Leading from behind

By Jim Killebrew

[August 02, 2014]  On Wednesday a story broke out on national news about former President Bill Clinton and the terrorist Osama Bin Laden. Just a few hours before the fateful day on September 11, 2001 when America was attacked in a horrific invasion from radical Islam terrorists, the former President was speaking to a group of people in Australia on September 10, 2001 where he announced he had the opportunity to kill Osama Bin Laden back in 1998 but failed to take advantage of the opportunity due to the possibility of killing 300 other women and children at the place where the killing could have occurred.

Keep in mind that Osama Bin Laden was the founder of al-Qaeda and the Wahhabi extremist militant organization that claimed the responsibility for taking 3,000 lives in the attack on the Twin Towers in New York City, the Pentagon in Washington, DC and the lives of the passengers aboard United Flight 93 that was downed in a field in Pennsylvania. The militant organization that Osama Bin Laden headed was responsible for many mass murders against numerous civilian and military targets over the years preceding the 9/11 attack.

A member of the wealthy Saudi Arabia family, Bin Laden joined the Mujahedeen forces in Pakistan where he fought against the Soviet Union during their invasion in Afghanistan. He used his power, influence and wealth to fund the organization with arms, money and fighters becoming very popular among the Arab groups. By 1988 Bin Laden was so well known in the area and around the world he formed the group al-Qaeda. By 1992 he was banished from Saudi Arabia due to his violence and terrorism and migrated to the Sudan. By 1996 Bin Laden established a new base of operations in Afghanistan at which time he declared war on the United States. From that time forward he was on America's FBI list of the 10 most wanted fugitives an most wanted terrorists in the world. He was responsible for the United States embassy bombings in the U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya in earlier months in 1998.
 

So, on July 31, 2014 it was revealed on national news that the former President had the opportunity to stop Osama Bin Laden in 1998, but chose not to. The newscast reported former President Bill Clinton approximately 10 hours prior to the 9/11 attack speaking at a gathering in Melbourne where he earned $150,000 for his speech saying the following:

"I'm just saying, you know, if I were Osama bin Laden - he's a very smart guy, I've spent a lot of time thinking about him - and I nearly got him once; I nearly got him. And I could have killed him, but I would have to destroy a little town called Kandahar in Afghanistan and kill 300 innocent women and children, and then I would have been no better than him. And so I didn't do it."

Obviously, at the time he was relating his story the former President would have had no knowledge of what was to happen only 10 hours hence on September 11, 2001. So we are left to wonder if it would have made any difference in the timing of the attack if Bin Laden had been killed when the former President had carried out the removal of the terrorist. Much later from that 1998 opportunity and later after the actual 9/11 attack the 9/11 Commission Report documented the Joint Chiefs of Staff had advised President Clinton not to carry out the proposed strike on Kandahar because there were civilians who would likely have been killed in the attempt to kill the terrorist, Osama Bin Laden.

The troubling revelation about this latest release of information is the pattern of thought process that our government uses to make the decisions about their actions toward known terrorists. Apparently as early as 1998 there was credence being given to the "leading from behind" model of "measured retaliation." Osama Bin Laden was a known terrorist who came from a well-funded family who apparently used substantial resources to fund the activities of terrorist organizations like Mujahedeen and al-Qaeda. He was a well-know figure already established as a notorious killer identified as a most-wanted terrorist by the FBI. To think that the people who surrounded him as he moved his operation from one location to another were "innocent" civilians is to believe the gangs that surrounds dictators and terrorists are innocents inadvertently caught up in the mayhem of the personality of the leader-terrorist. It would be easy to believe that many of those who carried out the suicide bombings and other terrorist activities from his organization rubbed elbows with him at some point in their training to be terrorists.

Another troubling thing about this revelation is that the "leading from behind" model of "defending the nation and Constitution" is that no matter what a terrorist or enemy of the state accomplishes during his tirade against America or her allies, the leader who is leading from behind will not recognize that we are at war with those who want to kill us. This model of leading from behind has matured with the current President who projects to those actually killing us that he intends to withdraw all the forces from action and allow the enemy to reorganize or be taken over by more powerful enemies of the state.

So, if the former President's non-actions toward a notorious terrorist like Osama Bin Laden might have been a prelude to the attack on America on 9/11, dare we say there is a prelude in action right now around the world with the aggression being played out by enemies of the state like Russia, Iran and the Islamic jihadist caliphate activities that might culminate in something on American soil in the future that dwarfs the attack of 9/11?

[By JIM KILLEBREW]