Norm Coleman lies about how 9/11 could have been prevented

[Updated on 5/30/07]

Norm Coleman was given an inside page on today's Opinion section of the Sunday edition of the Minneapolis Star Tribune. As a Bush Loyalist he stuck to the approved talking points with a commentary piece entitled For safety's sake, take this gag off our police.

Following the devastating attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, we made a promise to our citizens to make this country safer. We identified, on many levels, cracks in our security systems. Perhaps most alarming was the revelation that our many intelligence and law enforcement agencies were simply not talking to one another. Essentially, we found out that when the left arm doesn't know what the right arm is doing, the consequences can be disastrous.

Okay ... let me get this straight ... because middle eastern terrorists attacked us on 9/11, we need our cities' police force to enforce immigration laws against the Latino community? And that because its the Mexicans and Central Americans who are the problem? Am I missing something?

What I am missing is that Norm is following the Republican script -- talk big about security especially when the crackdown is immigration (read Latino), but vote against any real strengthening of our nation's security. He voted against tightening security for our ports. He was for selling the management of a bunch of ports to a middle eastern conglomerate. He's voted with Bush and against implementing the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission.

Talk big, do little to nothing. O yea ... don't forget to lie.

Here's the lie ... can you find it?

Scores of law enforcement officers have chafed at the gag order. Many say they routinely come into contact with dangerous persons they know have been deported already -- yet their local sanctuary policies prevent them from being able to do anything about it. A few chilling examples include Mohammed Atta, the leader of the 9/11 hijackers, who was stopped and ticketed for driving without a license in Broward County, Florida, in early 2001. His visa had expired. Nobody asked, so nobody told.

I don't know about you, but my truthiness meter just redlined with that last sentence. Why tell small lies (which Norm does regularly), when you can attempt to pass off a big lie as fact.

The Bush Administration was warned by Richard Clarke that al Queda would attack America. Bush read a report designed just for him entitled Bin Laden determined to strike in US on August 6, 2001. I hate to do this, but let's go on a little digression ... it just to be clear on the facts, let's review the entire transcript:

Clandestine, foreign government, and media reports indicate bin Laden since 1997 has wanted to conduct terrorist attacks in the US. Bin Laden implied in U.S. television interviews in 1997 and 1998 that his followers would follow the example of World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef and "bring the fighting to America."

After U.S. missile strikes on his base in Afghanistan in 1998, bin Laden told followers he wanted to retaliate in Washington, according to a -- -- service.

An Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) operative told - - service at the same time that bin Laden was planning to exploit the operative's access to the U.S. to mount a terrorist strike.

The millennium plotting in Canada in 1999 may have been part of bin Laden's first serious attempt to implement a terrorist strike in the U.S.

Convicted plotter Ahmed Ressam has told the FBI that he conceived the idea to attack Los Angeles International Airport himself, but that in ---, Laden lieutenant Abu Zubaydah encouraged him and helped facilitate the operation. Ressam also said that in 1998 Abu Zubaydah was planning his own U.S. attack.

Ressam says bin Laden was aware of the Los Angeles operation. Although Bin Laden has not succeeded, his attacks against the U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 demonstrate that he prepares operations years in advance and is not deterred by setbacks. Bin Laden associates surveyed our embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam as early as 1993, and some members of the Nairobi cell planning the bombings were arrested and deported in 1997.

Al Qaeda members -- including some who are U.S. citizens -- have resided in or traveled to the U.S. for years, and the group apparently maintains a support structure that could aid attacks.

Two al-Qaeda members found guilty in the conspiracy to bomb our embassies in East Africa were U.S. citizens, and a senior EIJ member lived in California in the mid-1990s.

A clandestine source said in 1998 that a bin Laden cell in New York was recruiting Muslim-American youth for attacks.

We have not been able to corroborate some of the more sensational threat reporting, such as that from a ---- service in 1998 saying that Bin Laden wanted to hijack a U.S. aircraft to gain the release of "Blind Sheikh" Omar Abdel Rahman and other U.S.-held extremists.

Nevertheless, FBI information since that time indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York.

The FBI is conducting approximately 70 full-field investigations throughout the U.S. that it considers bin Laden-related. CIA and the FBI are investigating a call to our embassy in the UAE in May saying that a group or bin Laden supporters was in the U.S. planning attacks with explosives.
(CNN)

Ooooh ... that was long. I can imagine why His Shrubness had trouble reading all that. So many dates, names, acronyms and places he'd never been. I'm sorry ... I need to return from my digression. I'm not writing this to rip on Preznut 30%.

Then consider that Minnesota FBI agent Colleen Rowley tried to alert FBI higher ups about Saudis getting flying lessons but not wanting to learn how to take off or land. These warnings were ignored.

It's not just this. There's more. But don't worry, I won't make y'all read the entire 9/11 Commission Report. You can read for yourselves here.

The essence of what Norm is saying is that 9/11 may not have happened if there hadn't been a gag order. Let's make some comparisons:

• The Titanic should have had clearer instructions for using lifeboats
• The city council of New Orleans should have had better evacuation plans
• The riots in after the acquittal of the officers who beat Rodney King wouldn't have happened if the guy who made the video hadn't have gone public

Are these examples ludicrous enough? There is a kernel of truth in them, but these statements I've just made up clearly miss a boatload of facts. I'd don't mean to offend anyone with the ridiculosity of them ... they are offensive. Just as offensive as Norm's statement. But he's not done:

Just this month we saw a terror plot unfold in Fort Dix that might have been prevented sooner, had the local officials who pulled the suspects over on numerous traffic violations been able to inquire about their immigration status. Make no mistake -- this is a national security issue.

Its not like Norm is going to stake out new territory, this is a talking point he's used before. I hope you'll pardon me for being self-referential, but I've already addressed the Fort Dix Six talking point:

First off, Norm fails to mention that the FBI informants egged on the Fort Dix Six and that this could be a legitimate case of entrapment. John Stewart said "they want to attack the place where they keep all the weapons and the people who understand how to use them?" Let's face it, the Fort Dix Six were not the sharpest spoons in the drawer.

He railed against the United States, helped scout military installations for attack, offered to introduce his comrades to an arms dealer, and gave them a list of weapons he could procure, including machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades.

These were not the actions of a terrorist, but of a paid FBI informant who helped bring down six Muslim men accused of plotting to kill U.S. soldiers at New Jersey’s Fort Dix.

Those actions have raised questions of whether the government crossed the line and pushed the six men down a path they would not have otherwise followed.

It is an argument - entrapment - that has been made in other terrorism cases, and one that has failed miserably in this post-Sept. 11 era.

One defense attorney on the case, Troy Archie, said that no decision has been made on whether to argue entrapment, but based on the FBI’s own account, “the guys sort of led them on.”
(AP)

Clearly, Norm Coleman has also forgotten what its like to be mayor of a major American city. Minneapolis and Saint Paul (Norm was once the DFL Mayor of St. Paul) both want recent immigrant communities cooperating with the police. If a recent immigrant was a witness to a crime and knew they'd be hassled about their or a relatives immigration status, why would they cooperate? Not to mention if criminals knew illegal immigrants wouldn't go to the police to report crimes, crimes against immigrant communities would increase.
(Norm Coleman's immigration bill: whose interests is he representing?)

Incredibly, Norm is not done. This next one is a gem:

Let me be clear, I am not suggesting that every illegal immigrant in this country is a terrorist or criminal that intends to harm us. In fact, in the overwhelming majority of cases, I believe the opposite is true. However, for those cases where we have folks here intending to harm us, or illegal immigrants who have committed crimes in the past, allowing police officers to determine whether or not they are here legally is simply common sense.

This lie is beyond the pale. When I read it the first time, I wanted to laugh at how beyond it is, but I just sat there slackjawed at the sheer audacity of this lie. His immigration legislation primarily affects the Mexican border. When taken in the context of his previous lies earlier in the commentary, its stupendous. What Norm fails to mention is that the 9/11 terrorists mostly came to America via student visas from Saudi Arabia. They. Did. Not. Cross. The. Mexican. Border.

Goink?

I just bounced off the wall of cognitive dissonance. I can go no further. How it is that Norm Coleman's head does not explode from cognitive dissonance will have to be a post for another day.

---

[Updated: 5/31/07] DMIer over at MyDD has a great post up about the full implication of this immigration bill and puts Norm's admendment in better perspective.

This program - which creates a permanent underclass of workers who will never be allowed to build roots in the US or apply for citizenship - remains enshrined in the current bill. This is despite the efforts of Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), who introduced an amendment to reduce the number of temporary workers allowed in the country from 400,000 to 200,000. The amendment passed -- preserving one of the worst pieces of a flawed and complicated bill (at last count, it's about 600 pages long). Allowing workers into the country on this Y visa to contribute to our economy without allowing them to ever apply for permanent residency would effectively bar them from developing strong and sustained economic ties to the US. It maintains immigrant workers' marginal and exploitable status which threatens to depress wages and working conditions for all workers and keeps the immigrants themselves from advancing economically over the long run to join the middle class.

It appears the American public doesn't fully understand the implications of a temporary worker program. Two-thirds of respondents in the New York Times/CBS News poll supported a guest worker program while nearly the same percentage favored legalizing undocumented immigrants who have been in the country for at least two years. Right now, the Senate's proposed temporary worker program does not offer guest workers any path to apply for citizenship. It is also important to note that any kind of temporary worker program that requires workers to shuttle back and forth between the US and their home country and then kicks them out of the program if they are unemployed for sixty days in a row -- encourages the exploitation of employees, because it forces immigrants to keep their job, no matter how exploitative it is in order to remain in-status. This can end up reducing the quality of jobs in this country, effectively shutting American workers out of whole industries where the prevalence of vulnerable immigrants makes labor standards functionally below the legal minimum.
(MyDD)

DMIer then goes on to rail just as I did about Norm's amendment and provides a much better analysis of the entire immigration bill than I did.