Isreal Learned of the Attack a Year Ago

[Walt]

How would that be possible when you don't know the time, place or date of the attack?

I do not know that Israel did know there was going to be an attack, but the news story claims they did know, and they knew the basics of the attack. If the news story is correct, then they did know the time, place, and manner of the attack.

But let's just say they knew an attack was coming from Hamas. Gaza is a small place, so they would have known the basic place of the attack, and they could have had forces in the area to repulse the attack.

OR EVEN IF THEY HAD NO SPECIFIC INFORMATION ABOUT AN ATTACK, it would still be reasonable to think an attack was possible, and there should be forces in the area to defend against them.

Netanyahu was sure that Hamas was harmless, and he was completely wrong. If Hamas was harmless, then Egypt and Jordan being harmless too, means there is no need for forces in the south, only in the north.

How did Bush decide to do nothing about 9-11? Discuss.

What did he do to prevent 9/11? The question is not whether Bush did anything, but whether he should have been doing something. Clearly, he did nothing. I would argue that was a mistake, which he should have known even at the time.

 

[Walt]

Thanks for admitting Clinton had first hand knowledge a month into his first term that Jihadist terrorists wanted to kill Americans and had a fetish about the WTC. He served 8 years. Besides launching a few cruise missiles, what else did he do to stop al-Qaeda other than pass the buck to the new President?

Clinton prevented several terrorist attacks, attacked Al Qaeda around the world, destroyed their weapons factories in Sudan, setup a team to track down Bin Laden, setup FBI offices in Germany to collect information about what Al Qaeda was planning, found out what their basic plan was, tracked the leader of the plan down, started training the Air Force and Air National Guard for such an attack, etc.

Bush undid all of that. Bush was handed a report on what Al Qaeda's plan was, and decided to try to fire the people who wrote the report.

Bush was an idiot, but that doesn't give Clinton a free pass.

You need something specific against Clinton. Bush shutting down Clinton's safeguards is not something specific against Clinton.

There is only so much a previous President can do, and then he has to hand things off to the next President. The Obama Administration made extensive plans for a pandemic. The begged the trump administration to go through the plans, but were told that the trump administration was sure God would not allow a pandemic. How did that work out?

Are you agreeing that, like 9/11, October 7th was more a failure of imagination than it was a conspiracy to get Israel into a final confrontation with Iran and their terrorists?

The intelligence community had worked out that 9/11 was being planned. They wrote a report about it. So it was more a failure to believe the imagination, than a failure to imagine. I will agree that normal people would not have guessed that was going to happen.

It does not take much imagination to think the Hamas militants might attack. They are militants sworn to destroy Israel, who regularly attack Israel with rockets. Imagining a ground attack is not that much of a leap of imagination. Any normal person would say this is something to be defended against.

 

[Dutch Uncle]

Clinton prevented several terrorist attacks, attacked Al Qaeda around the world, destroyed their weapons factories in Sudan, setup a team to track down Bin Laden, setup FBI offices in Germany to collect information about what Al Qaeda was planning, found out what their basic plan was, tracked the leader of the plan down, started training the Air Force and Air National Guard for such an attack, etc.

Bush undid all of that. Bush was handed a report on what Al Qaeda's plan was, and decided to try to fire the people who wrote the report.



You need something specific against Clinton. Bush shutting down Clinton's safeguards is not something specific against Clinton.

There is only so much a previous President can do, and then he has to hand things off to the next President. The Obama Administration made extensive plans for a pandemic. The begged the trump administration to go through the plans, but were told that the trump administration was sure God would not allow a pandemic. How did that work out?



The intelligence community had worked out that 9/11 was being planned. They wrote a report about it. So it was more a failure to believe the imagination, than a failure to imagine. I will agree that normal people would not have guessed that was going to happen.

It does not take much imagination to think the Hamas militants might attack. They are militants sworn to destroy Israel, who regularly attack Israel with rockets. Imagining a ground attack is not that much of a leap of imagination. Any normal person would say this is something to be defended against.

Yet he didn't stop the 9/11 plan which years in the making. Why?

In part, it was because of the rush to collapse the US military and intelligence networks around the world in favor of using satellites. You're free to put 100% of the blame on Bush and his total of <9 months in office when Bill had 8 years, but I'll disagree. Sure, Bush had a lot of his own fuck ups, especially Iraq* but it's completely blind to absolve President Bill Clinton of his failures in office.



*I'm currently watching that fuck up unfold in the Hulu movie "Shock and Awe".

 

[Walt]

Yet he didn't stop the 9/11 plan which years in the making. Why?

It becomes easier to stop as the date of execution approaches, and the enemy commits. Stop one person from doing something years in advance, and that person will be easily replaced.

In part, it was because of the rush to collapse the US military and intelligence networks around the world in favor of using satellites.

Clinton put FBI offices in Germany in actual reverse of that. The plan was made in Germany, and in 2001 the plan was unravelling in Germany. It would have been a very good thing for those FBI offices to have still been in Germany.

Much like it would have been a very good thing for the CDC offices to have still been in China.

You're free to put 100% of the blame on Bush and his total of <9 months in office when Bill had 8 years, but I'll disagree.

No, I see Clinton putting the right resources in the right places for 8 years, and then Bush removing them almost immediately. If the right resources are not in the right places, there is much less chance of preventing it.

Before Netanyahu, there was a heavy presence of military in southern Israel in case forces in Gaza attacked. Netanyahu moved those forces away. We cannot blame the leaders before Netanyahu for Netanyahu's actions. They cannot control the future, only their present.

*I'm currently watching that fuck up unfold in the Hulu movie "Shock and Awe".

You should watch War Machine. It is a fictionalization of the real story of General McChrystal told by a reporter imbedded with him. It is interesting because it has Flynn represented as a snake in the grass, before we knew the full extent of what a traitor he was. It turns out that people could see that Flynn was not very good even before the criminal evidence was available.

 

[Dutch Uncle]

No, I see Clinton putting the right resources in the right places for 8 years, and then Bush removing them almost immediately. If the right resources are not in the right places, there is much less chance of preventing it.

Are you saying 9/11 plan was hatched and executed in less than 9 months? All during the Bush administration? If so, I can see why you put all the blame on him, but that's not what the 9/11 Commission Report claims.


Please tell me this isn't news to you:

https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-911REPORT/pdf/GPO-911REPORT.pdf
Page 65 of the PDF = page 48 of the report points out how OBL planned to attack the US through the 1990s.

Though novel for its open endorsement of indiscriminate killing, Bin
Ladin’s 1998 declaration was only the latest in the long series of his public and
private calls since 1992 that singled out the United States for attack.
In August 1996, Bin Ladin had issued his own self-styled fatwa calling on
Muslims to drive American soldiers out of Saudi Arabia.The long, disjointed
document condemned the Saudi monarchy for allowing the presence of an
army of infidels in a land with the sites most sacred to Islam, and celebrated
recent suicide bombings of American military facilities in the Kingdom. It
praised the 1983 suicide bombing in Beirut that killed 241 U.S. Marines, the
1992 bombing in Aden,and especially the 1993 firefight in Somalia after which
the United States “left the area carrying disappointment, humiliation, defeat
and your dead with you.”3
Bin Ladin said in his ABC interview that he and his followers had been
preparing in Somalia for another long struggle, like that against the Soviets in
Afghanistan, but “the United States rushed out of Somalia in shame and disgrace.” Citing the Soviet army’s withdrawal from Afghanistan as proof that a
ragged army of dedicated Muslims could overcome a superpower, he told the
interviewer: “We are certain that we shall—with the grace of Allah—prevail
over the Americans.” He went on to warn that “If the present injustice continues . . . , it will inevitably move the battle to American soil.”4
Plans to attack the United States were developed with unwavering singlemindedness throughout the 1990s. Bin Ladin saw himself as called “to follow
in the footsteps of the Messenger and to communicate his message to all
nations,”5 and to serve as the rallying point and organizer of a new kind of war
to destroy America and bring the world to Islam.

The bottom line here is that the Israelis has as much actionable intelligence about October 7th as the US had on 9/11. Yes, there were red flags. Yes, it was known the Jihadist terrorists wanted to kill the innocent.

Anyone seeking to blame Israel as being in some sort of conspiracy over October 7th needs to blame Clinton using the same logic.

 

[Walt]

Are you saying 9/11 plan was hatched and executed in less than 9 months?

Once again, I am saying that during the Clinton Administration, the right resources were in the right place to get the best chance of preventing 9/11. Those resources were removed after Bush became President. It is always possible Clinton would have failed also, but it is clear Bush did fail.

It is much harder, if not impossible, to prevent a terrorist attack years in advance.

I mean they caught one of the hijackers, with the plans on his computer, and trump cancelled the investigation as a reaction. That is mind numbingly stupid.

The bottom line here is that the Israelis has as much actionable intelligence about October 7th as the US had on 9/11. Yes, there were red flags.

Hamas regularly fires missiles at Israel, and has a trained military sworn to destroy Israel right on Israel's border. No extreme intelligence is needed to realize Hamas posed an immediate threat to Israel, which is why Hamas militants were so surprised to be unopposed when entering Israel.

It would be like if NATO removed all troops from West Germany during the Cold War. It was obvious to everyone that the USSR had plans to invade West Germany. Of course there should be troops stationed there just in case. This did not require a crystal ball.

 

[Dutch Uncle]

Once again, I am saying that during the Clinton Administration, the right resources were in the right place to get the best chance of preventing 9/11. Those resources were removed after Bush became President. It is always possible Clinton would have failed also, but it is clear Bush did fail.

It is much harder, if not impossible, to prevent a terrorist attack years in advance.

I mean they caught one of the hijackers, with the plans on his computer, and trump cancelled the investigation as a reaction. That is mind numbingly stupid.



Hamas regularly fires missiles at Israel, and has a trained military sworn to destroy Israel right on Israel's border. No extreme intelligence is needed to realize Hamas posed an immediate threat to Israel, which is why Hamas militants were so surprised to be unopposed when entering Israel.

It would be like if NATO removed all troops from West Germany during the Cold War. It was obvious to everyone that the USSR had plans to invade West Germany. Of course there should be troops stationed there just in case. This did not require a crystal ball.

Your unflagging defense of the Clintons is one reason why I'll never be a Democrat. I know Bush fucked up, but you refuse to admit any error on the part of the Clintons.

Woulda, coulda, shoulda. You think the Israelis are any happier about the results of 10/7 as the Americans were with 9/11? Why do you think I support the Isrealis eliminating Hamas through force?

 

[Hawkeye10]

"No way, they could not do that" is the same excuse given for ignoring multiple reports in the days and weeks before Oct 7 as well, but this does not answer the question, was this incompetence or did the people who run Israel want this to happen so that they could cleanse Gaza of Palestinians?

My grapevine is conflicted on what the answer is.

 

[Hawkeye10]

"No way....Netanyahu would not go that far" has historically been a bad bet.

 

[Hawkeye10]

Dont forget the Hannibal Directive, Mowing the Lawn, and that Epstein was almost certainly a Mossad/CIA operation.

 

[Walt]

I know Bush fucked up, but you refuse to admit any error on the part of the Clintons.

There would only be one (singular) Clinton that could be blamed for anything to do with 9/11. Hillary, Chelsea, and Roger are blame free. Roger had his problems, but anti-terrorism was not one of them.

The President's job is to get the right resources in the right place. FDR did not land on Normandy. So to get me to blame Bill Clinton, you would have to point out where he failed to get the right resources in the right place, not where Bush removed the right resources.

You think the Israelis are any happier about the results of 10/7 as the Americans were with 9/11?

Israel has 1/34th of the population of the USA, so it would be like if 41,000 Americans were killed in one day, rather than the 3,000 Americans who died in 9/11(all numbers are rough). On top of that, a military invaded Israel unopposed, which is worse than a terrorist attack. The reaction took days, unlike the hours that the 9/11 reaction took. Bush could have moved quicker, but Netanyahu was just embarrassing, especially when considering that Israel is an absolutely tiny nation... It takes 3 hours to drive from the north to the south. There is no reasonable way it should take days.

Netanyahu refused to accept Hamas might attack, even though it was obvious to everyone that they might, and even after they actually attacked. He continued to say it was just a diversion from an attack in the North, and not a real attack.

In many ways it was not a failure of imagination, but rather way too much imagination.

 

[Walt]

We do not have a fire department, because we know that on December 2nd, there will be a fire. If we do not have a fire department years before there is a fire, it will do little good trying to make one on that particular date. We have a fire department because we know there will sooner or later be a fire. We did not have soldiers in Western Germany because we knew the Soviets would attack on July 17th, 1964(a random Cold War date), for much the same reason.

Israel was supposed to have military units around Gaza, not because they knew there would be an attack over the border on October 7th, but because they knew that sooner or later there was a chance of an attack. The USA was supposed to have counter terrorist teams, not because they knew there would be an attack on 9/11, but because they knew that sooner or later there was a chance of an attack.

 

[Walt]

My grapevine

Does everyone else laugh when Hawkeye says this?

 

[Dutch Uncle]

Does everyone else laugh when Hawkeye says this?

More like pity and SMH. Nothing to be done from our side of the Internet. I do wonder about his circumstances and how much is either true or used to be true.

 

[Taichiliberal]

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/30/world/middleeast/israel-hamas-attack-intelligence.html

Did I miss it or has it taken two days for this bombshell to go off here?

"...Hamas followed the blueprint with shocking precision. The document called for a barrage of rockets at the outset of the attack, drones to knock out the security cameras and automated machine guns along the border, and gunmen to pour into Israel en masse in paragliders, on motorcycles and on foot — all of which happened on Oct. 7.

The plan also included details about the location and size of Israeli military forces, communication hubs and other sensitive information, raising questions about how Hamas gathered its intelligence and whether there were leaks inside the Israeli security establishment.

The document circulated widely among Israeli military and intelligence leaders, but experts determined that an attack of that scale and ambition was beyond Hamas’s capabilities, according to documents and officials. It is unclear whether Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or other top political leaders saw the document, as well...."

I don't have a subscription to the article on-line. But I've heard on the radio something to this effect that Egypt had warned Israeli intelligence that something was up with Hamas.

This smacks of the SOS with the Shrub & 9-11 re: PDB from the Clinton Admn.

 

[Walt]

More like pity and SMH. Nothing to be done from our side of the Internet. I do wonder about his circumstances and how much is either true or used to be true.

How great is the possibility that the greatest experts the world has ever known think the most important thing is to tell some random old, uneducated poster on an obscure forum all the secrets of the world? It does not pass the laugh test.

 

[Dutch Uncle]

We do not have a fire department, because we know that on December 2nd, there will be a fire. If we do not have a fire department years before there is a fire, it will do little good trying to make one on that particular date. We have a fire department because we know there will sooner or later be a fire. We did not have soldiers in Western Germany because we knew the Soviets would attack on July 17th, 1964(a random Cold War date), for much the same reason.

Israel was supposed to have military units around Gaza, not because they knew there would be an attack over the border on October 7th, but because they knew that sooner or later there was a chance of an attack. The USA was supposed to have counter terrorist teams, not because they knew there would be an attack on 9/11, but because they knew that sooner or later there was a chance of an attack.

They, like the US after the Cold War ended, fucked up and became more interested in personal gain than in properly defending the nation. Three guesses on which US political party I place the lion's share of the blame. LOL

Regardless, party majorities at the time were complicit in the actions and only worsened after the Republicans retook the WH. Note how easily the Democrats rolled with the Repubulicans after 9//11. IMO, mostly out of fear of being labeled "weak on defense" as plagued Micheal Dukakis...resulting in the infamous tank commercial. GW was no better with his infamous "Mission Accomplished" flight suit gig.

On a side note, if it was up to me, only veterans could become national reps in Congress and the WH....but I'm biased since I've seen the results of bad political decisions regarding our nation's military.

As for Israel, they fucked up by letting animalistic terrorists get to them. I fully support the IDF in making sure that doesn't fucking happen again. Ever.

 

[Guno צְבִי]

They, like the US after the Cold War ended, fucked up and became more interested in personal gain than in properly defending the nation. Three guesses on which US political party I place the lion's share of the blame. LOL

Regardless, party majorities at the time were complicit in the actions and only worsened after the Republicans retook the WH. Note how easily the Democrats rolled with the Repubulicans after 9//11. IMO, mostly out of fear of being labeled "weak on defense" as plagued Micheal Dukakis...resulting in the infamous tank commercial. GW was no better with his infamous "Mission Accomplished" flight suit gig.

On a side note, if it was up to me, only veterans could become national reps in Congress and the WH....but I'm biased since I've seen the results of bad political decisions regarding our nation's military.

As for Israel, they fucked up by letting animalistic terrorists get to them. I fully support the IDF in making sure that doesn't fucking happen again. Ever.

It's a matter of survival


Rise and Kill First describes the targeted killings carried out by Israelis . It is inspired by a statement in the Talmud: "If someone comes to kill you, rise up and kill him first".


The Talmud teaches, “If someone rises to kill you, rise up to kill him first.” This dictum of our sages is the only way for Israel to deal with its enemies who seek its destruction.

The hope of achieving a measure of security through the United Nations, given the hypocritical attitude towards Israel which prevails there, is futile. Only when Israel demonstrates, with a show of force, that it stands ready to rise up and strike those who would attack it, can it prevent violent conflicts with its neighbors. If they are deterred from attempting attacks in the first place, there will be no need for actual use the force.

 

[Dutch Uncle]

How great is the possibility that the greatest experts the world has ever known think the most important thing is to tell some random old, uneducated poster on an obscure forum all the secrets of the world? It does not pass the laugh test.

Infinite.

The odds a mentally disabled person, regardless of the cause of their disability, can be rational are very limited. Their thinker is broke and can no more reason like a normal person than a four-cylinder car can effectively run on two-cylinders.

 

[Dutch Uncle]

It's a matter of survival


Rise and Kill First describes the targeted killings carried out by Israelis . It is inspired by a statement in the Talmud: "If someone comes to kill you, rise up and kill him first".


The Talmud teaches, “If someone rises to kill you, rise up to kill him first.” This dictum of our sages is the only way for Israel to deal with its enemies who seek its destruction.

The hope of achieving a measure of security through the United Nations, given the hypocritical attitude towards Israel which prevails there, is futile. Only when Israel demonstrates, with a show of force, that it stands ready to rise up and strike those who would attack it, can it prevent violent conflicts with its neighbors. If they are deterred from attempting attacks in the first place, there will be no need for actual use the force.

Sun Tzu said something similar. Basic Survival strategy.

The UN has, indeed, proved its hypocrisy when it comes to Israel.