big myths about the Clinton years is that no one knew about bin Laden until Sept. 11, 2001. In fact, the bin Laden threat was recognized at the highest levels of the Clinton administration as early as 1993. What's more, bin Laden's attacks kept escalating throughout the Clinton administration; all told bin Laden was responsible for the deaths of 59 Americans on Clinton's watch.

President Clinton learned about bin Laden within months of being sworn into office. National Security Advisor Anthony Lake told me that he first heard the name Osama bin Laden in 1993 in relation to the World Trade Center attack. Lake briefed the president about bin Laden that same year.

In addition, starting in 1993, Rep. Bill McCollum (R., Fla.) repeatedly wrote to President Clinton and warned him and other administration officials about bin Laden and other Islamic terrorists. McCollum was the founder and chairman of the House Taskforce on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare and had developed a wealth of contacts among the mujihedeen in Afghanistan. Those sources, who regularly visited McCollum, informed him about bin Laden's training camps and evil ambitions.

Indeed, it is possible that Clinton and his national-security team learned of bin Laden even before the 1993 World Trade Center attack. My interviews and investigation revealed that bin Laden made his first attack on Americans was December 1992, a little more than a month after Clinton won the 1992 election. His target was 100 U.S. Marines housed in two towering Yemen hotels. Within hours, the CIA's counterterrorism center learned that the Yemen suspected a man named Osama bin Laden. (One of the arrested bombing suspects later escaped and was detained in a police sweep after al Qaeda attacked the USS Cole in 2000.) Lake says he doesn't remember briefing the president-elect about the attempted attack, but that he well might have.

So it is safe to conclude that Clinton knew about the threat posed by bin Laden since 1993, his first year in office.

Lopez: What exactly was U.S. reaction to the attack on the USS Cole?

Miniter: In October 2000, al Qaeda bombed the USS Cole in Aden, Yemen. Seventeen sailors were killed in the blast. The USS Cole was almost sunk. In any ordinary administration, this would have been considered an act of war. After all, America entered the Spanish-American war and World War I when our ships were attacked.

Counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke had ordered his staff to review existing intelligence in relation to the bombing of the USS Cole. After that review, he and Michael Sheehan, the State Department's counterterrorism coordinator, were convinced it was the work of Osama bin Laden. The Pentagon had on-the-shelf, regularly updated and detailed strike plans for bin Laden's training camps and strongholds in Afghanistan.

At a meeting with Secretary of Defense William Cohen, Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, Attorney General Janet Reno, and other staffers, Clarke was the only one in favor of retaliation against bin Laden. Reno thought retaliation might violate international law and was therefore against it. Tenet wanted to more definitive proof that bin Laden was behind the attack, although he personally thought he was. Albright was concerned about the reaction of world opinion to a retaliation against Muslims, and the impact it would have in the final days of the Clinton Middle East peace process. Cohen, according to Clarke, did not consider the Cole attack "sufficient provocation" for a military retaliation. Michael Sheehan was particularly surprised that the Pentagon did not want to act. He told Clarke: "What's it going to take to get them to hit al Qaeda in Afghanistan? Does al Qaeda have to attack the Pentagon?"

Instead of destroying bin Laden's terrorist infrastructure and capabilities, President Clinton phoned twice phoned the president of Yemen demanding better cooperation between the FBI and the Yemeni security services. If Clarke's plan had been implemented, al Qaeda's infrastructure would have been demolished and bin Laden might well have been killed. Sept. 11, 2001 might have been just another sunny day.

Lopez: When the World Trade Center was first bombed in '93, why was it treated at first as a criminal investigation?

Miniter: The Clinton administration was in the dark about the full extent of the bin Laden menace because the president's decision to treat the 1993 World Trade Center bombing as a crime. Once the FBI began a criminal investigation, it could not lawfully share its information with the CIA — without also having to share the same data with the accused terrorists. Woolsey told me about his frustration that he had less access to evidence from the World Trade Center bombing — the then-largest ever foreign terrorist attack on U.S soil — than any junior agent in the FBI's New York office.

Why did Clinton treat the attack as a law-enforcement matter? Several reasons. In the first few days, Clinton refused to believe that the towers had been bombed at all — even though the FBI made that determination within hours. He speculated a electrical transformer had exploded or a bank heist went bad.

More importantly, treating the bombing as a criminal matter was politically advantageous. A criminal matter is a relatively tidy process. It has the political benefit of insulating Clinton from consequences; after all, he was only following the law. He is not to blame if the terrorists were released on a "technicality" or if foreign nations refuse to honor our extradition requests. Oh well, he tried.

By contrast, if Clinton treated the bombing as the act of terrorism that it was, he would be assuming personal responsibility for a series of politically risky moves. Should he deploy the CIA or special forces to hunt down the perpetrators? What happens if the agents or soldiers die? What if they try to capture the terrorists and fail? One misstep and the media, Congress, and even the public might blame the president. So Clinton took the easy, safe way out, and called it a crime.

Lopez: Bill Clinton was actually offered bin Laden? Could you set the scene a little and clue us in on why, for heavens sakes, he would not take advantage of such opportunities?

Miniter: On March 3, 1996, U.S. ambassador to Sudan, Tim Carney, Director of East African Affairs at the State Department, David Shinn, and a member of the CIA's directorate of operations' Africa division met with Sudan's then-Minister of State for Defense Elfatih Erwa in a Rosslyn, Virginia hotel room. Item number two on the CIA's list of demands was to provide information about Osama bin Laden. Five days later, Erwa met with the CIA officer and offered more than information. He offered to arrest and turn over bin Laden himself. Two years earlier, the Sudan had turned over the infamous terrorist, Carlos the Jackal to the French. He now sits in a French prison. Sudan wanted to repeat that scenario with bin Laden in the starring role.

Clinton administration officials have offered various explanations for not taking the Sudanese offer. One argument is that an offer was never made. But the same officials are on the record as saying the offer was "not serious." Even a supposedly non-serious offer is an offer. Another argument is that the Sudanese had not come through on a prior request so this offer could not be trusted. But, as Ambassador Tim Carney had argued at the time, even if you believe that, why not call their bluff and ask for bin Laden?

The Clinton administration simply did not want the responsibility of taking Osama bin Laden into custody. Former National Security Advisor Sandy Berger is on the record as saying: "The FBI did not believe we had enough evidence to indict bin Laden at that time and therefore opposed bringing him to the United States." Even if that was true — and it wasn't — the U.S. could have turned bin Laden over to Yemen or Libya, both of which had valid warrants for his arrest stemming from terrorist activities in those countries. Given the legal systems of those two countries, Osama would have soon ceased to be a threat to anyone.

After months of debating how to respond to the Sudanese offer, the Clinton administration simply asked Sudan to deport him. Where to? Ambassador Carney told me what he told the Sudanese: "Anywhere but Somalia."

In May 1996 bin Laden was welcomed into Afghanistan by the Taliban. It could not have been a better haven for Osama bin Laden.

Steven Simon, Clinton's counterterrorism director on the National Security Council thought that kicking bin Laden out of Sudan would benefit U.S. security since "It's going to take him a while to reconstitute, and that screws him up and buys time." Buys time? Oh yeah, 1996 was an election year and team Clinton did not want to deal with bin Laden until after it was safely reelected.

Lopez: This amazes me every time I hear it: You write, "When a small plane accidentally crashed into the White House lawn in 1994, West Wing staffers joked that it was [Jim] Woolsey trying to see the president..." How could the CIA director have that bad a relationship with his president? And this, after the first WTC attack. Did no one in the West Wing get it?

Miniter: Never once in his two-year tenure did CIA director James Woolsey ever have a one-on-one meeting with Clinton. Even semiprivate meetings were rare. They only happened twice. Woolsey told me: "It wasn't that I had a bad relationship with the president. It just didn't exist."

One of the little scoops in the book is the revelation that Clinton froze Woolsey out because the CIA director refused to put a friend of Bill on the agency's payroll. This account was confirmed by both Woolsey and the Clinton's consigliore Bruce Lindsey.

Considering the Justice Department's experience with Webster Hubbell, another Friend of Bill, Woolsey's decision may have done the CIA a great deal of good. But Clinton's pique did not make America any safer from bin Laden.

Another Clinton intelligence failure involved a refusal to help the CIA hire more Arabic language translators. In 1993, Woolsey learned that the agency was able to translate only 10 percent of its Arabic intercepts and badly wanted more translators. But Sen. Dennis DeConcini refused to approve the funds unless Clinton phoned him and said it was a presidential priority. Despite entreaties, Clinton never phoned the Democratic senator and the CIA didn't get those translators for years.

Lopez: In sum, how many times did Bill Clinton lose bin Laden?

Miniter: Here's a rundown. The Clinton administration:

1. Did not follow-up on the attempted bombing of Aden marines in Yemen.

2. Shut the CIA out of the 1993 WTC bombing investigation, hamstringing their effort to capture bin Laden.

3. Had Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, a key bin Laden lieutenant, slip through their fingers in Qatar.

4. Did not militarily react to the al Qaeda bombing in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

5. Did not accept the Sudanese offer to turn bin Laden.

6. Did not follow-up on another offer from Sudan through a private back channel.

7. Objected to Northern Alliance efforts to assassinate bin Laden in Afghanistan.

8. Decided against using special forces to take down bin Laden in Afghanistan.

9. Did not take an opportunity to take into custody two al Qaeda operatives involved in the East African embassy bombings. In another little scoop, I am able to show that Sudan arrested these two terrorists and offered them to the FBI. The Clinton administration declined to pick them up and they were later allowed to return to Pakistan.

10. Ordered an ineffectual, token missile strike against a Sudanese pharmaceutical factory.

11. Clumsily tipped off Pakistani officials sympathetic to bin Laden before a planned missile strike against bin Laden on August 20, 1998. Bin Laden left the camp with only minutes to spare.

12-14. Three times, Clinton hesitated or deferred in ordering missile strikes against bin Laden in 1999 and 2000.

15. When they finally launched and armed the Predator spy drone plane, which captured amazing live video images of bin Laden, the Clinton administration no longer had military assets in place to strike the archterrorist.

16. Did not order a retaliatory strike on bin Laden for the murderous attack on the USS Cole.

Lopez: You sorta defend Clinton against "wag the dog" criticisms in regard to that infamous August 1998 (Monica times) bombing of a pharmaceutical factory in the Sudan and some bin Laden strongholds in Afghanistan. That wasn't the problem, was it — that we fired then?

Miniter: Certainly the timing is suspicious. The day before the East African-embassy bombings, Monica Lewinsky had recanted her prior affidavit denying a sexual relationship with Clinton. The sex scandals kicked into overdrive.

Still, the president wasn't doing too much in combating bin Laden because of his sex scandals — he was doing too little. He should have launched more missile strikes against bin Laden and the hell with the political timing. Besides, after the East African-embassy bombings, any president would have been negligent not to strike back. If he had not, it would be open season on Americans. He would have been as ineffectual as Carter was during the Tehran hostage crisis. Indeed, this was the mistake made following the attack on the USS Cole.

But Clinton was distracted by sex and campaign-finance scandals and his political support was already heavily leveraged to get him through those scandals. If he fought bin Laden more vigorously, the leftwing of the Democratic party might have deserted him — which could have cost him the White House.

Instead Clinton's token, ineffectual missile strikes that only emboldened bin Laden. He believed that America was too intimidated to fight back — and was free to plan one of the most-murderous terrorist attacks in history.

Lopez: How did George Tenet perform during the Clinton years vis-à-vis al Qaeda/bin Laden?

Miniter: Tenet seemed to take a too legalistic view of CIA operations. He was risk-averse, wanting almost absolute certainty before recommending action, focused on safeguards against error and unintended consequences. Tenet seemed more concerned with not getting in trouble rather than relentlessly pursuing results to safeguard Americans against terrorism, the focus of a warrior.

Each time U.S. intelligence pinpointed bin Laden, Tenet was against a missile strike on the grounds that the information was "single threaded" — a pet phrase of the director which means single source. The predator was armed and fitted with video cameras mostly to overcome Tenet's objections to taking out bin Laden.

Lopez: Madeline Albright — frequently called upon expert nowadays — what's her record vis-à-vis al Qaeda?

Miniter: Albright always insisted that diplomatic efforts would best yield results on bin Laden. Even after the Cole bombing, Albright urged continued diplomatic efforts with the Taliban to turn him over, even though that effort had been going on for two years with no progress. Two simple facts should have made Albright aware that the Taliban would never turn over bin Laden: Osama had married off one of his sons to Mullah Omar's daughter. The Taliban weren't about to surrender a member of the family — especially one that commanded thousands of armed fighters who helped maintain Omar's grip on power.

Lopez: What exactly is the Iraq-al Qaeda connection?

Miniter: Osama bin Laden's wealth is overestimated. He had been financially drained during his years in Sudan and financing terrorist operations in dozens of countries, including training camps, bribes, etc., requires a large, constant cash flow. Saddam Hussein was unquestionably a generous financier of terrorism. Baghdad had a long history of funding terrorist campaigns in the bin Laden-allied region that straddles Iran and Pakistan known as Beluchistan. Documents found in Baghdad in April 2003 showed that Saddam funded the Allied Democratic Forces, a Ugandan terror group led by an Islamist cleric linked to bin Laden since the 1990s. Saddam openly funded the Iraqi Kurdish Group and its leader, Melan Krekar, admitted that he met bin Laden in Afghanistan. George Tenet testified to the Senate Intelligence Committee that Iraq had provided training in forging documents and making bombs. Farouk Harazi, a senior officer in the Iraqi Mukhabarat reportedly offered bin Laden asylum in Iraq. Salah Suleiman, an Iraqi intelligence operative, was arrested in October 2000 near the Afghan border, apparently returning from a visit to bin Laden. One of the 1993 World Trade Center bombers, Abdul Rahman Yasin, reportedly fled to Baghdad in 1994. Iraq ran an extensive intelligence hub in Khartoum; Sudanese intelligence officers told me about dozens of meeting between Iraqi Intel and bin Laden. Tellingly, reports that Mohamed Atta met with Iraqi intelligence agents in Prague several times in 2000 and 2001 have not been disproved. I have far more on this in Appendix A of Losing bin Laden.

Lopez: What most surprised you to learn about the Clinton years and terrorism?

Miniter: Three things:

1) That the Sept. 11 attacks were planned in May 1998 in the Khalden Camp in southeastern Afghanistan, according to American and British intelligence officers I interviewed. In other words, the 9/11 attacks were planned on Clinton's watch.

2) The sheer number of bin Laden's attacks on Americans during the Clinton years.

3) And how much senior Clinton-administration officials knew about bin Laden and how little they did about it.

Lopez: This sounds like this could all be right-wing propaganda. How can you convince readers otherwise?

Miniter: Most of my best sources were senior Clinton officials, including both of his national-security advisers, his first CIA director, Clinton's counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke, Madeline Albright, and others. Plus, I interviewed scores of career federal officials. None of them are card-carrying members of the vast right-wing conspiracy.

And, while I shine the light on Clinton's shortcomings in dealing with bin Laden, I also give credit where it is due. Chapter nine is all about one of the greatest (and least-known) Clinton victories over bin Laden — the successful thwarting of a series of plots to murder thousands of Americans on Millennium night, 1999.

If anyone has any doubts about the credibility of this book, they should read the acknowledgements, which list many of my sources. Or peruse the more than 15,000 words of footnotes, that allow the reader to see exactly where information is coming from. Or examine the intelligence documents reproduced in Appendix B. Or pick a page at random and read it. Any fair-minded reader will see a carefully constructed and balanced account that attempts to lay out the history of Clinton and bin Laden."

http://www.nationalreview.com/interrogatory/interrogatory091103b.asp

“While the nation was having a good laugh at the expense of Florida’s hanging chads and butterfly ballots, Mohammed Atta and Marwan al Shehhi were there, in Florida, learning to drive commercial jetliners [and ram them into the World Trade Center towers]. It will take a novelist to paint that broad canvas properly. It will take some deep political thinking to understand how the lackadaisical attitude toward government and the world helped leave the country so unready for the horror that Atta and Shehhi were preparing.”
                      — Michael Oreskes, New York Times, October 21, 2001.

Six Palestinian and Egyptian conspirators responsible for the attack were tried in civil courts and got life sentences like common criminals, but its mastermind escaped. He was identified as Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, an Iraqi intelligence agent. This was a clear indication to authorities that the atrocity was no mere criminal event, and that it involved more than individual terrorists; it involved hostile terrorist states.

Berger had also been a member of “Peace Now,” the leftist movement seeking to pressure the Israeli government to make concessions to Yasser Arafat’s PLO terrorists. Clinton’s first National Security Advisor, Anthony Lake was a protégé of Berger, who had introduced him to Clinton. All three had met as activists in the 1972 McGovern presidential campaign, whose primary conclusion was the “arrogance of American power,” rather than Communist aggression, fueled the Vietnam War.

President Bashir sent key intelligence officials to Washington in February 1996. Again, according to Mansoor, “the Sudanese offered to arrest bin Laden and extradite him to Saudi Arabia or, barring that, to ‘baby-sit’ him—monitoring all his activities and associates.” But the Saudis didn’t want him. Instead, in May 1996 “the Sudanese capitulated to U.S. pressure and asked bin Laden to leave, despite their feeling that he could be monitored better in Sudan than elsewhere. Bin Laden left for Afghanistan, taking with him Ayman Zawahiri, considered by the U.S. to be the chief planner of the September 11 attacks….”

At the time, 1996, he had committed no crime against America so I did not bring him here because we had no basis on which to hold him, though we knew he wanted to commit crimes against America. So I pleaded with the Saudis to take him, 'cause they could have. But they thought it was a hot potato and they didn't and that's how he wound up in Afghanistan.

When the president’s affair with Monica Lewinsky became public in January 1998, and his adamant denials made it a consuming public preoccupation, Clinton’s normal inattention to national security matters became subsumed into general executive paralysis. In Dick Morris’s judgment, the United States was effectively “without a president between January 1998 until April 1999,” when the impeachment proceedings concluded with the failure of the Senate to convict. It was in August 1998 that the al-Qaeda truck bombs blew up the embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

The Attacks He Could Have Prevented

They need never have been struck. In February 1998—six months before the bombing of the U.S. embassies—the CIA had arranged for an indigenous Afghan militia to raid Osama's compound, Tarnak Farms; take him alive; and deliver him to the FBI to face criminal charges in the United States. However, the Clinton administration aborted the raid that May for fear Osama would be killed before facing a jury of his peers. Another time, Washington vetoed agents in the field, who had tracked Osama for days, fearing civilian collateral damage. A February 1999 missile strike in the desert south of Kandar was nixed because, although bin Laden was clearly in the crosshairs, he was traveling with several members of the United Arab Emirates' royal family. Richard Clarke telephoned the UAE, apparently without permission, on March 7 to discussion the royals's cozy relationship with the Saudi scion; the 9/11 Report reports "less than a week after Clarke's phone call the camp was hurriedly dismantled, and the site was deserted."

At least three times following the U.S. embassy bombings, the Clinton administration held up imminent missile strikes on Osama bin Laden, deeming the intelligence insufficient but those on the ground say the administration set the standards of "actionable intelligence" unreachably high. In what the 9/11 Commission dubbed "the last, and most likely the best, opportunity" to get bin Laden, in Kandahar in May 1999, the Clintonistas again choked; the Commission noted, "If this intelligence was not 'actionable,' working-level officials said at the time and today, it was hard for them to imagine how any intelligence on Bin Ladin in Afghanistan would meet the standard." Another said, "This was in our strike zone. It was a fat pitch, a home run." Again, the Left refused to swing. Bill Clinton did strike back on August 20, 1999, bombing a Sudanese medicine factory and an empty tent. Clinton often boasts he missed Osama by mere hours; he does not disclose that, following Richard Clarke's sterling example, his administration notified Pakistan of the coming missile attack, allowing the Pakistanis to notify bin Laden, who escaped unharmed.

In the fall of 2000, the unmanned Predator drone captured video of Osama bin Laden training his terrorist guerrillas in Afghanistan. Yet the Clinton administration did nothing. As NBC's Brian Williams put it, "Weeks later, bin Laden's attack on the USS Cole killed 17 sailors." No retaliation followed.

Not only did Osama bin Laden remain free to kill Americans overseas, his minions were able to plot the worst act of terrorism in American history from within our own borders. More than 100 Islamist operatives participated in the attack on the Twin Towers. They did so over a period of several years, often eliciting the notice of military intelligence officers. However, Clinton-era policies ensured those officers could not ask for the FBI to follow-up on the 9/11 hijackers then preparing to strike at the heart of the infidel.

Not everyone responded to Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman’s 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center with blithe indifference. Five years later, Army Intelligence and the Special Operations Command launched an investigation into potential Islamist terrorists living in the United States. This operation was named “Able Danger.” Using “data mining” techniques to track Muslims associated with radical mosques, agents identified 9/11 mastermind Mohammed Atta and three of his fellow hijackers as members of a New York City-based al-Qaeda cell (codenamed “Brooklyn”). Three witnesses—Lt. Col. Anthony Schaffer, Captain Scott Philpott, and Defense contractor J.D. Smith—have come forward to verify that “Able Danger” identified Mohammed Atta as a potential al-Qaeda threat by name as early as 1999. However, when officers asked permission to inform the FBI of their findings and request they closely supervise “Brooklyn,” military lawyers prevented from them sharing this information on three separate occasions.

The trouble, the attorneys told the intelligence agents, stemmed from federal guidelines prohibiting various agencies from sharing intelligence or coordinating investigations across bureaucratic lines. The Legal Left had claimed this practice violated civil liberties and, with an advocate in the White House, existing barriers were raised ever higher.

This barrier, which kept federal officials from monitoring a tragedy in progress, came to be known as “The Wall.” Although restrictions had existed since the Carter administration, in the summer of 1995 Bill Clinton’s deputy attorney general, Jamie Gorelick, drafted a memo raising the wall well beyond existing guidelines. U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White, who was based in New York City, protested the infringement on terrorist investigations, writing:

            It is hard to be totally comfortable with instructions to the FBI prohibiting contact with the United States Attorney's Offices when such prohibitions are not legally required…These instructions leave entirely to OIPR [the Office of Intelligence and Policy Review] and the [Justice Department’s] Criminal Division when, if ever, to contact affected U.S. attorneys on investigations including terrorism and espionage…The most effective way to combat terrorism is with as few labels and walls as possible so that wherever permissible, the right and left hands are communicating.

When Gorelick ignored her suggestions, White warned the new federal guidelines “will cost lives.” She proved no mean prophet.

The Clinton administration placed the aforementioned OIPR, for the first time in its history, under a political appointee: Richard Scruggs. The “wall memo” and the politicization of intelligence were only the first step. The Clinton Justice Department brought all intelligence under increasingly centralized control in order to discourage investigations. At this time, agents were looking into allegations that Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign had accepted substantial amounts of illegal campaign contributions originating in the People’s Republic of China. To insulate himself against “overzealous” federal investigators, he effectively saw to it all inquiries had to receive approval from high-level political appointees under his management. Not only did Bill Clinton’s policies keep Army Intelligence from informing the FBI about the brewing al-Qaeda threat in New York City—which was then finalizing plans for the terrorists’ most successful assault against the “Great Satan” and give al-Qaeda an invaluable recruiting tool—it seems to have done so in order to protect Bill Clinton from his own unseemly deeds.

The Lost Plotters

The fig leaf Clinton thatched about his campaign finance donors concealed a multitude of al-Qaeda's sins. The Wall shielded at least two actual hijackers and a third potential hijacker, aside from the Able Danger debacle. 

According to many journalists, the CIA had tapped the telephone of 9/11 hijackers Khalid al-Midhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi before they attended the January 2000 al-Qaeda meeting in Kuala Lumpur, where the terrorists fixed many of the details of 9/11. Although the CIA photographed the pair at this meeting, they were able to return to the United States and settle in San Diego under their given names for another year, because the Agency did not share its intelligence with the FBI until shortly before 9/11. In the meantime, al-Midhar had returned to Saudi Arabia to recruit willing martyrs for his strike. When he returned, the FBI—at last alerted of the danger he posed to the United States—begged for other law enforcement agencies to track down and interdict both plotters, only to have their pleas bounce off The Wall. Denied the ability to pursue the terrorists, an agent e-mailed his superior these prophetic words: "Whatever has happened to this—someday someone will die—and wall or not—the public will not understand why we were not more effective and throwing every resource we had at certain problems. Let's hope the National Security Law Unit will stand behind their decisions then, especially since the biggest threat to us now, [bin Laden], is getting the most 'protection.'" Weeks later, the men joined 17 of their co-religionists  in an act of jihad.

The FBI fared little better when it actually arrested its suspects. An agent nabbed "20th Hijacker" Zaccarias Moussaoui for immigration violations on August 16, 2001; suspicions ran high as he had told his flight instructor he wanted to learn how to steer an airplane—but not take-off or land. Agents asked and were denied permission to search his computer, told doing so would appear to violate the sacrosanct Wall. Twenty-six days later, the error of Gorelick's ways would visit itself upon the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a field in Pennsylvania.

In 1994, Republican Porter Goss, a former CIA official and member of the House Intelligence Committee who later became CIA Director, warned that because of inflation, the cuts now proposed by Sanders-Owens amounted to 16 percent of the 1992 budget and were 20 percent below the 1990 budget. Yet this did not dissuade Dellums, Bonior, and roughly 100 Democrats from continuing to lay the budgetary axe to America’s first line of anti-terrorist defense. Ranking Committee Republican Larry Combest warned that the cuts endangered “critically important and fragile capabilities, such as in the area of human intelligence.” In 1998, Osama bin Laden and four radical Islamic groups connected to al-Qaeda issued a fatwa condemning every American man, woman, and child, civilian and military included. Sanders responded by enlisting Oregon Democrat Peter DeFazio to author an amendment cutting the intelligence authorization again."

Large clips, slow load. 

Timeline of events leading up to 9-11, found on another site.  Let us not forget the wall built between the CIA and FBI where they couldn't communicate evidence comparison .... no doubt so they couldn't find him complicit for signing executive waivers to sell top secret dual technology .... against the advice of the Pentagon .... to China.  It's on the books and hit the news when it happened.

1993 WTC-Treated as a "crime" with no foreign terrorist involvement. However, Blind Islamic Radical Sheik is convicted for conspiracy. Bin Laden named as an "un-indicted co-conspirator" in 1996.The same year he is offered to the Clinton Administration by the Sudan and refused saying they don't have enough evidence to convict him. Bill Clinton never visits site.

1993-18 Soldiers killed in Somalia and 84 wounded in attack planned by bin Laden. Clinton pulls troops out of Somalia. bin Laden claims victory and gains status with his followers as one who is able to make the "Great Satan" run. Somalia falls into a chaos that remains to this day.

1993- the FBI identified three "charities” connected to the terrorist organization Hamas. Clinton ignored pleas that he create a "President’s List” of extremist and terrorist groups. He feared the political fallout of "profiling” Islamic charities. Money continues to flow freely to terrorist organizations for the next 8 years.

1993-The Srebrenica Report (Dutch) revealed in 1993 Clinton embarked on an Iran/Contra like affair with Islamic Terror groups in Bosnia. In both Afghanistan and the Gulf, the Pentagon had incurred debts to Islamist groups and their Middle Eastern sponsors. By 1993 these groups, many supported by Iran and Saudi Arabia, were anxious to help Bosnian Muslims fighting in the former Yugoslavia and called in their debts with the Americans. Bill Clinton and the Pentagon were keen to be seen as creditworthy and repaid in the form of an Iran-Contra style operation - in flagrant violation of the UN security council arms embargo against all combatants in the former Yugoslavia. a mysterious fleet of black C-130 Hercules aircraft appeared and Mojahedin fighters
were also flown in. This report has just recently been made public.

1994- Algerian terrorists attempt to hijack French Airliner to fly into the Eiffel Tower. Plane is stormed by French police.

1994-"Terror 2000" was distributed to the Defense Department, State Department, FEMA, intelligence communities and members of Congress. "Targets such as the World Trade Center not only provide the requisite casualties but because of their symbolic nature provide more bang for the buck. In order to maximize their odds for success, terrorist groups will likely consider mounting multiple, simultaneous operations with the aim of overtaxing a government's ability to respond, as well as to demonstrate their professionalism and reach." At the State Department's request, it was "scrubbed" of some details, including how to hit the Pentagon or White House by airplane using the Washington Monument as a landmark.

1995- Then-Rep. Robert Torricelli, D-N.J., made secrets public at the behest of left-wing activist Bianca Jagger, his girlfriend at the time. The secrets suggested that the CIA had on its payroll one or more unsavory characters who had been involved in murder. He compromised American intelligence-gathering abilities around the world, adding that numerous CIA sources had decided to stop giving information for fear they would be outed by a congressman. Torricelli efforts paid off with the Clinton administration, which moved to ban the use of spies or the recruitment of spies that had any involvement with criminals or terrorists. Torricelli effectively blinded the CIA.

1995-5 U. S. soldiers killed in Saudi Arabia in bombing.

1995-Oklahoma City Bombing. 168 dead. Domestic terrorists blamed. Jayna Davis, Oklahoma investigative reporter attempts to turn over evidence she has in the form of security videos and witness testimony to the FBI, but after checking with his superior, the evidence is refused. A Justice Department inspector, one of Clinton's own, admitted that the Oklahoma City bombing investigation "offered one of the worst examples of de facto evidence tampering by the FBI crime labs."


1995-"Operation Bojinka" plot hatched by an al Qaeda cell with an eye toward blowing up 12 American airliners. Some would be booby-trapped with bombs, like Pan Am 103, others hijacked like the four U.S. jets commandeered on 9-11 and crashed into buildings.


1996-CIA and FBI warn Clinton they have uncovered plot of al Qaeda "Martyrdom Battalion" terrorists to hijack planes and use them as missiles. This apparently is never passed on to the Congress.


1996-Philippine authorities warn the FBI they have received credible information that al Qaeda is planning on hijacking planes and flying them into Federal Buildings. Again, this information apparently stops with Bill Clinton and is never passed on to the proper Congressional Intelligence Committees.


1996-The downing of TWA Flight 800. 230 dead. Mechanical Failure blamed. Hundreds of eyewitnesses ignored as they claim they saw a surface to air missile launch and destroy the plane. Bill Clinton issues Executive Order 13039 to keep all involved in recovery process silent. Pilots Union claims FAA report on mechanical failure "bogus". FBI tells witnesses what they saw was a single "fireworks" display. Read "Oklahoma City Bombing and TWA Flight 800" for more on these

1996-Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia, which killed 19 and injured 200 military personnel.


1996-Sudan offers to turn over bin Laden to US through negotiator and Clinton supporter Mr. Mansoor Ijaz. He warns them not to slight the Intelligence Officer in the Sudan by sending an aide to the Sec. of State. They ignore him and send an underling. Insulted by the slight, the Sudan refuses to speak to him. Clinton blows off offer saying they don't have enough evidence to indict bin Laden.

1996-bin Laden leaves Sudan and goes to Afghanistan as a "guest" of Mullah Omar, head of the
Taliban.


1997-UNOCAL brought members of the Taliban here to the States to wine and dine them, take them to beach, show them their U.S. offices and take them to Washington to meet with the Clinton State Department. The fact they are harboring a wanted terrorist, bin Laden, is ignored.


1997- Final report of the Gore Commission on Aviation Safety comes out. The DNC received at least $498,000 from the airline industry. There was no deadline by which those requirements would have to be implemented and 2) there was no funding mechanism for ensuring that they were enacted. This insured that none of the recommendations would ever be implemented. Boston Globe, a known liberal newspaper, says Gore, “failed conspicuously to address airline safety.” That failure was traced directly to a series of campaign contributions from the airlines to the DNC.


1997- Warren Christopher resigns as Sec. of State over a conflict with Clinton over the removal of top secret defense technology from the realm of the State Department, with Congressional oversight, to the hands of Ron Brown and the Department of Commerce. He stated that that the president's actions were reckless and may jeopardized the military defense of this nation. Admonished Clinton for planning to hand over to the Communist Chinese, American missile guidance programming source codes embedded in commercial U.S. satellites. Christopher, is said to have told Clinton, the Brown deal could jeopardize "...significant military and intelligence
interests..." of the United States missile guidance system. Clinton quietly put out a post dated Executive order protecting the two companies under Congressional investigation from any criminal prosecution.


1997-The Northern Alliance threatens to overrun the Taliban and is poised to remove them from power. The Clinton Administration imposes a cease fire that both sides agree to. Saudi Arabia and Pakistan use this opportunity to re-arm the Taliban army. Clinton knows this is happening, but withholds that information from the Northern Alliance and Congress. This action assures that the Taliban will solidify their power and push back the Northern Alliance.


1997-Madeleine Albright becomes Sec. Of State. She later states, after the attacks, in her defense of Bill Clinton: "This is hard to say and I haven't found a way to say it that doesn't sound crass, but it is the truth that those {attacks before Sept. 11} were happening overseas and while there were Americans who died, there were not thousands and it did not happen on U. S. soil."


1998-Bombing of the U.S. embassies in Africa, which killed 224 and injured 5,000.


1998- bin Laden issued his fatwa urging his followers to target the U. S. and all Americans.


1998- Sudan offered to extradite Sayyid Iskandar Suliman and Sayyid Nazir Abbass to the U.S. for trial. They were wanted by the US for being directly involved in the bombings of its embassy in Kenya and they had intimate knowledge of the operations of the alleged guerrilla chief Osama bin Laden. The State Department, in blocking the FBI from pursuing the lead, noted that Sudan has been listed for over a decade as a state sponsor of terrorism. Yet Sudan, the official said, had asked only for a “dialogue” with the United States toward restoring a more normal diplomatic relationship. Their offer was completely ignored and Clinton instead bombed the al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory in Khartoum.


1998- UNOCAL gave up all hope of a pipeline across Afghanistan and pulled out. Not because of Afghanistan harboring a terrorist, but from pressure from the Women's Rights groups over the Taliban's treatment of women in Afghanistan.

1998-Missile strike against bin Laden's Khost, Afghanistan training camp and a Sudanese pharmaceutical factory to take Monica off the front pages is a total failure. Clinton lobs over $70 million dollars worth of Cruise Missiles at Sudan and Afghanistan hitting nothing but tents, camels and the only pharmaceutical plant in the Sudan. Done without consulting his Joint Chiefs. He informs them of his plans one half hour prior to the attack. Their pleas for him to stop the attack due to inadequate intelligence, are ignored. They later distance themselves from the attack by admitting they were not consulted. The Military Commander in that area said it "would have been a million to one shot."


1999-Ahmed Ressam, an Algerian, is arrested trying to cross the Canadian Border with explosives.


1999-Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, (R-Cal), who has spent time in Afghanistan fighting with the Northern Alliance, received credible information as to the whereabouts of bin Laden in Afghanistan. He immediately contacted the CIA with this information. The Information was never acted on. During the Clinton Administration the Voice of America became known, within Afghanistan, as the Voice of the Taliban. “People go berserk when I say that Clinton supported the Taliban, but that is the truth.” says Rohrabacher.


1999-Gen. Pervez Musharraf overthrows Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Oct. 12 in a military coup. Clinton later claims his plans to obtain bin Laden through millions in pay-offs to the Sharif Government collapse with the coup, which is very odd story since the Sharif Government was a supporter of the Taliban and bin Laden. Indeed, even the Musharraf Government supports the Taliban until after the 9/11 attacks when it becomes healthier to deal with the Taliban than an angry and hostile American military. He sees this as a chance to rid his country of the Islamic radicals that he says are the 1% of the population holding the other 99% hostage.


1999-Clinton’s own secretary of defense, William Cohen, in a July 1999 op-ed piece in the Washington Post, predicted a terrorist attack on America’s mainland.


1999-"Project Megiddo" goes public on FBI website. It is a directive, given in 1995 to FBI from Bill Clinton to direct their investigative efforts towards only domestic terrorism such as the Christian Right and militias. In short, foreign involvement is to be ignored which now explains why no evidence of foreign terrorists involvement was accepted in the Oklahoma City Bombing and downing of TWA Flight 800.


1999-A report, titled "Sociology and Psychology of Terrorism: Who Becomes a Terrorist and Why?," cautioned that Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network might seek revenge for the 1998 U.S. air strike on bin Laden's camps in Afghanistan. It is ignored as merely a psychological report, with no credible sources.


1999- the U.N. imposes sanctions to cut off funds for Taliban arms.


1999-the U.S. finally added bin Laden and his al Qaeda organization to its list of “foreign terrorist organizations”. Still, they did not single out Afghanistan or the Taliban nor add Afghanistan to the list of countries that harbor terrorists, despite the fact bin Laden is harbored there.


1999-Mullah Khaksar, then the Taliban regime's deputy interior minister, met with U.S. diplomats Gregory Marchese and J. Peter McIllwain in Peshawar, Pakistan, in April 1999 and told them he wanted to oust Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammed Omar because of his support for Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda terror network. The offer was ignored by Bill Clinton. Bill told him, through his people, that "he didn't want to get involved in internal Afghani matters".


1999 - The Transportation Security Administration altered a terrorist report to exclude any and all references to foreign terrorists. David Holmes, head of the Commerce Department zeroed in on white militia groups in a 1999 threat analysis. Commerce officials who worked on the case say Holmes' exclusion of every threat group that wasn't white was in keeping with what they say was a broader Clinton administration policy of focusing on domestic threats from white militia groups, rather than Islamic groups, in combating terrorism. "Holmes made us take out every group that wasn't white – no minority groups allowed," "He was toeing the liberal line" of the Clinton administration.


July 2000 – three months before the deadly attack on the destroyer Cole in Yemen another plausible offer to deal for bin Laden. The offer required only that Clinton make a state visit there (Yemen) to personally request bin Laden's extradition. But senior Clinton officials sabotaged the offer.


2000-Bombing of the USS Cole. 17 sailors killed, 39 injured. Millions will be spent repairing the ship. bin Laden and the al Qaeda are the foremost suspects.


2000-Clinton orders the remains of TWA Flight 800 destroyed thus ending any possible further investigation into the downing.


2000-Bill Clinton has successfully cut the military in half over his eight years in office and blinded and effectively neutered our intelligence gathering ability.
2000-The Intelligence community around the world reports an "increase in traffic", which means more than usual interaction between terror cells which usually is a precursor of an attack somewhere in the world.


2001-Bill Clinton leaves office. Does he brief Bush on all the foreign terror information he has? Only they know.


2001-George W. Bush has 8 months in office before bin Laden launches his next attack on the US.


2002- Many Democrats start asking "What did the President know and when did he know it" ala Watergate, implying that GW knew the attacks were imminent and did nothing...ignoring all the attacks and warning signs that occurred under Bill Clinton.


2002- Bill Clinton continues to try and re-write history. Claiming he was "obsessed" with bin Laden. His aides and those that know him, say differently.

Wow, the Clintonistas are having a cow over airing of a docudrama about what lead up to 9-11 and want it censored.  Bet they had a party when they watched Fahren-hype 9-11 which is a compilation of conspiracy theories, the majority of which have been debunked especially how a plane hitting each of the twin towers brought them down.  There's even been a documentary on PBS which explains the physics of why.

Anyway back to the howling......  Seems what's fair for a seated President should be just fine for a has-been bunch of residents whose actions clearly precipitated 9-11. 

Just perhaps the ABC docudrama strikes too close to the heart of the truth damage control has been done to bury. 

Next section in Clinton's own voice AND TRANSCRIPT OF HIS WORDS .... has been voice printed and verified and there exists a video of the speech too ... he explains not extraditing bin Laden when offered by the Sudan.  If he took bin Laden into custody 9-11 wouldn't have happened on American soil and history would be on a different track right now.

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 7, 2006; A09

Top officials of the Clinton administration have launched a preemptive strike against an ABC-TV "docudrama," slated to air Sunday and Monday, that they say includes made-up scenes depicting them as undermining attempts to kill Osama bin Laden.

Former secretary of state Madeleine K. Albright called one scene involving her "false and defamatory." Former national security adviser Samuel R. "Sandy" Berger said the film "flagrantly misrepresents my personal actions." And former White House aide Bruce R. Lindsey, who now heads the William J. Clinton Foundation, said: "It is unconscionable to mislead the American public about one of the most horrendous tragedies our country has ever known."

If this is correct it is probably one of their smartest moves this year.  They also need to realize the momentum is NOT going to go quietly away after elections either.  Polls show around 67% of Americans want the border sealed and something done about immigration so it's far from over.... way too many grassroots organizations busy which likely explains their "change of heart."

He makes a very valid point about the left press in the US, that they don't take Islamafascist demands seriously, so what if they demand we convert ... no big deal. 

However, once you convert to Islam you can never go back to your former status under penalty of death.   

Yes, our own leftie moonbats are making decisions for us without having a fragment of a clue as to the path they're committing us to by making nice-nice negotiating with Islamafascists. 

Would you want someone without a brain making life impacting decisions for your life?  I don't because they don't have enough information and don't take seriously obvious facts which have been in place since the 7th century .... convert, be enslaved or die.

"Why abduct us? We cede our values for free

September 3, 2006

BY MARK STEYN SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST

Source Chicago Sun Times

Did you see that video of the two Fox journalists announcing they'd converted to Islam? The larger problem, it seems to me, is that much of the rest of the Western media have also converted to Islam, and there seems to be no way to get them to convert back to journalism.

Consider, for example, the bizarre behavior of Reuters, the once globally respected news agency now reduced to putting out laughably inept terrorist propaganda. A few days ago, it made a big hoo-ha about the Israelis intentionally firing a missile at its press vehicle and wounding its cameraman Fadel Shana. Shana was posed in an artful sprawl in a blood-spattered shirt. But it had ridden up and underneath his undershirt was spotlessly white, like a summer-stock Julius Caesar revealing the boxers under his toga. What's stunning is not that almost all Western media organizations reporting from the Middle East are reliant on local staff overwhelmingly sympathetic to one side in the conflict -- that's been known for some time -- but the amateurish level of fakery that head office is willing to go along with.

Down at the other end of the news business, meanwhile, one finds items like this snippet from the Sydney Morning Herald:

"A 16-year-old girl was tailed by a car full of men before being dragged inside and assaulted in Sydney's west last night, police say . . .

"The three men involved in the attack were described to police as having dark 'mullet-style' haircuts."

Three men with "mullet-style" hair, huh? Not much to go on there. Bit of a head scratcher. But, as it turned out, the indefatigable Sydney Morning Herald typist had faithfully copied out every salient detail of the police report except one. Here's the statement the coppers themselves issued:

"Police are seeking three men described as being of Middle Eastern/Mediterranean appearance, with dark 'mullet-style' hair cuts."

That additional detail narrows it down a bit, wouldn't you say? The only reason I know that is because the Aussie Internet maestro Tim Blair grew curious about the epidemic of incidents committed by men of no known appearance and decided to look into it. One can understand the agonies the politically correct multicultural journalist must go through, distressed at the thought that an infelicitous phrasing might perpetuate unfortunate stereotypes of young Muslim males. But, even so, it's quite a leap to omit the most pertinent fact and leave the impression the Sydney constabulary are combing the city for mullets. The Boston Globe's Jeff Jacoby wrote the other day about how American children's books are "sacrificing truth on the altar of political correctness." But there seems to be quite a lot of that in the grown-up comics, too. And, as I've said before, it's never a good idea to put reality up for grabs. There may come a time when you need it.

It's striking how, for all this alleged multiculti sensitivity, we're mostly entirely insensitive to other cultures: We find it all but impossible to imagine how differently they view the world. Go back to that video in which Fox's Steve Centanni and Olaf Wiig announced their conversion to Islam. The moment the men were released, the Western media and their colleagues wrote off the scene as a stunt, a cunning ruse, of no more consequence than yelling "Behind you! He's got a gun!" and then kicking your distracted kidnapper in the teeth. Indeed, a few Web sites seemed to see the Islamic conversion routine as a useful get-out-of-jail-free card.

Don't bet on it. In my forthcoming book, I devote a few pages to a thriller I read as a boy -- an old potboiler by Sherlock Holmes' creator, Arthur Conan Doyle. In 1895 Sir Arthur had taken his sick wife to Egypt for her health, and, not wishing to waste the local color, produced a slim novel called The Tragedy of the Korosko, about a party of Anglo-American-French tourists taken hostage by the Mahdists, the jihadi of the day. Much of the story finds the characters in the same predicament as Centanni and Wiig: The kidnappers are offering them a choice between Islam or death. Conan Doyle's Britons and Americans and Europeans were men and women of the modern world even then:

"None of them, except perhaps Miss Adams and Mrs. Belmont, had any deep religious convictions. All of them were children of this world, and some of them disagreed with everything which that symbol upon the earth represented."

"That symbol" is the cross. Yet in the end, even as men with no religious convictions, they cannot bring themselves to submit to Islam, for they understand it to be not just a denial of Christ but in some sense a denial of themselves, too. So they stall and delay and bog down the imam in a lot of technical questions until eventually he wises up and they're condemned to death.

One hundred ten years later, for the Fox journalists and the Western media who reported their release, what's the big deal? Wear robes, change your name to Khaled, go on camera and drop Allah's name hither and yon: If that's your ticket out, seize it. Everyone'll know it's just a sham.

But that's not how the al-Jazeera audience sees it. If you're a Muslim, the video is anything but meaningless. Not even the dumbest jihadist believes these infidels are suddenly true believers. Rather, it confirms the central truth Osama and the mullahs have been peddling -- that the West is weak, that there's nothing -- no core, no bedrock -- nothing it's not willing to trade. In his new book The Conservative Soul, attempting to reconcile his sexual temperament and his alleged political one, Time magazine's gay Tory Andrew Sullivan enthuses, "By letting go, we become. By giving up, we gain. And we learn how to live -- now, which is the only time that matters." That's almost a literal restatement of Faust's bargain with the devil:

"When to the moment I shall say
'Linger awhile! so fair thou art!'
Then mayst thou fetter me straightway
Then to the abyss will I depart!"

In other words, if Faust becomes so enthralled by "the moment" that he wants to live in it forever, the devil will have him for all eternity. In the Muslim world, they watch the Centanni/Wiig video and see men so in love with the present, the now, that they will do or say anything to live in the moment. And they draw their own conclusions -- that these men are easier to force into the car than that 16-year-old girl in Sydney was. It doesn't matter how "understandable" Centanni and Wiig's actions are to us, what the target audience understands is quite different: that there is nothing we're willing to die for. And, to the Islamist mind, a society with nothing to die for is already dead.

© Mark Steyn, 2006

http://www.suntimes.com/output/steyn/cst-edt-steyn03.html#

Found this on Powerline.  Hey at least Nazi-spawn-Islamafascists are telling the truth for a change .... Islam ruling the entire world.

From NumbersUSA.org email

Miller Beer Phone Numbers

____________________

Milwaukee: 414.931.2000
Miller corporate headquarters) [takes you to a recording; callers should press "0" to talk to operator>

Eden, NC: 336.627.2100
(Miller regional brewery)

Trenton, OH: 513.896.9200
(regional brewery) [get recorded list of departments {e.g., plant mgr., brewing, etc.}

Albany, GA: 229.420.5000
(regional brewery) [takes you to a recording; callers should press "0" to talk to operator>

Ft. Worth, TX: 817.551.3300
(regional brewery) [press "1" to get list of departments>

Irwindale, CA: 626.969.6811
(regional brewery) [get recorded list of departments>

Chippewa Falls, WI: 715.723.5558/888.534.6437
(LEINIES) (Leinenkugel brewery ["Leinie's Lodge">)

THE MILLER STORY

The Chicago Tribune seems to have broken the story this morning.

The background is that the illegal-alien marchers last spring discovered that Miller had given a small campaign contribution to a fellow Wisconsin resident, Rep. Sensenbrenner, who was the father of the H.R. 4437 enforcement bill that the marchers were protesting.

The marchers called for a nationwide Hispanic boycott of Miller beer.

Miller immediately caved and said their corporation is against H.R. 4437.

Now, it seems that Miller thinks it has more to gain from illegal alien supporters than from the majority of Americans who want illegal immigration ended (and unrewarded). Just read the Tribune story. You'll be amazed.

Why this immigrant rights march is brought to you by Miller

By Oscar Avila
Tribune staff reporter
Published September 1, 2006

Marchers had to duck into fast-food restaurants for water when they first took to Chicago's streets in support of illegal immigrants five months ago. At the next two marches, family-owned grocery stores offered free bottled water from trucks emblazoned with their names.

This time, as demonstrators march from Chinatown to House Speaker Dennis Hastert's (R-Ill.) Batavia office this weekend, they will have Miller Brewing Co., as a sponsor. The brewer has paid more than $30,000 for a planning convention, materials and newspaper ads publicizing the event.

The support of a major corporation for a controversial political cause shows how fierce the competition has become to woo the growing market of Latino consumers.

For Miller, the march offered a special chance to catch up. This spring the brewer drew the ire of pro-immigrant forces over contributions to U.S. Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), who sponsored legislation that would crack down on illegal immigrants. That prompted a short-lived boycott by some Latino groups.

Now, march advertisements feature not just the organizing committee's trademark blue globe but Miller's logo and a Spanish translation of its "Live Responsibly" slogan, a company effort to build goodwill among Latinos.

But this march is no Cinco de Mayo parade. The politically charged event will promote a controversial plan to end deportations and offer legal status for all 11 million to 12 million undocumented immigrants. That creates potential pitfalls for any businesses lending support, experts say.

At the same time business sponsorships have forced activists to confront whispers that they are commercializing their movement when they accept much-needed donations.

"We would love to have 20 corporate logos. It doesn't mean we are selling the movement out," said Jorge Mujica, a member of the March 10 Committee. "The principles and demands remain the same. They are helping out this movement and we are happy with that."

Labor unions remain the movement's backbone with four major unions bringing at least 600 marchers on buses from throughout Chicago. Religious groups have been key too. Some marchers will bed down in churches and a mosque.

But businesses have become vital to this weekend's Immigrant Workers Justice Walk, which will cover 45 miles to Hastert's district office. Hundreds of marchers plan to cover the entire span from Friday through Monday, and organizers need food and water for them.

Sometimes political and commercial messages are mingled.

At a July march, Chicago-based food producer V&V Supremo printed signs with its logo that urged "Moratorium Now, Legalization Yes."

Jimenez Market, an area chain, had its sign on display as workers passed out more than 5,000 bottles of water and other supplies worth nearly $17,000. Co-owner Jose Perez acknowledged it is good publicity but stressed that "we are supporting our people. Without them, our business would go downhill."

This weekend, the Los Comales restaurant plans to donate 500 tortas, Mexican sandwiches filled with steak, ham and other toppings. The Laredo Bakery is donating bread while other restaurants are donating water, fruit and other supplies, organizers said.

Those businesses are natural allies--"part of the same brotherhood," as one marketer put it.

But the presence of Miller at a welcoming reception the day before the Aug. 12-13 planning convention raised eyebrows.

The convention brought together labor unions, anti-war groups, immigrant service organizations and even socialist political candidates.

Hours before bashing NAFTA and U.S. foreign policy, participants at the Aug. 11 reception mingled with the Miller Girls, the company's public relations ambassadors, amid a display of Miller logos.

That Miller was involved in the first place is one measure of the growing power of immigrants. After the boycott announcement, the company approached march organizers to try to find common ground, and agreed to back the march organizers' efforts.

Miller is also bankrolling informational ads in Voces Migrantes, or Migrant Voices, a community newspaper in Chicago, and has promised scholarships for area Latinos.

Mathew Romero, the company's local market development manager, said Miller felt it was important to speak out against Sensenbrenner's legislation, though his campaign was one of many the company supported.

Romero noted that company founder Frederick Miller was a German immigrant and many current executives are foreign nationals. Miller is now part of London-based SABMiller.

Romero said he wasn't worried that some opponents of illegal immigration would be upset at the company's support of "the free movement of people, labor, goods and services."

"As long as you are stacking facts against facts, they are free to make their own decisions. We will stand by our positions," he said.

George San Jose, president of the San Jose Group, a Chicago-based marketing company specializing in the Hispanic market, said he understands why companies chase Hispanic purchasing power, which tops $700 billion annually in the U.S. Brewers, he said, have been especially aggressive.

But San Jose would advise clients that there are better ways.

"A company sponsoring one of the two sides of the immigration debate is no different than a company sponsoring groups for or against abortion [rights>. It's one of those heated political debates that companies should stay clear of," he said.

At the request of march organizers, media executive Robert Armband sent e-mails to thousands of business contacts, asking if they would consider helping the March 10 Committee.

"It certainly is an opportunity to reach the masses, but it might not be the right vehicle to come out as a sponsor," said Armband, publisher and chief executive of La Raza, a Chicago newspaper.

March organizers say they have not made any full-fledged sales pitches to major corporations and are having internal discussions about whether they should make a real push. That can be a tough decision, according to march organizer Gabe Gonzalez.

Gonzalez said he represents those in the movement--maybe half the total, he thinks -- who don't even consider themselves capitalists. Many have been involved with labor campaigns targeting specific companies.

March organizers shot down a suggestion that they approach Coca-Cola, for example, because of what they perceive as the company's labor abuses in the developing world, a cause celebre among liberal activists.

Although immigrant activists see legalization as an issue of social justice, Gonzalez said corporations might back the idea as a way to protect their bottom line. Whatever the motivations, Gonzalez said he would cooperate with almost any company willing to back the cause.

"That's the nature of politics. You form coalitions based on mutual self-interest," Gonzalez said. "So will we work with corporations? We will work with anyone who will work with us."

Interesting spin on terms .... shoving amnesty in every orifice is now being PC sanitized as ...."securing a migration accord with the U.S.  Notice the word migration.

Also interesting how that loving, benevolent, peaceful, socialist faction saying they're going to ignore election results and have plans to create a parallel government and rule from the streets."

Seems we've already had a flashing neon preview of that exact mindset during the immigration rallies last spring.

Washington is attempting to sell us a blivet all wrapped up with a pretty bow on top. 

By JULIE WATSON
Associated Press Writer

<excerpt>

MEXICO CITY (AP) -- Vicente Fox was forced to forego the last state-of-the-nation address of his presidency Friday after leftist lawmakers stormed the stage of Congress to protest disputed July 2 elections.".......

.........."The standoff came six days before the top electoral court must declare a president-elect or annul the July 2 vote and order a new election. So far, rulings have favored ruling party candidate Felipe Calderon, who was ahead by about 240,000 votes in the official count.

Lopez Obrador has already said he won't recognize the electoral court's decision, and he plans to create a parallel government and rule from the streets."..........

.........."Fox, a former Coca-Cola executive, ushered in economic stability and brought inflation to record lows, but he has been unable to secure a migration accord with the U.S. or significantly reduce poverty. "

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/M/MEXICO_ELECTIONS?SITE=7219&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2006-09-01-20-56-59